By
the fourteenth century, the Roman Catholic Church was in desperate need of
reform. Previous attempts to reform the church had achieved little success and
had only resulted in more legalism and hypocrisy within the church. The papacy
was once again on the decline, grappling for power with the nations of Europe. Moreover,
many priests and other church leaders were corrupt and abused their authority. For
those in the lower-classes, Bibles were virtually unattainable, and only priests
were allowed to partake of the cup in the Lord’s Supper. These abuses within
the church produced a negative reaction, and some within the church began to
press for reform. Among these were John Wycliffe and John Huss. Both denounced
the corruption evident within the church and pressed for a return to the
authority of the Scriptures. Their efforts were met with much resistance by the
leaders of the Roman Catholic Church. The Church would win for a time, but the
legacy of both of these men would live on and play a role in the future
movements that would become known as the Protestant Reformation.
John Wycliffe
Around
the year A.D. 1330, in the small town of Wycliff-on-Tees, John Wycliffe was
born.[1] While, little is known
about his early life, Wycliffe surely grew up as a devoted Roman Catholic lad. He
had a knack for learning and left home for Oxford when he was about fifteen. At
Oxford, Wycliffe became a distinguished student and would spend most of his
life learning and teaching at Oxford. He became a bachelor of arts in 1356, and
by 1360, he had become the master of Baliol College in Oxford. In addition, he
obtained his bachelor’s in theology 1369 and finished his doctorate in 1372.[2] While at Oxford, Wycliffe
wrote several treatises on logic and metaphysics, including On Logic and
On Universal Being. While these treatises did not cause controversy like
his later works would, they contained the foundation for his later thought. For
example, in On Logic, he writes in his introduction that he has been urged
“to compose a reliable treatise aimed at making plain the logic of Holy
Scripture.”[3]
Already, Wycliffe’s love for the Bible and his view of its authority were
developing.
During
his time at Oxford, Wycliffe also held several ministerial positions. In 1361,
Wycliffe was instilled as a priest of the parish of Fillingham. When he asked
to be transferred somewhere closer to home, he was simply given a prebend (a
stipend from a collegiate church) in Aust and eventually was given permission
to continue to his studies at Oxford in 1363.[4] In 1374, Wycliffe, who had
developed a relationship with Duke John of Gaunt (a son of King Edward III),
was sent as part as a royal committee to discuss political and religious
issues.[5] While Wycliffe’s part in
the affair was minimal and brief, he received the parish of Lutterworth as a
reward. Thus, throughout his Oxford career, Wycliffe received funds from a
plurality of parishes, a practice that he would later denounce but does not
seem to have completely discontinued himself.
After
having served the crown in 1374, Wycliffe wrote two treatises that would begin
to create opposition between him and the church. These treatises were On
Divine Dominion and On Civil Dominion, and in them, he argued that
only the righteous have the right to rule and wield authority, not those who
act wickedly, even if they are a king or a pope.[6] These works, combined with
his preaching and lecturing against the sins of those in church leadership
(including the pope), resulted in Archbishop Sudbury calling Wycliffe to answer
for his teachings in 1377 before a group of bishops at the Cathedral of St.
Paul. However, John of Gaunt went with Wycliffe, and the meeting erupted in
chaos, causing Wycliffe and the Duke to flee. Shortly after, Pope Gregory XI
issued five papal bulls against Wycliffe. Rather than tempering his writings
against the Roman Catholic Church and the pope, Wycliffe became more bold in
denouncing the corruption in the church and in suggesting ideas that threatened
the supposed orthodoxy of the church.
Wycliffe was not the first to
denounce the corruption within the church, but his boldness in these
denunciations brought negative attention to him from those who felt threatened.
He argued that the church had become caught up in political affairs and in
amassing property. As a result, the majority of priests had neglected their
true stewardship, especially gospel preaching and humble service, and were
prone to simony, arrogant possession of power, and various immoralities.[7] Furthermore, Wycliffe
detested the corruption that had overtaken the papacy. He publically preached
that the pope had no authority to excommunicate.[8] The root of the problems
in the papacy, Wycliffe largely attributed to the Donation of Constantine,
which he detested. These bold declarations against the church did not go
unnoticed.
