Wycliff on Church Elections
John Wycliff (1329-1384) has well been called the “Morning Star of the Reformation,” and he is best remembered as the first translator of the Bible into English. Because the Papacy was in such disarray during his lifetime, he was able to write and act with a freedom that would not be matched until the great Reformation. To assure that the English people would not remain in darkness of Catholics dogmas, between 1375 and 1382 Wycliff wrote twelve major treatises in Latin, condemning abuses of the church and calling for reform. The excerpt below is from a recent translation of the tenth of these treatises “On Simony” condemning the culture of his day in which every major church office was sold [McVeigh, T.A., translator, “John Wycliff — On Simony,” Fordham University Press, New York (1992) Section 35:18-36:22.] Since the church owned massive tracts of the most fertile land throughout Europe, and further, since it received annual rent from the tenant farmers, significant monies flowed through the hands of prominent church officials, the bishops and cardinals. This money was frequently diverted to their private use. The Papacy maintained that it had the right to buy and sell the management of these massive estates to bishops and cardinals of its choosing. Wycliff contradicted this, and for good measure attacked transubstantiation. To him, the practice of the primitive church was clear, they held an election for who their bishops, or “overseers” would be:1
“… Thus parochial churches are said to possess the essential right to the ground they are built on; and they pretend that all patronage looks to the pope as its source in accordance with the text at the beginning of the second book of the Decretals … the final disposition, however, of such patronage ought to be dealt with by an ecclesiastical judge who should reestablish it as a spiritual patronage in conformity with Christ’s law. But if the judge himself should be corrupt and avaricious, the rest of the church should make a ruling about it in keeping with the ultimate will of the first patron, Christ, which is apparent in his Gospel … But after worshippers of signs gained control, each kind of patronage became perverted: for laymen [i.e. church officials controlling the bishop’s office] invalidly buy and sell patronage like cattle for profit when, on the contrary, by the law of nature the people ought to choose a more suitable person, and bishops who are turned toward worldly affairs instead of toward the task of patronage despoil their subjects. This is a very deceptive kind of patronage just like the false claim that Christ in blessing of the bread in the sacrament of the altar completely destroys the bread itself. The saints in the primitive church did not think this way about election, but by the consent of the people who were obliged to assist, an election took place, as is clear …”
Wycliff did more than write. An aged Oxford professor, Wycliff showed great energy late in life and founded a group of untrained preachers called Lollards, who preached his teaching all over England. The Roman Catholic Church curtailed their ministry in 1401, when it succeeded in persuading Parliament to enforce the capital punishment called for in the declaration “De Haeretico comburendo” (Burning the Heretics.) Nevertheless, they were never eliminated. The Lollards helped to prepare the way, even though unnoticed, to the great Reform in England. The Bohemians, who studied at Oxford University and absorbed Wycliff’s teachings, returned with them to their land, which influenced John Huss’ life and the Bohemian Reform.
— Richard Doctor
(1) The English word “bishop” is a corrupted pronunciation of the Greek word “Episcopos” or “overseer.”