Sin
Outline · 2 ›
1.The nature and definition of sin
1a.Sin as a will turned from God to lesser goods
The Bhagavad-Gita; or, Song CelestialVol. 45
- p. 801–802Man goes to ill as if pushed unwillingly; desire is the sinful, deceitful cause.read · scan
Saint Augustine, The Confessions of St. AugustineVol. 7
- p. 13He sinned in disobeying parents and masters out of love of play, pride of victory and curiosity.read · scan
- p. 14–15His reluctance to learn stemmed from sin and vanity, being flesh and a passing breath.read · scan
- p. 15–16He confesses forsaking God as fornication against Him and sinning by preferring empty studies to profitable ones.read · scan
- p. 18–19Prodigal son image: leaving God is by darkened, lustful affections, not by physical distance.read · scan
- p. 23–24The world forgets its Creator and loves the creature through self-will.read · scan
- p. 26–27Sin arises from immoderate inclination to lower goods, forsaking the higher: God, His truth and law.read · scan
- p. 32–33Sacrilegious curiosity and iniquity led him far from God, scourged with punishments.read · scan
- p. 88–89Presuming on himself rather than on God, he falls into guilty delight; God's mercy later plucks him out.read · scan
- p. 98Summary notes cause of sin lying in free will and his defiled youth.read · scan
- p. 100–101Sin comes from his own will; what he suffers against his will is punishment, not fault.read · scan
- p. 112Iniquity defined as the will turned away from God and puffed up.read · scan
Dante Alighieri, HellVol. 20
- p. 5Straying from the true path allegorizes moral error, left through sleepy dullness of the senses.read · scan
Dante Alighieri, PurgatoryVol. 20
- p. 212Sloth is purged as defective love of good; distorted love turns creatures against their Maker.read · scan
- p. 212–215Three perverse loves: pride hoping another's fall, envy fearing another's rise, wrath thirsting vengeance; these are mourned in lower circles.read · scan
- p. 240The mountain rectifies what the world made crooked and depraved in souls.read · scan
Martin Luther, Concerning Christian LibertyVol. 36
- p. 351Unbelief is the great sin, shutting all under it so that none presume salvation by works.read · scan
- p. 356–357God does not hear sinners; the unbeliever's prayers are sin.read · scan
- p. 363The beginning of sin is falling away from God, that is, unbelief.read · scan
A Sweet Lullaby; Preparations; The Unfaithful ShepherdessVol. 40
- p. 199–200We wallow in our sin and leave Christ no room in the inn.read · scan
John Webster, The Duchess of MalfiVol. 47
- p. 756–757Men travel far for goodness yet return knaves since they carry themselves along.read · scan
Pierre Corneille, PolyeucteVol. 26
- p. 105–109Sin taints the pure fount; men poison what was made fair.read · scan
John Milton, Paradise LostVol. 4
- p. 125Sin recounts her birth from Satan's head, his enamoured joy in her, her conception of Death, and the fall.read · scan
Blaise Pascal, ThoughtsVol. 48
- p. 156Men have provoked God and deserve nothing from him but displeasure.read · scan
- p. 162Self-love, making oneself God, is innate injustice which we must be rid of; no religion but Christianity calls it sin.read · scan
- p. 241Forgetting God and choosing what he forbade.read · scan
Blaise Pascal, LettersVol. 48
- p. 335–336Source of all sin: man created with infinite love for God and finite self-love, now disordered.read · scan
- p. 336After the fall self-love overflowed the space left by love of God, becoming criminal and immoderate.read · scan
- p. 352Sin is essentially a will opposed to God's known will, so refusing to conform to events is sin.read · scan
William Penn, More Fruits of SolitudeVol. 1
- p. 385We resent invasion of civil rights yet remain vassals of sin, the worst invader; troubles spring from disobedience to God.read · scan
George Berkeley, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and PhilonousVol. 37
- p. 257–258Sin lies in the will's internal deviation from reason and religion, not physical action; God is not author of sin.read · scan
Lord Byron, ManfredVol. 18
