Chapter V

John WYCKLIFFE

1324 - 1384 AD

John Wycliffe, or Wickliffe, known as "The morning star of the Reformation," was born about 1324 in Yorkshire, England. He was a good student graduating and teaching at Oxford University.

In 1348, a great, and fearful pestilence broke out. It was one of the most destructive in history. Appearing first in Asia it came west crossing Europe with its "terror marching before it, and death following in its rear." On the first of August the plague reached England. "Beginning at Dorchester,'' says Foxe, "every day twenty, some days forty, some fifty. and more, dead corpses were brought, and laid together in one deep pit." On the first of November it reached London, "where the vehement rage thereof was so hot, and did increase so much, that from the first day of February till about the beginning of May, in a church-yard then newly made by Smithfield (Charterhouse). about two hundred dead corpses every day were buried, besides those which in other church-yards of the city were

Wycliffe was the first person of his era who conceived the idea of giving to his countrymen, the whole Bible in the English language. For a period of 130 years Wycliffe’s translation from the Latin was the only complete Bible in the English language.

Before the invention of the printing press, no other book ever had such widespread distribution. Every copy had to be written by hand. Wycliffe employed a large number of scribes, but they were unable to supply the growing demands for the Bible. It is said that some of the "free farmer yeomen" were so anxious to obtain the Word of God that they often bartered a load of hay for just a few pages.

In 1374 Wycliffe became rector of Lutterworth in Leicestershire. He opposed the Pope’s claim to the right to tax, and to appoint men to church offices without asking the King.

In 1377, he was brought to trial before the archbishop of Canterbury and the bishop of London. His London supporters came to his rescue and the effort to ruin Wycliffe failed.

Wycliffe had completed the translation of the New Testament and arranged with his friend Nicholas to translate the Old Testament. Before it could be finished the Roman prelates were informed of the work and Nicholas was tried and imprisoned at Rome. Nicholas accomplished an escape from prison. He did not return to England during Wycliffe’s lifetime. Wycliffe himself therefore resumed the work of the translation of the Old Testament, and completed it before his death in 1384.

Wycliffe was charged with heresy and cited before an ecclesiastical convention at Oxford in 1382. These charges in some way failed, but he was expelled from the university. The pope issued papal decrees against him. The effort condemned his teachings at Oxford. He, however, continued to preach boldly, and he wrote many Latin treatises to support his attacks on the beliefs of Catholicism, and practices of the Pope, and the Roman Catholic Church. Later Wycliffe was summoned to Rome to answer charges against him before the pope. Wycliffe’s health was fast failing and he died in 1384 before this was accomplished..

Nearly twenty years passed before the progress of the work of transcribing the Wycliffe Bible was checked by persecution.

2Ti 3:12 Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.

The 14th century, so full of varied religious life, made it manifest that the two different ideas of a life of separation from the world, which in earlier times had lived on side by side within the mediaeval church were irreconcilable.

The Roman church chose to abide by the idea of Hildebrand, (Pope Gregory VII) and to reject that of Francis of Assisi; and the revolt of Ockham and the Franciscans, of the beghards, and other spiritual fraternities of Wickliffe, and the Lollards, were all protests against that decision. Hildebrand's object was to make church government, or polity in all respects distinct from civil government. It provided that no civil ruler could touch churchman, or church possession for trial or punishment, taxation, or confiscation. This directive in the hands of his successors who followed his principles, the Roman church became transformed into an empire. The Roman Church rivaled with kingdoms. However, its territories were scattered over the face of Europe in diocesan domains, convent lands, or priests' glebes. Its taxes were the tithes, and its nobles the prelates. The Roman Catholic church had taken on the political, and philosophical character under Gregory VII , that would make it the power we find today.

2Co 6:17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,

The Roman Church built their empire around this verse. Their effort was to separate the church from governmental powers. They held land and possessions to the point that they were more wealthy and powerful than the states in which they did abide. Their whole treatise was one of separation from the world.

Francis of Assisi had another ideal. Christians, he thought, should separate themselves from the world, in imitation of Christ, by giving up property, and home, and country, and going about doing good. Priests should live only on the alms of the people. For a time these two ways of separation from the world lived on side by side in the Catholic church: but they were really irreconcilable.

Hildebrand's church required power to enforce her claims. And money, land, political position, were all sources of power. Church rulers favored the friars when they found means of evading their vows of absolute poverty. Gradually these forces came to be facing each other in the 14th century. A great political Christendom, whose rulers were statesmen, with aims, and policy of a worldly ambitious type, faced a Biblical Christendom, full of the ideas of separation from the world by self-sacrifice. New attitudes of participation in the benefits of Christ's work by an ascetic imitation, which separated itself from political Christianity, and called the pope and his church anti-Christ, were advancing with greater power.

Many of Wycliffe’s "poor priests" became followers of the Lollard movement. It is hard to say who was influencing whom. The Lollards were a Baptistic evangelist group of believers. Lollards copied and distributed the first full Bible, Wycliffe’s English translation. Their foundation was the authority of the Bible.

The Lollards were members of a widespread Christian movement in all England during the late 13th to the early 15th centuries. They were highly critical of the power and wealth of the Roman Church. The Lollards were joined by Wycliffe’s "poor priests," who were trained and organized to teach from his English translation of the Bible. They Biblically preached against the Sacraments of the Roman Church for salvation. They minimized clerical authority, and emphasized poverty, ethical purity, and a Christian devotional life. This revival spread rapidly during the decade following Wycliffe’s death in 1384.

The Lollards enjoyed the support of many Oxford scholars, powerful nobles, country gentlemen, wealthy merchants, and masses of common people. Their preachers based their teachings on personal faith in Christ, Divine election, and Biblical authority. They taught that the commonly held doctrines of transubstantiation, the Eucharist, Indulgences, and a hierarchical church organization are unscriptural and false doctrinally.

After HENRY IV, in 1399, came to the English throne the Lollards were subject to increasing torture and persecution. In the House of Commons there was strong Lollard support, yet, the statute, De haeretico comburendo, (On the Burning of the Heretic) was passed by Parliament in 1401. Martyrdom followed as more organized efforts of evil churchmen developed against those who held to the authority of Scripture.

The Lollards did follow the teachings of the John Wickliffe, and were the adherents of a religious movement which was widespread in the end of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th centuries. The Inquisition reached England for the condemnation of Wickliffe and his followers.

It is hard to say where the name, "Lollard," came from, but the most generally received explanation derives the words from lollen or Iullenl, to sing softly. The word is much older than its English use; there were Lollards in the Netherlands as early as the beginning of the 14^th century, who were akin to the Fratricelli, Beghards, and other sects of the breakaway Franciscans.

The earliest official use of the name in England occurs in 1387 in a mandate of the bishop of Worcester against five "poor preachers," nomine seu rita Lollardorum confoederatos. It is probable that the name was given to the followers of Wickliffe because they resembled those offshoots from the great Franciscan movement which had disowned the pope's authority, and separated themselves from the mediaeval church.

Determined to break the support of Lollardism by rural aristocrats, Henry V brought his friend, Sir John Oldcastle (1378-1417), to trial and, finally, to the stake. He was placed over the flames as an animal would be roasted. He suffered a horrible death for his faith in Christ and His Word.