Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are doing
something a little different. We are setting
the time machine back a good long way. We're
heading to the 14th century. A fascinating and
I would say an incredibly turbulent time. It's
a period that feels almost alien to us now. Absolutely.
It feels like a different planet. And we are
focusing on a man who has this incredibly poetic,
almost cinematic nickname. History remembers
him as the morning star of the English Reformation.
Stella Matutina. The Morning Star. Exactly. John
Wycliffe. Now, usually when people think of the
Reformation, you know, breaking away from the
Pope, translating the Bible, shaking up the church
hierarchy, they think of Martin Luther, right?
Oh, absolutely. They think of the 1500s, the
hammering on the door in Wittenberg. They do.
Luther is the headline act for most people. He's
the rock star of the movement. But our mission
today is to unpack how this Oxford professor,
nearly two centuries before Luther, was already
doing all of that. He was the prototype. He really
was. He was challenging the pope, was taking
off the friars, and he was fundamentally redefining
what authority meant in the Middle Ages. You
can't really understand the explosion of the
Protestant Reformation without understanding
the fuse that Wycliffe lit in the 1300s. I mean,
he built the intellectual scaffolding that everyone
else climbed on later. And what I love about
this deep dive is that we're going to separate
the man from the myth because there is a lot
of myth. I mean, the Wycliffe Bible is famous.
It's iconic. But as we look through the source
material, there's this massive aha moment waiting
for us regarding that book. It's a bit of a shock
for people. Yeah. Modern scholarship suggests
that while it bears his name, Wycliffe himself
might not have translated much of it or perhaps
any of it personally. Which is wild. It's like
finding out Steve Jobs didn't actually solder
the chips in the first iPhone. That is a very
apt analogy. He was the architect, the driving
force, the inspiration. But the hands on work.
That's a much more complex story involving a
team of people. So we have a stack of sources
here. His biography, historical accounts, and
his own heavy -hitting writings like De Civili
Dominio and De Veritate Sacrae Scripturae. We
are going to dig into the mind of this guy. Yeah,
let's do it. But before we get to the man, we
have to set the scene. Because the world Wycliffe
lived in was, well, it was falling apart. Crisis
is almost too late a word. If you look at the
14th century in England, it is apocalyptic. You
have to put yourself in the mindset of someone
living then. We're talking about the Black Death,
primarily. The Black Death. Wycliffe is at Oxford
University around 1345. He's a young, promising
scholar. Then the plague hits England in the
summer of 1348. I can't even imagine being a
student in that environment. Oxford is a tight
-knit community, crowded halls, shared meals.
It must have been a petri dish. It was devastating.
We're talking about a mortality rate that wiped
out perhaps a third to half of the population
in some areas. That's almost impossible to comprehend.
So for Wycliffe, this isn't just an abstract
problem. He's living through it. Oh, he's in
the middle of it. And for him, it wasn't just
a health crisis. It was a theological crisis.
It shaped his entire worldview. Sources tell
us he developed a very gloomy view of humanity
in the future. Gloomy seems like an understatement.
If half my neighborhood died in a year, I'd probably
be a bit pessimistic, too. He actually believed
the world was going to end at the close of the
14th century. He thought he was living in the
final days, the end times. Wow. And when you
look around at what the plague did, you can understand
why. It felt like judgment. It felt like God
had turned his back on the world. And it wasn't
just that people were dying. It changed the church,
right? The actual structure of the institution
was damaged. Drastically. The mortality rate
among the clergy was incredibly high. Think about
it. Priests were the ones visiting the sick,
doing last rites, leaning in to hear confessions
of the dying. They were on the front lines. Absolutely.
So they were dying in droves. Yeah. And you have
all these vacant positions. The church needed
to replace them and fast. You can't have empty
pulpits. But you can't just conjure up a trained
theologian. Exactly. But you can't train a theologian
overnight. So they lowered the standards. They
had to. Wycliffe saw these replacements. Men
who are often uneducated, illiterate, or disreputable,
as the sources say, taking over holy offices.
