Seven deadly sins: They almost seem like a cliché these days. But here they are: lust, gluttony, sloth, avarice, anger, pride, and envy.

It wasn't always so in Christian doctrine.

Nor in fact is it so for Dante.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, in this interpolated episode as I explore some of the history of the question of which sins got labeled deadly--and why there are seven of them.

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Here are the segments of this episode:

[01:01] What are the seven deadly (or mortal) sins? Or more specifically, what is a "sin"?

[06:17] Evagrius, one of the church's great ascetics, and his list of eight evil thoughts, developed in the late 300s CE.

[09:09] Pope Gregory I and the notion of the seven deadly sins in 590 CE--including two new ones: sloth and envy.

[15:06] Dante plays loose and fast with the seven deadly sins in INFERNO.