Theological Yardstick

THE SPANIARD AND THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS by Fernando D/az-P/a/a. 223 pages. Scribner's. $4.50.

"For many years, we Spaniards have done nothing but praise ourselves. Maybe it's as well, after so much flouting of our virtues, for us to meditate on our sins." Author Diaz-Plaja, after due meditation, decided that Spanish sins are very human sins, and, when practiced by Spaniards, almost virtues.

Historian, anthologist and member of the Spanish Academy of Letters, Diaz-Plaja uses as his yardstick the seven deadly sins of medieval theology. His countrymen, he says, are completely free of the sin of avarice, largely because it conflicts with their dedication to the sin of pride--"The man who is obliged to keep up appearances shows off first and then counts the pennies." Spaniards, he says, are openly lustful ("There is nothing clandestine about Spanish appreciation of sex"), but not particularly gluttonous: they consider clothes more important than food, talk more important than wine. Spaniards are lazy, but mostly because they regard work as an indignity. They are envious to the point where they find it almost impossible to praise anyone else. And they are usually angry, explosively so, at injustices, real or imagined.

To Diaz-Plaja, the origin of all Spanish sins is the sin of pride. Spaniards have never forgotten that in the 16th century even stable hands wore swords and boasted family shields. They are convinced, he says, that they are the equal of any man, even if they happen to be shining his shoes. No government, not even a dictatorship, can impair their basic dignity, which often reaches the point of anarchy, because "the Spaniard always adapts the laws to his personality and never the other way around." Diaz-Plaja, in fact, sees his countrymen's pride as so overbearing that, for all its wit and insight, his book might have been better if he had not even bothered with the Spaniard's subsidiary sins.

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