On March 27th, 1378, Pope Gregory XI died. A short time before his death he returned to Rome, and thus was terminated the “Babylonish captivity,” as the residence of the Popes at Avignon has been called by the Italians.
His successor was elected amidst the threats and tumult of the Roman populace, who demanded a Roman for their Pope. The cardinals elected the Archbishop of Barri, an Italian, who assumed the name of Urban VI.
By his coarse manners, his injudicious severity and his intolerable haughtiness, he alienated the minds of many from him. The cardinals especially were estranged, and declaring his election null and void, being made under intimidation, they withdrew to Fondi, a city of Naples, and there elected another Pontiff, who was proclaimed as Clement VII.
Thus was created the famous schism in the papacy which for half-a-century divided and scandalized the papal world.
Urban VI dwelt in the Vatican at Rome, while Clement VII installed himself at Avignon. Germany and England, and some of the smaller European States, sided with Urban; and France, Spain, Sicily, Cyprus, and Scotland espoused the cause of Clement.
The effects of this controversy were most disastrous, and are thus stated by Mosheim in his Ecclesiastical History: “The distress and calamity of these times were beyond all power of description; for not to insist on the perpetual contentions and wars between the factions of the several Popes, by which multitudes lost their fortunes and lives, all sense of religion was extinguished in most places, and profligacy rose to a most scandalous excess. The clergy, while they vehemently contended which of the reigning Popes was the true successor of Christ, were so excessively corrupt as to be no longer studious to keep up even the appearance of religion or decency, and in consequence of all this, many plain, well-meaning people, who concluded that no one could possibly partake of eternal life unless united with the Vicar of Christ, were overwhelmed with doubt, and were plunged into the deepest distress of mind.”
Wicliffe was deeply affected by the events of this papal schism. Soon after its commencement he published his tract entitled On the Schism of the Popes. In this he adverted to the dispute as having divided the hierarchy against itself, and as presenting a powerful inducement to attempt the destruction of those laws and customs which had served so greatly to corrupt the clergy and to afflict the whole Christian community. “Emperors and kings,” he states, “should help in this cause to maintain God’s law, to recover the heritage of the Church, and to destroy the foul sins of clerks, saving their persons. Thus should peace be established and simony destroyed.”
While the rival Popes were launching their anathemas against each other, Wicliffe, who had retired to his country parish, was sowing by the peaceful waters of the Avon, and in the rural homesteads of Lutterworth, that Divine seed which yields righteousness and peace in this world and eternal life in that which is to come.
Wicliffe was a true pastor. He preached the Gospel to the poor and ministered by the bedside of the sick and dying, whether freeman or slave. Nearly 300 of his sermons remain, having escaped the efforts which were persistently put forth to destroy all that issued from his pen. This sufficiently assures us that his labors as a preacher were most abundant.
In his pulpit discourses, as well as in his writings, from this time forward until his death, he frequently alluded to the lust of dominion, the avarice, and the cruelty of the contending Popes, placing these in fearless contrast with the maxims and spirit of Christ and His apostles.
“Simon Magus,” he observed, “never labored more in the work of simony than do these priests. And so God would no longer suffer the fiend to reign in only one such priest, but for the sin which they had done, made division among two, so that men, in Christ’s name, may the more easily overcome them both.”
Wicliffe’s path was onward. He was repelled from the Popes, whom he feared not to speak of as antichrists, but he was drawn closer to the true Head of the Church, the Lord Jesus. The Bible became increasingly precious, and the reformer now issued his work On the Truth and Meaning of Scripture. In this he maintained the supreme authority of the Word of God, the right of private judgment, and the sufficiency of Christ’s law by itself to rule Christ’s Church.
The labors which devolved upon him, and the harassing attacks of his foes, were more than his frame could bear. In 1379 he fell dangerously ill at Oxford. Great was the joy in the monasteries, but for that joy to be complete the heretic must recant. Four regents, representing the four orders of friars, accompanied by four aldermen, were deputed to visit their dying enemy. They hastened to his dwelling, and found him stretched upon his bed, calm and serene. “You have death on your lips,” said they; “be touched by your faults, and retract in our presence all that you have said to our injury.” Wicliffe remained silent, and the monks flattered themselves with an easy victory. But the nearer the reformer approached eternity the greater was his horror of monkery. The consolation he had found in Jesus Christ had given him fresh energy. He begged his servant to raise him on his couch. Then, feeble and pale, and scarcely able to support himself, he turned towards the friars, who were waiting for his recantation, and opening his livid lips, and fixing on them a piercing look, he said with emphasis, “I shall not die, but live, and again declare the evil deeds of the friars.” The monks rushed in astonishment and confusion from his chamber.