- p. 448Manfred says no one tempted him; he was his own destroyer and will be his own hereafter.read · scan
1b.Gratuitous evil: loving the sin itself
Saint Augustine, The Confessions of St. AugustineVol. 7
- p. 24He took pleasure in the praise of vice as well as the deed.read · scan
- p. 26Pear theft committed with no need, loving the fault itself and the shame; gratuitous evil for evil's sake.read · scan
- p. 27–28Augustine probes his pear theft, loved for the sin itself, not the fruit; sin as gratuitous evil.read · scan
- p. 28–29Theft as perverse imitation of God; confession of heinous deeds, forgiveness by grace and mercy.read · scan
- p. 29–30He loved the theft itself, delighting in offence and shared wrongdoing, ashamed not to be shameless.read · scan
John Milton, Paradise LostVol. 4
- p. 155Satan rejects repentance, foreseeing relapse, and declares 'Evil, be thou my Good', resolving on mankind's ruin.read · scan
Percy Bysshe Shelley, The CenciVol. 18
- p. 323Cenci exults in fiendish evil, calls conscience an impostor and rejoices at hell's laughter and fallen goodness.read · scan
1c.Sin reinterpreted or denied
Homer, The OdysseyVol. 22
- p. 52Helen groans at the blindness Aphrodite gave her, which led her from home, child and husband.read · scan
- p. 315–316Helen's shameful folly is ascribed to a god setting her on it.read · scan
Buddhist WritingsVol. 45
- p. 688–689The holy are exempted from sin and fear and overcome misery.read · scan
Paul, The First Epistle of Paul to the CorinthiansVol. 45
- p. 513–514The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.read · scan
Saint Augustine, The Confessions of St. AugustineVol. 7
- p. 41Some acts resembling sins are not sins; others are imperfect but on the way to improvement.read · scan
William Roper, The Life of Sir Thomas MoreVol. 36
- p. 125Malice taken as sin would leave no man excused, citing Scripture.read · scan
Thomas Hobbes, Of Man, Being the First Part of LeviathanVol. 34
- p. 389–390Passions and actions are not sin until a law forbids them.read · scan
Blaise Pascal, LettersVol. 48
- p. 325–326Sin is the true nothingness, opposed to God the true being.read · scan
- p. 357Troubles arise from remaining evil, which must be diminished, not from the good springing up.read · scan
John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's ProgressVol. 15
- p. 207–208One sin destroys a sinner like one leak sinks a ship; those who live in sin vainly hope for heaven.read · scan
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human UnderstandingVol. 37
- p. 368Second horn: if actions are criminal, God's perfection must be denied as author of guilt.read · scan
- p. 369Reconciling God's causation of actions with his not being author of sin defeats philosophy.read · scan
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Profession of Faith of a Savoyard VicarVol. 34
- p. 295–296Questions whether the ignorant, even a single unreached person, must be damned.read · scan
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, The Education of the Human RaceVol. 32
- p. 200–202Original sin reinterpreted: early man is not master enough of his actions to obey moral laws.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, CirclesVol. 5
- p. 152'The only sin is limitation'; men cease to interest us when their limits are found.read · scan
- p. 156–157Divine moments abolish contritions; crimes may become stones of the temple.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, New England ReformersVol. 5
- p. 267The doctrine of depravity is called the last profanation, kept a dead letter by man's innocence.read · scan
John Stuart Mill, On LibertyVol. 25
- p. 255–257Calvinism holds self-will the great offence and whatever is not a duty a sin.read · scan
Edward FitzGerald, Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám of NaishápúrVol. 41
- p. 955–957Blames the Maker who set snares and predestined evil, then charges man with sin; asks man's forgiveness.read · scan
Walt Whitman, Preface to Leaves of GrassVol. 39
- p. 404–406Rejects judgment-day, forgiveness and atonement; good and evil deeds return to their doer.read · scan
Ernest Renan, The Poetry of the Celtic RacesVol. 32
