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442J Guillaume Pépin   1467?-1533

Sermones quadraginta | de destructione Ninive, hoc est |o[mn] is generis vitioru[m], authore fra|tre Guillermo Pepin, sacre theo |logie professore optime merito.

Parisiis apud Joannem Parvum, sub lilio aureo in via ad divum JacobumParisiis apud Claudium Chevallon sub Sole aureo, in via ad Divum Jacobum. Cum gratia et privilegio in biennium MCCCCCXXV 1525. Price $4,500

Octavo 16.5 x 11 cm. Sig. [-]⁴, a-z⁸, A-T⁸ . Second edition (first published 1512) This is a beautiful little book, In a small size textura type with many abbreviations and ligatures; text printed in double columns. Colophon: Apud inclyta[m] Parisio[rum] Lu|tetia[m], in edib[us] Claudij Cheual|loni, sub i[n]signi Solis aurei, in| via ad diuu[m] Jacobu[m]: anno d[omi]ni| M.cccccxxv. me[n]se Septe[m]bri.

Marque n° 4 de Berthold Rembolt au titre ; marque n° 2 Marque n° 4 de Berthold Rembolt au titre ; marque n° 2 de Claude Chevallon au verso du feuillet [-] 4 (cf. P. Renouard, “Marques”, n° 958 et 176).[-] 4 (cf. P. Renouard, “Marques”, n° 958 et 176).

P. Renouard, “Marques”, n° 958 et 176

Perhaps the fullest of all pictures of the relations between the ecclesiastic and peasant , is to be found in that course of sermons On the Destruction of Nineveh which the Dominican Guillaume Pépin , Doctor of Theology , preached in the convent of his Order at Evreux in 1524 , and dedicated to the Bishop of Lisieux . He is bitter against the new Lutherans ; but on almost every page he warns his hearers that society cannot go on indefinitely on its present lines ; he takes as his text Jonah iii , 4 : “ Yet forty days , and Nineveh shall be destroyed . ” There is little to choose morally between the tyrannous rich and the oppressed poor . The Jews were forbidden to eat certain unclean birds of prey ; these typify men who live by rapine , and such are almost all knights and squires ( nowadays ] ; for they are not content with their own revenues but rob the poor peasants . Not only do they seize victuals in sufficiency , but after excessive gluttony they despoil the peasants of all that they can get in garments or in money , so that the poor say they would not be worse treated by our enemies , if these were among us . Nor are these mad dogs restrained by the princes or their lieutenants or captains . . . . Such tyrants give the poor man ‘ s crops as pasture for their horses ? .? Serm . 23 , f . 180 , col . 1 .

Yet the poor also are cruel to each other . That confusion of tongues which fell upon Babel in the Bible is a type signifying the confusion of our own times ; not only the cruelty and tyranny of princes and nobles , but also the envy and hatred and domestic strife among their peoples . The “ contradictions ” spoken of by the Psalmist ( lv , 10 , Vulg . ) “ may be referred to the artisans and workmen ( of our day ) , among whom there is scarce one who doth not strive to tread down the others of his own calling , and specially any newcomer or stranger . ” Wage – earners shirk their work or , again , desecrate Sundays and holy – days by labour ; employers hold back wages justly earned . Crime is commonly unpunished ; few are confederate with God ; the majority are bound together by bonds of conspiracy in sind . And not only is this fratricidal strife carried on among workers under cover of the gild system , but the peasant on the land is even more backward in social progress . Pépin repeats his text : “ Yet forty days , etc . ” and goes on to prophesy the destruction of Peasant-Street in Nineveh , as he has already done with Luther – Street , Judas Street , Manslayer Lane , etc . He is a preacher after the people ‘ s own heart , as racy as Bunyan , and frequently he studs the Latin in which he printed his sermons with the actual phrases of colloquial French in which they were preached . Now we must treat of the destruction of Peasant – Street in Nineveh , by reason of the multitude of faults in which that sort of men are wont to be emmeshed . For the peasants are commonly indevout , and ignorant even of the things which they are bound to know , such as the Ten Commandments , the Church ‘ s decrees , the Creed , and so forth . Again , they are most irreverent to God and the Church , mocking at ecclesiastics , despising their curates and pastors , making nought of lies and false witness ; double – tongued , backbiters , perjurers , false , detainers of other men ‘ s goods ; and , ( what is most grievous of all , ) they are unjust moderators and distributors of tithes and Church dues . Therefore we need not wonder if the Lord is oftentimes angry against them , scourging them in many ways , now with wars and men of arms , now with pest and fever , now with most grievous taxes and tallages , now by the devastation of their fields and vineyards , now with frost , now with excessive heat , now with hail , now with water – floods , or again in divers other ways . For these and such – like reasons , there fore , this Peasant – Street in Nineveh ought deservedly to be destroyed ; but most specially by reason of the lack of good and lawful payment of tithes , whether of crops or of other things ; wherefore I shall treat of this cause above all others in this present sermon . He goes on , therefore , with more than twenty pages of arguments against bad tithe – payers , from the Bible and the Fathers , canon law and common sense . Serm . 1 , f . 2 , col . 2 to f . 3 , col . 2 . 2 Serm . 39 , ff . 319 ff .

