Wycliffe Sentence Examples

The chief domestic event of the time was the attack of the clerical party on Wycliffe and his followers.

It must have been at this time that an addition was made by Waynflete to the Eton college statutes, compelling the fellows to forswear the heresies of John Wycliffe and Pecock.

In ethics he anticipated much of the teaching of Tolstoy; in doctrine he often appealed to the authority of Wycliffe; and in some of his views it is possible to trace the influence of the Waldenses.

Among the important matters which claimed his attention at Constance may be mentioned also the condemnation of the errors of Wycliffe and the trial of John Huss.

A treatise entitled De ultima aetate ecclesiae, which appeared in 1356, has been attributed to Wycliffe, but is undoubtedly from the pen of an anonymous Joachimite Franciscan.

Translated into French, then into Italian (14th century) and into English (r6th century), it was known by Wycliffe and Luther, and was not without an influence on the Reform movement.

They were at first often called Wycliffites, as the theological theories of Huss were largely founded on the teachings of Wycliffe.

Among the earliest examples of pulpit oratory which have been preserved in English literature, the discourses of Wycliffe and his disciples may be passed by, to arrive at the English sermons of John Fisher (1469?-1535), which have a distinct literary value.

Already Wycliffe had declared that " whatever book is in the Old Testament besides these twentyfive (Hebrew) shall be set among the apocrypha, that is, without authority or belief."

Towards the close of the century comes John Wycliffe and his English travelling preachers, who passed the torch to Hus and the Bohemians, and in the next age Savonarola, who was to Florence what Jeremiah had been to Jerusalem.

John further irritated the clergy by making an alliance with John Wycliffe.

Another marked incident of his public life was the support which he gave on one occasion to the Reformer Wycliffe.

In 1398 he was chosen by the Bohemian "nation" of the university to an examinership for the bachelor's degree; in the same year he began to lecture also, and there is reason to believe that the philosophical writings of Wycliffe, with which he had been for some years acquainted, were his text-books.

This appoinment had a deep influence on the already vigorous religious life of Huss himself; and one of the effects of the earnest and independent study of Scripture into which it led him was a profound conviction of the great value not only of the philosophical but also of the theological writings of Wycliffe.

As early as the 28th of May 1403, it is true, there had been held a university disputation about the new doctrines of Wycliffe, which had resulted in the condemnation of certain propositions presumed to be his; five years later (May 20, 1408) this decision had been refined into a declaration that these, forty-five in number, were not to be taught in any heretical, erroneous or offensive sense.

But it was only slowly that the growing sympathy of Huss with Wycliffe unfavourably affected his relations with his colleagues in the priesthood.

He had spoken disrespectfully of the church, it was said, had even hinted that Antichrist might be found to be in Rome, had fomented in his preaching the quarrel between Bohemians and Germans, and had, notwithstanding all that had passed, continued to speak of Wycliffe as both a pious man and an orthodox teacher.

This decree, as soon as it was published in Prague (March 9, 1410), led to much popular agitation, and provoked an appeal by Huss to the pope's better informed judgment; the archbishop, however, resolutely insisted on carrying out his instructions, and in the following July caused to be publicly burned, in the courtyard of his own palace, upwards of 200 volumes of the writings of Wycliffe, while he pronounced solemn sentence of excommunication against Huss and certain of his friends, who had in the meantime again protested and appealed to the new pope (John XXIII.).

On the 4th of May the temper of the council on the doctrinal questions in dispute was fully revealed in its unanimous condemnation of Wycliffe, especially of the so-called "forty-five articles" as erroneous, heretical, revolutionary.

The propositions which had been extracted from the De Ecclesia were again brought up, and the relations between Wycliffe and Huss were discussed, the object of the prosecution being to fasten upon the latter the charge of having entirely adopted the doctrinal system of the former, including especially a denial of the doctrine of transubstantiation.

The accused repudiated the charge of having abandoned the Catholic doctrine, while expressing hearty admiration and respect for the memory of Wycliffe.