- p. 176World seen through a stainless conscience, human nature as Pelagius wished, that never sinned.read · scan
Sidney Lanier, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1400The nettle of sin is a medicine; dreams of hate lead to true love, which has no need of it above.read · scan
1d.Sin as offence against God, law and neighbor
Homer, The OdysseyVol. 22
- p. 9Companions perished through the blindness of their own hearts in devouring the oxen of Helios.read · scan
- p. 55–56Menelaus supposes he must have sinned against the immortals, which explains why he is held on the island.read · scan
- p. 69–70Odysseus' companions sinned against Athene on the way home, and she wrecked them with storm.read · scan
- p. 291The Centaur bore the burden of his sin, and the feud between Centaurs and men began from drunken frenzy.read · scan
Confucius, The Sayings of ConfuciusVol. 44
- p. 11A sin against Heaven cannot be atoned by prayer to lesser gods.read · scan
- p. 20–21Confucius swears that if there were sin in him Heaven may forsake him.read · scan
Aeschylus, AgamemnonVol. 8
- p. 13–15Frenzy, first of ills, stirs men's souls to sin.read · scan
Aeschylus, Prometheus BoundVol. 8
- p. 176He avows his offence of helping men.read · scan
The Book of JobVol. 44
- p. 71Job fears his sons may have sinned and renounced God in their hearts.read · scan
The Book of PsalmsVol. 44
- p. 203–204The wicked who consort with thieves and adulterers, slander brothers and forget God are reproved.read · scan
Sophocles, AntigoneVol. 8
- p. 281–284Antigone says if the gods approve Creon's act, she has sinned; if not, may they suffer.read · scan
- p. 284–287Impious frenzy against the gods is punished by imprisonment and blindness.read · scan
Euripides, HippolytusVol. 8
- p. 307–309Chorus wonders if Phaedra's illness stems from forgotten sacrifice, a slight to a goddess.read · scan
- p. 345Theseus denounces his son's supposed crime and human daring in evil, each age outdoing its fathers in lies and blood.read · scan
Euripides, The BacchaeVol. 8
- p. 389–392Dionysus warns that Pentheus' denial and wrong against the god will bring recompense.read · scan
Plato, The Apology of SocratesVol. 2
- p. 19Condemning him would be sinning against God and rejecting God's boon.read · scan
Plato, PhaedoVol. 2
- p. 108–109Crimes like sacrilege, murder, violence to parents are sorted by degree, with repentance and pardon possible.read · scan
The Bhagavad-Gita; or, Song CelestialVol. 45
- p. 787Killing kin for earthly power would be an evil fault and bring guilt.read · scan
- p. 792–793Shunning duty is sin, whereas fighting with equanimity brings no sin.read · scan
Paul, The First Epistle of Paul to the CorinthiansVol. 45
- p. 505Eating unworthily makes one guilty of the Lord's body and brings judgment, sickness and death.read · scan
Tacitus, GermanyVol. 33
- p. 103Limiting births or killing newborn infants is deemed abominable.read · scan
Saint Augustine, The Confessions of St. AugustineVol. 7
- p. 39Unnatural lusts like Sodom's are offences against God and nature, to be detested and punished.read · scan
- p. 40Catalogues acts of violence and iniquity springing from lusts of flesh, eye and rule; sinners harm their own souls against God's Commandments.read · scan
Chapters from the KoranVol. 45
- p. 886The girl buried alive will be asked for what sin she was slain.read · scan
- p. 955–956Those who turn back after the compact are sinners; sellers of covenant have no portion in the future life.read · scan
- p. 964Those who purchase misbelief for faith and kill prophets are condemned.read · scan
- p. 970–971Avoiding great sins brings covering of offences; malicious wrongdoing is punished with fire.read · scan
- p. 973God pardons anything short of associating others with Him; that is a mighty sin; lying against God is manifest sin.read · scan
- p. 991–992Calumny against believers is obvious sin; obedience to God brings pardon of sins.read · scan
Dante Alighieri, HellVol. 20
- p. 45Virgil classifies sins of violence and fraud against God, neighbor and self, and their punishments in the circles.read · scan
