Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T21:27:07.296Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Early Oxford Wyclif: Papalist or Nominalist?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

M. J. Wilks
M. J. Wilks*
Affiliation:
Birkbeck College, University of London
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

From time to time it has been pointed out that Wyclif had a quite exceptional grasp of papal-hierocratic theory. Although its bitter opponent, his extensive knowledge of the refinements of the theory, his almost intuitive appreciation of its most fundamental principles, indicate a depth of penetration into hierocratic ideology which many supporters of papal supremacy must themselves have envied. His effectiveness as an anti-papal writer during the polemics of the 1370s and 1380s lay less in the novelty and originality of his own system of thought, and in the consistency with which he repeated himself, but rather in his superior ability to detect the weakest points in his adversaries’ chain of argument. He not only knew exactly where to thrust between the links, but, more important, how to aim for the pivots of the system, so that the whole hierocratic theory might be turned on its head.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 5: The Church and Academic Learning , 1969 , pp. 69 - 98
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1969

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Page 69 of note 1 See my ‘The Apostolicus and the Bishop of Rome,’ JTS, n. s., XIII-XIV, (1962-3), and ‘Predestination, Property and Power: Wyclif’s Theory of Dominion and Grace,’ SCH, II (1965); also Pantin, W. A., The English Church in the Fourteenth Century, 1955, 130 Google Scholar.

Page 70 of note 1 De Ecclesia, 14, 319-26. All references, unless specified, are to the Wyclif Society editions of Wyclif’s works. According to Wyclif, Nicholas denied the current lay theory of dual monarchy, stressing the perfection of sacerdotal government on earth and the subjection of all kings to the absolute will of the pope. This was justified on the grounds that the pope received imperial power direct from Christ, as shown by his ability to create and depose the Roman emperor, and act as emperor himself during an imperial vacancy. He represents the too numerous group of maniacal lawyers, who, despite their lack of theological training, have induced many bishops to follow them in their blasphemous madness (321).

Page 70 of note 2 Cf.de Vooght, P., ‘Du De consideratione de Saint Bernard au De Potestatepapae de Wiclif,’ Irénikon, XXVI (1953), 114fGoogle Scholar.

Page 70 of note 3 Boyle, L., ‘The Summa Summarum and Some Other English Works of Canon Law,’ Proceedings of the Second International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, Vatican City, 1965, 415-56Google Scholar.

Page 70 of note 4 Workman, H.B., John Wyclif, 1926, I, 102-3Google Scholar.

Page 71 of note 1 Workman, , op. cit., I, 139, 333Google Scholar; Thomson, S. H., ‘The Philosophical Basis of Wyclif’s Theology,’ Journal of Religion, XI (1931), 86–116 at 88-9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Robson, J. A., Wyclifandthe Oxford Schools, 1961, 145 Google Scholar.

Page 71 of note 2 Smalley, B., ‘The Bible and Eternity: John Wyclif’s Dilemma,’ Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XXVII (1964), 73–89 at 79-80CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Dr Smalley suggests two stages in this initial development: first a period of scepticism about Biblical truth, followed by a second phase in which this truth was accepted for the wrong reasons and with the wrong arguments. Then came ‘conversion’ to realism.

Page 71 of note 3 As originally put forward by Dziewicki, M. H., ‘An Essay on Wyclif’s Philosophical System,’ Johannis Wyclif Miscellanea Philosophica, 1902, I Google Scholar, v-xxvii at vi.

Page 72 of note 1 Robson, op. cit., 224; and cf. review by Smalley, , Medium Aevum, XXX (1961), 200-3CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also now Crompton, J., JEH, XVIII (1967), 265 Google Scholar, ‘in some ways he was haunted by guilt at having once embraced the opinions of those modern doctors whose positions he later so violently attacked, who were expounding the new logic of Ockham and his successors.’

Page 72 of note 2 For example see further Lechler, G. V., John Wiclif and his English Precursors, 1878, II, 6–12 Google Scholar; McNeill, J. T., ‘Some Emphases in Wyclif’s Teaching’, Journal of Religion, VII (1927), 447-66CrossRefGoogle Scholar; S. H. Thomson, ‘The Philosophical Basis’, 95f., and Europe in Renaissance and Reformation, 1963, 173-6; Betts, R. R., ‘The University of Prague: The First Sixty Years’, Prague Essays, ed. Seton-Watson, R. W., 1949, 53–68 at 69-70Google Scholar; Hurley, M., ‘Scriptura sola: Wyclif and His Critics,’ Traditio , XVI (1960), 275–352 at 280-2Google Scholar; Robson, , op. cit., 141f., 220 Google Scholar; Smalley, ‘The Bible and Eternity,’ and ‘Wyclif’s Postilla on the Old Testament and his Principium’, Oxford Studies Presented to D. Callus, 1964, 253-96 at 278-9; Crompton, J., ‘Wyclif’, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, X (1965), 1279-80Google Scholar; Spinka, M., John Hus at the Council of Constance, New York, 1965, 27 Google Scholar, and John Hus’ Concept of the Church, Princeton, 1966, 22, 32.

Page 72 of note 3 De compositione hominis, 4, 67, ‘Sed post percepi dicta huiusmodi esse deliramenta iuvenilia’. Deliramento is a favourite expression with Augustine for false doctrines contrary to scriptural truth: e.g. as applied to the teaching of the Jews, Contra adversarios legis et propbetarum, II, 2, 6 (PL, XLII, 642).

Page 72 of note 4 De universalibus, 10, ‘Et sic quando fui iunior involvebam ignoranter universalia sicut forte faciunt multi hodie qui pertinaciter universalia detestantur’: as cited by Thomson, ‘Philosophical Basis’, 89; Robson, op. cit., 145.

Page 72 of note 5 See the passage cited by Robson, op. cit., 180, from the De scientia Dei in which Wyclif says that he used to reject Augustinian teaching and restrict the meaning of ‘present time’ to a particular moment: ‘...quod quondam concessi quando restrinxi verba de praesenti ad unum instane, sed stat quod illud est contra sensum Augustini...‘. There is a similar passage in which he appears to say that he once denied the notion of divine eternity, Responsione; ad R. Strode, 176, ‘Quando autem incarceravi verba temporis, respuendo modum loquendi scripturae, longe aliter sum locutus. Sed modo videtur michi quod ista locutio sit plena brigis et, additis omnibus pictatiis, nimis falsa et fidelibus loquentibus onerosa’. Dziewicki, art. cit., xiv, has pointed out that Wyclif’s later position must be located between a realist acceptance of eternity and a nominalist denial of it. On this basis Wyclif’s admission that he rejected the principle of eternity in his youth would automatically classify him as a nominalist at that time. However it should be noted that in the Responsio passage Wyclif is discussing the question in connection with the meaning of the Ecclesia, and emphasises that he no longer understands this to mean the ‘present Church’ of pope and clergy, but as the eternal Church, the Ecclesia praedestinatorum. From this point of view an admission that he once restricted time to the present is simply another way of acknowledging that he used to accept papal authority, but now looks beyond that authority to the true Church of the elect. This either puts the young Wyclif in the absurd position of having been both a papalist and a nominalist, or we must recognise that the whole question of nominalism is a red herring in this context.