One of Wycliffe’s major teachings
that threatened the church’s orthodoxy was his rejection of transubstantiation.
Around 1380, his work On the Eucharist was published, and its contents
played a large role in Wycliffe’s parting from Oxford in 1381. Wycliffe
rejected the doctrine of transubstantiation as a deviation from the early
church’s theology of the Eucharist. He taught that the bread and wine remained bread
and wine even after they were consecrated and that Christ was really present in
the elements, but only figuratively.[9] Wycliffe compared the
Eucharist to the incarnation, insisting that in the Eucharist, the elements of
bread and wine remain, even as Christ is present in them. Wycliffe’s teaching,
which would become known as “remanence,” sought to retain the tradition of
Christ’s presence in the elements, but he could not accept the traditional
doctrine that the bread and wine really and fully became the body and blood of
Christ, leaving only the appearance of bread and wine. In the end, a committee
of theologians at Oxford censured Wycliffe’s teachings on the Eucharist, and
soon after, in 1381, Wycliffe left Oxford for his parish at Lutterworth.
Another of Wycliffe’s teachings that
caused controversy was his insistence upon the authority of Scripture and that
it belonged to the true, elect church that included peasants as well as clergy.
In his work On the Truth of Sacred Scripture, Wycliffe asserted that the
Bible as the Word of God is “the only standard of faith and source of
authority.”[10]
Nevertheless, he did not deny that the Bible should not be divorced from the
authority of the church. However, he defined the church not as the baptized
believers under the headship of the pope, but as the elect people of God under
the headship of Christ.[11] This teaching led
Wycliffe to the undertaking that he is best known for: the translation of the
Latin Vulgate into English that he began in the early 1380’s.
After meeting opposition from the
pope, bishops, and several theologians at Oxford, Wycliffe withdrew from public
life and spent the last three years of his life at Lutterworth. During this
time, he produced many works, including several against the corruption of the
church, his Trialogus (an approachable work on various topics including
theology and ontology), and his Opus Evangelicum (an exegetical work on
several passages in the gospels).[12] In addition, he began his
work of translating the Latin Vulgate into English. However, he was not able to
finish the work himself, and the task was completed by his followers. On
December 31, 1384, John Wycliffe died after suffering a stroke. His followers,
known as Lollards, continued in his footsteps, resisting the tradition of the
established church and preaching the Bible to the common people. Furthermore,
his teachings spread to Bohemia, where a man named John Huss would also take a
bold stand against the dogma of the Roman Catholic Church, losing his life as a
result. The same council that would condemn Huss in 1415 at Constance also
formally declared Wycliffe a heretic. As a result, Wycliffe’s bones were dug
up, burned, and cast into a river in 1428, but his legacy lived on in the
Lollards and the followers of John Huss.
John Huss
John Huss was born in the little
village of Husinec in Bohemia around the time Wycliffe was finishing his
doctorate in 1372. Huss came from humble origins, yet he was able to begin his
studies at the university in Prague when he was teenager. While studying in
Prague, Huss was not a noteworthy student, and he finished his studies in 1396,
after earning bachelor’s degrees in the arts and theology and a master’s degree
in the arts.[13] In
1401, Huss began his ministerial career as a priest, and a year later, he
received a preaching position at Bethlehem Chapel in Prague, where he would
preach for ten years. It was as a preacher that Huss became well-known, as word
of his powerful preaching and ideas for reform spread throughout Prague. Many
of these ideas were similar to those of Wycliffe. Huss had encountered
Wycliffe’s teachings through several Bohemian men who had been students at
Oxford. In Huss’s early years at Bethlehem Chapel, he wrote in the margin of a
manuscript, “Wyclif, Wyclif, you will turn many heads.”[14]
As Huss continued preaching at
Bethlehem Chapel, his ideas for reform within the Church were sharpened. He
cried out against the immorality in church, the lust for power in many priests,
the constant strife among the leading powers within the church, and the
corruption of the papacy that was evident in the Great Western Schism. However,
Huss’s preaching caused opposition to arise against him, especially from the
Archbishop of Prague, Zbynek. In 1409, Zbynek received permission from Pope
Alexander V to eradicate all heresy from Prague, targeting Huss and his
followers.[15] The
writings of Wycliffe in the city were burned, but when Zbynek ordered all
preaching to cease, Huss refused. He wrote in a letter two years later, “I am
indeed aware that I refuse to obey either Pope or Archbishop when they forbid
my preaching, for to cease preaching would be contrary to the will of God and
my salvation.”[16] With
papal authority behind him, Zybnek excommunicated Huss, but Huss and the people
of Prague also disregarded this measure. Finally, with the death of Alexander V
and election of John XXIII, the king and queen of Bohemia and other influential
figures were able to lift the ban on preaching and reverse Huss’s
excommunication. However, it was not to last.
