The Queen of Sin: How to Banish Her from your Heart Forever

A reflection from St. Gregory the Great

The Queen of Sin spawns a host of vices.

St. Gregory, in his famous commentary on Job, describes how the Queen of Sin hands a conquered heart over to her seven generals and their armies.

For the Queen wraps the soul in a lie, causing it to fall into greater errors.

In fact, she is the beginning of all sin—though she is not one of the seven deadly sins.

Yet, the virtue that defends the soul against her is often misunderstood and thus ineffective.

St. Gregory and St. Thomas Aquinas give you what you need to know.

You just have to heed their warnings.

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The Queen of Sin

St. Gregory the Great (d. AD 604) warns you: “For when pride, the queen of sins, has fully possessed a conquered heart, she surrenders it immediately to seven principal sins, as if to some of her generals, to lay it waste” (Moralia, 31.45.87). Pride is the Queen of Sins. If you allow her to seep into your heart, she brings with her a host of other sins.

Yet, what are these seven principal sins that pride invites into the conquered heart?

They are what has come to be known as the “seven deadly sins” or more accurately the seven capital vices that breed other sins within the heart. St. Gregory lists them as: “vainglory, envy, anger, melancholy, avarice, gluttony, [and] lust.” They are the “first progeny” of pride, the offshoots of its “poisonous root.” As St. Gregory reminds you, “pride is the beginning of all sin” (Sirach 10:15).

When pride conquers the heart, she hands it over to her capital vices; and, as St. Gregory explains, each capital vice is like a general that leads an army of sins into the soul. For example, if anger is allowed to enter the soul, then it brings with it “strifes, swelling of mind, insults, clamor, indignation, blasphemies.” Similarly, if avarice or greed overcomes the soul, it brings with it “treachery, fraud, deceit, perjury, restlessness, violence, and hardness of heart against compassion.”

St. Thomas Aquinas (d. AD 1274), commenting on St. Gregory, explains this is why they are called the capital sins, because capital comes from the Latin, caput, meaning “head,” and the capital sins are the “head” or leaders of a host of sins (ST. I-II.84.3). They are the leaders of sin that “when they reach the heart, they bring, as it were, the bands of an army after them” (Moralia 31.45.88).

Yet, what is it about pride that causes the heart to swell with so many sins?

And, why do neither St. Gregory nor St. Thomas Aquinas list pride as one of the seven deadly sins?

And most importantly… how do you push the queen of sin out of your soul?