Page 73 of note 1 Note also Trialogus, IV, 13, 289-90, where he states that he once thought that men on earth could regulate the amount of punishment that they would suffer in hell, but now believes this is already determined: ‘Ideo dixi quando fui iunior quod quantitas poenae damni attenditur penes quantitatem commodi quod damnatus haberet si ipsemet non poneret obicem in peccando. Sed modo apparet mihi istud inbrigabile propter multa: primo quia positivum et privativum non sic poterunt coaequari; secundo quia, cum omnia quae evenient de necessitate evenient, absolute necessarium est quod damnatus ponat obicem in peccando ...’. The discussion is in-conclusive — ‘Sed relinquendo materiam istam iuvenibus ...” — but would seem to be related to his later attacks on the efficacity of authorised methods of acquiring additional grace like indulgences and pilgrimages.

Page 73 of note 2 Sermones, II, 52-3, ii, 384.

Page 74 of note 1 See the charges levelled against Wyclif by a doctor of theology who had once been one of his supporters at Oxford, as reported in De peritate sacrae scripturae, 12, i, 346-54, with Wyclif’s replies in defence of Ockham. This opponent may have been William of Rymington, prior of Salley Abbey, Yorks., who accused Wyclif of being doctor errorum modernorum.

Page 74 of note 2 De statu innocentiae, 9, 518.

Page 74 of note 3 Responsiones ad R. Strode, 177, ‘Et aliae conclusiones quae olim videbantur michi mirabiles, iam videntur michi catholice defendendae: quando enim eram parvulus in notitia fidei, loquebar ut parvulus et sapiebam ut parvulus, putans tamquam necessarium quod omnes actus humani forent in sua libertate contradictionis, sic quod uberrime possem facere oppositum aeternae Dei ordinantiae repugnando, sicut infans ductu nutricis ambulare incipiens putat ex se libere sine necessitatione nutricis quorsumcunque voluerit ambulare; quando autem ex Deo factus sum vir, evacuavi ex sua gratia cogitatus, qui erant parvuli, concedens quod homo in gradu suo habet liberum arbitrium, et tarnen necessitatem omnium suorum operum futurorum’.

Page 75 of note 1 Leff, G., Richard Fitz Ralph, Commentator of the Sentences, 1963, 5–6, 9 Google Scholar.

Page 75 of note 2 Cf. my Problem of Sovereignty in the Later Middle Ages, 1963, esp. 151f., 293f. Notice the close relationship between Wyclif’s limitation of divine omnipotence and the demand for limited government in De logica, III, 7, passim, and his use of Aristotle’s Physics in support of this relationship.

Page 75 of note 3 De statu innocentiae, 7, 511-12; and note the reference here to Bradwardine.

Page 75 of note 4 De logica, III, 9, iii, 120.

Page 76 of note 1 III, 9, iii, 68. He adds that Aristotelian physics (as derived through Avicenna) now make it clear to him that coloured clay is still colour and clay, which may amalgamate, but never really lose their separate identities, iii, 79-83.

Page 76 of note 2 III, 9, iii, 120, ‘Et illis superadidi accidentia tamquam res abstractas quae possunt per se existere.’

Page 76 of note 3 De compositions hominis, 2, 36, ‘Quondam autem dixi...et ad istum sensum concessi animam esse corpus vel substantiam sensibilem, et sic essentialiter omne quod est homo. Sed quia tunc videtur quod anima sit materia prima, natura divina natura humana, et sic de multis fidei dissonis, . . . ideo mihi videtur modo quod rationabiliter sit tacenda’. He remarks that he could never understand how dead bodies still moved and appeared to have a ‘life’ of their own ‘quando ymaginabar animam esse essentiam separabilem, materiae coliniatam’, 4, 67.

Page 76 of note 4 De eucharisiia, 2, 52, in which he refers back to his earlier rejection of annihilation in the Summa intellectualium. As shrewdly indicated by J. H. Fisher, John Cower, New York, 1964, 162, 357, Wyclif saw annihilation, the creation of nothingness, as a symbol of sin: thus a realist theory of the eucharist which insisted upon the annihilation of substances was symptomatic of the evil which infected the whole papal system. This is the counterpart to the familiar canonistic theory that the pope can create ex nihilo as an attribute of his divine righteousness.

Page 77 of note 1 De Ecclesia, 5, 107.

Page 77 of note 2 See the combined attack on both realists and nominalists in De apostasia, 15, 204-5, for creating accidens sine subiecto by their theories of the corpus Christi: ‘Et ista est maior blasfemia, quia illud accidens vel nichil est vel vacuum, et concedere hoc de corpore et Deo foret summa blasfemia’.

Page 77 of note 3 Thus in the De eucharistia itself Wyclif stipulates three possible views on the nature of the eucharist: e.g. 2, 29, ‘In qua materia sunt tres viae’; also 7, 222. These are orthodox papal real presence, Ockhamist comme morative, and Wyclif’s dual substance theories, which are to be equated with realist, nominalist and intermediate philosophical positions. His own position is defined as one combining matter and form, or reason (‘Aristoteles vel ratio’) and faith: 3, 67, 78.

Page 78 of note 1 De civili dominio, III, 1, 404; also De ventate sacrae scripturae, 6, i, 114, ‘Unde quando loquebar ut parvulus fui anxie intricatus ad intelligendum ac defendendum istas scripturas de virtute sermonis ... et demum Dominus ex gratia sua apperuit michi sensum ad intelligendum aequivocationem praedictam scripturae, et sic intellexi scripturam sacram nunc loqui ad literám singulariter de scriptura primo modo dicta, nunc pluraliter de scriptura secundo et tertio modo dieta,...Et per istas distinctiones intellexi scripturam infringibiliter veram ad literam’. Cf. 5, i, 100, ‘Quando autem fui minor, abieci locutiones miticas ...’. For the development of the principle that the literal sense involved both the actual words and their spiritual or allegorical meaning see further B. Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, 2nd. ed., 1952.

Page 78 of note 2 De veritate sacrae scripturae, 6, i, 124-5, ‘Quandoque autem contendebam distinguendo hos quatuor sensus ex opposito per rangas inutiles, vocando sensum non solum veritatem quam auctor asserii de scriptura, sed agregatum ex ilio et modo intelligendi nostro: post vero visum est michi modum loquendi esse infundabilem et superflue onerosum’. The objection to admitting human interpretations is that these may vary (‘secundum modos intelligendi hominum variatur’), and therefore only the divine meaning should be considered: ‘Et tune videtur quod solum ille sit sensus scripturae quern Deus et beati legunt in libro vitae’. Cf. the attack on the sophista who would make ‘hominum ascendere in coelum et esse Deum, cum quotlibet ridiculis’ in the De ente in communi, ed Thomson, S. H., 1930, 2, 33 Google Scholar.