So young Wycliffe looks around and sees the world
ending and the people supposed to be saving souls
are, well, they're the B team or the C team.
Yeah, even the F team in some cases. He viewed
the plague as an indictment. God was judging
an unworthy clergy. That seed of resentment,
or rather that... Critical eye toward the church
hierarchy starts right there. He's seeing incompetence
where there should be holiness. And just to add
fuel to the fire, you have the papal schism happening
later on. It's not just the local priest who
is incompetent. The head of the snake is confused.
The chaos of rival popes. This is the Western
schism. You eventually have one pope in Rome
and another pope in Avignon in France. Both are
claiming to be the vicar of Christ. The one and
only. Both are holding the keys to the kingdom
of heaven. And they aren't getting along. Not
at all. They are excommunicating each other.
They are calling each other the Antichrist. If
you are a logical man like Wycliffe, looking
at this chaos, you have to start asking questions
about authority. Right. Who do I listen to? If
Pope A says Pope B is a devil and Pope B says
Pope A is a devil, well, maybe they're both right.
That is a terrifying thought for a medieval Christian.
But okay, so let's get to the man himself. He's
at Oxford. What kind of reputation does he have?
Is he a radical bomb thrower from the start?
Not at all. That's the irony. He is the establishment.
He is the ultimate insider. He becomes the master
of Balliol College in 1361. Later, he's the warden
of Canterbury Hall. So he's a big deal academic.
He's not on the fringes. A massive deal. Henry
Knighton, a chronicler of the time who actually
really disliked Wycliffe's later theology, still
had to admit that Wycliffe was second to none
in philosophy and incomparable in scholastic
discipline. So by all accounts, he was the smartest
guy in the room. Unquestionably. I always find
that fascinating. The biggest revolutionaries
often come from the very top of the system they
eventually try to tear down. They know where
the bodies are buried because they helped build
the cemetery. It gives them the tools to dismantle
it. They know the logic. Yeah. And for Wycliffe,
his tool was logic. He was a philosopher before
he was a reformer. Specifically, he was a realist.
OK, let's unpack this. We're not talking about
realist in the modern sense of being pragmatic
or down to earth. This is deep medieval philosophy.
Right. This is the big debate of the age. Realism
versus nominalism. We need to get this right
because it explains everything he does later.
So break it down for us. What's nominalism? Right.
This is the heavy stuff, but it's crucial. The
dominant trend at the time was nominalism, championed
by people like William of Ockham. Nominalists
argued that universal concepts like humanity
or the church. don't really exist in some higher
reality. They're just names nomina that we give
to groups of individual things. So for anomalous,
the church is just the collection of people,
buildings, and laws that we see right now. What
you see is what you get. Exactly. It's very practical,
very earthly. But Wycliffe disagreed vehemently.
Wycliffe was a realist. He believed that universals
exist really. They're eternal ideas derived directly
from God. They exist in God's mind before they
exist in the world. So there is a divine blueprint.
Yes. There is a perfect church in the mind of
God, an ideal eternal reality. And the church
we see on earth is supposed to be a reflection
of that. Why does that matter to the average
person in the pew? Or rather, why does it matter
so much to Wycliffe? It matters because of how
you view the institution. If you're a nominalist,
the messy, corrupt church you see is the only
church there is. You have to deal with it. You're
stuck with it. Right. But if you are a realist
like Wycliffe, you can look at the visible pope
and the visible bishops and compare them to the
ideal church in God's mind. I see where this
is going. Gives you a standard to judge them
by. Exactly. And if the pope or the bishops aren't
living up to that divine ideal, then they aren't
the real church. They are imposters. His philosophy
gave him the license to judge the visible institution
against an invisible divine standard. That is
a powerful starting point. It transforms philosophy
into a weapon. He believed human thoughts and
logic. bore God's image. So studying logic wasn't
just an academic exercise. For him, it was a
way to understand the mind of God. And that leads
us to his big idea, the one that really started
getting him in trouble. Dominium. Lordship. Right.
