For many years, very few copies of the Bible were available to the rich and none for the average man on the street. For a thousand years, the word of God had been locked up in languages known only to the learned. This was primarily Latin, as translated by Jerome and available only to Catholics.
The church had ruled that all religious services were to be done in Latin; thus, the average man on the streets could not understand what was said by the priests in the worship service (Latin Mass) of the Catholic Church. There were no more than fifteen translations in French which were not accessible to the public.
In the fourteenth century, there arose in England a man who would make a big impact in changing the situation concerning the availability of the Scriptures. In addition, he would lead a revolt against the Catholic Church and its doctrine.
John Wycliffe lived about two hundred years before the time of the Protestant Reformation, but his teachings were close to those of Luther, Calvin, and other reformers. He was a man ahead of his time. Historians have labelled him “the Morning Star of the Reformation.”
John Wycliffe lived almost two hundred years before the Reformation. Born c. 1330 in Yorkshire, England, he died Dec. 31, 1384. He received his education at the University of Oxford. Later, he would become a teacher at Oxford. At first, his interest was in politics. He became a chaplain for the king.
He took a bold stand against the payment of tribute claimed by the pope from the English king and showed that papal assumption of authority over secular rulers was contrary to both reason and revelation.
Thus, an effectual blow was struck against papal supremacy in England. Pope Gregory XI issued five bulls against Wycliffe, denouncing his theories and calling for his arrest. The call was refused. Oxford refused to condemn its outstanding scholar.
Wycliffe would return to the Oxford area, and from the seclusion of his study, he began a systematic attack on the beliefs and practices of the Catholic Church. As he more clearly discerned the errors of the papacy, the more earnestly he presented the teachings of the Bible. He saw that Rome had forsaken the word of God for human tradition.
He fearlessly accused the priesthood of having banished the Scriptures, and demanded that the Bible be restored to the people and that its authority be again established in the church.
Wycliffe, with clear insight, struck at the root of the evil, declaring that the system of the priesthood and the order and rank of the clergy was itself false and corrupt and that it should be abolished.
His chief target was the doctrine of “transubstantiation”, that the substance of the bread and wine used in the Eucharist is changed into the actual body and blood of Christ. He condemned the doctrine as idolatrous and unscriptural.
He sought to replace it with the idea of remanence, that nothing changed about these elements; they remained the same after the priest offered a prayer. Few writers attacked their opponents with such strong wording as Wycliffe did with the doctrines of the Catholic Church.
A papal bull arrived in England with a command for the arrest and imprisonment of the heretic Wycliffe. This command pointed directly to burning at the stake. It was feared that Wycliffe would soon fall prey to the vengeance of Rome.
It would seem that providence intervened as the pope died instead of Wycliffe. The death of the pope was followed by the election of two rival popes. This occurrence greatly weakened the power of the papacy, and Wycliffe was temporarily forgotten.
Wycliffe now preached the gospel in the halls of Oxford and became known as “the gospel doctor.” But he also preached to the poor. He determined that the gospel should be carried to every part of England.
To accomplish this, he organised a group of preachers who were simple, common, devout men who loved the truth. These men went everywhere, teaching in the marketplaces, in the streets of the big cities and in the country lanes. Thus, we have a small Reformation taking place in England.
But his greatest work remained yet to be done. His greatest intention was to translate the Bible into English so that every man in England might read in the language in which he was born, the wonderful works of God. But suddenly his labours were stopped.
He was not yet sixty years of age when attacked by a dangerous illness. The clergy rejoiced when they heard this. They thought he would die. But he didn’t die and was more determined than ever before to accomplish an English Bible.
During the last years of his life, Wycliffe, with the assistance of some of his students, undertook a translation of the Scriptures from the Latin into the English tongue. The work was completed about 1382, the first translation to be made in English.
It is not known how much of the translation was made by Wycliffe personally; perhaps the New Testament and part of the Old Testament. Yet it is correct to describe it as the Wycliffe version, for it was due to his scholarship and under his guidance that the historic project was accomplished.
In 1388, John Purvey, a close friend and associate, thoroughly corrected and revised Wycliffe’s first version. This Bible held sway until the sixteenth century. The art of printing was unknown. It was only by slow and wearisome labour that copies of the Bible could be made. So great was the interest in obtaining the Bible that many willingly engaged in the demand.
Some of the more wealthy purchasers desired the whole Bible. Others bought only portions. In many cases, several families united to purchase a copy. Thus, Wycliffe’s Bible found its way to the homes of the people who spoke English.
Wycliffe’s emphasis on the sole infallibility of the Scriptures made it open for men to examine what the Scriptures say. As a result of Wycliffe’s writings and the preachers he sent out to preach caused many, to recognise a new and accurate doctrine. Thus, a new faith was accepted by half of the people of England. Wycliffe expected that his life would be the price of his fidelity.
The king, the pope, and the bishops were united to accomplish his death. But before they could touch him, he fell stricken with palsy, and in only a short time yielded up his life. More than forty years after his death, the Catholic Church ordered his bones exhumed and publicly burned. His ashes were thrown into a nearby stream.