Calendar of Saints: John Wyclif (1)

Twice a week I post a quote from saints from the Episcopal Calendar of Saints that week. They are to be meditative and mindful, playful and thought inducing. I hope they are helpful in your spiritual journeys.

John Wyclif (1330 - 1384)
Translator and Reformer
October 30

John Wyclif (also spelled Wycliffe, Wycliff, Wicliffe, or Wiclif) was born in Yorkshire around 1330, and was educated at Oxford, becoming a doctor of divinity in 1372.

In 1374, King Edward III appointed him rector of Lutterworth, and later made him part of a deputation to meet at Brussels with a papal deputation to negotiate difference between King and Pope. About this time Wyclif began to argue for "dominion founded on grace." By "dominion" he meant both the right to exercise authority in church or state and the right to own property. He maintained that these rights were given to men directly from God, and that they were not given or continued apart from sanctifying grace. Thus, a man in a state of mortal sin could not lawfully function as an official of church or state, nor could he lawfully own property. He argued that the Church had fallen into sin and that it ought therefore to give up all its property and that the clergy should live in complete poverty. This disendowment was to be carried out by the king. Later generations saw him as a precursor of the Protestant Reformation of the 1500's, but his direct influence on the beginnings of that movement appear to be surprisingly slight. (Only John Hus seems to have read any of his work.)

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