Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 5.djvu/501

ENGLAND the reformer's lifetime because the most startling of his views developed late, only ten years or less before his death (1384), but which were eagerly caught up and even exaggerated by ignorant disciples at a time of weak rule and political unrest. The fact that the Great Schism of the West broke out only six years before Wyclif's death added to the complications by leaving the greater part of Christendom in a state of uncertainty as to which of the rival popes had the better claim to men's allegiance, and to this cause most probably is due the fact that Wyclif was left during his last years to propagate his doctrines practically undisturbed. That his doctrines were utterly revolutionary, as judged by any standard of opinion tolerated up to that time it would be absurd to deny. No one can fail to see the danger of teaching that there was no real dominion, no real authority, no real ownership of property without the grace of God. From this he deduced the conclusions that a man in mortal sin had no right to anything at all, that among Christians there ought to be community of goods, and that, as to the clergy having property of their own, it was a gross abuse. Similarly he held that every layman had Christ Himself for priest, bishop, and pope; that a pope was only to be obeyed when he taught according to Scripture, and that a king might take away all the endowments of the Church. With these were combined in his later years theological opinions regarding the sacraments and Transubstantiation which were offensive in the extreme to the Christian sense of that day. Wyclif, no doubt, in his philosophical teaching provided safeguards which mitigated the practical consequences of the principles he held, but these were subtilties which were lost upon the more ignorant and fanatical of his followers, more especially after their master's death. The points that they clearly understood were that tithes were pure alms, and that if the parish priests were not good men the tithes need not be paid; that a priest receiving any annual allowance by compact was simoniacal and excommunicated; that a priest who said Mass in mortal sin did not validly consecrate, but rather committed idolatry; that any priest could hear confessions (without faculties), and in fact that any holy layman predestined by God was competent to administer the sacraments without ordination. Such opinions as these, debated among the ignorant and uninstructed, and reinforced by a constant railing against devotional practices, such as pilgrimages, and against the Roman Court, the friars and all ecclesiastical authority, were obviously full of danger to social order at a time when the Black Death and the question of villeinage which resulted from it, had already provided many elements of disturbance.

Speaking of the proceedings against the foremost representative of Lollard opinions, Sir John Oldcastle, in 1413, Dr. Gairdner says: "It seems to have been a life-and-death struggle between established order and heresy"; and Bishop Stubbs, while doing too much honor by far to the fanatic creed of the Wyclifite leader, remarks: "Perhaps we shall most safely conclude from the tenor of history that his doctrinal creed was far sounder than the principles which guided either his moral or his political conduct." These comments really sum up the situation. The Wyclifite heresy became for a while a real danger to the peace of the country, as Oldcastle's insurrection proved. On the other hand, there was very little that was either sane or ennobling in the dreams which inspired the leaders, and which were imparted to their often very ignorant followers. Given the ideas then, and long after, universally prevalent in regard to heresy and the measures of repression necessary to prevent infection from spreading, there was nothing exceptionally cruel or intolerant about the statute "De haeretico comburendo" of 1401, which provided that heretics convicted before a spiritual court, and refusing to recant, were to be handed over to the secular arm and burnt. There can be no doubt that before this extreme measure was resorted to much provocation had been given by the preaching of doctrines which all Christians then deemed blasphemous, and which were not confined to the vilifying of the Holy Eucharist, the pope, and the clergy, but touched upon the sanctity of marriage and the observance of Sunday as a day of rest. Dr. Gairdner, after a very careful survey of all the evidence, is satisfied that Archbishop Arundel and his suffragans acted in the interests of public order and showed no inclination to enforce the statute either intemperately or tyrannically. In point of fact after the suppression of Oldcastle's insurrection and his execution at the stake, Lollardy was no longer to be feared as a political power. Wyclif's ideas had little hold in England upon men of any weight or consideration. They lingered on for a while and perhaps never entirely died down, though prosecutions for heresy became very rare long before the end of the fifteenth century, but they certainly cannot be regarded as a direct and primary cause of the religious changes which took place in the reign of Henry VIII.

Perhaps the most important in its ultimate consequences of all Wyclif's tenets was the supreme importance which he attributed to Holy Scripture. In his treatise "De Veritate Sacrae Scripturae", written about 1378, he practically adopts the position that Scripture is the sole rule of faith. It followed in his idea that the word of God ought to become accessible to all, and that all men were free to interpret it for themselves. We are told, moreover, by a contemporary and hostile authority, the chronicler Knighton, that Wyclif himself translated the Gospel into English. Upon this and other evidence it has been commonly supposed that Wyclif was the first to bring the Bible to the knowledge of English readers and that the medieval Church uniformly adopted the practice of withholding the Scriptures from the laity. It is to the credit of modern students of medieval history that the grave misrepresentations involved in this traditional Protestant view are now generally abandoned (see e.g. Gairdner, "Lollardy", I, 100-17; "Cambridge Hist. of Eng. Literature", II, 56-62). We may summarize from the former of these writers the following conclusions, which represent what is best worth recalling upon this subject. The Church was not opposed in principle to the use of vernacular translations. Undoubtedly, translations into English of separate books of Scripture existed as far back as in the days of Bede. It is improbable, however, that a whole Bible in English, as distinct from Anglo-Saxon, existed before Wyclif's time; neither was it much required, for nearly all who could read, could read the Bible either in the Latin of the Vulgate, which the Church preferred, or in French. There was, however, no express prohibition to translate the Scriptures into English until the prohibition of the Provincial Synod of Oxford published in 1409. This prohibition was not seemingly occasioned by corrupt renderings or anything liable to censure in the text, but simply by the fact that it was composed for the general use of the laity, who were encouraged to interpret it in their own way without reference to the tradition and teaching of the Church. In fine, Dr. Gairdner concludes: "To the possession by worthy laymen of licensed translations the Church was never opposed, but to place such a weapon as an English Bible in the hands of men who had no regard for authority, and who would use it without being instructed to use it properly, was dangerous not only to the souls of those who read, but to the peace and order of the Church," The view has of late years been strongly urged by Abbot Gasquet, that the English version (or versions, for there are really two) commonly known as the Wyclifite Bible, has no connection with Wyclif, but is simply the fourteenth-century translation approved by ecclesiastical author-