Page:Illustrations of the history of medieval thought and learning.djvu/274

256 in fact, all the gifts of God. He takes literally the aphorism which an ancient tradition inserted in the Book of Proverbs, The faithful man hath the whole world of riches, but the unfaithful hath not even a farthing; and he supports it with much fulness and ingenuity of argumentation. The first part of his thesis is indeed a legitimate following out of the doctrine which saint Augustin had enforced, of the negative character of evil. Sin, he said, is nothing, and men, when they sin, become nothing: if then, argued Wycliffe, sinners, as such, are nothing, it is evident that they can possess nothing. Moreover possession presupposes a right or title to possess, and this right or title can only be held ultimately to depend upon the good pleasure of God, who, it is evident, cannot be thought to approve the lordship of the wicked or the manner in which they abuse their power. Again, by the common law it is not permitted to an inferior lord to alienate, in particular to mortmain, any real property without the license of his lord-in-chief, and any grant in contravention of his will is unrighteous; accordingly, inasmuch as God is the lord-in-chief of all human beings, it should appear that any grant made to a sinner must be contrary to his will, and thus being unrighteous must be no possession in any strict or proper sense of the word. But even granting that the sinner have such possession, ''all human dominion, natural or civil, is conferred upon him by God, as the prime author, in consideration of his returning continually to God the service due unto him; but by the fact that a man by omission or commission becomes guilty of mortal sin, he defrauds his lord-in-chief of the said service, and by consequence incurs forfeiture: wherefore. . . he is rightfully to be deprived of all dominion whatsoever.'' How then does the wicked man come to have property in earthly things ? Wycliffe’s explanation turns upon the double meaning of the word church,