WYCLIF, JOHN. - English heresiarch, born, it seems, at Wycliffe-on-Tees in Yorkshire, which was the property of his family, probably in 1324 (Herbert B. Workmann, his latest biographer, places his birth in 1328), died at Lutterworth on 31 Dec. 1384.
I. LIFE
He had all the characteristics of a Yorkshireman: a proud and obstinate spirit.His family and his village remained Catholic to this day. W. soon left his ancestral lands to become and remain always a man of Oxford, that is, an intellectual infatuated with his own learning and ideas. He probably arrived at Oxford about 1345; but from 1349 to 1353 he had to interrupt his studies because of the Black Death. In 1353 he became master at Balliol College and rector or curate of Fillingham. When he was ordained priest is not known. In 1363 he appointed a vicar to act for him and returned to Oxford. The previous year he had obtained another benefice; thus he practiced the "accumulation" of benefices and "non-residence," abuses characteristic of the time, which he was later to criticize so vehemently. His theological studies, begun in 1363, culminated in his degree in the autumn of 1372. In 1368 he had exchanged the parish of Fillingham for that of Ludgershall. As early as 1370, as a simple bachelor, he had begun to teach, commenting on the Sentences of Peter Lombard. His *De benedicta Incarnatione* dates from 1370; in 1375 he entered the service of the English crown as *peculiaris regis clericus*. This was of great importance to him. The Apostolic See was then at Avignon, where French popes succeeded one another. France was at war with England; this increased the English distrust of the Holy See. W. soon became the leader of an anti-papal movement in England, posing as a religious reformer and reformist theologian.
II. WORKS
As early as 1374 W. devoted himself to extensive theological activity. He had obtained from the Crown a very lucrative parish at Lutterworth (south of Leicester), resigning the benefice of Ludgershall. Later, by appointing a substitute here as well, he was able to return to Oxford after taking part in a diplomatic mission to Bruges. He then published, one after another, the following works which form a kind of theological sum: *De dominio divino* (1375); *De civili dominio* (1375); *De veritate Scripturae* (1378); *De Ecclesia* (1378), which was later widely used by G. Huss; *De Ordine Christi* (1379); *De apostasia* (1379); *De Eucharistia* (1379); *Confessio* (May 1381); *De blasphemia* (March 1382); *Trialogus* (autumn 1382), and the latter is considered one of the most important; *Opus evangelicum* and *De citationibus frivolis* (1383-84); *De quatuor sectis novellis* (Aug. 1384). He also published tracts, occasional writings, and promoted a new English translation of the Bible. He then took the lead of that reform of the Church which everyone had been insistently demanding since the Council of Vienne. He gathered around him popular preachers and sent them, on his own initiative, throughout the country under the name of "poor priests" (*pouere priesters*), a name which soon became in the popular mouth that of Lollards (from *lollen* or *lullen*, to perform a song of praise).III. CONDEMNATION
To answer for these novelties he was cited in Feb. 1377 by Bishop William of Courtenay at St. Paul's, London. But W. was under the high protection of the Court. Pope Gregory X condemned him and summoned him to appear before his tribunal. This citation, however, was considered an attack on English liberties, and W. replied with a *Protestatio* with some *Conclusiones* in which he identified the Pope with the Antichrist. W. soon found himself involved in all the social movements of his troubled age. Having fallen out with the Court, he sided with the rebellious peasants in 1381. William of Courtenay, who had become archbishop-primate of Canterbury on 9 Sept. 1381, held a synod from 17 to 21 May 1382: all W.'s doctrines were condemned there. Two other synods struck his friends at Oxford. W. was forced after this to leave the University and retire to his parish of Lutterworth. Struck by paralysis in Nov. 1382, he recovered, returned to work, and these were the years of his most intense activity. On 28 Dec. 1384, while assisting at Mass in his parish church, a new attack led him to the grave three days later. He was given a religious funeral, since no express prohibition had been issued. The Council of Constance condemned his writings in May 1415 and ordered the exhumation of his remains. The bishop of Lincoln, on whom Lutterworth depended, had been a disciple of W. and did not carry out the order; but on 9 Dec. Pope Martin V renewed the sentence of the Council and Bishop Fleming had the body exhumed and burned, its ashes being cast into the Swift (spring 1428).IV. DOCTRINE