“The nobles and rich of this world commit their possessions to poor peasants under heavy rents or tributes”; they are like Pharaoh, who took one-fifth of all the Israelites’ crops; “but our most merciful God hath retained only one-tenth part of all worldly possessions.” Again:“the spiritual goods which we minister unto you are infinitely more precious than the carnal or worldly things which we receive from you.” Therefore it is right for the priests in their sermons to excommunicate all who neglect tithe-paying.

There are some who ask: “Wherefore should we give our tithes to these monks or canons or parsons who have abundance of bread? Is it not better to give them as alms, or give them to our poor tumbledown churches all about?” (pauperibus ecclesiis nostris, quae ex omni parte minantur minam). For it seemeth unreasonable that some should be immensely enriched from Church goods, when they have a wealthy patrimony to boot. Some, again, excuse themselves by the reason of poverty; they allege their own need and penury, saying that tithes are the tribute of needy souls, as in that text of Augustine (quoted in Gratian, Decret.] whereof the sense is, that tithes are due to those who are in want. “Therefore, this being so,” say these poor folk, “we do no sin if we keep for ourselves the tithes of our own goods, which are but small; for the tithes which the clergy take, beyond what is required for their sufficient sustenance, belong to us.” Thirdly, some excuse themselves from tithe-paying by alleging the reason of wickedness, and saying, “Our priests are notorious concubinaries, keeping mistresses, (as men say in the vulgar tongue) at their bread and their pot; they have a multitude of children, wherein they seem in no wise to differ from married folk; such men as these seem unworthy to take tithes, which are intended for good and devout clergy. Moreover, many of them do not reside, but get their parishes served by simple and ignorant curates. Since, therefore, the benefice is conferred for service, it seems that such men ought not to take the tithes.” This is how many worldly folk excuse themselves in their sins; and these excuses we must meet.

In all his long reply, Pépin makes no attempt to deny these accusations against the clergy; he tacitly dismisses them as irrelevant. The priest who has abundance is morally bound to give thereof to the poor: you must make this possible for him; otherwise you are guilty: “as many poor as die of hunger, so many manslaughters are on the heads of those who detain tithes.” Your own need may be great; but your duty is plain:

First and foremost, the poor peasants must pay tithes of their scanty crops, or compound for the same with the tithe-gatherers. Then, if need compel, they must beg from door to door, or find some more honourable way of succouring their own necessity. And if their poverty can be met in neither of these ways, then let them take of these tithes where they can, as from other goods also, to succour their extremity of need, protesting the while that they will make it good if they come to some better fortune. For men who do thus sin not, especially since the aforesaid necessity renders all things common, as hath been said.

As to the third excuse, you do not give to the cleric for himself, but for God. If a prince demands taxes from you through his official, and this official turns traitor and runs off with his spoils to England, you have nothing to do with that man’s treachery. Those, therefore, who give tithes only under compulsion, and try even then to choose the worst sheaves for the parson, are ungrateful to God, from whom, as St James tells us, “every good gift and every perfect gift cometh.”

And they cut their own throat; for good tithe-payers are commonly prosperous on their farms; tithe-falsehood brings misfortune: nowadays, when devotion to God is departed, the collector’s oppression has come in….None need wonder, therefore, that the peasants of today are distressed in many ways, now by unbearable tallages and taxes, now by soldiers and robbers that waste the whole land, now by hailstones that shatter their crops. For these evils are fallen upon them by reason of God’s wrath against a people that payeth its tithes ill…. It is by His just judgement that, in penalty for this, kings and princes are suffered to make divers levies and a multitude of exactions, and soldiers and other robbers to despoil the peasants’ possessions in many ways.

Let the reluctant villager ponder the miracle by which one of his class was once punished; the man went by candle-light to winnow his ill-detained tithe-corn; the candle fell into the wheat; barn and corn and man were burned together. Finally:“Such ill-tithers shall come at last to hell, and stay there to all eternity.”