- p. 45Fraud against trust betrays nature's love; traitors, simoniacs, flatterers and seducers are punished in lower circles.read · scan
- p. 48Violence against neighbor is punished in the seventh circle.read · scan
- p. 49The Minotaur guards the circle of violence, embodying brutish rage.read · scan
- p. 49Anger and lust lead to violence and everlasting ruin.read · scan
- p. 54Suicides are punished in Hell, transformed into bleeding trees; Pier delle Vigne took his own life from scorn after slander.read · scan
- p. 57–58Three kinds of violence, against God, Nature and Art, are punished on the burning sand.read · scan
- p. 58Capaneus's blasphemous scorn is called an ornament suiting his breast.read · scan
- p. 61Spirits who did violence to Nature go mourning their endless doom.read · scan
- p. 61Learned clerks of great renown are polluted by one same sin, joined by Priscian and Francesco d'Accorso.read · scan
Dante Alighieri, ParadiseVol. 20
- p. 293–296Their vows were in part neglected and voided, assigning them the lowest sphere.read · scan
Traditional BalladsVol. 40
- p. 123–125Christy thinks killing his bully would be a deadly sin and killing his father would forfeit heaven's blessing.read · scan
Sir Thomas Malory, The Holy GrailVol. 35
- p. 182Unworthy handling of the sacred sword brings death or maiming and blight on two realms.read · scan
Martin Luther, Address to the Christian Nobility of the German NationVol. 36
- p. 269–270Papal wickedness is condemned; Christians must oppose evil works and words.read · scan
- p. 284–285Simony and pretended piety show the evil spirit ruling the Pope.read · scan
- p. 297–298The Pope is a poor miserable sinner who should reverence his God.read · scan
- p. 333–334Dissolute lives of monks and priests and unbelief lead to many sins and misery.read · scan
Martin Luther, Concerning Christian LibertyVol. 36
- p. 338Rome is called a den of thieves and the very kingdom of sin, death and hell.read · scan
- p. 339–340Rome's impiety is cited as under God's wrath, leaving only the saving of a few from it.read · scan
William Harrison, A Description of Elizabethan EnglandVol. 35
- p. 319–320Men repay God with wickedness, avarice, pride, excess, atheism and ingratitude.read · scan
Miguel de Cervantes, The History of Don Quixote of the Mancha, Part IVol. 14
- p. 141–144The failure to keep his vow is treated as a fault requiring remedy.read · scan
- p. 184Ingratitude is named one of the sins that most offends the Highest.read · scan
- p. 277The curate says the deed would cost the doer his soul.read · scan
- p. 286Sancho says God will judge who sins most, he by speaking ill or his master by acting wrongly.read · scan
- p. 491The canon ironically says his sin has made him blind to the pin.read · scan
Francis Bacon, Essays, Civil and MoralVol. 3
- p. 85–87Forsaking a plantation once forward is called the sinfullest thing in the world.read · scan
Francis Bacon, The New AtlantisVol. 3
- p. 168–169The narrator says Bensalem's righteousness exceeds Europe's, whose sins are brought to memory.read · scan
William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of DenmarkVol. 46
- p. 161–162Hamlet wants the King caught in drunkenness, rage, incest or gaming, with no relish of salvation.read · scan
- p. 190–191Clowns debate whether Ophelia, apparent suicide, deserves Christian burial and whether she sought her own salvationread · scan
- p. 196Priest refuses full requiem for Ophelia's doubtful death, saying she should lie in unsanctified groundread · scan
William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of MacbethVol. 46
- p. 343–344The porter imagines sinners arriving at hell-gate: a suicidal farmer, an equivocating traitor, a thieving tailor.read · scan
Nathaniel Ward, The Body of LibertiesVol. 43
- p. 74–75Moral sinfulness judged by the word of God overrides custom.read · scan
Izaak Walton, The Life of Dr. John DonneVol. 15
- p. 349–350Donne refuses gain from a lease as sacrilege, a sin named in Scripture and shunned by primitive Christians.read · scan
Izaak Walton, The Life of Mr. George HerbertVol. 15