It might not be easy to formulate precisely the doctrines for which he died, and certainly some of them, as, for example, that regarding the church, were such as many Protestants even would regard as unguarded and difficult to harmonize with the maintenance of external church order; but his is undoubtedly the honour of having been the chief intermediary in handing on from Wycliffe to Luther the torch which kindled the Reformation, and of having been one of the bravest of the martyrs who have died in the cause of honesty and freedom, of progress and of growth towards the light.

In the earlier editions of his works sufficient care was not taken to distinguish between his own writings and those of Wycliffe and others who were associated with him.

On the other hand, sanctity of life on the part of the minister is not necessary in order to the validity of the sacraments which he confers, although this was held to be the case by the Donatists in the 4th century, and following them by the Waldensians and Albigenses in the 12th, and by the followers of Hus and Wycliffe in the 14th.

Wycliffe began his public career in 1366 by proving that England was not bound to pay tribute to the pope.

For some years after Wycliffe's death his followers, the Lollards, continued to carry on his work; but they roused the effective opposition of the conservative clergy, and were subjected to a persecution which put an end to their public agitation.

They rapidly disappeared and, except in Bohemia, Wycliffe's teachings left no clearly traceable impressions.

Wycliffe's later attacks upon the papacy had been given point by the return of the popes to Rome in 1377 and the opening of the Great Schism which was to endure for forty years.

His influence was indeed by no means so decisive and so pervasive as has commonly been supposed, and his attacks on the evils in the Church were no bolder or more comprehensive than those of Marsiglio and Wycliffe, or of several among his contemporaries who owed nothing to his example.

It had also furnished its due quota of heretics, although no one so conspicuous as Wycliffe or Huss.

Persecution gave new vitality to their doctrines, which passed on to Wycliffe and Huss, and through these leaders produced the Reformation in Germany and England.

Wycliffe's ideas, conveyed to the continent, precipitated the outbreak of the Hussite storm in Bohemia.

The council of Constance thought to quell it by condemnation of Wycliffe's teaching and by the execution of John Huss (1415).

There is also the fragment of a hymn in praise of Wycliffe.

He afterwards became one of Wycliffe's most determined opponents.

To Bishop Fleming was entrusted the execution of the decree of the council for the exhumation and burning of Wycliffe's remains.

This explains the fact that in collections of medieval homilies that have come down to us, no two renderings of the Biblical text used are ever alike, not even Wycliffe himself making use of the text of the commonly accepted versions that went under his name.

It is first with the appearance of Wycliffe (q.v.) and his followers on the arena of religious controversy that the Bible in English came to be looked upon with suspicion by the orthodox party within the Church.

For it is a well-known fact Wycliffite that Wycliffe proclaimed the Bible, not the Church or Catholic tradition, as a man's supreme spiritual authority, and that he sought in consequence by every means in his power to spread the knowledge of it among the people.

It is, therefore, in all likelihood to the zeal of Wycliffe and his followers that we owe the two noble 1 4 th-century translations of the Bible which tradition has always associated with his name, and which are the earliest complete renderings that we possess of the Holy Scriptures into English.4 The first of these, the so-called Early Version, was probably completed about 1382, at all events before 1384, the year of Wycliffe's death.

It is a matter of uncertainty what part, if any, Wycliffe himself took in the work.

The text of the Gospels was extracted from the Commentary upon them by Wycliffe, and to these were added the Epistles, the Acts and the Apocalypse, all now translated anew.

This translation might probably be the work of Wycliffe himself; at least the similarity of style between the Gospels and the other parts favours the supposition."

Under such circumstances it would be folly to look upon them as anything but late productions, at all events later than the Early Version, and equal folly to assign these bulky volumes to the last two years of Wycliffe's 3 See Paues, op. cit.

It is therefore at present impossible to say what part of the Early Version of the New Testament was translated by Wycliffe.'