Wicliffe’s prediction was verified, and he lived to complete the most glorious of his works — the translation of the Scriptures into the language of the people.
The Word of God had been banished into a mysterious obscurity. It is true that several attempts had been made to paraphrase or to translate various portions. The venerable Bede translated the Lord’s Prayer and the Gospel of John into Saxon in the eighth century; the learned men at Alfred’s court translated the four evangelists; Elfric, in the reign of Ethelred, translated some books of the Old Testament; an Anglo-Norman priest paraphrased the Gospels and the Acts; Richard Rolle, “the hermit of Hampole,” and some pious clerks in the fourteenth century, produced a version of the Psalms, the Gospels, and the Epistles; but these rare volumes were hidden, like theological curiosities, in the libraries of the convents.
In Wicliffe’s time, it was a maxim that the reading of the Bible was injurious to the laity, and accordingly the priests forbade it. Oral tradition alone preserved among the people the histories of the Holy Scriptures, mingled with legends of the saints.
The result of previous labors in furnishing vernacular versions of the Scriptures is thus summed up by Lechler: “A translation of the entire Bible was never during this whole period accomplished in England, and was never even apparently contemplated. The Psalter was the only book which was fully and literally translated into all the three languages — Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, and Old English. In addition, several books of Scripture, especially Old Testament books, were translated partially or in select passages — for example, by Elfric, leaving out of view poetical versions and the Gospel of St. John, translated by Bede, which, celebrated work has not come down to us. Last of all — and this fact is of great importance — in none of these translations was it designed to make the Word of God accessible to the mass of the people, and to spread Scriptural knowledge among them. The only object which was had in view was partly to furnish aid to the clergy, and to render a service to the educated class.”
Such was the state of Biblical translation when Wicliffe undertook his great work. His idea was to give the whole Bible in the vernacular to the people of England, so that every man in the realm might read in the tongue wherein he was born the wonderful works of God.
The motives which urged him to this enterprise may be gathered from some of his writings about this time. In his treatise on the Truth and Meaning of Scripture, he maintained the sufficiency of Christ’s law for all purposes of doctrine, discipline, and daily conduct; and he argued “that a Christian man, well understanding it, may gather sufficient knowledge during his pilgrimage upon earth; that all truth is contained in Scripture; that we should admit of no conclusion not approved there; that there is no court beside the Court of Heaven; that though there were a hundred Popes, and all the friars in the world were turned into cardinals, yet should we learn more from the Gospel than we should from all that multitude; and that true sons will in no wise go about to infringe the will and testament of their Heavenly Father.”
Later on he wrote: “As the faith of the Church is contained in the Scriptures, the more these are known in an orthodox sense the better.”
A few years only of broken health remained for the accomplishment of his great undertaking; his intellectual vigor, however, was unimpaired. He was ignorant of Greek and Hebrew, but he was a good Latin scholar, and above all he loved the Bible; he understood it, and he desired to communicate its treasures to others.
While the papal world was in commotion, in his quiet Rectory of Lutterworth he set himself down to his task. With the Latin Vulgate open before him — that book which all his life he had studied — he translated verse after verse, rendering into the English tongue those sublime truths which had ever been to him strength, guidance and consolation.
The whole of the New Testament was translated by himself, but the Old Testament appears to have been translated, under his direction, by one of his friends — probably being carried on while the New was in progress, and the translation effected by Dr. Nicholas Hereford, of Oxford. It was, however, partly revised by Wicliffe.
The grand work was finished by 1382. As a version of the Scriptures it was remarkably truthful and spirited. Hereford’s portion was very literal, keeping close to the Latin text, but the books which Wicliffe translated were kept thoroughly in accordance with the spirit of his mother tongue, and the requirements of English readers; the translation therefore is so simple as to be thoroughly readable.
“Be not youre herte afraied, ne drede it; ye bileuen in God, and bileue ye in me. In the hous of my fadir ben many dwellyngis; if ony thing lesse, Y hadde seid to you, for Y go to make redi to you a place. And if Y go, and make redi to you a place, eftsoones Y come, and Y schal take you to my silf, that where Y am, ye be. And whidur Y go, ye witen, and ye witen the weie.”
