A moral category going beyond that of simple wrongdoing by its implications of evil, disobedience, depravity, stain, and wickedness. Sin therefore requires atonement, penitence, and self-abasement, not to mention punishment. The abjection and lack of self-respect implied in the cluster of ideas serve to emphasize the importance of redemption. They are therefore an important buttress to the power of those who claim to know how to provide it. The concept is only at home in a religious tradition built around the possibility of God’s disgust, and is not found pure and simple in classical thought, where offences were equally liable to divine vengeance whether voluntary or not. See also hell, original sin, predestination, Seven Deadly Sins.