9 66

the papacy from the time of the Schism, the popes' uncouthe dissension" as he called it.18 About 1380, he wrote a tract against the pope in which the term Antichrist is freely used.1

19

"It were to wit besides how God shewed love to his Church by division of these popes that is now lately fallen. Our belief teacheth by Paul that all things fall to good to God's children that dread him, and thus should Christian men take them. ... And so some men take it that the holy prayer of the church made to Christ and his mother moveth him to send this grace down to divide the head of Antichrist, so that his falsehood be more known. And it seemeth to them that the pope is antichrist here on earth. For he is against Christ both in life and in lore. Christ was most poor man from his birth to his death, and left worldly riches and begging, after the state of innocence; but antichrist against this from the time that he be made pope till the time that he be dead here, coveteth to be worldly rich and casteth by many shrewd ways how that he may thus be rich. Christ was most meke man, and bade learn this of him; but men say that the pope is most proud man of earth and maketh lords to kiss his feet where Christ washed his Apostles' feet. Christ was most homely [familiar] man in life, in deed and in word; men say that this pope is not next Christ in this, for where Christ went on his feet both to cities and little towns, they say this pope will be closed in a castle with great array."

Wyclif continues through a series of telling contrasts between the ways of Christ and the ways of popes as he knew of them. As for the Schism, "this division of these popes may turn to good of many realms, that men trow to neither of them, but, for love of Jesus Christ, in as much as they suen [follow] Christ in their life and in their lore." If the realms would obey the pope only in so far as he followed God's law they would be free from the "blasphemies of indulgences and of other false feignings; for it may fall that the pope grant to rich men that they should go straight to heaven without pain of purgatory, and deny this to poor men, keep they never so god's law."

In another tract, 20 probably written in the last year of his life, Wyclif, having argued against the pope's infallibility and shown that monks, canons and friars act

18 Arnold, o. c. 3, p. 242. It is a pity that Marsiglio and Occam and Wyclif did not perceive that Constantine's Donation was a forgery. 19 Printed in Matthew, o. c. pp. 458-482.

20 Arnold, o. c. Vol. 3, pp. 338-365.

more like servants to Antichrist than of the Apostles, points out that Peter had no more power than the other apostles:

"Christian men believe that Peter and Paul and other apostles took power from Christ, but only to edify the Church. And thus all priests that be Christ's knights have power of him to this end. Which of them hath most power is fully vain of us to treat; but we suppose of priests' deeds that he that profiteth more to the Church hath more power of Christ, and else they be idle with their power. And thus by power that Christ gave Peter may no man prove that this priest, the which is bishop of Rome, hath more power than other priests."

After a while Wyclif shows how little Christian men should fear interdicts or excommunications or crusades, which can "do no harm to a Christian man but if he do harm first to himself. . . . And thus dread we them not for censures that they feign, but dread we ever our God lest we sin against him.

Of Confession Wyclif speaks temperately. The practice has varied, says he:

"For first men confessed to God and to the common people, and this confession was used in the times of the apostles. Afterwards men were confessed more especially to priests, and made them judges and counsellors of their sinful lives. But in the third time since the fiend was loosed, pope Innocent 21 ordained a law of confession that each man once a year should privily be confessed of his proper priest, and added much to this law that he could not ground. And if this pope's ordinance do much good to many men, natheless many men think that it harmeth the Church." 22

Auricular confession pointed to absolution by the priest, the falsehood and demoralizing effects of which Wyclif never tired of denouncing. Privy confession is an innovation of the fiend, and a device to subject men to the pope. To grant absolution belongs to God: " a priest should not say I assoil,' when he know not whether God assoil." 23 The confessors of great men are highly paid, those with whom the rich treat privily as to their sins, from whom, also privily, they are wont to receive evil

21 Innocent IV at the Lateran council of 1213.

22 Arnold o. c. Vol. 3, p. 255, in a long tract on the Schism.

23 Matthew, o. c. pp. 327-345.

counsel, as they make confession without contrition, to the damnation of both parties:

"thus sin might be bought for money as one buys an ox or a cow; and so rich men had occasion to dread not for to sin, when they might for a little money be thus assoiled of all their sins; and poor men might despair, for they had not to buy thus sin. . . . And he that trusteth to popes' bulls or assoilings from pain and sin, or other words of confessors that they feign besides God's law, is foolishly deceived in his belief and hope, but we should believe that the grace of God is so great and plenteous that if a man sin never so much nor so long in his life, if he will ask God's mercy and be contrite for his sin, God will forgive him his sins without such japes feigned of priests. But be men ware of this peril, that continuance of man's sin without sorrow and displesaunce will make his sin hard and bereeve him of power to sorrow therefore and to get mercy; and thus men should ever dread sin, and flee to knit [make fast] on to another: for when a man sinks in the mire, at the last he may not help himself." Yet Wyclif returns to the thought that secret repentance may atone for sins of conscience; "men should understand that the courtesy of God asketh not of each man to shrive him thus by voice of mouth." 24