The translation ended, the next effort of the reformer was to get the book placed if possible within the reach of all. “When the work of translating was ended,”says Dr. Wylie, in his History of Protestantism, “the nearly as difficult work of publishing began. In those days there was no printing-press to multiply copies by the thousand as in our times, and no publishing firm to circulate these thousands over the kingdom. The author himself had to see to all this. The methods of publishing a book in that age were various. The more common way was to place a copy in the hall of some convent or in the library of some college, where all might come and read, and, if the book pleased, order a copy to be made for their own use. Others set up pulpits at cross ways, and places of public resort, and read portions of their work in the hearing of the audiences that gathered round them, and those who liked what they heard bought copies for themselves. But Wicliffe did not need to have recourse to any of these expedients. The interest taken in the man and in his work, enlisted a hundred expert hands, who, though they toiled to multiply copies, could scarcely supply the many who were eager to buy. Some ordered complete copies to be made for them; others were content with portions; the same copy served several families in many instances, and in a very short time Wicliffe’s English Bible had obtained a wide circulation, and brought a new life into many an English home.”
In the work of diffusing the Scriptures his “poor priests” doubtless assisted.
The importance of preaching deeply impressed the reformer. “The highest service,” said he, “that men may attain to on earth is to preach the Word of God.” He saw the begging friars strolling over the country, preaching the legends of saints and the history of the Trojan war, captivating the people, and he felt the need of doing for the glory of God what they did to fill their wallets. Turning to the most pious of his disciples, he said, “Go and preach, it is the sublimest work. After your sermon is ended, do you visit the sick, the aged, the poor, the blind and the lame, and succor them according to your ability.”
These “poor priests,” as they were called, set off barefoot, a staff in their hands, clothed in a coarse robe, living on alms, and satisfied with the plainest food. They stopped in the fields near some village, in the churchyards, in the market-places of the towns, and sometimes even in the churches. The people thronged around, as with a popular eloquence they urged them to repentance and pointed out the way of salvation by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
One who became widely known, and who in an especial manner gained the affections of the people, was named John Ashton. He might frequently have been seen journeying along the highway engaged in his Master’s service, or standing under some tree by the roadside preaching to an attentive crowd, or seated at some lowly cottage hearth telling of the love of Jesus.
These evangelists traveled throughout the land, finding favor with the people, but being persecuted by the Church. In 1382 Knighton, a contemporary writer, asserted that “their number very much increased, and that, starting like saplings from the root of a tree, they were multiplied, and filled every place within the compass of the land.”
The doctrines of the reformer were thus disseminated over the country, and they became known to all classes of society. Wicliffe afterward asserted that a third of the priests of England were of his sentiment on the question of the eucharist, and among the common people his disciples were innumerable. “You could not meet two men on the highway,” said one of his enemies, “but one of them was a Wicliffite.”
As soon as Wicliffe’s translation of the Bible began to be scattered abroad, a great outcry was made by the priests and their followers. He had committed a crime unknown to former ages. He was a heretic, a sacrilegious man; he had broken into the temple and stolen the sacred vessels; he had fired the House of God. Knighton, who was canon of Leicester, reflects the spirit of the clergy when he says, adverting to the zeal of Wicliffe in giving the Scriptures to the people: “Christ delivered his Gospel to the clergy and doctors of the Church, that they might administer to the laity and to weaker persons, according to the state of the times and the wants of men. But this Master John Wicliffe translated it out of Latin into English, and thus laid it more open to the laity, and to women who could read, than it had formerly been to the most learned of the clergy, even to those of them who had the best understanding. And in this way the Gospel pearl is cast abroad, and trodden under foot of swine, and that which was before precious to both clergy and laity is rendered, as it were, the common jest of both. The jewel of the Church is turned into the sport of the people, and what was hitherto the principal gift of the clergy and divines is made forever common to the laity.”
Those who love the Word of God look not, however, upon Wicliffe’s act as a crime; they rather count, his translation of the Scriptures not only as one of the greatest ornaments of the English language of his age, but as being the noblest monument of himself.
Search the Scriptures for salvation,
Christ the Lord has told us so;
Every tongue and every nation
Should the Holy Bible know;
God’s message ’tis, of love and life
Sent to a world of sin and strife.