Page 79 of note 1 De veniate sacrae scripturae, 6, i, 116, ‘bullae vel epistolae papales dicuntur sacrae’; 15, i, 394, ‘Ideo dicere quod omnes bullae papales sunt paris auctoritatis aut certitudinis veritatis cum sacra scriptura foret blasfeme sibi imponere quod [papa] sit Christus’; 20, ii, 134-5, this would allow the pope to dispense with the Bible and become ‘Deus in terris’. For alter Deus, e.g. De chili dominio, I, 38, 283.

Page 79 of note 2 Note the way in which the attack upon pope and clergy for claiming the power ‘iudicandi absolutionem simpliciter quoad Deum et Ecclesiam triumphantem’ in Sermones, I, i, 341, leads to the assertion that God alone can determine grace and punishment after death, and an admission that he once denied this (‘Quando autem fui iunior negavi quod quidquam sit debitum nisi debeatur simpliciter quoad Deum . . . ’, i, 357) as taking no account of humanly determined merits and demerits: ‘Quondam autem dixi quod relationes huius rationis habent meritum et demeritum pro tempore suo succedens . . . Sed tota ista difficultas est logicalis et inanis’. Cf. his attack on ‘istam blasfemiam quod Deus non potest dare rem sacramenti nisi ipsi [seil, moderni] adiuverint ministrando signa’, De blasfemia, 9, 139.

Page 79 of note 3 See also his complaint about the heresy of the ‘modern Pelagians’: ‘qui ponunt esse possibile quod homo operetur cum hoc quod Deus non cooperetur cum eo’, De volutione Dei, 7, 195. This might apply to Augustinian or nominalist, but it may be remarked that elsewhere it is the hierocrats who are accused (of all things) of being individualist: e.g. the praelati who are ‘singularibus dediti’, Purgans errores circa universalia in communi, 1, 31; and the attribution of the view that a man should seek his individual good to the sophists in the middle of a discussion of papal power, De civili dominio, II, 14, 184.

Page 80 of note 1 Conversely both papalists and nominalists can be condemned for trying to deny that Christ was a king upon earth by divine right, one side by making this a matter of civil rulership, the other by denying it altogether. Both are ‘moderni ignari scripturae. ...nescientes distinguere inter dominationem vel regnationem evangelicam et civilem’: De civili dominio, III, 5, 69.

Page 80 of note 2 For the identification of the moderni with the politici see for example De chili dominio, I, 4, 32-3: they are the ‘ecclesiastici nostri temporis’; who advocate the total supremacy of the ruler (I, 14, 100), substitute a secular conception of the Ecclesia for its true spiritual nature (I, 24, 173), and who include the canonists amongst their writers about law and politics (II, 12, 128-9).

Page 80 of note 3 Accordingly the Ockhamists were also to be attacked as moderni ‘sign doctors’, and accused of misinterpreting Aristotle, along with the realists. For a good example of both classes of moderni being dealt with together over the question of universals see Purgans errores circa universalia in communi, 1, 29-31, ‘de universalibus quidam nimis pueriliter et quidam subtiliter obiciunt’. For the nominalists as moderni in this respect, De Trinitate, ed. A. duP. Breck, Boulder, Col., 1962, 9, 100; De benedicta incarnatione, 6, 86; 9, 144. But we cannot accept Robson’s view, op. cit., 187, that this is ‘a term which invariably refers, in Wyclif’s works, to Ockhamists’.

Page 81 of note 1 This is reflected in his refusal to allow that theological propositions could be dealt with by simple ‘yes’ and ‘no’ answers: for an example of this ‘sic et non’ technique, see De volutiom Dei, 16, 262, on the question of whether sin is pleasing to God. Thus he later attacked his opponents for demanding that one should ‘simpliciter concedere vel negare’, De blasfemia, 5, 73. Hus employed the same device against the charges put to him at Constance.

Page 81 of note 2 Sermones, I, 25, i, 170; De dominio divino, I, 11, 89, ‘Videtur michi quod moderni magis exorbitant qui ponunt lumen fidei, tamquam contrarium, confundere quae videmus in lumine naturali. Econtra equidem est dicendum quod lumen supernaturale est forma perfectiva luminis naturalis ...’. Heresy is therefore to be defined as a defect of both faith and reason: De civili dominio, II, 7, 59.

Page 82 of note 1 De civili dominio, III, 19, 404; also III, 21, 443, ‘Unde quando fui iunior, ignorane aequivocationem scripturae’; De veritate sacrae scripturae, 6, i, 114; De hendida incarnatione, 6, 103; Sermones, I, 54, i, 357. Equivocation will solve the problem of universale and harmonise the views of the holy doctors on the relationship of signs to things: De ente in communi, 3, 39.

Page 82 of note 2 Supplementum Trialogi, ed. Lechler, G., 1869, 2, 414 Google Scholar, ‘In neutram tarnen istarum partium incido, sed evitane Scyllam et Caribdim, transeo per medium, dictum meum non diffiniens. Nec scio excusare praelatos modernos ab haeresi,...’; De ente praedicamentali, 14, 127, ‘Sed theologus medians inter has duas vias, notata distinctione praedicta de agentia, dicit et Deum agere omnem rem positivam actam et communicare creaturis potentiam ad agendum’.

Page 82 of note 3 Cf. De benedicta incarnatione, 1, 13, ‘Concordo secundo cum approbatis doctoribus ut Augustino, Ieronimo et caeteris ... Concordo tertio cum novellis ... Et ad istum sensum concedo affirmativas, modifico negativas’. This is to be achieved by equivocation: prologus, 1-2; 1, 3; 7, 115. See also De materia et forma, 7, 223, ‘Ideo, exemplativo sensu, dicit post quod hoc est ut sic et est ut non, ad modum loquendi Aristotelis in tali materia. Et sic sophistice volentes extorquere rationem simpliciter potest eligi alterutra pars, negando reliquam ad sensum contradictorium: vel tertio, negando utrumque ad sensus aequivoco, et cum in aequivocis non sit contradictio, non conceditur falsum. Et illa responsio plus decet theologum qui non affectat apparentiam sophisticam,...’: this technique is similarly attributed to Aristotle in De ente praedicamentali, 2, 15f.; Trialogus, ed. Lechler, G., 1869, I, 9, 66 Google Scholar.