De civili dominio. Civil dominion. Break this
down for us. What is Wycliffe arguing here? He's
asking a fundamental question. Who has the right
to rule? Who has the right to own property? And
his answer is radical. He argues that all dominium,
all authority is conferred directly by God. Okay,
that sounds like the standard divine right of
kings. God picks the king, so we have to listen
to the king. It starts that way. It sounds very
orthodox. But then he adds the condition, the
catch. There's always a catch with Wycliffe.
There is. He argues that this authority is conditional
on being in a state of grace. A state of grace,
meaning you're not in sin. Specifically, mortal
sin. Wycliffe argued that dominion is founded
in grace. If a leader, whether it's a king, a
duke, or a pope, is in a state of mortal sin,
they forfeit their divine right to rule. Forfeit
it. They forfeit their right to own property.
In God's eyes, they are stripped of their authority.
Wow. That is, that's a loaded gun. It's a nuclear
weapon in the 14th century. Because everyone
sins. If I'm a peasant and I think my lord is
a greedy glutton, does that mean I don't have
to pay my taxes? Theoretically, yes. But Wycliffe
was careful. He applied this primarily to the
church. He looked at the wealth of the church,
the massive estates, the gold, the palaces, and
he said, this is sin. The church has fallen into
sin through wealth. Therefore. Therefore, they
don't really own it? They have forfeited their
right to it. Wycliffe argued the clergy should
live in radical poverty. like the apostles he
thought the church should look like jesus not
like caesar i can imagine the bishops in their
palaces hearing this and choking on their wine
but here's the kicker he didn't just say the
church should give it up he said someone had
the right to take it yes state intervention he
argued that if the church wouldn't divest itself
of this ill -gotten wealth the state meaning
the king and the nobility had not just the right
but the duty to seize it and suddenly I understand
why he had powerful friends. Precisely. That
is the key to his survival for so long. This
wasn't just theology. This was a fundraising
opportunity for the government. The English government
was broke. You have to remember that this is
the time of the Hundred Years' War. They were
fighting expensive campaigns in France. Right.
Wars are not cheap. And they were tired of sending
tax money to Rome. especially when the Pope was
sitting in Avignon under the thumb of the French
king, their enemy. And here comes the smartest
man at Oxford saying, hey, you know all that
land the church owns? God wants you to take it
back. Talk about music to their ears. It's the
perfect justification for a cash grab. And this
brings us to John of Gaunt. The Duke of Lancaster.
King Edward III's son. Essentially the most powerful
man in England at the time because the king was
old and senile and the heir, the Black Prince,
was dying. Gaunt ran the show. He becomes Wycliffe's
protector. Patron and protector. He saw Wycliffe
as a weapon. He could use Wycliffe's theology
to justify seizing church wealth to fund the
military and the government. It was a perfect
political alliance. It's so cynical, though,
isn't it? I mean, Wycliffe is this pious scholar
wanting a pure church, and Gaunt is just this
power -hungry duke who wants cash. History is
full of strange bedfellows. I doubt Gaunt cared
one bit about realism or universals, but the
argument worked for him, and it elevated Wycliffe.
In 1374, Wycliffe was actually sent to Bruges
as a diplomat to negotiate with the Pope's envoys.
Wow, so he's on the national stage now. He's
not just a professor anymore. He's a player on
the international stage. Imagine Wycliffe at
that table. The austere academic versus the slick
papal lawyers. It must have been a clash of cultures.
But it solidified his position as the king's
man. But being a player means you make enemies.
