hBjcDQfnMguRXVnjTNgM Mark Scarbrough's WALKING WITH DANTE: The Seven Deadly Sins - Walking With Dante

Episode 24

An Introduction to the Seven Deadly Sins

Published on: 6th December, 2020

Seven deadly sins. It almost seems like a cliché at this point: lust, gluttony, sloth, avarice, anger, pride, and envy. But it wasn't always so in Christian doctrine. Nor is it so for Dante.

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

(Don't worry: we'll be back to Canto V and the lustful in the next episode of the podcast.)

Here are the segments of this episode:

[01:02] What are the seven deadly (or mortal) sins? Or more specifically, what is a "sin"? And how does Jesus make a mess out of an otherwise simple definition?

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

[09:07] Pope Gregory I and the notion of "seven deadly sins"--including two new ones in the list: sloth and envy.

[15:07] Dante's INFERNO plays loose and fast with the seven deadly sins.

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About the Podcast

Walking With Dante
A passage-by-passage stroll through Dante’s DIVINE COMEDY with Mark Scarbrough
Ever wanted to read Dante's Divine Comedy? Come along with us! We're not lost in the scholarly weeds. (Mostly.) We're strolling through the greatest work (to date) of Western literature. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I take on this masterpiece passage by passage. I'll give you my rough English translation, show you some of the interpretive knots in the lines, let you in on the 700 years of commentary, and connect Dante's work to our modern world. The pilgrim comes awake in a dark wood, then walks across the known universe. New episodes every Sunday and Wednesday.
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Mark Scarbrough

Former lit professor, current cookbook writer, creator of two podcasts, writer of thirty-five (and counting) cookbooks, author of one memoir (coming soon!), married to a chef (my cookbook co-writer, Bruce Weinstein), and with him, the owner of two collies, all in a very rural spot in New England. My life's full and I'm up for more challenges!