Page 82 of note 4 See the important passage in De materia et forma, 4, 190-1, in which he says that when he started as a student of philosophy he could not interpret Aristotle on prime matter correctly and babbled, until Augustine showed him how to make Aristotle conform to theology—which suggests that he began by attacking Aristotle: ‘Ista verba etsi saepe audivi et balbutiendo protuli quando incoepi philosophari, legendo libros Aristotelis, longe tarnen fui a sensu verborum, skut forte alii mihi similes, quousque fui paululum illustratus in notitia materiae primae secundum sensum scripturae a sanctis doctoribus mihi expositum, et specialiter a beato Augustino exponente illud Gen., I [1], In principio creavit Deus coelum et terram ... Et iste est sensus beati Augustini et concorditer aliorum philosophorum ponentium quod Deus est prius naturaliter quam aliquod genus, et sic est principium cuiuslibet generis’. Cf. Responstones ad R. Strode, 197.

Page 83 of note 1 Having cited Aristotle and Averroes on the unity of body and soul, De compositione hominis, 4, 55-7, he remarks, ‘Et ignorantia huius methaphisicae de anima fui ego et forte alii mei similes plurimum excaecatus, sompnians quod anima et specialiter humana sit res quae peterit a corpore separari’. Note his discussion of the Platonic view of the relationship of matter and form in De logica, III, 9, iii, 121, with the comment, ‘Sed sermo Aristotelis est michi placentior’. Aristotle and Averroes are cited some forty times in this work in contrast to only one reference to Augustine.

Page 83 of note 2 De civili dominio, III, 21, 443; and note that he states that he changed his theory of time after reading the commentaries on Aristotle’s Physics and Metaphysics: ‘Unde propter tales evidentias fui primo motus ad ampliandum tempus, quia non vidi quomodo philosophus vel theologus posset negare huiusmodi successiva’. The former may be identified as Aquinas, Expositio in VII libros Physicorum, IV, 15-23, 558-637.

Page 83 of note 3 See his account of how he came to understand the meaning of a state ment by Augustine, Responstones ad R. Strode, 197.

Page 84 of note 1 Thus in De civili dominio, III, 21, 443, he apparently confesses to having once taught that the pope was rex et sacerdos (which is the main topic of the section), but changed his view once Aquinas had shown him how to equi vocate about this: ‘Unde quando fui iunior...reputavi pro magna victoria deducere quod dominus est pars clerici et tamen idem dominus non est pars clerici. Postea autem quando detecta est loyca Christi, apostoli, Augustini et aliorum sanctorum, humiliter et subtiliter asserentium quod in aequtvocis non est contradictio, stabat Iohannes [John, I, 29, occasionally applied by Wyclif to himself] confusus et ignarus idiota, quid ulterius replicaret quando, detecta aequivocatione scripturae, deduxerat quod repugnaretur inconveniens, sed verecunde deficiens prae ignorantia fecit finem. Nee licet sic respondere destruendo scolam arguendi in concedendo contradicenda praeter signa, sed solum quando sufficienti auctoritate scripturae aequivocatio tollens repugnantiam est fundata; et istum sensum explanat sanctus Thomas, secunda secundae, quaestione clxxxv, articulo v in fine...’. The passage cited (Aquinas, Summa theologiae, II, II, clxxxv, 6 ad 3) does not in fact illustrate this principle, only Wyclif’s infinite capacity for sheering off at a tangent to attack clerical property rights.

Page 84 of note 2 It seems clear enough that the principle of the duality of substances (‘una est substantia immaterialis et alia substantia materialis’), which is the method used to harmonise extremes, was derived by Wyclif from Aquinas: ‘Et super illam considerationem credo sanctum Thomam et alios loquentes de esse et essentia pro magna parte fundari’, De materia ei forma, 4, 187 and 184 respectively. The Aristotelian concept of the mean is of course a basic feature of Thomistic thinking and was widely used by Aquinas: e.g., Comm. in Nich. Eth., II, 7, 324 (ed. Spiazzi), 92, ‘Virtus ipsa est quaedam medietas inter duas malitias et inter duos habitus vitioses’.

Page 84 of note 3 ‘ Suidiscipuli vocabant eum famoso et elato nomine Ioannem Augustini’, according to Thomas, Netter, Doctrinale antiquitatum fidei Ecclesiae catbolicae, I, 34 (ed. Venice, 1571)Google Scholar, I, 105.

Page 85 of note 1 E.g. De libero arbitrio, III, 23, 68 (PL, XXXII, 1304); Epp., CLXVI, 6, 16 (PL, XXXIII, 727); De Triniate, XIV, 5, 7 (PL, XLII, 1040-1). Note the emphasis here that irrational ignorance is a sin against the will of God.

Page 85 of note 2 De doctrina Christiana, II, 28, 42 (PL, XXXIV, 53), ‘ . . . historia plurimum nos adiuvat ad sanctos libros intelligendos, etiamsi praeter Ecclesiam puerili eruditione discatur’.

Page 85 of note 3 De ventate sacrae scripturae, 3, i, 44; also 6, i, 118, ‘Ex quo patet quod inepti sunt ad discendum hanc scripturam pueri et superbi’, adding that the term pueri is used in the sense that Augustine uses it (although again the actual reference given to his source is incorrect). Cf. the contrast of sensus puerilis with sensus catholicus in De civili dominio, III, 19, 403. In Sermones, III, 33, iii, 269, he urges bishops to be like the elders of Rev., IV, 4, who are ‘maturi in moribus quia in scientia divina populo seniores’.

Page 86 of note 1 De benedicta incarnatione, 6, 103, ‘Et quando sapiebam ut parvulus putabam istum sanctum [Ambrose] multum ignarum logicae’; Responsiones ad R. Strode, 177. The reference is to I Cor., XIII, 11, also cited De veritate sacrae scripturae, 3, i, 44.

Page 86 of note 2 De materia et forma, 6, 211, ‘Quando autem minus sapui scripturam et solum fluctuavi in tortura animi, nunc negando informitatem materiae, nunc dicendo quod non est informis nisi quoad illud instane naturae, sed non ex hoc sequitur quod est informis ... Et sic de quibuslibet de caeculis a ventate, quae caecati circumpalpitantes veritatem langwide suspicantur’.

Page 86 of note 3 See his repeated admissions to having been motivated by pride: e.g. De peritate sacrae scripturae, 5, i, 100, ‘Quando autem fui minor abieci locutiones misticas partim propter meam superbiam . . . ‘; cf. 2, i, 23, ‘Unde de ista vana gloria confiteor saepe tam arguendo quam respondendo prolapsus sum a doctrina scripturae, cupiens simul apparentiam famae in populo . . .’; De civili dominio, III, 21, 443, ‘Unde quando fui iunior . . . ac sitiens redargutionem auditorii apparentem . . .’; Responsiones ad R. Strode, 197, ‘confitetur tarnen se multipliciter peccasse praesumptione et arrogantia’. Also Purgans errores circa universalia in communi, 1, 31.

