Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/261

 to our own time the foundations of Trinity were to be laid. In one or other of these calm retreats he would find sundry versions and paraphrases of sacred history, more or less fragmentary, more or less freely rendered by monks or clerks of the northern or western shires, of the midlands or the south-east. One such manuscript, the Cursor Mundi, produced about the time of Wyclif's birth, and soon widely popular as a metrical version of Bible history, would certainly be found at Oxford, together with sermons in English, and Scripture stories in verse which were occasionally read in the churches.

Wyclif, it must be confessed, would have fair reason to think that the partial translations of the Bible which had been made up to his own day could be improved upon without much difficulty. When they were not intended as mere service-books, which was the case with the different versions of the Psalms, these Scriptural paraphrases had the character of story-books for diversion. No serious attempt had been made to turn the whole of Scripture, or even the New Testament, into an accurate English equivalent. The prejudice against such a proceeding was too strong to be lightly faced; it was common to all Christendom, and has never been overcome in countries which have adhered to the Latin rfte. Wyclif was prepared to face it, but he felt it necessary, as we have seen, to justify and explain his action with considerable deliberation. He cannot have entertained any delusions as to the reception which his English Bible would meet with from the ecclesiastical authorities, and from the seculars and