In
1412, papal bulls arrived in Prague proclaiming the crusade of John XXIII
against the king of Naples. In addition, the sale of indulgences to support the
crusade began in Prague with much pomp. Huss preached and wrote treatises
against the sale of indulgences to support the pope’s whims and power struggles.
Furthermore, riots broke out in Prague, and several of Huss’s followers were
executed. Finally, John XXIII excommunicated Huss and threatened to put the
city under interdict, banning preaching and participation in the sacraments. In
order to prevent further strife in Prague, Huss decided to leave in the fall of
1412. Nevertheless, he continued preaching in southern Bohemia, and wrote
several treatises, such as his major extant work, Treatise on the Church,
highlighting the teachings that had created controversy with Rome.
Many
of these teachings revolved around Huss’s declaration that the universal church
is made up of the elect and that all authority in the church belongs to Christ,
not the pope. Huss writes in his Treatise on the Church, “The holy
universal church is one and consists of all the predestinate that are to be
saved and that Christ alone is the head of the church . . .”[17] He especially argues
against the idea that the pope is the head of the church. Using Scripture and
arguments from Augustine and others, Huss came to the conclusion that “No pope
is the most exalted person of the catholic church but Christ himself; therefore
no pope is the head of the catholic church besides Christ.”[18] These foundational
principles lined up closely with Wycliffe’s teachings on the church. Moreover, they
allowed Huss to further develop his case that the pope is fallible and may be
resisted if he calls for one to act contrary to the Word of God. Huss exalted
Christ and stressed obedience to him regardless of the commands of any pope or
priest. These teachings angered many leaders within the church.
In addition, Huss’s elevation of
Scripture as the supreme authority and his teaching on the Eucharist also
caused much controversy between him and Rome. In all of Huss’s writings and
letters, his esteem for the Bible is evident. He quotes Scripture extensively
and appeals to its authority first. In addition, he promoted the reading of the
Bible in the vernacular and actively opposed those who prohibited it. Huss
himself revised a Czech translation of the Bible for the common people to read.
The Roman Catholic Church detested such ideas. Huss’s view on the Eucharist
also caused many church leaders to label him a heretic. He rejected Wycliffe’s
doctrine of remanence, but insisted that the common practice of withholding the
cup from the laity was unbiblical. He wrote in a letter several weeks before
his death in 1415, “Do not oppose the sacrament of the Lord's cup . . . . For
there is no Scripture against it; but only a custom which hath grown up, as I
think, through negligence. Only we ought not to follow custom, but the example
and truth of Christ.”[19] This teaching was seen as
dangerous by many in Rome.
After two years of relative peace in
southern Bohemia, Huss was called to the Council of Constance and was promised
a safe conduct in 1414. Huss, entrusting himself to Christ, accepted the
invitation. He was well aware that going to Constance could result in his death,
but expressed his surrender to God’s will in a letter to some friends, writing,
“If my death contribute aught to His [Christ’s] glory and your advantage, may
it please Him to enable me to meet it without sinful fear.”[20] Shortly after he arrived
at Constance, Huss was accused of heresy and imprisoned. Yet even in prison, Huss
could not be silenced. They confiscated all his books, including his Bible, yet
he still managed to write many letters and tracts on various topics, such as
marriage, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord’s Supper, which his friends were
able to smuggle out and distribute.