Page 86 of note 4 Trialogus, IV, 15, 298, ‘quando populus magis fuit affectus temporalibus tamquam iuvenis et non sapiens coelestia’; Supplementum Trialogi, 1, 410, ‘Cum ergo patres legis veteris erant in puerili aetate saeculi manuducendi bonis temporalibus . . .’; De logica, III, 10, iii, 181, ‘quia mentes iuvenum infectae et corporalium fantasmum mutabilitate plenae non concipiunt. . .’.

Page 86 of note 5 Thus in attacking the material wealth of the clergy he says ‘ut loquar pueris qui mundum sapiunt’, Sermones, II, 6, ii, 38; cf. I, 58, i, 348, ‘tales bullae sunt tumores aquae vel pueriles nolae et non evangelium’. In the English version of the De officio pastorali, ed. Matthew, F.D., 1880 (EETS, 74), 31, 455 Google Scholar, he says that children would be just as good priests as the existing ones.

Page 86 of note 6 For a good example of the antithesis of cupiditas to the apostolic mean see De officio pastorali, ed. Lechler, G. V., Leipzig, 1863, I, 2, 8–9 Google Scholar: the former is regarded as the hallmark of tyranny, I, 4 and 7, 11 and 14. The evils of cupiditas were stressed by most medieval theologians, notably Augustine and Aquinas, but the specific opposition of this concept to apostolic truth derives from the sixth-century Greek commentary on I John, IV, 4-8, attributed to Oecumenius, but now regarded as a spurious work: see further T. P. Dunning, Piers Plowman: An Interpretation of the A Text, 1937, esp. 42-3. Wyclif ‘s usage shows a close connection with contemporary poetic convention which ascribed bad counsel, the cause of tyranny, to the bad advice of young men: Cf.Ferguson, A. B., The Articulate Citizen and the English Renaissance, Durham, Carolina, N., 1965, 70fGoogle Scholar. The use of the child to represent a tyrant, based on Eccles., X, 16, is a commonplace of fourteenth-century political thought.

Page 87 of note 1 Sermones, III, 8, iii, 57,’ . . . Deus educavit Ecclesiam, nam in principio quando Ecclesia erat parvula aetate et scientia, et sic petulans et indiscreta, servivit sub partibus mundi . . . Unde tota lex vetus dicitur quasi alphabetum, quod pro lege veteri discebatur a populo Hebraeorum’. But under Christ’s law of grace the Ecclesia achieved its fullness, only to be thrown back by the ‘infundabiles ceremoniae Antichristi’, so that nostra Ecclesia today ‘in discibilibus et operabilibus saluti suae inutilibus plus quam iuvenis Ecclesia insolentius et multiplicius evagatur ... et sic tamquam anus decrepita in modis puerilibus iuvenescitur’.

Page 87 of note 2 Expositio Matthaei XXIV, 7, 373; and see also De actibus animae, II, 3, 112-13, where he opposes Aristotle to the modernus, who is ‘stultius . . . quam bestiám, puerum vel dementem’.

Page 87 of note 3 In this sense he can still speak of having been opposed to the sopbistae in his youth: e.g. De civili dominio, III, 21, 443, ‘Unde quando fui iunior . . . et timens elationem sophisticam’; De peritate sacrae scripturae, 5, i, 100, ‘Quando autem fui minor abieci locutiones misticas partim propter meam superbiam et partim ad destruendum inanem gloriam sophistarum’; cf. 2, i, 23, ‘cupiens simul apparentiam famae in populo et denudationem arrogantiae sophistarum’. As with moderni, the term is used interchangeably, and each usage must be considered in relation to the circumstances in which it appears.

Page 87 of note 4 See his paraphrase of Prov., XII, 22, ‘Abominatio est Domino labia mendacia’, as ‘qui sophistice loquitur est Deo odibilis’, De iuramento Arnaldi, ed. Lechler, G. V., John Wiclif and his English Precursors, 1878, II, 345 Google Scholar; and his attacks on the sophists for evading the truth in De logica, III, 1 and 8, ii, 21 and 226. The character ‘False-thinker’ or Pseustis in the Trialogus expounds extreme Aristotelian and extreme papal views against both Alithia, ‘solidus philosophus’, and Phronesis, ‘subtilis theologus et maturus’, who are allied in opposition to him. Wyclif appears to have been modelling himself upon Augustine in his condemnation of the ‘academics’, e.g. the falsely reasoning sophists of De doctrina Christiana, II, 31 (PL, XXXIV, 58). In contemporary literature attacks on sophism are a recognised feature of anti-clerical propaganda: in Piers Plowman the priest is the sophist who understands the letter but not the spirit of Truth’s pardon, Coghill, N., ‘The Pardon of Piers Plowman ’, Proceedings of the British Academy, XXX (1944), 319 Google Scholar; Burrow, J., ‘The Action of Langland’s Second Vision,’ Essays in Criticism, XV (1965), 261-2CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Without entering into the problem of Wyclif’s acquaintance with the Defensor pacis of Marsilius of Padua, it may be noted that Marsilius had accused the papalists of sophism in claiming that the pope had a plenitude of power, an utterly pernicious opinion: Defensor pacis, ed. Scholz, R., Hanover, 1932-3, I, i, 3–4, 5-6Google Scholar; I, i, 8, 9; II, xxiii, 2,441; II, xxiv, 17, 466. They gave words false meanings so that things which were properly secular appeared to be spiritual: II, xxix, 7, 582; cf. II, i, l, 137-9.

Page 88 of note 1 In the De veritate sacrae scripturae ‘nostri doctores moderni’, whom Wyclif accuses of heresy by falsifying the Bible, are those who attach a plenitude of power to the pope and ‘laborant ad curiam Romanam’: 16, ii, 1f; 17, ii, 43 and 57; 20, ii, 133; 28, iii, 107; 32, iii, 284. They are represented by the canonists whose novellae and extravagantes allow the pope to dispense against God, 27, iii, 69-70. These are the Caesarean clergy of the moderna ecclesia: De potestate papae, 1, 1; Opus evangelicum, I, 8, i, 27; I, 27, i, 93; Supplementum Trialogi, 2, 414-6; De septem donis Spiritus Sancti, 4, 215.

Page 88 of note 2 ‘Haec adduximus contra quosdam modernos qui nituntur contra ipsum Aristotelem et suos expositores . . .’ (Hexaemeron): see Smalley, B., ‘The Biblical Scholar’, Robert Grosseteste, Scholar and Bishop, ed. Callus, D. A., 1955, 79 Google Scholar. See De actibus animae, I, 3, 45, for Aristotle classified with the apostles and antiqui doctores in opposition to the moderni theologi: therefore Aristotelian metaphysics and theology are to be used together ‘pro intellectu scripturae et pro tollendis argutiis sophistarum’, De dominio divino, II, I, 178; II, 4, 191-2. The habit of labelling one’s opponents as moderni may also derive from Averroes.