W.'s doctrines, condensed into 45 propositions, were condemned by the Council of Constance (4 May 1415), then in two bulls of Martin in 1418. They correspond to the 24 propositions already prescribed by the synod convoked by William of Courtenay in May 1382. W. attributes dominium or sovereignty only to God, distinguishing it from potestas, possessio, and usus. Sovereignty or dominion belongs only to God and, under God, to the temporal sovereign. W. therefore excludes the "eminent dominion of the papacy" over civil goods; he rejects both the direct and indirect power of the pope in the civil sphere. But even for legitimate temporal sovereigns, W. subordinates the exercise of their power to the state of grace. No one is a temporal sovereign if he is in a state of rebellion against the eternal sovereign. The man who is in a state of mortal sin cannot hold either sovereignty or property (prop. 15, condemned at Constance; Denz.-U. 595). On the contrary, "every man in a state of grace has real sovereignty over the whole universe," a proposition which implies the communism of the elect. In reality, however, since only God knows the elect, W.'s propositions amounted to revolutionary ideas, without any practical result.W. admitted two principles in matters of biblical authority. The Bible contains all Revelation and is distinguished in itself from any profane writing. No text of the Fathers, of the popes, or of councils has value except insofar as it is based on the Bible. The Bible is the law of God, the unique and complete code of faith and human morals. All the evils of the Church come from ignorance of the Bible. Knowledge of the Bible is a condition of salvation, at least as regards the New Testament; the Bible, according to W., is accessible to any intelligence, even the least acute.
Above all in ecclesiology W. erred, giving rise to the heresy of John Hus. The majority of the 45 propositions of W. condemned at Constance belong to the doctrine of the Church. According to W., the Church comprises three parts: the Church triumphant in heaven, the Church militant on earth, and the Church “dormient” in purgatory. This last expression seems to indicate that W. admitted, indeed, purgatory, but a purgatory without any punishment, since the souls there are “dormient.” W. spoke especially of the Church militant and defined it as: the totality of the predestined: *universitas praedestinatorum*. True members of the Church are therefore only the elect, those alone known to God; one may be in the Church, perhaps even heads of the Church, priests, bishops, Popes, without truly belonging to the Church if one is not predestined. The visible Church is not the invisible Church. The predestined form the Body of Christ, but the *praesciti* (or reprobate) form the body of the Antichrist. The struggle between the City of God and the City of the devil is all human history. The propositions condemned at the Council of Constance pertain especially to the denial of the right of property in ecclesiastics (prop. 10, 32, 33, 36, 39), and since the entire medieval ecclesiastical system was founded on “benefices,” the whole Church of that time was radically condemned. The religious orders that possessed property were no less attacked than the beneficiary clergy (prop. 44, 45, 20-24, 31-36). The mendicant orders, which had dared to censure W. regarding his doctrine of the Eucharist, were not spared by him. The 24th proposition, in fact, stated: “The friars are bound to earn their living by manual labor and not by going to the quest.” One may therefore affirm that W. condemned the entire ecclesiastical system then in existence and considered all possible censures that the Church might issue against him to be devoid of value. After the condemnation inflicted upon him by the Pope, W. became the declared enemy of the papacy: “The Pope,” he said, “is not the head, the life, or the root, except perhaps of those who act badly within the Church.”
W. also rejected outright what the Church taught about indulgences (prop. 42). As for the Eucharist, W. professed philosophical realism in the most absolute and intransigent manner, i.e., the transcendent reality of universals. Everything that exists is as necessary as God and everything happens according to an absolute necessity (prop. 27); consequently, nothing can be annihilated; therefore the bread and wine cannot be either annihilated or transubstantiated. The substance of the bread and wine remains together with the substance of the Body and Blood of Christ. The dogma of transubstantiation is an heresy that goes back no further than Innocent III. He professed consubstantiation, which Luther was later to adopt. Regarding Penance, he accepted only contrition, judging Confession to be superfluous and useless (prop. 7); he affirmed that the Sacrament of Order is not necessary for consecrating the Eucharist or for hearing confessions and absolving.
The errors of W. had a great influence in England, where they were spread by the Lollards. His posthumous influence refers especially to the heresy of John Hus and the Hussites. As regards Luther, it is certain that he knew Hus, and through Hus W., only after he had already professed all his particular errors; it cannot therefore be maintained that he was directly influenced by them.