THE REFORMERS

(Continued from last month)

In the compass of a year’s articles on the Reformers, it will not be possible to deal with every aspect of the work of each in their lives. This month we must conclude our articles on Wycliffe and will deal with two more aspects of his work—namely, his work in translating the Scriptures, and his attitude towards Transubstantiation.

These subjects bring us towards the end of his life in the years 1380–1384. He had previously called in question the allegiance of his country to the Papacy, and attacked the weapons of the Papacy in spreading its false teaching through the agency of the Friars. But more important than this work was his share in spreading the truth to his fellow countrymen by translating the Scriptures into the mother tongue. We speak of the “Written Word,” but Wycliffe’s work truly was with the written word, for there was no printing presses in his day and every copy of the translated Scriptures had to be laboriously copied by hand. Wycliffe’s work was to perform the original task of translating out of the Latin into English. There is doubt cast today on what amount of the work he actually did with his own pen. It has generally been accepted that he translated the New Testament himself and that another scholar, Nicholas of Hereford, did the translating of the Old Testament. But whatever doubt is cast upon the actual translation, it is clear that the master mind behind it, in the essentially “Reformation concept” of giving the Scriptures to the common people, was Wycliffe.

The year of its completion was about 1382. This was the year that Nicholas of Hereford was excommunicated by the Catholic Church for beliefs similar to Wycliffe’s, and thrown into prison in Rome, when he went there to appeal against his excommunication An interesting manuscript exists, preserved in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, with erasures and alterations, containing a note that it was the work of Nicholas of Hereford. It consists of the Old Testament in its entirety, together with a part of the Apocrypha. The unfinished nature of this manuscript fits in with the fact that Nicholas of Hereford was suddenly called away from his work to defend himself against the charge of heresy. For Wycliffe the work was being done in the evening of his life. He had only two years to live when it was completed, in which he was excluded from teaching at Oxford and which he spent in his quiet rectory at Lutterworth. As the work was revised later by his curate John Purvey, the revision being completed in about 1388, it seems likely that this was what Wycliffe spent much of the last two years of his life doing, perfecting what had already been achieved before he left Oxford.

It may be asked why Wycliffe was not persecuted to death. This was due entirely to the weakness of the Papacy after 1378, when it became divided over the election of two Popes. This had occurred, because in the election of the Pope in 1378, the Roman populace had gathered in a riotous action to force the Cardinals to elect an Italian, and later when they had left Rome, some of them gathered in the southern part of Italy and elected a Frenchman, as Pope. This circumstance was used of the Lord to spare Wycliffe from almost certain martyrdom in the last six years of his life, during which period he was working on the translation of the Scriptures. In this period he came to very clear views of their value. In a work called, “On the Truth and Meaning of Scripture,” he maintains their supreme authority and insists on the right of private judgment not that they are open to the individual interpretation of any one, but that they are equally not to be interpreted by the Catholic Church alone. Two copies of this work still exists—one at Oxford in the Bodleian Library, the other in Trinity College Library, Dublin. It contains the essence of a Reformation view of Scriptures as of “supreme authority” and not to be counterbalanced by any traditions of the Church having equal authority. Wylies says of Wycliffe’s translation, “What mattered it (now) when a dungeon or grave might close over him! He had kindled a light which could never be put out. He had placed in the hands of his countrymen that true Magna Carta. That which the Barons at Runny-mede had wrested from King John would have been turned to but little account had not this mightier Charter come after.”

The work of copying the translation was hard— but it was done and gradually men went out with Wycliffe’s translation, Lollard preachers, up and down the land, stopping on village greens and other public places to read the Scripture to the illiterate people for the first time. Not until the mid-nineteenth century was Wycliffe’s Bible ever printed. Recently from a bookshop in Wells, Somerset, we acquired one of these nineteenth century printed copies of a Wycliffe manuscript. The Catholic Church was horrified when she learnt what Wycliffe had done. It was rather like a civil servant revealing state secret sto the man-in-the-street. They had hoped that his work of spreading the Gospel might have died with him. Now a new work was abroad, which they could not stop, though in 1408 the English Church Council banned the reading of Wycliffe’s Version to all Catholics under threat of excommunication, and also banned any further attempts at a translation into English.

