I'm not to sure what you mean by the "seven works of compassion," if it's the same as what I know as the "Seven virtues," here's all 14 as listed in Dante's the Divine Comedy -
(Begining with the "Not so bad," and moving down the list to finally reach the "Worst of them all," sin-wise.)
SIN......VIRTUE
Lust - Chastity
Gluttony - Modersation
Avarice - Charity
Sloth - Zeal
Wrath - Meekness
Envy - Generosity
Pride - Humility
It was thought (in days of yore

) that practicing the virtues would weaken the draw of the sins over the soul. Which was pretty damn important in "Yore" - So much so that the witch hunting Bishop, Peter Binsfeld associated demons to each particular sin in 1589 as part of his nasty witch-huntingness and general quest to bring people into the loving arms of God.
Unfortunately, this was done by burning men, women, children and bits of string at the stake, which was a bit
demonic in itself really, but perhaps this was where he got his inspiration from?
Anyway, here is the list of sins with corresponding demon -
pride - Lucifer
envy - Leviathan
anger - Satan
greed - Mammon
sadness - Belphegor
gluttony - Beelzebub
lust - Asmodeus
You probably noticed that "Sloth" otherwise known as good ole "laziness" is missing from the previous list, and has been replaced with "sadness," - This is because the barbequeing Bishop (sorry, tacky I know,but I couldn't resist) was working with a much older list. He was using the version thought to have been drawn up by (or at least ordered by) St. Gregory The Great sometime during the sixth century. He ordered the sins according to their
insult toward love (I personally like that notion, it seems a lot more practical, beautiful and logical, as opposed to concerning our puny little mortal moment over whether or not we just offended a pie in the sky - by the way my apologies if I just offended anyone then, but they were burning folk
alive back then!)
The order arranged by St. Gregory the Great was used in both previous lists.
I'm not sure when, but sometime along the was "Sadness" changed to "Sloth" and the order of the sins severity was rearranged. For this I'm sure other forum memebrs with have much more information
*looks pointedly at dear Jackalope, Squiddy and Honor

*
However I do know that somewhere along the line Thomas Aquinas gets his two cents in, so here is his new revised order (todays standard I believe?)
(Also, alongside each sin is the "traditional" punishment in hell meted out tp those who commit the particular sin. The punishments can of course be seen in glorious technicolour in artwork by H Bosch and various other Medieval/early rennaisence religious artwork - Themeparks and psychiatrists and movie makers are nothing compared to what I reckon these pictures used to do to peoples minds!

)
pride - broken on the wheel
envy - held in freezing water
gluttony - force fed rats snakes and toads
lust - ye olde fire and brimstone (by the way, is there anything in the fact that that is now the entirety of the standard Christian hell senario, or am I just reading to much into that - any ideas?)
anger - live dismemberment
greed - boiled in really classy expensive oil (it was pricey stuff back then.....actually, still is now....)
sloth - snake pit, Indiana Jones style, only Belphegor has the cool whip, not you.
So - I was now going to get into the whole virtues thing. But basically I'm tired (yes It's, or at least I'm that pathetic

) Besides it's not just some simple single source things, theres bits and pieces from all over the place, ancient Greek writtings, thinkers and phillosophies, Prudentias and his big long (yes,
epic) poem, the "Psychomachia" aka "the Battle for the Soul," also there's obscure bits of Catholic Christian numerology, yadda yadda yadda blah blah blah ......
I think that now is definitely the moment to let someone much more qualified to kill this chook....
Lulu go sleepy time now
