It was for this very end that the “Word of God written” might be forever common to the people, as accessible to them as to the most privileged orders, that Wycliffe seems at an early time in his life to have entertained the great idea and formed the purpose of giving to his countrymen a version of Holy Scripture in the English language. For, although we cannot here enter into details, it would appear from the careful, learned, and elaborate preface to the magnificent edition of Wycliffe’s Bible by Forshall and Madden,[46] that the progressiveness characteristic of Wycliffe’s views and work was apparent in the translation of the Bible. With all deference to the opinions of those who believe that man’s works spring full-formed from the human brain, like Minerva from the head of Jupiter, there is reason for believing that so early as 1356, or about that time, Wycliffe began his work of translating the Scriptures, and that, with many interruptions or intermissions, he continued to prosecute his great enterprise till he had the joyful satisfaction of seeing the translation of the New Testament completed in 1380. The idea had grown in his mind, and the work grew under his hand. He could now put a copy of the Evangel into the hands of each evangelist whom he sent forth. Up to this time he could but furnish his poor preachers with short treatises and detached portions of Scripture. But now he could give them the whole of the New Testament in the language of the people of England. It was a great gift, and it was eagerly desired by multitudes who had been perishing for lack of knowledge. And but for the opposition of the hierarchy, the book and the evangelist might now have had free course in England. The work of translating the Old Testament was being prosecuted by Nicolas Hereford, when he was cited to appear before the Archbishop. Two MS. copies of Hereford’s translation in the Bodleian Library “end abruptly in the book of Baruch, breaking off in the middle of a sentence.[47] It may thence be inferred that the writer was suddenly stopped in the execution of his work; nor is it unreasonable to conjecture, further, that the cause of the interruption was the summons which Hereford received to appear before the synod in 1382.”
“The translation itself affords proof that it was completed by a different hand, and not improbably by Wycliffe himself. Hereford translates very literally, and is usually careful to render the same Latin words or phrases in an uniform manner. He never introduces textual glosses. The style subsequent to Bar. iii. 20 is entirely different. It is more easy, no longer keeps to the order of the Latin, takes greater freedom in the choice of words, and frequently admits textual glosses. In the course of the first complete chapter the new translator inserts no less than nine such glosses. He does not admit prologues. The translation of this last part of the Old Testament corresponds with that of the New Testament, not only in the general style, but also in the rendering of particular words.”[48]
Wycliffe’s work was really done when the whole Bible was published in the English language. And although he set himself to improve, correct, and amend his own and Hereford’s translation, yet he could now, as at no previous time, say, “Now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace.” Not long after this he died in peace at Lutterworth, in Leicestershire, on the 31st of December 1384. And notwithstanding the ridicule of all who snarl at Mr. Foxe for counting him a martyr in his calendar, he really lived a martyr’s life, and died a martyr’s death: he lived and died a faithful witness of the truth. If he was not in spirit a martyr, there never was a martyr in the history of the Church; and if his persecutors were not in spirit tyrants whose purpose was to add Wycliffe’s name to the roll of martyrs, there never were those who persecuted the saints unto bonds, imprisonment, and death. What else means the decree of the Council of Constance in 1415, which not only cursed his memory, as that of one dying an obstinate heretic, but ordered his body (with this charitable caution, “if it may be discerned from the bodies of other faithful people”), to be taken out of the ground and thrown far off from any Christian burial? In obedience to this decree—being, as Godwin says, required by the Council of Sena so to do[49]—Richard Fleming, Bishop of Lincoln, Diocesan of Lutterworth in 1428, sent officers to ungrave the body of Wycliffe. To Lutterworth they come, take what was left out of the grave, and burning it, cast the ashes into the Swift, a neighboring brook running hard by. “Thus hath this brook conveyed his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into the narrow seas, and these into the main ocean. And thus the ashes of Wycliffe are the emblem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all the world over.”[50]
With Fuller’s graphic record of the action of the servants of Bishop Fleming of Lincoln we might conclude our review of the work of this truly great and good man; but we cannot conclude without saying that the decree of the Constance Council and the action of the Lincoln bishop reveal at the same time the power of Wycliffe’s doctrines and the impotence of the papal opposition to Wycliffe and to Lollardism. Truth dies not: it may be burned, but, like the sacred bush on the hillside of Horeb, it is not consumed. It may fall in the street; it may be trodden under foot of men; it may be put into the grave; but it is not dead,—it lives, rises again, and is free. The bonds only are consumed; and the grave-clothes and the napkin only are left in the sepulchre. The word itself liveth and abideth forever. It has in it not only an eternal vitality, but also a seminal virtue. It is the seed of the kingdom of God. Some of the books of Wycliffe were put into the hands of John Hus in the University of Prague. Of Hus it may be said that, like the prophet, he ate the books given to him. He so appropriated them, not in the spirit only, but also in the letter, that the doctrines, and even the verbal expressions, of Wycliffe, were reproduced and proclaimed by him in Bohemia. This is demonstrated by Dr. Loserth in his recent work, “Wycliffe and Hus.”[51]
The story of the Gospel in Bohemia is really a record of the work of Wycliffe in a foreign land, where he was regarded as little less than “a fifth evangelist.” The heresies of Wycliffe, condemned by the Council of Constance, were the Gospel for which John Hus and Jerome of Prague died the death of martyrs. But not only so.