With this gigantic effort accomplished, Wycliffe did not rest. He wished to see his countrymen even further freed from error. Now he turned to attack the doctrine of the Roman Church. He regarded this doctrine as the opposite of that given by Christ to His Church. He selected one dogma for attack as being the key to many errors. This was transubstantiation which claims that the bread and wine at the Lord’s Supper are turned, after the priest has blessed them, into the actual body and blood of the Lord Jesus, and are offered and elevated for worship at the altar. Wycliffe saw that this was pure idolatry, as well as being the source of the prodigious authority claimed by the Roman Church. He saw the conflict as between the supposed sacrifice of a priest and the one and only sacrifice of the Lord Jesus on Calvary. He first publicly denounced the error in the spring of 1381. He posted up “Twelve Propositions” in Oxford for discussion, challenging all who disagreed to come and debate the matter. The first stated, “The consecrated Host which we see upon the altar, is neither Christ nor any part of him, but an efficacious sign of him.” He maintained that the bread and wine were only figuratively the body and blood of Christ. This caused great confusion in Oxford. But no one accepted his challenge. They were all agreed that this was heresy. A Council of University doctors and monks was summoned by the Oxford University Chancellor, who unanimously condemned Wycliffe’s statements as heretical. He was suspended from lecturing in the University and ordered to remain silent on his opinions under threat of imprisonment. He appealed to Parliament for redress, but as Parliament was not in session for some time, he eventually left Oxford for his parish at Lutterworth to await events.

During this period the Peasants Revolt broke out, led by Wat Tyler, which resulted in the Archbishop of Canterbury being beheaded by the rebels at the Tower of London. This had the effect of delaying the Catholic Church from pursuing its persecution of Wycliffe, until a new Archbishop was fully installed. This accomplished, at last in May 1382, the new Archbishop convened a Synod to try the Rector of Lutterworth. It met at Blackfriars Monastery in London. It was strange that hardly had the Council commenced work when London was shaken by an earthquake, which the Archbishop interpreted as an omen signifying the cleansing of the land from heresy, but which must have pointed for many of Wycliffe’s followers, to the indignation of God against the Council about to try Wycliffe. The Council met for three days and condemned Wycliffe’s beliefs as heretical and erroneous and sent commends to various Bishops to make certain that “these pestiferous doctrines” were not taught in their dioceses. A letter also went to Oxford University, but the views of Wycliffe were widespread there and it needed a further appeal to Richard II before the University could be brought to heel. He gave authority to imprison any who maintained Wycliffe’s beliefs. As the storm increased many of Wycliffe’s supporters left him. John of Gaunt, a nobleman who had been very willing to support him in his attack on the temporal claims of the Pope, withdrew when the term heresy was used by the Catholic Church. When Wycliffe’s appeal came before Parliament in November, 1383, it repealed the persecuting edict of the Church against him. The Archbishop then convened Convocation to try him, and he appeared before this august Assembly of the Church to justify his beliefs, refusing to retract anything. His final words in his own defence have a beauty about them for their fearless simplicity. “You are the heretics,” he said, “who affirm that the Sacrament is an accident without a subject. Why do you propagate such errors? Why? Because like the priests of Baal you want to sell your masses. With whom, think you, are you contending? With an old man on the brink of the grave? No! With Truth—Truth which is stronger than you and will overcome you.” With these words he turned to leave the Assembly. His enemies had no power to stop him. “Like his Divine Master at Nazareth,” says D’Aubigne, “he passed through the midst of them.”

He went quietly back to Lutterworth, now a weary and sick man. During the remaining days of his life he was summoned to appear at Rome before the Pope to answer for his heresy, but he was too ill to travel. On the last Sunday of the year 1384 as he administered the Lord’s Supper in his Church at Lutterworth, he was taken ill with a stroke, carried to the Rectory and died here on December 31st. His useful life was over, but a light was lighted in England which has never gone out since, though we live in a day when subtle so-called ecumenical attempts are being made to smother it under the cloak of toleration and reunion with the Papacy. Buried at Lutterworth, Wycliffe’s body was disturbed in 1428 by order of the Pope, burnt and his ashes thrown into the River Swift which flows through the town. But that could not silence the Truth and it has been well said that those ashes carried by the Swift to the Avon, and by the Avon to the Ocean were a symbol of the Truth of God for which he had fearlessly contended in his life, and which has ever since gone out to the four corners of the world. Wycliffe was the Father of the Reformation—its Morning Star—the Scriptures were the sole authority for his beliefs, the Lord Jesus his one and only Master. We honour his memory as we remember him once again. Like the apostles, he has no resting place we can visit, yet his memory is indelibly written in the earth and as the Scriptures say, “The memory of the just is blessed.”

—The Friendly Companion

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