Summa on Virtues and Vices

Summa de Virtutibus et Vitiis

1497·Latin·692 pages PDF (567.2MB) Source

The Summa de Virtutibus et Vitiis by the Dominican friar William Peraldus, printed by Johann Amerbach in Basel in 1497. This comprehensive moral handbook treats the virtues and vices systematically, drawing on Scripture, the Fathers, and Aristotle. It was one of the most widely circulated theological texts of the later Middle Ages, used extensively by preachers and confessors. This copy is from the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (BSB).

Author

William Peraldus

Guillelmus Peraldus

1200–1271

Readings

On Simony (On Vices, On Avarice)

De Symonia (De Vitiis, De Avaritia)

Peraldus's treatment of simony within his influential treatise on the vices. Covers the detestation of simony as a heresy, twelve insults simony does to God, the multiple harms it causes, simoniacs as worse than Judas, the difficulty of their salvation, and the divisions of simony (fourfold: by money, flattery, carnal relations, and service).

William Peraldus·1236·Latin·De Vitiis, De Avaritia·fol. 218vb–220vb