Other dues have, by custom, become almost as obligatory as tithes; especially the custom of offering something in church at Christmas, Easter and Whitsunday. This is now a precept of the Church, and the peasant will do well to obey it. Only towards the end does this Dominican preacher try to redress the balance somewhat by insisting on the corresponding clerical obligations (f. 325 b):

With regard to this matter, we must note that many incumbents, led by covetousness, importune their parishioners more to pay their tithes than to keep God’s commandments—tithes even of the smallest things, and even of fruits which they have never tithed before-declaring them excommunicated and outside the way of salvation, breeding many scruples in their hearts and oftentimes even bringing various lawsuits against them. These are the men who are wont to ask of preachers who come into their parishes, “Cry out manfully against tithe-defaulters,” when perchance they would be loth to hear the preacher bark against men who live uncleanly. Woe therefore to such priests and rectors or vicars, who are so zealous and clamorous to exact tithes or other altar-dues, while they care little or nothing for the souls of their flocks.

As the scribes and Pharisees tithed small herbs, but neglected the Law, so also, even nowadays, do many prelates and priests of the Church, who are solicitous to rebuke, or get and procure others to rebuke, their subjects in the matter of tithe-paying and suchlike dues, and who care little if the same subjects are entangled in worse crimes; to wit, lecherous, usurers, blasphemous, perjurers, liars and so forth. And again (f. 328): “But, on this point, we must note that many ecclesiastics render themselves unworthy of the fruits of tithes, in God’s sight.” They will not fight against heresy, they neglect their Church services, and lastly, they “eat the milk of their sheep” [Ezek, xxxiv, 3]; for they are nourished with the substance of their people, and feast splendidly every day, and yet they feed not the flock, either with the bread of salutary doctrine (perchance by reason of ignorance) or with that of the Sacrament of the Altar at the right place and time (perchance by reason of non-residence), or with the bread of bodily sustenance (perchance by reason of their own covetousness). He applies to them the accusations and the curses of Ezekiel xxxiv.

A careful perusal of this sermon throws a flood of light on the real relation of the classes to each other at the moment when Luther came forward; especially f. 329. We see here how keen-witted and wellinformed the advocates of the villagers were; fairly often, no doubt, some cool-headed peasant had heard and pondered and discussed the questions which citizens were busily discussing in the towns, with the printing-press at their back. Pépin shows the objectors pleading against the abuses of the tithe-system on grounds of natural and divine law alike. In natural law, they plead, how can poor starvelings be justly required to contribute to the superfluities of men who fare sumptuously every day? In divine law, neither Christ nor His apostles preach the payment of tithes; as to the Old Testament, why should this particular precept of tithes bind us when the rest of the ceremonial law has been abrogated? Pépin, as a good Dominican, has all his rejoinders pat from Aquinas; but these scholastic subtleties are feeble and unconvincing in face of the plain and straightforward objections which they profess to remove. The old order is here visibly breaking down. Pépin’s real trump-card is that of custom and physical force: you have paid from time immemorial, and pay you shall until the end of time! On the ground of biblical history and common-sense, the village advocates were already more advanced than St Thomas Aquinas.

(6) Some two generations later, we get a most valuable complementary picture of the priest in his parish, this time from the country parson’s own point of view. It comes out incidentally from the “Complaints and Grievances of the Priests in the three Cantons of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden, to the Deputies of the said Cantons assembled at Brunnen in 1579” (Nuntiaturberichte, pp. 495 ff.; cf. pp. 481, 525). The bishop of Vercelli, sent as papal nuncio to reform Switzerland, had complained frequently to St Carlo Borromeo, his immediate superior, that he found concubinage not the exception, but the rule, among the priests; he therefore held a synod at which he decreed that they should keep no women-servants under fifty, and that any priest found drinking in a tavern should pay a fine of ten crowns. Against this the clergy protest:

We must not put the cart before the horse, or we shall go backwards like the crab; and if a bow is too far stretched it will break; if we would fain set all things straight at once, either nothing will be done or things will be worse than before…. If all we priests are to live after the commands of this bishop of Vercelli, then our benefices must be otherwise ordered than they have been hitherto; else it would be impossible for us to find a livelihood. If priests, who have neither mothers nor aunts nor grandmothers, may not have other women in their houses, even of their own kinsfolk, then ye will soon have few priests in your cantons; for no priest can himself collect the tithes of hemp and fruits of the earth (which are generally our principal tithes) and also till his garden and mend his hedge and cook and keep his stove alight. But that we spriests) should dwell with boys, as the Italians do, Heaven guard us therefrom for ever! But if we must needs live with women of fifty, and a man must make himself an eunuch for the Kingdom of Heaven, this will be as ill as if he lived with a young one; for the old will just as soon wish to be wanton, or she will have a young one with her: but whither has our pen run? what need of farther words? Other means should first be sought, which pertain mainly to a diligent bishop and faithful pastor of our see’, that such scandals and sins may be removed. For we can all recognize that concubinage is a sin and scandal, and that it would be well, as aforesaid, to remove it and that all priests should live chastely; but it is not given to all men to receive this, and he who maketh not himself an eunuch for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven can never live chastely; for, whether he keep a concubine or no, worse things are to be feared. And a main cause of this is, that there is no seminary wherein the young may be brought up to learning. In our cantons none becomes a priest who has wealth

” The French Dominican Guillaume Pépin complains that “ the poor are more grievously lacerated by evil judges than by the bloodiest enemies ” ; he refuses to distinguish between the lay courts and the Church courts ; in the presence of these evil judges , “ the poor man can get no hearing if he have nothing to offer , nor do the judges merely scorn to hear them , but they even oppress them contrary to the truth ” ; for they are daily corrupted by bribes ( Pépin , Ninive , Serm . 8 , f . 49 , cols . 2 , 3 ; f . 54 , col . 3 ) . The poor man ‘ s disadvantages in the later French manorial courts are described with some exaggeration by G . Hanotaux , on the text of a proverb , “ A lord , even though he be but of straw , can swallow a vassal of steel ” ( La France en 1614 , ed . Nelson , p . 402 ) . Cf . Durandus , De Modo Tenendi , etc . p . 301 . 2 There is a present – day tendency to lay what seems very undue stress upon the fact that , behind medieval legal theories , there was always an implicit or explicit appeal to natural law and equity as a safeguard against tyranny . No doubt this was universally admitted ; but so was it also universally admitted that we are all descended from Adam and Eve , and that the churl is made of the same flesh and blood as the king . Yet we know how little these latter admissions affected actual practice in medieval society ; and those who emphasize the merciful effect of the appeal to natural law would do well to collect and produce evidence of its actual effect upon men ‘ s actions and upon the general progress of society .

Moreover , though the peasant caught at Sundays and holy – days as propitious moments for sport and dance , the Church was , on the whole , most unfavourable here : “ They who dance on Church holy – days commit mortal sin , ” writes Luther ‘ s ad versary , Guillaume Pépin , in 15213 . As late as the nineteenth century , two standard theological dictionaries remind their readers that “ even for the laity , the

The Dominican Guillaume Pépin , in 1524 , applied to the society of his own time those words of Ps . liv , 12 Vulg . : “ Usury and deceit have not departed from its streets . ” “ Many , ” he says , ” both among the laity and the clergy , are tainted with this vice . ” In another passage , he finds it natural that peasants should pay tithes unwillingly to priestly usurers 5 . And here , as in many other cases , it is possible to corroborate the preacher ‘ s indignant impeachment with colder documentary evidence from other sources .

Neither Aquinas nor Albert think of suggesting the ordinary Sunday or holy – day as a time for lawful dances , and , indeed , later Church decrees explicitly excluded such occasions : “ They who dance on Church holidays commit mortal sin , ” writes Luther ‘ s adversary and Aquinas ‘ s fellow – Dominican , Guillaume Pépin ( Destruct . Ninive , Serm . 17 ) ; and again : “ It is not permitted to any of the faithful to dance publicly on holidays or Sundays ” ( Richard et Giraud , Bib . Sacrée , s . v . danse ) . Again , with regard to the “ respectable songs , ” Albert is quite explicit : “ That the songs and music which excite ( the dancers ) on such occasions should not be of the unlawful kind , but songs of moral matters or

President to the other heads of German monasteries , said : “ Lo ! how many are found among us ( pardon my saying this ) who spend their substance on light folk , on hawks and hounds and feasts ” ; and again , as speaking to one of the offenders : “ Lo ! thou sportest with the fowls of the air in violation of the Rule ; lo ! thou chasest with unclean hounds , contrary to the law of the clergy ” ( De Statu et Ruina , chs . VII , VIII , ed . 1898 , pp . 257 , 260 ) . A few years later , the Dominican Guillaume Pépin bears similar testimony ( Ninive , serm . xIx , f . 134 a ) . In 1503 , the Benedictine Gui Jouennaux wrote : Some monks also join in noisy hunting – parties , and chase headlong after wild beasts , so as almost to outrun the hounds themselves ; and they are not ashamed to feed their packs from the possessions of the poor ; so that dogs and slender greyhounds batten on that which should have gone to feed the poor . . . . Do not such things cry for reformation ? Answer that , O monk , whosoever thou mayest be , who carest to defend these abominations . ( Reformationis Monastice Vindicie , Paris , Demarnet , f . 9 a and b . )

Deadly sins.  God — Wrath. Deadly sins.   Vices.