The Old Testament of the Early Version was, according to the editors (Preface, p. xvii.), taken in hand by one of Wycliffe's coadjutors, Nicholas de Herford.

In view of the magnitude of the undertaking it is on the contrary highly probable that other translators besides Wycliffe and Nicholas de Herford took part in the work, and that already existing versions, with changes when necessary, were incorporated or made use of by the translators.

After the death of Wycliffe violence and anarchy set in, and the Lollards came The gradually to be looked upon as enemies of order and disturbers of society.

In a convocation held at Oxford under Archbishop Arundel in 1408 it was enacted " that no man hereafter by his own authority translate any text of the Scripture into English or any other tongue, by way of a book, booklet, or tract; and that no man read any such book, booklet, or tract, now lately composed in the time of John Wycliffe or since, or hereafter to be set forth in part or in whole, publicly or privately, upon pain of greater excommunication, until the said translation be approved by the ordinary of the place, or, if the case so require, by the council provincial.

In later years, between 1536 and 1550, numerous editions of Tyndale's New Testament were printed, twenty-one of which have been enumerated and fully described by Francis Fry.9 " The history of our English Bible begins with the work of Tyndale and not with that of Wycliffe," says Dr Westcott in his History of the English Bible, p. 316, and it is true that one of the most striking features of the work of Tyndale is its independence.

He was a learned and eloquent controversialist, and a faithful adherent to Wycliffe's doctrine.

In July 1377 he crowned Richard II., and in 1378 John Wycliffe appeared before him at Lambeth, but he only took proceedings against the reformer under great pressure.

Whilst at Rome he issued several bulls to the archbishop of Canterbury, the king of England, and the university of Oxford, commanding an investigation of Wycliffe's doctrines.

At this time Protestant opinions were being disseminated in England chiefly by the surreptitious circulation of the works of Wycliffe, and especially of his translations of the New Testament.

The duke's politics were opposed by the chief ecclesiastics, and in resisting them he had made use of Wycliffe.

With Wycliffe's religious opinions he had no sympathy.

For Wycliffe and his adherent John Purvey (probably the author of the Commentarius in Apocalypsin ante centum annos editus, edited in 1528 by Luther), as on the other hand for Hus, the conviction that the papacy is essentially Antichrist is absolute.

The expelled head of the seculars was a certain John de Wiclif, who has been identified with the great reformer Wycliffe.

He appears to have anticipated Wycliffe in advocating the subordination of the clergy to the king.

In the centre the colossal statue of Luther rises, on a pedestal at the base of which are sitting figures of Peter Waldo, Wycliffe, Hus and Savonarola, the heralds of the Reformation; at the corners of the platform, on lower pedestals, are statues of Luther's contemporaries, Melanchthon, Reuchlin, Philip of Hesse, and Frederick the Wise of Saxony, between which are allegorical figures of Magdeburg (mourning), Spires (protesting) and Augsburg (confessing).

Wycliffe uses "richessis."

There he became greatly impressed by the writings of Wycliffe, of whose Dialogus and Trialogus he made copies.

At Paris his open advocacy of the views of Wycliffe brought him into conflict with John Gerson, chancellor of the university.

He gave great offence also by exhibiting a portrait of Wycliffe in his room.

In 1410 Jerome, who had incurred the hostility of the archbishop of Prague by his speeches in favour of Wycliffe's teaching, went to Ofen, where King Sigismund of Hungary resided, and, though a layman, preached before the king denouncing strongly the rapacity and immorality of the clergy.

He was accused of spreading Wycliffe's doctrines, and his general conduct at Oxford, Paris, Cologne, Prague and Ofen was censured.

His courage failed him in prison and, to regain his freedom, he renounced the doctrines of Wycliffe and Hus.

He was educated by his father till he was seventeen, when he was placed under the tuition of Charles Wycliffe Goodwin, the orientalist and archaeologist.