Page 88 of note 3 Opus evangelicum, IV, 3, ii, 297, ‘multa videntur absurda pueris pietate infantili caecatis, quae apparent satis catholica in fundamentis fidei stabilitis’. When he changed his attitude towards universities after his expulsion from Oxford in 1382 he compared himself to St. Paul ‘quondam pharisaeus’, Dialógus, 26, 54.

Page 89 of note 1 In the early summer, probably June, of 1382 Wyclif complained that a certain canis niger, named Tolstan or Colstan, and his yelping whelps (‘balbutientes catuli’), who had originally reported him to the Roman curia over the question of lordship, were again attacking him for his views on the religious orders and the eucharist: Sermones, III, 24 and 30-2, iii, 188-90, 246-56, 261-2. Black Dog is described as a teacher of idiot boys at Oxford: he is toothless when he bites because lacking in wisdom, and his puppies are blind (iii, 190, 247, 252, 262). Wyclif accuses them of being ignorant of equivocation, and urges them to learn the elementary logic of harmonising contradictory statements from Aristotle and Augustine, lest they foul their own kennels (iii, 190, 218-19). According to Walsingham, , Historia Anglicana, I, 357 Google Scholar, and Chronicon Angliae, 184, Wyclif had said at Lambeth early in 1378 that ‘per pueros reportata est sententia fidei quam dixi in scholis et alibi, ac magis, per pueros etiam usque ad Romanam curiam transportata’. Numerous candidates for the identity of Black Dog have been put forward. Cardinals Easton and Langham, Bishop Brinton of Rochester, Abbot Littlington of Westminster, William Woodford, O. F. M., Robert Waldby, O. E. S. A., and William Binham (prior of Wallingford, Berks., from at least 1379) can be excluded, since Wyclif specifies that he was ‘de ordine Benedicti’ (iii, 246; cf. 252, 255-6, 261) and was still actually teaching at Oxford in 1382 (iii, 188-90). As pointed out by Hurley, M., ‘ Scriptura sola: Wyclif and his Critics’, Traditio, XVI (1960), 275–352 CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 316, this must also discount Workman’s suggestion, I, 296, that he was Uthred of Boldon, who had already left Oxford for Finchdale before 1382; and he therefore prefers Workman’s other suggestion, II, 123-4, that he was John Welles of Ramsey, prior of Gloucester College, and known to be in Oxford at the required times (cf. Emden, III, 2008). Welles certainly seems to have regarded himself as the target of the accusation, to judge by his reply in Fasciculi zizaniorium, 239. On the basis of Biblical texts like Prov., XXVI, 11-12, and Matt., VII, 7, and XV, 26, the dog had become a common symbol in patristic and medieval exegesis for the sinner, heretic, or enemy of truth—the beast-like man to be ejected from the community because unclean.

Page 89 of note 2 Responsiones ad R. Strode, 197, ‘Unde homo quern novistis in scolis circa istam materiam, secundum mensuram quam Deus sibi dederat, laboravit et paulative veritates secundum quod credit esse Deo beneplacitum et expediens Ecclesiae declara vit’.

Page 90 of note 1 E.g. De dominio divino, I, prologue, 1; De mandatis divinis, 22, 304; cf. Augustine, De civitate Dei, IV, 5; V, 17.

Page 90 of note 2 Robson, op. cit., 13-14; cf.Weisheipl, J. A., ‘Curriculum of the Faculty of Arts at Oxford in the Early Fourteenth Century’, Mediaeval Studies, XXVI (1964), 143-85CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Also Murdoch, V., The Wyclyf Tradition (Toronto Ph. D. Thesis, 1960), 118Google Scholar. These would suggest a date of birth between 1335 and 1338. Robson’s evidence would seem to dispose of Workman’s suggestion, I, 94, that there was a more prolonged gap between Wyclif’s arts and theology courses, but does not cover Workman’s other point, I, 82-3, that the plague in Oxford during 1349-53 may have created a delay of up to five years in his career. Accordingly Workman’s own preference, I, 21-2, 52, for a date of birth c. 1330 is still feasible, and has most recently been followed by Dahmus, J. H., William Courtenay, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1381-1396, 1966, 293 n. 25 Google Scholar. Nineteenth-century opinion (e.g. Lewis, Shirley, Lechler) had assumed that he was born as early as 1324. There are obvious advantages in thinking that Wyclif was older rather than younger, not only to explain his otherwise rather early death and to allow a greater space of time into which to fit his enormous literary output, but also to suggest the comparative maturity of his pro-papal period. There is however one slight indication that current estimates are correct. In the De benedicta incarnatione, 6, 94, he refers to Christ’s sufferings ‘in media aetate’, i.e. aged 33, which is interesting in view of the fact that on these estimates Wyclif himself would be approximately the same age at the time of writing (1371/2), although Wyclif’s habit of comparing himself to the crucified Christ develops rather later in his career.

Page 90 of note 3 Workman, , op. cit., I, 151 Google Scholar: Wyclif must have been ordained by the time of his institution to Fillingham on 14 May, 1361, presumably by the archbishop of York, John Thoresby, since it was normal for priests to be ordained by the bishop of the diocese in which they were born. There is no evidence that he obtained special permission to be ordained elsewhere, and official documents describe him as a priest of York.

Page 91 of note 1 For the evidence that the works on logic originally formed a Summa see Robson, , op. cit., 128, 225-7Google Scholar. For dating see Thomson, S. H., ‘The Order of Writing of Wyclif’s Philosophical Works’, Českou Minulosti: Essays presented to V. Novotny, Prague, 1929, 146-66 at 163-6Google Scholar; and revised chronology and order in ‘Unnoticed MSS and Works of Wyclif’, JTS, XXXVIII (1937), 24-36, 139-48 at 142.

Page 91 of note 2 This suggestion hinges upon the De actibus animae, which is clearly part of some larger work (note the opening line: ‘restat tractare . . .’), and which contains references to other books numbered one to eight. Since books 6-8 are said to be awaiting composition, the De actibus must be book 5 in the series. According to Thomson, ‘Unnoticed MSS’, 142, there were four works written by Wyclif before the De actibus, namely, the De logica and the three tracts of its continuation. The De actibus also states (II, 2, 88; cf. I, 1, 28) that the final book will deal with the problem of insolubles, wfeich is presumably the as yet unpublished De insolubilibus: on which see Thomson, art. cit., 139-44. There is a possibility that one of the two other books is the De physica (also unpublished, but cf. Thomson, art. cit., 144-8), described as a commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, which are themselves used in the De logica (e.g. III, 7, ii, 162 and 174; III, 9, ii, 82-3). Since, according to Robson, op. cit., 226, the Summa had a section on quantity and quality, this would seem to be appropriate.

