John Wycliffe, Champion of the Bible

IN THE English county of Leicestershire, the river Swift flows quietly through fields and meadows, past the little town of Lutterworth. Finally, this stream joins the river Avon near Rugby in Warwickshire. Today, it is difficult to link the tranquil scene with some of the events of 600 years ago. One happening in particular is so strange that it continues to amaze fair-minded persons to this day.

We may take for granted our freedom to read the Bible, but it was very different in the days of John Wycliffe. By considering some of the events that led up to the shocking action that involved the river Swift, we may come to have greater appreciation for our own freedom to study the Sacred Scriptures.

During the Middle Ages the feudal system obtained in England. Village and even town life was very isolated, with the lord of the manor controlling the people. He exacted a large part of their labor for the very limited freedom to work their own small holdings. The poor hovels of the peasantry contrasted with the large stone houses and castles of the wealthy landowners. Lacking education and thus being subject to great ignorance, the peasants were full of fear and superstition, fostered to a great extent by frequent pestilence and famine that culminated in the Black Death of 1349. The influence of the Church and the monastery also was very oppressive.

With little opportunity for learning, the parish priests were often as ignorant as the peasants. The friars and the monks, on the other hand, controlled the spiritual lives of the people. They went among the people to preach the ‘seven deadly sins’ and to exact from them alms and donations for the enrichment of their monastery, which was exempted from taxes because of being viewed as belonging to the pope. The system of indulgences and the sale of pardons and relics contributed to the excusing of crime and loose living, and to their consequent increase.

Many people tired of their serfdom. Eventually, some lords began to substitute a rent for labor due​—an arrangement that brought greater freedom to the peasant. As his independence grew, the peasant had more opportunities to think and to share in other aspects of social life. All that was needed was an authoritative voice to give expression to his feelings. Such a voice was found in the person of John Wycliffe.

WYCLIFFE TAKES HIS STAND

Born around the years 1328-1330, John Wycliffe was sent to Oxford University, where he rose to become master of Balliol College by 1361 and, some years later, a doctor of theology. His familiarity with English law and canon law was not merely the result of his interest in the subject, but of a deep-rooted desire to see liberties defended and maintained.

From the time of King John a tribute had been paid to the pope in acknowledgment of his supremacy over England. In 1365 a demand was received from Pope Urban V for this money, along with arrears covering more than 30 years. The next year, Parliament decided that King John had acted beyond his right, that the feudal tribute would be resisted, and that, if necessary, the land would be defended against the pope. Seeing the determination manifested in this statement, the pope dropped his demand, but not without the generating of some controversy on the part of his henchmen, the members of the monastic orders in England.

In reply, Wycliffe wrote a tract in which he legally defended the stand Parliament had taken. His argument was couched in the words of various Lords in Council.a One lord argued: “It is the duty of the Pope to be a prominent follower of Christ; but Christ refused to be a possessor of worldly dominion. The Pope, therefore, is bound to make the same refusal. As, therefore, we should hold the Pope to the observance of his holy duty, it follows that it is incumbent upon us to withstand him in his present demand.”​—John Wycliffe and His English Precursors, p. 131.

The tribute was not the only money that the pope endeavored to obtain from England. From time to time a papal nuncio and his servants traveled through the country gathering collections and taking them to Rome. On the occasion of one such visit in 1372, Wycliffe wrote a legal treatise attacking this practice. Thus he also called into question the principle that everything the pope chose to do must be right. Moreover, Wycliffe established himself as a most able defender of the course upon which Parliament had embarked. So it is not surprising that in 1374 Wycliffe was appointed one of the commissioners for the king in negotiations at the papal conference in Bruges, where complaints against the Roman Church were presented. In the same year, Wycliffe was nominated to the rectory of Lutterworth, possibly because of his services to the king.

Despite his good standing in some circles, Wycliffe had many enemies. In 1377 he was summoned before a convocation of bishops in St. Paul’s Cathedral. Matters would probably have gone against him had it not been for the intervention of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, and other influential allies. Defeated this time, Wycliffe’s enemies appealed to the papal court. The pope issued five bulls against Wycliffe, condemning his doctrines as heretical and recommending that action be taken against him. Consequently, Wycliffe was brought before another council in Lambeth Palace, London; but this time the king’s mother intervened. To show their support, a band of ordinary citizens forced their way in. Faced with this strong defense, the council hesitated to act as the pope would have wished and merely banned Wycliffe from giving lectures and sermons on the offending teachings.

THE FIRST WYCLIFFE BIBLE

Just how long Wycliffe’s friends could have protected him is uncertain. As it happened, the death of Pope Gregory XI brought about a situation that threw the Church into such a struggle that Wycliffe was all but forgotten in continental Europe. The actions of the new pope, Urban VI, quickly alienated some of the powerful cardinals. To protest that his election was illegal, they withdrew their support. When this failed to move Urban, these cardinals elected their own pope, Clement VII, producing what history has labeled the Great Papal Schism.

As people and nations lined up with one or the other of the popes, Wycliffe became more and more disgusted. He had been prepared to support the pope that proved himself to be genuine in his claims. However, seeing each pope condemning the other and preparing to go to every unchristian length to gain power and position, Wycliffe declared that both popes were false. His eyes were now fully open to the hypocrisy associated with the office to which he had looked as the spiritual authority. To what or to whom could he turn for the true spiritual authority of God and Christ?