When
Huss was brought before the council, his enemies accused him of heresy and
misrepresented his teachings. These hearings raged on throughout the first half
of 1415, and despite the immense pressure placed upon him, Huss would not
recant his teachings. They ordered his books to be burned, but he would not
give in. He wrote to his friends at the University of Prague on June 27, 1415:
Moreover, dearly beloved in Christ Jesus, stand in the truth whereof you have knowledge; for it wins its way before all else and waxes strong even for evermore. Let me tell you I have not recanted nor abjured a single article. The Council desired me to declare the falsity of all of my books and each article taken from them. I refused to do so, unless they should be proved false by Scripture.[21]
On
July 5, 1415, the council gave Huss one more opportunity to recant. Once again,
he refused. The next morning, Huss was brought before the council, dressed in
his priestly robes. After a sermon had been preached and Huss’s sentence
confirmed, his robes were stripped from him. They shaved his head and placed on
it a paper hat on which was drawn three demons tormenting a soul and had “Heresiarch”
written on it.[22] Then
he was led out, chained to a stake, and burned. As the flames came up around
him, Huss sang a hymn, and committing his soul to Christ, he died.
Both
Wycliffe and Huss had desired to see the church purified, leaving the pomp and
political power behind and wholly submitting to the authority of Christ. The
church for them was not made up of the pope and his cardinals, but was the
universal, elect body of Christ. Christ was the head, the rock, and the
authority of the Church, and his Words were found in the Bible. Therefore,
Wycliffe and Huss wanted the Scriptures to be preached and made available to
even the lowliest of Christians. The leaders in the church attempted to silence
them, but ultimately failed. The Roman Catholic Church had not heard the last
of the ideas of Wycliffe and Huss. These men were only the precursors of the
ideas that would be proclaimed by the Reformers one hundred years later.
[1]There
is some debate surrounding the date of Wycliffe’s birth. Some have proposed a
date as early as 1320, but others a date as late as 1335. Thus, 1330 is a fair
estimate.
[2]Stephen
E. Lahey, John Wyclif (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 6, eBook.
[3]Ibid.,
9.
[4]Ibid.,
6.
[5]Andrew
E. Larsen, “John Wyclif, C. 1331-1384,” In A Companion to John Wyclif: Late
Medieval Theologian, ed. Ian C. Levy (Leiden, NLD: Brill Academic
Publishers, 2006), 17, accessed December 3, 2015, ProQuest Ebrary.
[6]R. G. Clouse,
“Wycliffe, John,” in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, ed. Walter A.
Elwell, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2001), 1305.
[8]Larsen,
30.
[9]Ian
Christopher Levy, John Wyclif: Scriptural Logic, Real Presence, and the
Parameters of Orthodoxy (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2003), 13,
eBook.
[10]Clouse,
1305.
[11]David
S. Schaff, John Huss: His Life, Teachings and Death, After Five Hundred
Years (New York: Scribner's, 1915), 52, eBook.
[12]Lahey,
27-28.
[13]Schaff,
20.
[14]Thomas
A. Fudge, “To Build a Fire,” Christian History 68 (2000): 4, accessed
December 5, 2015, https://www.christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/to-build-a-fire.
[15]P.
Kubricht, “Hus, Jan,” in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, ed. Walter A.
Elwell, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2001), 582.
[16]John Huss,
The Letters of John Hus: With Introductions and Explanatory Notes, ed.
Herbert B. Workman and R. Martin Pope, trans. R. Martin Pope (London: Hodder
and Stoughton, 1904), 60, accessed December 9, 2015, http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/1994.
[17]John
Huss, De Eccleisa: The Church, trans. David S. Schaff (New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1915), 83, eBook.
[18]Ibid.,
133.
[20]Ibid.,
148.
[21]Ibid.,
268.
[22]Schaff,
255.
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