Page 91 of note 3 De logica, III, 9, iii, 20, ‘humilis logicus’: he repeatedly uses the phrase ‘relinquo theologis’, as if to say that he is not one of their number, e.g. III, 6, 7, 9 and 10, ii, 127, 174-5, and iii, 74, 204.

Page 91 of note 4 De statu innocentiae, 7, 511, ‘Quando fui logicus . . .’; Responsiones ad argumenta cuiusdam aemuli veritatis, 15, 305, ‘Hic dixerunt sophistae quando fui iunior ... et sic non repugnat Porphirio vel veritati logici . . .’; and note the description of a former opinion as ‘logicalis et inanis’, Ser mones, I, 52, i, 347.

Page 91 of note 5 Sermones, II, 53, ii, 384, ‘Quando fui iunior et in delectatione vaga magis sollicitus, collegi diffuse proprietates lucis ex codicibus perspectivae et alias veritates mathematicas, . . .’, with a series of references to the Perspectivae of Witello of Cracow.

Page 92 of note 1 De benedicta incarnatione, 10, 165-6, ‘Et in ista methaphisica vellem me studuisse quando sollicitabam me si quantitas, motus et caetera accidentia distinguantur. Subtilior enim est distinctio humanitatis a Verbo quam accidentis huiusmodi a subiecto’.

Page 92 of note 2 Sermones, I, 54, i, 357, ‘Quando autem fui iunior negavi quod quidquam sit debitum nisi debeatur simpliciter quoad Deum ... et sic exposui scripturam et negavi de virtu te sermonis verba doctorum in ista materia’.

Page 92 of note 3 De logica, III, 5, 7 and 9, ii, 105, 176-81, and iii, 51, 61; De actibus animae, I, 3, 46; cf. I, 1, 12-18.

Page 92 of note 4 See his statement that he ‘publicavit’ views which he now regrets, Responsiones ad R. Strode, 197. He usually remarks that .he said (‘dixi’) these things, but dicere is commonly used in other instances to refer back to previous writings, and so does not necessarily imply that the statements were purely verbal ones.

Page 92 of note 5 De logica, III, 1, 3 and 9, ii, 16, 21, 58-9, and iii, 45-6.

Page 92 of note 6 De logica, III, 8, ii, 226; III, 9, passim.

Page 92 of note 7 De logica, II, 4, i, 196; III, 9, iii, 32, 93, III, 10, iii, 134-8, 204.

Page 92 of note 8 De logica, III, 10, iii, 145, ‘Ideo expedit scire utramque scolam, sed puerilis scola imbrigabiliter onerosa. Scola autem etiam theologorum est levis, dissensiones sophisticas statim executiens correspondenter ad conditiones hominum quibus conveniunt istae scolae. Nunc autem sum nimis senex ad poenaliter incarcerandum me in scola prior[e]. Ideo, propter facilitatem indulgendum senibus, sequor secundam [scolam], intelligendo scripturam et aequivocando quando colloquentes locuntur ut parvuli’. As the editor points out, the text of this passage is very corrupt, and I have changed the order of words in the last sentence. He also calls himself ‘senior’, iii, 199.

Page 93 of note 1 There is an ambiguous remark in II, 12, i, 169, ‘[Deus] potest tamen faceré quod ego non sum nee fui futurus quadragenarius in hoc instanti,’ which might suggest either that he was on the point of being forty, or that he was in his forties. Augustine had said that a man entering upon old age might still have half his life before him. Old age in this sense can hardly begin later than fifty, and a decade earlier may well be intended. I am grateful to Dr R. A. Markus for this information.

Page 93 of note 2 There is also the obscure debate about being forty years old in De actibus animae, II, 3, 106: discussing the point that what is false now may be true later and vice versa, so that true and false need not necessarily be in conflict, he cites as an example ‘ut iam falsum est quod ego vixi 40 annis, et illud falsum non erit verum, quia illud falsum iam non est’. Whatever the significance of these remarks, they are curious coming from one who, on the present dating of these works, would have been in his twenties.

Page 93 of note 3 De logica, III, 10, iii, 183, from the birth of Christ ‘nunc sunt mille trecenti et 83 anni’. Both the editor, Dziewicki, , Introduction, I, vii Google Scholar, and Thomson, ‘Order of Writing’, 163, dismiss this as a scribal error.

Page 93 of note 4 De logica, I, proemium, i, 1, ‘Motus sum per quosdam legis Dei amicos certum tractatum ad declarandum logicam sacrae scripturae compilare’; II, 10, i, 152, ‘me et meos sequaces’. There are numerous references to iuvenes who will be reading the work: II, proemium, 2, 14 and 18, i, 75, 171, 195, 234; and according to Thomson, ‘Unnoticed MSS’, this is also a feature of the De insolubilibus. Such remarks become common in Wyclif’s works from 1382: e.g. Trialogus, IV, 13, 290.

Page 93 of note 5 Workman, , op. cit., I, 333 Google Scholar. Note the scribe’s statement in De logica, III, 10, iii, 227, that the work had been ‘fideliter correctus’. This would meet Dziewicki’s argument, ‘An Essay’, xiv, that the De logica was written after the Summa de ente. Since the latter, as Robson rightly suggests, op. cit., 130-5, incorporates Wyclif’s commentary on the Sentences, this would seem to be an unlikely procedure-although not impossible: Ockham seems to have produced a logical Summa for the benefit of his pupils after his com mentary on the Sentences: see Brampton, C. K., ‘The Probable Order of Ockham’s Non-Polemical Works’, Traditio, XIX (1963), 469-83CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 481-2.

Page 94 of note 1 Sermones, Praefatio, i, v, ‘Et ideo, ut sententia Dei sit planior et servus suus inutilis excusabilior, videtur quod in ilio otto quo a scholastici; otiamur et in particulari aedificationi Ecclesiae in fine dierum nostrorum sollicitamur, sint sermones rudes ad populum colligendi’. Workman, , op. cit., II, 208 Google Scholar, was surely right to say that this statement must have been made after Wyclif had left Oxford, although Mallard, W., ‘Dating the Sermones Quadraginta of John Wyclif’, Medievalia et Humanistica, XVII (1966), 86–105 Google Scholar, has now argued that the editing was done at Oxford before the summer of 1381. Since Sermones, IV, includes sermons written at least as late as mid-1383, this collection and revision of his sermons should be dated to 1384. There is also the point that the English translator of the sermons, who was certainly at work during 1383, did not use Sermones, IV, but only worked from I-III, composed in 1381-2, and therefore all that was available to him in 1383.