- p. 393–394Bishop Laud convinces him that refusing the living would be sin.read · scan
William Habington, To Roses in the Bosom of Castara; Nox Nocti Indicat ScientiamVol. 40
- p. 252–253Conquering nations scourge sin and equal others in vice, then fall.read · scan
John Milton, Paradise LostVol. 4
- p. 90Idolatry, lust and human sacrifice to Moloch and Chemos lead Israel and Solomon astray.read · scan
- p. 136Sin with vanity fills the works of men, so that all vain things fly up to this barren globe.read · scan
- p. 216Narrator warns that in future days malice may devise like instruments to plague men.read · scan
- p. 342Adam infers so many laws argue many sins; he recalls seeking forbidden knowledge.read · scan
Molière, Tartuffe, or The HypocriteVol. 26
- p. 224–227Dorine says it would be a sin to let the match proceed.read · scan
Blaise Pascal, ThoughtsVol. 48
- p. 75Indifference to truth is called sinfulness.read · scan
- p. 209Their lifelong ingratitude to God and idolatry are recorded.read · scan
- p. 221Sins are forbidden by God's general declaration; events reveal further things God forbids to us.read · scan
- p. 242–243Iniquities put justice far from us; the people grope in darkness, looking for judgment and salvation that do not come.read · scan
- p. 243Wickedness of the people brings destruction.read · scan
- p. 251Those afraid to sin will be rejected by the people when the house of God is filled with impurity.read · scan
- p. 252–253The synagogue was put away for iniquities and transgressions, and men did not receive or hear the Lord.read · scan
- p. 253–254Amos enumerates Israel's sins and God swears vengeance.read · scan
- p. 280The Jews were culpable for rejecting Christ only because they saw His miracles.read · scan
- p. 280–281Without miracles, no sin in not believing Christ.read · scan
- p. 286Unbelievers during Christ's life were without excuse.read · scan
John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's ProgressVol. 15
- p. 60–61Christian says the wages of sin is death and that he fled the service of evil in the City of Destruction.read · scan
William Penn, Some Fruits of SolitudeVol. 1
- p. 336–337Zeal is better shown against sin than against persons or mistakes.read · scan
- p. 345–346Malice is one of the blackest qualities sin begets in the soul.read · scan
Daniel Defoe, The Shortest-Way with the DissentersVol. 27
- p. 142–143Selling a fine-priced liberty to transgress is condemned as selling license to sin against God and government.read · scan
William Blake, PoemsVol. 41
- p. 585–586Cruelty to animals calls down ruin, heaven's rage and hell's shudder.read · scan
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient MarinerVol. 41
- p. 684–685The Mariner shoots the Albatross, the hospitable bird of good omen, and calls it a hellish deed.read · scan
Alessandro Manzoni, I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed)Vol. 21
- p. 95–96Lucia persists in saying the clandestine marriage plan is a sin.read · scan
- p. 397–398Lucia insists they too did wrong, and the failure of their plan showed it was not the Lord's will.read · scan
- p. 497–498Perpetua says robbing others is a sin, but with him it is a sin not to rob him.read · scan
- p. 599–600Lucia fears that admitting her feelings would be sinful, given her vow.read · scan
- p. 607–608Lucia fears sin in repenting a vow; the friar says seeking the Church's release is no sin.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, HeroismVol. 5
- p. 123Disease and misery result from violated natural and moral laws; every man is a stockholder in sin and expiation.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Over-SoulVol. 5
- p. 142Curiosity about the future is called a confession of sin.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, English TraitsVol. 5
- p. 323Wordsworth fears sin and offences the law does not reach, and how society can escape its mischiefs.read · scan
Hans Christian Andersen, TalesVol. 17
- p. 310–311Peter declares it a sin to make a jest of animals.read · scan
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1005–1007The wages of sin is deathread · scan
Outline · 2 ›