In 1373 he declared in convocation that he would not contribute to a subsidy until the evils from which the church suffered were removed; in 1375 he incurred the displeasure of the king by publishing a papal bull against the Florentines; and in 1377 his decided action during the quarrel between John of Gaunt and William of Wykeham ended in a temporary triumph for the bishop. Wycliffe was another cause of difference between Lancaster and Courtenay.

Having meanwhile become archbishop of Canterbury Courtenay summoned a council, or synod, in London, which condemned the opinions of Wycliffe; he then attacked the Lollards at Oxford, and urged the bishops to imprison heretics.

This tract has been attributed to Wycliffe, but without adequate authority, and it is thought to be of later date, and if Wykeham is meant by the castlebuilding clerk it only shows that popular repute is no guide to fact.

When parliament again met in 1371, the blame was laid on the clerical ministers, under the influence of Wycliffe.

Of his works, which contain many ideas similar to those of his contemporary Wycliffe, those entitled 0 obecnych vecech Krestanskych (on general Christian matters) and Besedni reci (in a rough translation " learned entertainments ") have most value.

The church of St Mary is a fine building, mainly Decorated and Perpendicular, wherein are preserved relics of John Wycliffe, who was rector here from 1374 until his death in 1384.

The exhumation and burning of his body in 1428, when the ashes were cast into the Swift, gave rise to the saying that their distribution by the river to the ocean resembled that of Wycliffe's doctrines over the world.

Wycliffe is further commemorated by a modern obelisk in the town..

This book, dealing chiefly with Wycliffe and Huss, and coming down to 150o, formed the first outline of the Actes and Monuments.

But near at hand and in full affiliation with the university are Victoria College (Methodist), Wycliffe College (Anglican), Knox College (Presbyterian) and St Michael's College (Roman Catholic), wherein courses in divinity are given and degrees conferred.

As to intellectual vigour, the age that produced two minds of such marked originality in different spheres as Wycliffe and Chaucer must not be despised, even if it failed to carry out all the promise of the 13th century.

The intellectual head of this party at the time was John Wycliffe, a famous Oxford teacher and for some time master of Balliol College.

Every man, as Wycliffe taughtusing the feudal analogies of contemporary societyis Gods tenant-inchief, directly responsible for his acts to his overlord; the pope is always thrusting himself in between, like a mesne-tenant, and destroying the touch between God and man by his interference.

Wycliffe at a later period of his life developed views on doctrinal matters, not connected with his original thesis about the relations between Church and State, and foreshadowed most of the leading tenets of the reformers of the 16th century.

Lancaster hoped to use Wycliffe as his mouthpiece against his enemies; Wycliffe hoped to see Lancaster disendowing bishops and monasteries and defying the pope.

Hence the attempt of the political bishops to get Wycliffe condemned as a heretic became inextricably mixed with the attempt of the constitutional party, to which the bishops belonged, to evict the duke from his position of first councillor to the king and director of the policy of the realm.

Only Bishop Courtenay refused to be terrorized; he chose this moment to open a campaign against the dukes ally, John Wycliffe, who was arraigned for heresy before the ecclesiastical courts.

Hitherto it had been only the works of Wycliffe that had merited this attention on the part of inquisitors.

King Henry and those who wished to please him professed as great a hatred and contempt for the new purveyors of German doctrines as for the belated disciples of Wycliffe.

The higher clergy were more than ever immersed in affairs of state, Caesarean as Wycliffe would have called them.

It is probable that the name was given to the followers of Wycliffe because they resembled those offshoots from the great Franciscan movement which had disowned the pope's authority and set before themselves the ideal of Evangelical poverty.

In England Wycliffe's whole life was spent in the struggle, and he bequeathed his work to the Lollards.

The main practical thought with Wycliffe was that the church, if true to her divine mission, must aid men to live that life of evangelical poverty by which they could be separate from the world and imitate Christ, and if the church ceased to be true to her mission she ceased to be a church.