All his searchings, meditations, debates and reasonings fell quickly into place. The Bible alone was the sole standard of truth, the source of all true knowledge about spiritual things. Today such an idea does not seem unusual, but at a time when the circulation of the Bible was severely restricted by the Church (with very little of it available in English) it was a novel and surprising suggestion to most people. Wycliffe prepared a treatise entitled “On the Truth of Holy Scripture,” and one of its main points was to draw a clear line between Scripture and tradition.

Soon Wycliffe discerned that the Scriptures ought to be preached to the people, that there should be no difference between a priest and a layman, and that the ordinary peasant should be able to read the Bible for himself. With some of his associates, he set about translating the Bible from the Latin Vulgate into English. To use the original languages would then have been unheard of in England. Greek had been neglected for centuries, and Wycliffe had no knowledge of it. Between 1379 and 1382 the work of translation moved ahead with great urgency. At the same time, Wycliffe furthered the teaching and training of itinerant preachers who traveled through the land with the Word of God.

Likely, the Christian Greek Scripture portion of the translation was completed by 1382. Doubtless, translation of the Hebrew Scriptures was then in progress under the supervision of Nicholas of Hereford, a zealous follower of Wycliffe. John Purvey, another helper in the work, was Wycliffe’s secretary for some years. The resulting translation was very literal in its renderings, even to the point of ignoring the idiom of the English language. But it did put the entire Bible within reach of common people for the first time.

THE ISSUE OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION

For many years John Wycliffe had been convinced that the Lord’s Supper was a most important occasion. In 1381 his desire to separate Church teaching and tradition from what is taught in the Holy Scriptures resulted in his attack on the idea of transubstantiation. First propounded in the ninth century, this doctrine held that, upon consecration by the priest, the bread and wine actually changed into the substance of the body and blood of Christ. Wycliffe’s argument rested upon the passages in the Gospels and Paul’s writings bearing directly on the issue, and upon many other related texts. For example, when Jesus said, “I am the true vine,” he did not mean that he had become a literal vine, or that a literal vine had been changed into the body of Christ. (John 15:1) Rather, this was an illustration used to teach an important truth. In exposing tradition by means of God’s Word, Wycliffe emphasized that this teaching of transubstantiation was not part of the doctrine of the early church, and that even Jerome held to the Biblical concept.

Of all the outspoken writings and preachings by Wycliffe, this one was perhaps the hardest for the Church to bear. The doctrine of the Mass was a principal means by which the people were held in subjection to the authority of the Church. Even his strong ally, John of Gaunt, went to Oxford seeking to silence Wycliffe on the matter, but without success.

The Peasants’ Revolt in 1381 aroused still more opposition to Wycliffe. Thousands of insurgents under Wat Tyler and other leaders marched on London, burning and killing and finally executing the archbishop of Canterbury before they were defeated.

In part, Wycliffe was blamed for this rebellion, for it was claimed that his teachings had stirred up the people to question the authority of their superiors. Although this claim was without foundation, the event brought to power a new archbishop, William Courtenay. While bishop of London, this man had already acted against Wycliffe. In 1382, as archbishop, Courtenay summoned a council that condemned Wycliffe’s doctrines as heretical and erroneous. Wycliffe was dismissed from the University of Oxford, and a decree was issued setting forth the penalty of excommunication for anyone who preached the condemned doctrines, or even listened to someone who did.

HIS LAST YEARS

That Wycliffe still continued to remain a free man must be attributed to the continuing support of some of his powerful friends, and to the attitude of Parliament, which had not yet proved to be the lackey of the new archbishop. With his activities now centered in Lutterworth, Wycliffe continued to write and to inspire his followers. His attention particularly focused on the actions of the bishop of Norwich, one Henry le Spencer, who had distinguished himself in the Peasants’ Revolt by his courage and leadership in first bringing about the defeat of the rebels in Norfolk.

The proud bishop, with this newly won reputation, decided to take part in the Papal Schism. In 1383 he obtained from Urban VI a bull giving him authority to organize a crusade against Clement VII. He quickly gathered an army by promising absolution and giving Letters of Indulgence to those who would serve under him. Wycliffe had already spoken about the schism in no uncertain terms, and he next wrote a tract called “Against the War of the Clergy.” He likened the schism to two dogs quarreling over a bone. Their entire squabble was contrary to the spirit of Christ, he contended, because it involved worldly power and position. Promising anyone forgiveness of sins through participation in such a war was based on a lie, said Wycliffe. Instead, they would die in unbelief if they fell in a war that was completely unchristian. The crusade proved to be a miserable failure, and the once proud bishop returned to England in disgrace.

Earlier, in 1382, Wycliffe had suffered a stroke that had partially disabled him. Two years later a second stroke left him paralyzed and speechless. He died a few days later, on December 31, 1384, and was buried in the churchyard of Lutterworth, where his remains were left undisturbed for more than 40 years.

Then, in 1428, a strange and shocking incident occurred. The grave of John Wycliffe was broken open in accordance with the decree of the Council of Constance made 14 years earlier. His remains were dug up and burned, and the ashes taken down to the little river Swift a short distance away. There they were scattered upon the waters to drift downstream into the river Avon, then the Severn, and out into the open sea. Nothing symbolic was intended by the perpetrators of this deed. Yet it was so interpreted by those who sought some consolation for the vindictive act. Why did it happen so long after Wycliffe’s death, after he could not personally serve as a thorn in the side of the religious authorities in England? A forthcoming article on his followers, the Lollards, will provide the answer.

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