And Wycliffe made some big ones. The bishops
weren't just going to roll over and give up their
estates. He certainly did make enemies. The church
hierarchy decided they had to shut him up. Let's
talk about the trial at St. Paul's. 1377. This
scene is incredible. It plays out like a movie
script. It is high drama. Wycliffe is summoned
by the Bishop of London, William Courtenay. Now,
Courtney is a powerful figure, an aristocrat.
He wants to crush this upstart priest who is
threatening his property and his power. So Wycliffe
goes to St. Paul's Cathedral. But he doesn't
go alone. He doesn't go like a humble penitent.
No. He rolls up with John of Gaunt, the Duke
of Lancaster, and the Earl Marshal Henry Percy.
and they bring armed supporters. They force their
way through the crowd. It's like a mob boss walking
into a courtroom with his muscle. It really was.
Yeah, and the cathedral is packed. There's a
hostile crowd because Londoners generally hated
John of Gaunt. They thought he was a tyrant.
Tensions are sky high, and the trial, well, it
never actually happened. Why not? Because they
got into an argument about a chair. A chair.
You're kidding. Yes, a chair. Wycliffe walks
in into the Lady Chapel, and Lord Percy, the
Earl Marshal, tells Wycliffe to sit down. He
says something like, You have much to answer
for. You need a soft seat. Okay, that sounds
polite, but in that context, that's a power move.
It's a massive insult to the bishop. In a church
court, the accused stands. The judge sits. By
telling him to sit, Percy is saying, you are
equal to the bishop. This court has no authority
over you. And Bishop Courtney explodes. He goes
ballistic. He says, no. Criminals stand before
their judges. He refuses to let him sit. And
then? And then John of Gaunt jumps in. He starts
shouting at the bishop. Sources say he threatened
to humble the pride of the bishop. He even reportedly
mumbled that he would drag the bishop out of
the church by his hair. That is distinctively
undiplomatic. It turned into a shouting match
between the most powerful secular lord and the
powerful bishop. It completely devolved. That's
where Wycliffe. He's just standing there. He
barely got a word in. He's the eye of the hurricane.
The whole assembly broke up in a riot. The London
crowd heard Gaunt threatening their bishop, and
they rushed the stage. So they had to flee. Gaunt
and Wycliffe had to flee for their lives. No
formal charges were stuck that day. But it shows
how political this had become. It wasn't about
theology anymore. It was about power. It was
state versus church played out in a shouting
match. Exactly. But the church wasn't done. Pope
Gregory XI strikes back in May 1377. He issues
a papal bull. Actually, he sends five copies
of it. Covering his bases. He sends them to the
king, the archbishop, the University of Oxford.
He wants everyone to know. And he condemns 19
of Wycliffe's theses. What was the core of the
condemnation? Was it the church shouldn't own
property thing? That was the main thrust. They
cited de civili dominio. They were furious about
the idea that the church shouldn't own property.
this is interesting, that excommunication shouldn't
include imprisonment. Wait, explain that. That
sounds like a civil rights issue. It kind of
was. Wycliffe argued that excommunication was
a spiritual penalty. Right. It meant you were
cut off from the sacraments. That's bad enough.
Right. But the church was using it as a legal
weapon. If you were excommunicated, after 40
days, the church could signal the state and you
could be thrown in prison. Wycliffe said, no.
That's an abuse of power. The Pope can't use
the king's jails to enforce his spiritual will.
So the Pope condemns him. Erroneous and dangerous.
Does Wycliffe back down? Does he apologize? Not
even a little bit. In fact, he gets lucky. The
bull arrives late in December. By that time,
King Edward III has died. The political landscape
is shifting. So there's a power vacuum. A bit,
yes. The new king, Richard II, is just a boy.
The government is in flux. And Wycliffe advises
the king's council that legally they can just
ignore the pope's demand for money. He's doubling
down. He's telling them the pope is wrong. Keep
the cash. He is. And this is where his rhetoric
starts to get really heated. He starts defining
his enemies clearly. The friars and the pope.
