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Homiliarum sive Sermonum doctissimi viri Iohannis Eckij adversum quoscunque nostri temporis haereticos, super Evangelia de tempore . . . Tomus I (Cologne: [Eucharius Cervicornus for Gottfried Hittorp], 1537) .

Johann Eck (1486-1543), the relentless adversary of Martin Luther, was a professor at the University of Ingolstadt for thirty years. He was adept in both Scholastic and humanistic learning. This volume contains his sermons de tempore from Advent until Easter, with a sermon-treatise on the Passion of Christ. The sermons were originally composed in German (Christenliche Ausslegung der Evangelien von der seit) and are translated here by Johann Metzinger.

This Latin edition was printed by Eucharius Cervicornus (active 1516-1547) at the expense of Gottfried Hittorp. Hittorp seems to have been anxious about the Lutheran threat; in 1529 he had published a work by a Dominican author against heretics in general and Luther in particular (catalogue n° 69). This volume is only the first of four containing sermons by Eck translated by Metzinger which Eucharius and Hittorp published in the same year. Volume 2 of the series contains Eck's Sermones de sanctis; volume 3 contains additional sermons, including a diatribe against the Turks; volume 4 contains sermons concerning the seven sacraments. In 1534, Eucharius himself had published the Sermones de tempore and the Passio Domini nostri Iesv Christi in two volumes.

The present edition contains 58 woodcuts by the well-commissioned artisan in Cologne, Anton Woensam of Worms (†1541). He also made elaborate woodcuts for the volumes in the Cologne edition of the works of Denys the Carthusian (see catalogue n° 44). A handwritten ex-libris on the inside front cover indicates that the book was once used by a Dominican friar in Cologne, Paul of Lobbrich: "ad usum fratris Pauli a Lobbrich ordinis predicatorum in Colonia." An ex-libris label pasted below the inscription and another handwritten ex-libris on the title page indicate that the book was later owned by the Dominican convent in Augsburg.

References: IA 3/3: 104 (printers); Kisky (Anton Woensam); VD16 5: 623-24 (E 290, E 292, E 295).

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