Wycliffe was a metaphysician and a theologian, and had to invent a metaphysical theory - the theory of Dominium - to enable him to transfer, in a way satisfactory to himself, the powers and privileges of the church to his company of poor Christians; but his followers were content to allege that a church which held large landed possessions, collected tithes greedily and took money from starving peasants for baptizing, burying and praying, could not be the church of Christ and his apostles.

Lollardy was most flourishing and most dangerous to the ecclesiastical organization of England during the ten years after Wycliffe's death.

Wycliffe had organized in Lutterworth an association for sending the gospel through all England, a company of poor preachers somewhat after the Wesleyan method of modern times.

In 1382, two years before the death of Wycliffe, the archbishop of Canterbury got the Lollard opinions condemned by convocation, and, having been promised royal support, he began the long conflict of the church with the followers of Wycliffe.

The Lollard literature was very widely circulated - books by Wycliffe and Hereford and tracts and broadsides - in spite of many edicts proscribing it.

In 1406 a document appeared purporting to be the testimony of the university in favour of Wycliffe; its genuineness was disputed at the time, and when quoted by Huss at the council of Constance it was repudiated by the English delegates.

All the articles of Pecock's list, save that on capital punishment, are to be found in the Conclusions; and, although many writers have held that Wycliffe's own views differed greatly from what have been called the "exaggerations of the later and more violent Lollards," all these views may be traced to Wycliffe himself.

The persecutions were continued down to the reign of Henry VIII., and when the writings of Luther began to appear in England the clergy were not so much afraid of Lutheranism as of the increased life they gave to men who for generations had been reading Wycliffe's Wickette.

Besides the Speculum Richard also wrote, according to the statement of William of Woodford in his Answer to Wycliffe (Edward Brown, Fasciculus Rerum expetendarum, p. 193), a treatise De Officiis; and there was formerly in the cathedral library at Peterborough another tractate from his pen, entitled Super Symbolum.

After the death of Boniface the splendid fabric of the medieval theocracy gave place to the rights of civil society, the humiliation of Avignon, the disruption of the great schism, the vain efforts of the councils for reform, and the radical and heretical solutions of Wycliffe and Huss.

But John was anxious that this council should be held in Rome, a city where he alone was master; the few prelates and ambassadors who very slowly gathered there held only a small number of sessions, in which John again condemned the writings of Wycliffe.

In the crusading epoch the Cathars and Paulicians carried all over Europe the old iconoclastic spirit, and perhaps helped to transmit it to Wycliffe and Hus.

Moreover, Wycliffe's translation was in Middle English, a form of English that would be too archaic for subsequent readers.

Wycliffe members often focus on assisting language groups who speak previously unwritten languages.

Early in the 15th century John Hus - under the inspiration of Wycliffe - initiated at Prague the revolt against the Roman Catholic Church.

Among several other indicia this may be recognized by the woodcut of the " sea eagle " at page II, bearing at its base the inscription " Wycliffe, 1791," and by the additional misprint on page 145 of Sahaeniclus for Sahaeniclus.

The action of the council of Constance in renewing the condemnation of the doctrines of Wycliffe pronounced at Rome in 1413, and in condemning and executing John Huss and Jerome of Prague, is dealt with elsewhere (see Wycliffe; Huss; Jerome Of Prague).

On such matters he always writes as a disciple of Wycliffe.

During the later years of his life he attacked the doctrine of transubstantiation, and all the most popular institutions of the Church - indulgences, pilgrimages, invocation of the saints, relics, celibacy of the clergy, auricular confession, &c. His opinions were spread abroad by the hundreds of sermons and popular pamphlets written in English for the people (see Wycliffe).

The church chose to abide by the idea of Hildebrand and to reject that of Francis of Assisi; and the revolt of Ockham and the Franciscans, of the Beghards and other spiritual fraternities, of Wycliffe and the Lollards, were all protests against that decision.

He trained for ordination into the Church of England at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford and was ordained in 1996.

He shows considerable animus against John Wycliffe and the Lollards.