“When I studied at Erfurth,” says Martin Luther, “I found in the library of the convent a book entitled the ‘Sermons of John Hus.’ I had a great curiosity to know what doctrines that arch-heretic had propagated. My astonishment at the reading of them was incredible. I could not comprehend for what cause they burnt so great a man, who explained the Scriptures with so much gravity and skill. But as the very name of Hus was held in so great abomination, that I imagined the sky would fall and the sun be darkened if I made honorable mention of him, I shut the book with no little indignation. This, however, was my comfort, that he had written this perhaps before he fell into heresy, for I had not yet heard what passed at the Council of Constance.”[52]
Germany through Luther owes much to John Wycliffe. Germany acknowledges the obligation, and through Lechler, Buddensieg, Loserth, and others, it is offering its tribute of gratitude to the memory of the earliest of the Reformers. For, although the fact is ignored by many, the Reformation was but the exposition and developed application of the doctrines of John Wycliffe. It was Shakespeare who said of the great Lollard chief of England—Sir John Oldcastle, the good Lord Cobham—“Oldcastle died a martyr!”[53] But it is one of the most coldly severe and critical of historians who says:—
“No revolution has ever been more gradually prepared than that which separated almost one-half of Europe from the communion of the Roman See; nor were Luther and Zwingle any more than occasional instruments of that change, which, had they never existed, would at no great distance of time have been effected under the names of some other Reformers. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the learned doubtfully and with caution, the ignorant with zeal and eagerness, were tending to depart from the faith and rites which authority prescribed. But probably not even Germany were so far advanced on this course as England. Almost a hundred and fifty years before Luther, nearly the same doctrines as he taught had been maintained by Wycliffe, whose disciples, usually called Lollards, lasted as a numerous though obscure and proscribed sect, till, aided by the confluence of foreign streams, they swelled into the Protestant Church of England. We hear indeed little of them during some part of the fifteenth century; for they generally shunned persecution, and it is chiefly through records of persecution that we learn the existence of heretics. But immediately before the name of Luther was known, they seem to have become more numerous; since several persons were burned for heresy, and others abjured their errors, in the first years of Henry VIII.’s reign.”[54]
Corresponding with what is stated by Hallam, is the fact that John Knox begins his history of the Reformation in Scotland by giving, in what he calls “Historiæ Initium,” a chapter on the history of Lollardism in Scotland:—
“In the scrolls of Glasgow is found mention of one whose name is not expressed, that, in the year of God 1422, was burnt for heresy; but what were his opinions, or by what order he was condemned, it appears not evidently. But our chronicles make mention that in the days of King James the First, about the year of God 1431, was deprehended in the University of St. Andrews, one Paul Craw, a Bohemian, who was accused of heresy before such as then were called Doctors of Theology. His accusation consisted principally that he followed John Hus and Wycliffe in the opinion of the Sacrament, who denied that the substance of bread and wine were changed by virtue of any words, or that confession should be made to priests, or yet prayers to saints departed.... He was condemned to the fire, in the whilk he was consumed, in the said city of Saint Andrews, about the time aforewritten.”