The friars. These are the wandering monks, right?
Franciscans, Dominicans. They were supposed to
be the good guys, the poor ones. Right. Originally,
Wycliffe admired them. He wanted to reform them.
But by this point, his language changes. He wants
their extinction. Extinction. That's harsh. He
called them pests of society, enemies of religion.
Why the change of heart? He felt they were hypocrites.
They took vows of poverty but were obsessed with
temporal gain. They were preaching for money,
telling entertaining stories to get donations
rather than teaching scripture. He saw them as
peddlers of fake religion. And the Pope. This
is the biggest shift. Early in his career, Wycliffe
respected the office of the Pope. But as the
schism dragged on, with two Popes fighting and
the attacks on him increased, he came to view
the Pope not just as wrong, but as the Antichrist.
That's the Antichrist. That is a point of no
return. You can't really negotiate with the Antichrist.
It is. He argued that the claims of the papacy
were unhistorical. He looked at the Bible and
said, I don't see a Pope here. I don't see cardinals.
I don't see this hierarchy. I see Peter. I see
Paul. But I don't see a prince of the church
living in a palace. So up until now, Wycliffe
has survived because he's useful to the state.
He's attacking the church's money, which the
state likes. But then he pivots. He moves from
politics to pure theology. And that's where he
loses his safety net. This is part three of our
story. The theological pivot. This is where he
decides to go after the Eucharist. The doctrine
of transubstantiation. The central miracle of
the medieval mass. The belief that when the priest
blesses the bread and wine, They literally substantially
transform into the body and blood of Christ.
So they might look like bread, taste like bread.
But they are flesh and blood. That was the doctrine.
And Wycliffe says no. He says no. Starting around
1380, he attacks this. He argues for what we
might call consubstantiation or remnants. Remnants.
That's a good word. Meaning the bread remains.
Correct. He argued the bread is very God in form
of bread, but it remains bread substantially.
It keeps its earthly nature while gaining a spiritual
dignity. Why did he care so much? This seems
like such a fine theological point. Why not just
let people believe the miracle? Because of his
realist philosophy? It offended his logic. He
thought it was a logical impossibility for an
accident, the appearance of bread, to exist without
the substance of bread. So for him, it was a
philosophical error. And worse, he thought it
was idolatry. He said people were worshiping
a piece of baked dough. He thought it was a lie
invented by priests to increase their own power.
OK, so why is this the line in the sand? Why
did this make John of Gaunt say, OK, I'm out?
Because denying transubstantiation was heresy.
Pure and simple. Attacking the church's wealth.
That's politics. That's business. Kings do that
all the time. Right. But attacking the mass,
that's attacking the very mechanism of salvation
that the church controlled. It's attacking the
magic. It's touching the third rail. Precisely.
And for the nobility, this was too much. They
didn't want a heretic. They wanted a tax break.
John of Gaunt actually traveled to Oxford specifically
to tell Wycliffe to shut up about it. Did he?
He refused. Wycliffe was isolated. He lost his
powerful friends. But he wouldn't stop. He was
committed to the truth as he saw it, regardless
of the cost. And that leaves to the earthquake
synod of 1382. I love the name of this event.
It sounds like a wrestling match. It's one of
those moments where history writes the script
a little too perfectly. Archbishop Courtney,
his old enemy from the shouting match at St.
Paul's, is now the Archbishop of Canterbury.
So he's got more power now. He calls a meeting
to finally crush Wycliffe. They gather at Blackstriers
in London. And just as they're sitting down to
deliberate... The ground shakes. A massive earthquake
hits London. Walls crack. Stones fall. People
are terrified. I assume Wycliffe's side had something
to say about that. Oh, absolutely. They said,
look, God is angry at you for judging his servant,
Wycliffe. The earth is trembling at your injustice.