The historical Nineveh was the capital of the neo-Assyrian empire in the late seventh century B.C.E. There was no love lost between the ancient Israelites and Nineveh. The city’s king, Sennacherib, laid siege to Jerusalem in 701 B.C.E. (2Kgs 18:13-19:37, Isa 36-37). The prophetic book of Nahum is an Israelite taunt-song over Nineveh’s destruction by the Babylonians in 612 B.C.E. For Nahum, Nineveh is a “city of bloodshed” (Nah 3:1). The Assyrians’ ruthless military tactics are also pictured in reliefs from the king’s palace in Nineveh, now in the British Museum. The other biblical depiction of Nineveh is in the book of Jonah. There, Nineveh is described as huge—taking three days to walk across—and thoroughly evil. But Jonah gives no specifics about the city’s evil beyond the king’s command that citizens turn away “from the violence that is in their hands” (Jonah 3:8). Jonah’s Nineveh is thematically connected to Sodom, another biblical city of evil (Gen 18-19). God tells Abraham that the outcry against Sodom is such that he “must go down” to investigate (Gen 18:21). Similarly, God sends Jonah to Nineveh, “the great city,” telling him that its evil “has come up” before him (Jonah 1:2). Gen 19:25 describes God’s destruction of Sodom using a term usually translated as “overthrow,” the same term Jonah uses in his prophetic preaching to Nineveh (Jonah 3:4).

One of the greatest cities in antiquity. Nineveh (modern-day Mosul, Iraq). and certainly one of the worlds Oldest Cities, inhabited since as early as 6000 BCE and and most-populous city of the time. 

In The Book of Jonah, Nineveh is an example if what happens to those who participate in sin and vice. The city was destroyed in 612 BCE by a coalition led by Babylonians and Medes which toppled the Assyrian Empire.

Sennacherib’s palace had all the usual accoutrements of a major Assyrian residence: colossal guardian figures and impressively carved stone reliefs (over 2,000 sculptured slabs in 71 rooms). Its gardens, too, were exceptional. Recent research by British Assyriologist Stephanie Dalley has suggested that these were the famous Hanging Gardens, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Later writers placed the Hanging Gardens at Babylon, but extensive research has failed to find any trace of them. Sennacherib’s proud account of the palace gardens he created at Nineveh fits that of the Hanging Gardens in several significant details. (231)

The Medieval Village – George Gordon Coulton 1925.

The city was best known through the Christian era (and still is) by the central role it plays in the biblical Book of Jonah. The Book of Jonah was written between 500-400 BCE depicting events from hundreds of years earlier in the reign of the Hebrew King Jeroboam II (786-746 BCE). While, in The Book of Jonah, the city is spared the wrath of God, other references to Nineveh in the Bible (The Books of Nahum and Zephania, among them) predict the destruction of the city by God’s will. It is certain, however, that these works were written after the city had already fallen and the `prediction’ is, therefore, simply re-worked history.

The biblical Book of Tobit takes place in Nineveh and the Gospels of Matthew (12:41) and Luke (11:32) both make mention of the city. As with Babylon, Nineveh is never mentioned favorably in the biblical narratives and, as the focus of those writers was on the story of the god of the Hebrews, no mention is ever made of the cultural and intellectual heights to which Nineveh rose in its prime. In fact, in the Book of Nahum 3:7, the writer states that Nineveh has fallen and asks, rhetorically, who will mourn for her:

And it shall come to pass, that all they that look upon thee shall flee from thee, and say, Nineveh is laid waste: who will bemoan her? Whence shall I seek comforters for thee?

Although the writers of the biblical narratives may have thought poorly of the city, it was among the greatest intellectual and cultural centers of its time and there were no doubt many who mourned the city’s destruction.

ISIS already destroyed the lamassus standing inside the Nergal Gate in February 2015, at the same time as they destroyed the artifacts in the Mosul Museum. On April 10, ISIS destroyed the reconstructed Mashki Gate and its associated walls with bulldozers and later released propaganda photos online captioned simply “The demolition of idolatrous archaeology in the city of Mosul.” Satellite photos obtained by ASOR showed the gate has been completely razed and no trace of it remains.