John Wycliffe
(1330-1384) ****
English
scholar and theologian who is often called "the Morning Star of the
Reformation." A native of Yorkshire, he attended Oxford University,
receiving the doctorate in theology in 1372. Supported by church positions, he
spent most of his life teaching at Oxford. A brilliant scholar who mastered the
late medieval scholastic tradition, he came to the attention of the government.
The Duke of Lancaster, John of Gaunt, son of Edward III, enlisted his services
on several occasions. Gaunt was the effective ruler of England from the death
of his father (1377) until Richard II was old enough to reign (1381). Wycliffe
performed diplomatic duties for the crown and wrote in support of civil
government. His work denied the validity of clerical ownership of land and
property as well as papal jurisdiction in temporal affairs. The doctrine of
dominion, which he set forth in On Divine Dominion (1375) and On Civil Dominion
(1376), declared that all people are the tenants of God and only the righteous
as God's true stewards ought to have political authority because they alone
have the moral right to rule and hold possession. The wicked on the other hand,
even if they are nobles, kings, or popes, have no such right despite the fact
that at times God may allow them to temporarily hold power or property.
Wycliffe believed that churchmen who lived in mortal sin relinquished their
right as God's stewards and should be deprived of their wealth and authority.
These
views led to his condemnation by a series of papal bulls issued in 1377 which
indicated that Oxford University should stop such teaching. He moved from an
attack on the wealth and temporal power of the church to criticism of the
central dogmas of medieval Catholicism. He rejected all ceremony and
organization not specifically mentioned in the Bible, condemned
transubstantiation, renounced the sacramental power of the priesthood, and
denied the efficacy of the Mass. He also dismissed the whole structure of
rituals, ceremonies, and rites that pervaded the church on the grounds that
they were not only false but the interfered with the true worship of God. He
believed that salvation comes through divine grace rather than through people's
efforts to save themselves.
In
1381 the Peasants' Revolt in England forced the church and the aristocracy to
cooperate in restoring law and order. Although Wycliffe was not involved in the
rebellion, those who opposed him claimed that it was the result of his
teaching. Taking advantage of the situation, the leaders of the English church
forced his followers from Oxford. Wycliffe went to live at his parish in
Lutterworth (1382), where he died of a stroke in 1384.
Wycliffe's
writings, in addition to his work on the problems of church and state, include
logical and metaphysical treaties and numerous theological books and sermons.
He is best known, however, for instigating a translation of the Vulgate into
English. According to his doctrine of dominion, Christians are directly
responsible to God. Therefore, in order to know and obey God's law it is
necessary for them to read the Bible. For Wycliffe, the Holy Scriptures were
the only standard of faith and source of authority. That is why he felt that it
was so important to make them available in the vernacular. He spent the last
few months of his life on that task, leaving the completion of the Wycliffe
Bible to his followers.
The
followers of Wycliffe, known as Lollards, were made up of scholars from Oxford,
the lesser gentry, and many poor people from both rural and urban areas. They
based their preaching on the Bible and counseled disobedience to unjust
churchmen, attacked the priesthood, affirmed the idea of the invisible church,
and condemned monasticism and ritualism. This message led to their persecution,
which some scholars feel was effective in destroying the movement by the end of
the fifteenth century. Others argue that Lollard sentiments were preserved in certain
places and led to an enthusiasm for the Reformation of the next century.
If Wycliffe's
influence on Protestantism is difficult to trace in England, it is somewhat
clearer in continental thought. His ideas spread to Bohemia through Czech
students who attended Oxford University. In Prague, John Hus adopted his
teachings, and the Hussites kept them alive for many years. One of the early
proposals of Luther was that justice should be done to the Hussites, who he
believed were wrongly condemned. Through the Bohemian connection Wycliffe was
indeed a forerunner of the Protestant Reformation.
Another View The Wycliffe versions
For
the first complete Bible in English we are probably indebted to John Wycliffe,
who was born about 1330 near Richmond in Yorkshire. Much of his life was
associated with Oxford University. Although in 1374 he was presented to the
rectory of Lutterworth, where he remained until his death at the end of 1384,
he was often at Oxford. He won prominence first as a schoolman, later as a politician,
and finally as a reformer, spending his life teaching, appealing to the Bible
as "Goddis lawe" and the New Testament as "Christis lawe"
for his authority in preaching against various evils of his day, to such extent
that he has been called the "morning star of the Reformation." Only
the patronage of John of Gaunt and others in high position and with powerful
influence protected him from persecution. Wycliffe's influence continued to
grow after his death, to the embarrassment of ecclesiastical authority. In 1401
the statute de haeretico comburendo authorized the death penalty for heretics,
and in 1408 a Constitution adopted by the provincial Council at Oxford read in
part: "The Holy Scripture is not to be translated into the vulgar tongue, nor
a translation to be expounded, until it shall have been duly examined, under
pain of excommunication and the stigma of heresy." Twenty years later, by
order of the Council of Constance, Wycliffe's body was even disinterred and
burned, and his ashes cast into the river Swift.
The Holy Bible...made from the Latin Vulgate
by John Wycliffe and his followers. Edited by Josiah Forshall
and
Frederic Madden. Oxford: University Press, 1850.
While
it is now generally felt that Wycliffe himself did little of the actual
translation of the Bible, there is no doubt of his responsibility for it. He
always quoted the Bible and referred to it as the supreme authority – a
conviction that grew with the years. It now seems clear that the Bible
translation was begun under Wycliffe's influence as early as 1372, the part
through Baruch 3.19 being the work of a colleague, Nicholas Hereford, and the
rest being completed before 1384 by several other persons, including William
Middleworth, John Trevisa, and possibly John Purvey, Wycliffe's secretary. It
was a very stiff, literal translation from the Vulgate, often even following
the word order of the Latin. A few years later Purvey began to revise it,
greatly improving the style, making it more idiomatic and readable. It was
probably not completed until 1395. In a Prologue to this version, which may
possibly be ascribed to Purvey, the case for an English translation of the
Scriptures is argued:
Since
at the beginning of faith so many men translated into Latin, and to great
profit of Latin men, let one simple creature of God translate into English, for
profit of English men. For if worldly clerks look well their chronicles and
books, they should find that Bede translated the Bible, and expounded much in
Saxon, that was English or common language of this land in his time; and not
only Bede but also King Alfred, that founded Oxford, translated in his last
days the beginning of the psalter into Saxon, and would more, if he had lived
longer. Also Frenchmen, Bohemians, and Britons have the Bible and other books
of devotion and of exposition translated in their mother language; why
Englishmen should not have the same in their mother tongue I cannot wit...5
Copies
of this version were widely used throughout the fifteenth century, and its
influence is notable in contemporary copies of the Primer, a book for private
devotion. The nobility enjoyed fine (probably unused) copies, and cheaper
copies were in common use among the lower classes, although the book and its
readers were often persecuted. Yet in 1563 Foxe wrote that some gave as much as
five marks in the fifteenth century for a manuscript of the Bible, and that
others gave a load of hay for a few chapters of James or the other Epistles.
Of
the nearly 200 existing manuscripts of this translation, only some thirty are
copies of the Hereford version; the majority were written within forty years of
Purvey's version. By Tyndale's time, however, copies were
little
known, partly because manuscript books were expensive
Tyndale's
time, however, copies were little known, partly because manuscript books were
expensive and scarce, and also because the English language was still rapidly
changing.