But the archbishop had a different spin. Courtney
was clever. He calmed the assembly down. He said,
no, no, this is a good sign. The earth is purifying
itself. Just as the earth is expelling wind and
fumes during a quake, the church must expel this
erroneous doctrine. He compared the earthquake
to the earth farting out heresy. Essentially,
yes. He turned a terrifying omen into a confirmation
of his mission. That is incredible spin doctoring.
You have to admire the quick thinking. It worked.
The earthquake synod condemned 24 of Wycliffe's
propositions. 10 were declared heresy. 14 were
declared erroneous. So what happens to Wycliffe?
Is he burned at the stake right then and there?
That's usually how these stories end. Surprisingly,
no. He is expelled from Oxford. He's banned from
teaching. But he isn't executed. He retires to
his parish in Letterworth. Why wasn't he killed?
He still had enough residual support. And perhaps
the church didn't want to create a martyr just
yet. And remember, the schism was still happening.
The church was distracted. And Wycliffe wasn't
leading an army. He was just a very loud, very
annoying professor. So he's in Letterworth. He's
kicked out of the university. This should be
the end of his career. But in a way, this is
where he becomes the morning star. Because now
he turns his attention to one thing. The Bible.
De Veritate Sacre Scripture, on the truth of
Holy Scripture. This is where he lays down the
foundation for the Reformation. Sola Scriptura.
Scripture alone. Wycliffe argued that the Bible
is the only authoritative guide for the Christian.
If it's not in the Bible, like the papacy or
monks or the complex mass, it's not valid. It's
a human invention. Now, you mentioned earlier
that Wycliffe was a realist philosopher. How
does that connect to his view of the Bible? This
is fascinating. Yeah. He believed the Bible was
one unified word of God, and because it was from
God, who was truth itself, it had to be literally
true. Literally true, like every single word.
Yes, even the parables. He believed that when
Jesus spoke in parables, he was reporting actual
events that had happened. He couldn't accept
that Jesus would use fiction to teach truth.
That is extreme. It led him to some very strange
places. There's the famous worm example. Please
tell me about the worm. I need to hear this.
So in Psalm 22, verse 6, there's a line that
says, I am a worm and no man. Christians have
always interpreted this as a prophecy of Christ's
suffering and humiliation on the cross. Right.
It's metaphorical. But Wycliffe read this literally.
He asked, why would Christ call himself a worm?
He went to his medieval biology books. Now, in
the 14th century, people believed worms were
generated spontaneously from the earth. They
thought they appeared without sexual contact,
without parents. Okay. I think I see where this
is going. So Wycliffe argued that this verse
was proof of the virgin birth. Christ calls himself
a worm because, like a worm, According to medieval
science, he was born without sexual union. That
is a level of literalism I have never heard before.
It's taking bad science and applying it to theology
to prove a point. It shows how his mind worked.
He tried to harmonize everything in scripture
with science and logic as he understood it. He
needed everything to fit into one perfect system.
But the biggest barrier to the Bible wasn't interpretation.
It was language. It was in Latin, and normal
people spoke English. Exactly. And this is Wycliffe's
most famous legacy, the Wycliffe Bible. He believed
the laity, the common people, should have access
to God's law in their own tongue. He said, Christ
taught the people in the language they understood.
Why shouldn't we? But we established in the intro
that he might not have written it himself. The
Wycliffe Bible refers to two distinct versions,
the early version and the late version. The tradition
says Wycliffe did the translation, but modern
analysis of the writing style suggests it was
a team effort. Who was on the team? Nicholas
of Hereford is a big name associated with the
early version. We actually have manuscripts where
the handwriting changes mid -sentence, suggesting
someone else took over, possibly because Hereford
was summoned to Rome to stand trial. What was
the early version like? It was. Rough. It was
a very literal, word -for -word translation from
the Latin Vulgate. So it was clunky. You couldn't
just read it like a story. Incredibly clunky.