Page 95 of note 1 Knowles, D., ‘The Censured Opinions of Uthred of Boldon’, Proceedings of the British Academy, XXXVII (1951), 305-42Google Scholar= The Historian and Character and Other Essays, 1963, 129-70 at 152; R. Kalivoda, ‘Joannes Wyclifs Metaphysik des extremen Realismus und ihre Bedeutung im Endstadium der mittelalterlichen Philosophie’, Miscellanea Medievalia, II, Die Metaphysik im Mittelalter, ed. Wilpert, P., Berlin, 1963, 716-23Google Scholar. At one point Workman, , op. cit., I, 104-5Google Scholar, had suggested some Thomistic influence, but generally regarded him as a realist, and was therefore misled by Wyclif into characterising both papalism and Ockhamism as nominalism, I, 113-14, 136, 140-2.

Page 95 of note 2 See the use of Paul, Romans, and Averroes’ commentary on the Ethics of Aristotle at the beginning of the De dominio divino.

Page 95 of note 3 E.g. De mandatis divinis, 3, 21, ‘Et hinc ordinavit Deus rationabiliter quod voluntas sua non foret abscondita ut voluntates hominum, sed plurimum patula cuiuscunque . . . Sed quia generalis notitia philosophorum non sufficit, ideo condidit duo testamenta in quibus expressit multas suas abditas voluntates. Et hinc quodam instinctu naturali omnea ritus hominum passim sibi vendicant notitiam scripturae . . . quia nemo potest iuste iudicare, operari vel vivere vel quamcunque scientiam aliam perfecte cognoscere sine illa’; cf. 7, 60-1, ‘Totus quidem mundus sensibilis est liber quidam quem naturales in quibusdam suis partibus cognoscentes, quasi elementa alphabeti considerant’, but one must also go ‘ultra hunc librum sensibilem legere intelligibiliter librum vitae, cognoscendo omnem creaturam secundum suum esse intelligibile in aeternis rationibus libri vitae’. See also De civili dominio, III, 10, 148-51; De ventate sacrae scripturae, 4, i, 72-3, ‘In talibus itaque figuris locutionis scripturae latet omne genus philosophiae naturalis, quae ex intellectu scripturae suscepit ultimum complementum. Nam philosophia naturalis usque adeo deficit ab ultimo complemento, quousque gravidata fuerit moralitate vel alio sensu mistico scripturae. Et sic tam logica quam omnis alia philosophia recipit in scriptura sacra perfectionem ultimam in Deum propinquius dirigentem’.

Page 96 of note 1 E.g. De civili dominio, II, 1, 5-6, ‘ut innuit tam textus Genesis quam exponentes textum Aristotelis’; and see the use of Aristotle’s Ethics to explain the meaning of Galatians: II, 2, 8-9; III, 1, 2. It is significant that the De peritate, a work on scripture, should begin with an evaluation of Aristotelian philosophy. The recent assessment of Delaruelle, E., ‘Réforme et hérésie Wyclif’, L’Eglise au temps du Grand Schisme et de la crise conciliaire, Paris, 1964, 943-88Google Scholar at 955, that Wyclif’s outlook was so essentially Christian and theological that Aristotle was of little significance to him seems unfortunate.

Page 96 of note 2 De statu innocentiae, 3, 493, ‘Nee obest probabili ratione convincere multa quae fuissent in statu innocentiae, licent in scriptura non fuerint expressata’; cf. 1, 475, ‘pro cuius indagine utendum est testimonio scripturae, dictis sanctorum, et probabili ratione’: hence the Bible, Augustine, and Aristotle are to be used together, e.g. 2, 485; 5, 500.

Page 96 of note 3 cf.Aristotle, , Nicomachean Ethics, V, 5, 1132b-3aGoogle Scholar; Politics, 11, 2, 1261a.

Page 96 of note 4 Gewirth, A., ‘Philosophy and Political Thought in the Fourteenth Century’, The Forward Movement of the Fourteenth Century, ed. Utley, F. L., Columbus, Ohio, 1961, 125-64Google Scholar at 133-53, esp. 140-1, 151; Leff, G., ‘The Apostolic Ideal in Later Medieval Ecclesiology’, JTS, n.s., XVIII (1967), 58–82 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

Page 97 of note 1 cf.Roensch, F. J., Early Thomisth School, Dubuque, Iowa, 1964, 178-81, 205 Google Scholar; cf. 99-103, 276-87.

Page 97 of note 2 E.g. De materia et forma, 4, 189, ‘Illud tarnen secundum naturam potest converti in quodcunque, manens idem secundum materiam, ut post dicetur. De conversione autem panis in corpus Christi, quam Ecclesia vocat transsubstantiationem, est longus sermo et mihi adhuc inscrutabilis’; also Purgans errores circa universalia in communi, 5, 43; De potentia productiva Dei ad extra, 12, 289. The suggestion that Wyclif’s eucharistic heresy is a direct outcome of his philosophical opinions during the 1360s had been made by F. D. Matthew, English Works of Wyclif, 1880, xxii-xxiv, but the change is usually dated to the 1370s, and his views are sometimes said to have passed through several stages, e.g. Dziewicki, ‘An Essay’, xxii-xxiv; Thomson, ‘Order of Writing’, 163, on the basis of Woodford’s testimony: see Fasciculi zizaniorum, xv n.4. It would be more accurate to consider the three stages suggested as orthodox, dissembling, and overtly heretical phases. As numer ous references in the De apostasia indicate, there was a close connection in Wyclif’s mind between the friars and transubstantiation in that he saw both deriving from the blasphemous pope Innocent III: cf. De eucharistia, 9, 278.

Page 98 of note 1 As early as 1366 or thereabouts he complained in the Purgans errores circa universalia in communi, 1, 31, about the papalists only giving promotion to bishoprics and other offices to those who were ‘de affinitate sua’, although the first reference to lack of his own preferment comes about three or four years later in the De volutione Dei, 1, 125-6. Having consoled himself for not being a bishop (‘Fatui igitur est cum deliberatione absolute tristari de hoc quod homo non est episcopus, vel bonis naturalibus aut fortuitis plus dotatus’), he remarks that the long delay is causing both his patience and his obedience to wear thin: ‘Et indubie talis diutina mora, ymaginando talia, retraxit de mea patientia et humili subditione divinae ordinantiae, omittendo alia quibus debui interne deservire, . . .’. The reference to not getting his domestic deserts may relate to the Canterbury Hall affair, which Wyclif later said that he lost because the post usually went to the pueri: De officio regis, 4, 75. Caistor, too, went to a iuvenis, De civili dominio, III, 17, 334. It sounds as if Wyclif was blacklisted by the hierocratic party from an early date for no longer being ‘one of the boys’.

Page 98 of note 2 Sermones, I, 54, i, 357; cf. De actibus animae, II, 1, 73, where he says that he will now use Aristotle (‘secundum logicam Aristotelis ... et illud sequar ego in futurum’) aginst the ‘sophistae et maior pars hominum’.