25

Denunciation of the feigned miraculous power of priests and pope was one path by which Wyclif advanced to his denial that the natural elements in the Eucharist were changed. No false teaching was ever more cunningly brought in by hypocrites, or cheats the people in more ways.' Moreover, transubstatiation disturbed his scholastic reasoning upon substance and accidents. He says in a Latin sermon: "It seems enough for the Christian to believe that the body of Christ is in some spiritual and sacramental manner at every point of the consecrated host, and that next after God honor is to be chiefly rendered to that body, and in the third place to that sensible sacrament, as to an image or tomb of Christ." 26

24 Touching the supererogatory merits of the saints, on which the pope might draw, Wyclif's words are full of scorn: "And so this fond fantasy of spiritual treasure in heaven, that each pope is made dispenser of this treasure at his own. will, this is a light word, dreamed without ground. For then each pope should be lord of this heavenly treasure, and so he should be lord of Christ and other saints in heaven, yea, if he were a fiend, as was Judas Iscariot." Arnold, o. c. Vol. 3, p. 262. 25 Trialodus, IV, 2. Matthew's translation.

26 Matthew, o. c. p. xxii, where the Latin is given and from where I have taken the above translation. Wyclif's Confessio, Fas. Ziz. 115-132 states his position elaborately. The following extract will be under

The Wyckett, a popular controversial tract questionably ascribed to Wyclif, stript the mystery from all the sacraments, including the Eucharist:

Therefore all the sacramentes that be lefte here in earth be but myndes of the body of Christ, for a sacrament is no more to saye, but a sygne or mynde of a thynge passed or a thynge to come, for when Jesu spake of the breade and sayde to his disciples, As ye do this thyng, do it in mynde of me (Luke xxii) . . . Also Christ sayeth (John xv) I am a very vyne. Wherefore worshyppe ye not the vyne for God as ye do the bread? Wherein was Christ a very vyne, or wherein was the bread Christ's bodye? In figurative speech, which is hid to the understanding of synners. Then if Christ became not a material either [or] an earthly vyne, neither material vyne became the bodye of Christ. So neither the material bread was changed from his substance to the flesh and body of Christ."

stood by anyone interested in these attempted formulations of a magicmystery Non tamen audeo dicere quod Corpus Christi sit essentialiter, substantialiter, corporialiter, vel identice ille panis. . . . Credimus enim quod triplex est modus essendi corporis Christi in hostia consecrata, scilicet virtualis, spiritualis, et sacramentalis. Virtualis est quo bene facit per totum suum dominium, secundum bona naturae vel gratiae. Modus autem essendi spiritualis est, quo corpus Christi est in eucharistia et sanctis per gratiam. Et tertius modus essendi sacramentalis, quo corpus Christi est singulariter in hostia consecrata.

CHAPTER XX

LOLLARDY AND PECOCK AND GASCOIGNE

IT may have been, as Milton says, that Wyclif's preaching "was to his countrymen but a short blaze, soon damped and stifled." Yet we shall find his true succession not merely in such lights of the subsequent reformation as Latimer and Hooper, but in the English people themselves, as in the stirrings of the Puritan movement, with its hatred of prelacy and "Judaizing" ceremonial and its insistence upon Scripture as the sum and limit of religious truth. Of a surety these tendencies had lived on after Wyclif's death, "damped" to be sure, but hardly "stifled."

Far

His followers were soon called Lollards, a name of unknown origin. It is hard to see in them more than faintly glowing embers,- or their time was not yet come. and wide the realm was dominantly, but not violently, orthodox. Innovations in belief were not favored. Men and women were accustomed to being "assoiled " by priests and Friars, and needed just such solemn tinsel of assurance, especially when they came to die. Indulgences, relics, pilgrimages were popular. People are not readily disturbed in beliefs and practices which are well suited to their unenlightenment. As for the Mass, it was the central authoritative saving miracle; attack upon it or any paring down of its efficiency roused anger. Here and there men perceived the dupery by which Friars and Pardoners filled their pouches. But there was little indignation. Few are so keen-minded as to be angered by what is monstrous only to the mind. For wide-spread

wrath, men's passions must be roused; their money must be taken in ways and for persons they dislike. Some general hatred of the popes or the priests and the prelates of the land was roused by tithes and other exactions, or