It kept the Latin word order. So instead of saying,
the boy hit the ball, it might say, the ball
hit the boy, if that was the Latin order. It's
very difficult to read. And the late version?
That appeared around 1388, after Wycliffe died,
actually. It was likely revised by John Purvey,
Wycliffe's secretary. This one flowed much better.
It was good, idiomatic English. It was made to
be read aloud. So Wycliffe was like the project
manager, the visionary. He was the inspiration.
He created the environment where this could happen.
He provided the intellectual cover. And despite
the church banning these translations later,
making it a capital offense to own one, they
were hugely popular. How popular? Over 200 manuscripts
still exist today. That's amazing for a banned
book in the days before the printing press. Every
single one had to be handwritten. That's incredibly
expensive and time consuming. It shows the hunger
people had. They wanted to know what the book
actually said. They were risking their lives
to read it. So Wycliffe is in Letterworth translating
or supervising translations and writing tracts.
But he's not just writing. He's organizing. Let's
talk about the Lollards. The poor priests. Wycliffe
realized that if the friars were corrupt, he
needed an alternative army. So he sent out itinerant
preachers, often laymen. not ordained priests.
They walked from village to village, barefoot,
clad in simple russet robes, preaching God's
law. And they're called lollards. Where does
that name come from? It started as an insult.
It likely comes from a Dutch word, lollen, meaning
to mumble. The idea was that they were just mumbling
prayers or nonsense. But like many insults in
history, like Methodist or Quaker, they wore
it as a badge of honor. They did. And the lollards
became a genuine movement. They spread Wycliffe's
ideas into the countryside. They preached in
churchyards, in markets, anywhere people would
listen. But ideas have consequences, and sometimes
those consequences are violent. We have to talk
about 1381, the Peasants' Revolt. A massive social
upheaval. The peasants of England rose up against
their lords. They demanded an end to serfdom,
lower taxes, and the redistribution of wealth.
Was Wycliffe responsible for this? It's the million
-dollar question. Wycliffe disapproved of the
revolt itself. He was a scholar. He believed
in order. He didn't want anarchy, but. But. But
he had spent years telling everyone that unrighteous
lords forfeited their right to rule. He had spent
years railing against the wealth of the mighty.
You can see how a peasant hearing a Lollard preacher
say, God hates rich, sinful masters, might pick
up a pitchfork and say, okay, let's fix it. Right.
The bishop is in sin, so his property isn't really
his. Okay, I'll take it. Exactly. His preaching
against wealth and nobility was blamed for sparking
the fire. In fact, during the revolt, the Archbishop
of Canterbury, Simon Sudbury, was dragged out
of the Tower of London and beheaded by the mob
on Tower Hill. Beheaded? Yes. And some of Wycliffe's
more radical followers justified it. They said
Sudbury was a sinner and an oppressor and got
what he deserved. That must have horrified Wycliffe.
It likely did. But it also terrified the establishment.
It confirmed their worst fears. Wycliffe's theology
leads to anarchy. It leads to dead archbishops.
So we're nearing the end of his life. He's in
Letterworth. He's managed to stay out of prison,
but his name is Mud in high society. Yes, and
his health is failing. On New Year's Eve, 1384,
he's attending Mass, which is ironic given his
views on it, and he suffers a fatal stroke. He
loses his speech. He dies a few days later. And
he's buried in consecrated ground, so he died
inside the church. Technically, yes. He was never
excommunicated while he was alive. He died a
priest. But the church has a long memory. They
don't forgive and forget. A very long memory.
Fast forward to 1415, the Council of Constance.
This is over the 30 years after his death. This
is the same council that dealt with Jan Hus,
right? Yes. Jan Hus was a Czech reformer who
was deeply influenced by Wycliffe's writings.
Wycliffe's Latin works had traveled all the way
to Bohemia. Hus was essentially a Wycliffeite.
