John Wycliffe's Opposition To Prayer To Saints And Angels

"Far fewer [Lollard] suspects admitted to holding to the allied opinion, but distinct article, that prayers should not be made to saints but only to God, a view propounded by Wyclif and present among the heretics of East Anglia in the early fifteenth century." (Robert Lutton, Lollardy And Orthodox Religion In Pre-Reformation England [Suffolk, England: The Boydell Press, 2011], 160-61)

For many other examples of pre-Reformation opposition to praying to saints and angels, see here.

Lollards Who Didn't Recant

In a post a few years ago, I discussed the fact that many of the pre-Reformation opponents of Roman Catholicism, such as the Lollards, renounced their views when put on trial. You can read that post for a discussion of the significance of those recantations. For reasons I address there, the pre-Reformation opposition to Catholic beliefs is significant even if some of the people who held those views recanted. But not all of them did, and I want to mention some relevant categories here that could easily be overlooked.

Robert Lutton's Lollardy And Orthodox Religion In Pre-Reformation England (Suffolk, England: The Boydell Press, 2011) mentions that some Lollards fled persecution and were never found (151). If they weren't found, they presumably didn't recant under pressure or for any other reason, as far as we can tell. Lutton also refers to some Lollards who were put on trial posthumously (154). You can't recant at a trial when you're dead.

The Lollards are often thought of as followers of John Wycliffe. A few decades after his death, his body was exhumed and burned by his Roman Catholic opponents, and his ashes were thrown into the Swift River.

"They burned his bones to ashes and cast them into the Swift, a neighbouring brook running hard by. Thus the brook conveyed his ashes into the Avon, the Avon into the Severn, the Severn into the narrow seas and they into the main ocean. And so the ashes of Wycliffe are symbolic of his doctrine, which is now spread throughout the world." (Thomas Fuller, quoted here)

Support For Reformation Beliefs Among The Pre-Reformation Hussites (Part 1)

In other posts, I've discussed other groups who were forerunners of the Reformation to some extent, the Waldensians and the Lollards. I've occasionally discussed the Hussites as well, but not as much. What I want to do in this series of posts is provide more examples from the Hussite movement. Though that movement continued into the Reformation era and beyond, my focus here will be on the pre-Reformation Hussites.

Rome was against Bible reading before they were for it

Richard Phillips at Reformation 21 has provided a helpful survey of all the times when “Bible reading in the vernacular” was condemned, prior to it being accepted at Vatican II:

Rome's suppression of Scripture. To say the least, it is extensive! Consider the following:

• Pope Gregory VII: forbade access of common people to the Bible in 1079, since it would "be so misunderstood by people of limited intelligence as to lead them into error."
• Pope Innocent III: compared Bible teaching in church to casting "pearls before swine" (1199).
• The Council of Toulouse (France, 1229): suppressed the Albigensians and forbade the laity to read vernacular translations of the Bible.
• The Second Council of Tarragon (Spain, 1234) declared, "No one may possess the books of the Old and New Testaments, and if anyone possesses them he must turn them over. . . that they may be burned."
• In response to the labors of John Wyclif, the English Parliament (under Roman Catholic influence) banned the translation of Scripture into English, unless approved by the church (1408).
• The Council of Constance (Germany/ Bohemia, 1415) condemned John Hus and the writings of Wyclif because of their doctrine of Scripture and subsequent teachings. Hus answerd: "If anyone can instruct me by the sacred Scriptures. . . , I am willing to follow him." He was burned at the stake.
• Archbishop Berthold of Mainz threatened to excommunicate anyone who translated the Bible (1486).
• Pope Pius IV expressed the conviction that Bible reading did the common people more harm than good (1564).

It is true that in many cases, the papacy suppressed Scripture because it was being used to teach against the church. But this is exactly the point the Reformers argued: Rome would not allow the Scripture to speak with authority and for that reason suppressed it. Wyclif wrote: "where the Bible and the Church do not agree, we must obey the Bible, and, where conscience and human authority are in conflict, we must follow conscience." For this doctrine and its further implications, his body was exhumed and burned, his ashes scattered in a nearby river, and his Bible translation banned. So much for the Protestant "canard" regarding the Roman Catholic attitude to Bible translation, teaching, and distribution!

Reformation Videos

PBS recently aired a two-hour documentary on Martin Luther that's worth watching. The page just linked says something about "expiring" on September 27, so the video may not be available to watch for free after that date.

Here's an eleven-minute collection of clips I put together on John Wycliffe, taken from Ken Connolly's video, The Indestructible Book (Santa Ana, California: International Baptist Missions, 2004).

And here's an eight-minute video on Thomas Bilney.

Now on YouTube: John Wycliffe

HT: Annoyed Pinoy via Facebook

Wycliffe's translation

From here

CAP 1
1 In the bigynnyng was the word, and the word was at God, and God was the word.
2 This was in the bigynnyng at God.
3 Alle thingis weren maad bi hym, and withouten hym was maad no thing, that thing that was maad.
4 In hym was lijf, and the lijf was the liyt of men; and the liyt schyneth in derknessis,
5 and derknessis comprehendiden not it.