Evagrius Ponticus, also known as Evagrius the Solitary, was a Christian monk and ascetic who resided in a monastery in the Egyptian desert. Concerned with the temptations that besought people, in the year 375 AD he compiled a list of the eight terrible thoughts, also referred to as the eight evil temptations. The eight patterns of evil that Evanrius listed are: gluttony, greed, sloth, sorrow, lust, anger, vainglory, and pride. The list was not to be one of condemnation; rather, it was to raise awareness to our most compelling temptations so that we would be self-disciplined enough to avert our attention from them. Almost two centuries later, in the year 590, Pope Gregory I, also known as Pope Gregory the Great, revisited the list and refined it to seven by combining two and adding two more…