The council condemned Hus and burned him at the
stake. And they decided they weren't done with
Wycliffe either, even though he was already dead.
No. They declared Wycliffe a heretic, they banned
his writings, and then they ordered a gruesome
finale, a damnatio memoria, a condemnation of
his memory. 1428. Bishop Richard Fleming is ordered
to exhume Wycliffe's body. They went to the churchyard
in Letterworth. They dug up his bones. After
more than 40 years in the ground, they burned
them to ash. Why? What is the point of burning
a skeleton? It was to deny him a Christian burial,
to remove him from consecrated ground, to say,
this man is erased. He does not belong with the
faithful. It was a symbolic act of ultimate rejection.
And they threw the ashes into the river. The
River Swift, which flows through Letterworth.
It's such a visceral image, trying to wash him
away. But as many historians have noted, the
symbolism backfired. How so? There's a famous
observation that comes from the church historian
Thomas Fuller that captures it perfectly. He
wrote that the River Swift bore his ashes into
the Avon, the Avon into the Severn, the Severn
into the narrow seas, and the seas into the main
ocean. So by trying to disperse him, they essentially
symbolized the spread of his doctrine to the
whole world. Exactly. You can burn the bones,
but you can't burn the idea. By the time they
burned him, the Reformation was already unstoppable.
Before we wrap up, I want to do a quick doctrine
check. We've covered a lot, but let's crystallize
what he actually believed at the end. Because
some of it is very Protestant, but some of it
is still very medieval. True. Let's break it
down. First, predestination. He believed in double
predestination. God authors everything. The elect
are predestined to be saved, and the others are
predestined to be lost. It's very strict. Very
Calvinist before Calvin. Second, the church.
He believed the true church is invisible. It's
the body of the elect, known only to God, the
visible Catholic institution. That's just a shell.
It might contain the true church, but it isn't
identical to it. And third? Papal fallibility.
The Pope could be wrong. In fact, the Pope might
not even be one of the elect. He could be predestined
for damnation. That's the heavy one. The idea
that the Pope might be one of the damned. It
completely undermines the hierarchy. If the Pope
isn't one of the elect, then he has no spiritual
authority whatsoever. He's just a man in a funny
hat. So what does this all mean? When we look
back at the Morning Star, what do we see? We
see a man of contradictions. He was a high -ranking
academic who championed the poor. He was a man
who sought the king's help, a political operator.
but eventually alienated the entire nobility.
He wanted to save the church by stripping it
of everything it owned. He was a medieval scholastic,
using medieval logic to dismantle the medieval
world. He didn't set out to start a new religion,
he wanted to purify the old one. But his logic
was a battering ram that eventually broke the
whole thing open. It's fascinating that he died
naturally, in his bed, while his spiritual successor,
Jan Hus, burned, and later Tyndale and others
would burn. He was the lucky one who got away
with it. He was the first. The crack in the dam.
Everyone who came after him owed him something.
Here is a final provocative thought for you to
take with you. Wycliffe's concept of the invisible
church is really unsettling if you think about
it. How so? Well, Wycliffe argued that since
we don't know who is pre -Justin for salvation,
only God knows the list, we can never really
know if the pope or the bishop or your pastor
is actually a member of the church. Right. They
could be an imposter. They could be a wolf in
sheep's clothing in the most spiritual sense.
It creates a profound uncertainty. You can't
trust the robes. You can't trust the title. Right.
It forces you to stop looking at the person and
start looking at the text. It shifts the burden
of discernment onto you, the individual believer.
You have to check the work. Which is the essence
of the modern age. Skepticism of authority. Individual
responsibility. Exactly. So the next time you
see a leader, political or religious. Just remember
Wycliffe and ask yourself, are they real or are
they just wearing the hat? And maybe think about
the worm in Psalm 22 differently, too. Yes, the
worm in the virgin birth. Never forget the worm.
Thanks for listening to The Deep Dive. We'll
catch you in the next century.