John Wycliffe

John Wyclif [ wɪklɪf ], and Wycliffe, Wiclef, Wycliff, Wycliffe called Doctor evangelicus ( * at least 1330 Sprewell in Yorkshire, † December 31, 1384 ), an English philosopher, theologian and church reformer was.

• 4.1 German introductions
• 4.2 Literature on specific topics

Life and work

In May 1361 Wyclif was Rector of the benefice Fillingham ( Lincolnshire ), which belonged to Balliol. These and other benefices enabled Wyclif finance his studies; 1363 he was admitted to the study of theology. He was a board of Balliol College, Oxford and was 1365-1367 Head of the new College Canterbury Hall. After his dismissal came the inner break with the Church, and Wyclif turned to politics in London. While he had the right as a doctor of theology to hold theological lectures, he was also a pastor in places that have been awarded by secular princes, an office which he knew until his death. In the parish of Fillingham followed Ludgershall 1368-1374 ( Buckinghamshire ), and finally from 1374 to 1384 the rich community in Lutterworth ( Leicestershire ), which he received as a reward for his services to the crown from the later English regent John of Gaunt.

Wycliffe proclaimed the doctrine of " power alone by grace ", according to which God himself gives all authority directly, and denied the political claim to power of the Pope and advocated an early " King divine right ". In his works from 1372-1380 ( " Of the Church ," " From the bourgeois domination ", " From the Office of the King" ), he represented the complete subordination of the Church to the state. He supported the will to power of secular rulers ( the Investiture Controversy ) in several lawsuits against the pope, and called for a life in the early Christian church employee modesty, although until he himself lived well with his death by his rich benefice.

In 1373 he sent King Edward III. with other clergy to Bruges in order to present the papal nuncio complaints against the papal chair, in particular the Curia, the sale of church offices were accused. The "complaints" were intended to expose the pending since 33 years contractually agreed annual payments by Rome. Wyclif's concern came in 1375 by. As an official prosecutor of the king Wyclif was even now the title of " Pecularius regis clericus " (Royal Kaplan ).

Its legal- theological and political influence on the composition of royal complaints against the pope was great, the good lectured Parliament 1376. Alone had still lost a court case against the pope, the Wycliffe in 1370, was crowned 1373-1375 from that of the outstanding payments, in which he asserted itself; and led to a process in 1377, the Pope led to sentences of Wyclif's works, which enjoyed thanks to the great reputation that Wyclif at the university and the people, in 1378 fizzled. This encouraged Wyclif now turned openly against the political influence of the clergy in general, and fought the papal " anti- Christianity ".

In his major work, the " Trialogus " Wyclif taught pantheistic realism, determinism and the double predestination ( determinatio gemina ). He taught: " All is God; every being is everywhere, because every being is God. "and" Everything that happens happens with absolute necessity, even evil happens to need, and God's freedom is that he wants what is necessary. "He disapproved consequently images, saints, veneration of relics and the priest celibacy, because of its realism rejected the doctrine of transubstantiation, and auricular confession. From him trained reddish -clad itinerant preachers ( "poor priests " called ) spread principles of the people who remember Protestant doctrines 150 years later. His teachings found in large parts of the population consent and had a major influence the rebellion of the English peasants of 1381st

Mendicant friars, together with the hierarchy translated in 1381, meanwhile, by the rejection of his teaching by the University and the 1382 Synod, in London. His writings were condemned by the Synod of Oxford as heretical, he lost his offices at the court in relation to the church affairs. Fearing a popular uprising Wyclif was not formally charged. He led quietly continued his rectory and completed in 1383 a previously started collection of early English translations of the Bible from the Vulgate into the vernacular. This translation of the Bible is not the first translation into English, but is a compilation and revision of previous translations is, as already noted in 1530 Sir Thomas More and Francis Aidan Gasquet OSB 1897 proved.

Wycliffe died in 1384 of a stroke during the fair.

The later followers Wyclif'schen thought good, the Lollards were persecuted sharply after a failed revolt from 1400 by the British government. 1401 Wilhelm Sawtre became its first martyrs. However, one can partially brutal Inquisition European heretics, such as with the Cathars or Waldensians, do not compare with the English persecution. This was characterized by its relative mildness and consideration for the further living underground Lollards, so that the Wyclif'schen views were in many families until the Reformation.

In 1412, at the end of the persecution by the King of England, 267 sentences of Wyclif in London were condemned as heretical. Three years later certain the Council of Constance, to burn all the writings of Wyclif, and told him 30 years after his death on May 4, 1415 a heretic, condemned another 45 sentences from him and ordered to dig up his bones and burn what thirteen years later, in 1428, was done by Bishop Robert Flemming of Lincoln.

In honor of John Wyclif has a non-profit evangelical organization that promotes world-wide adoption of the Bible through the development of Bible translations mainly for language groups that have not yet been fixed in writing, where the name of Wycliffe.

Wyclif's life was filmed by Tony Tew under the title John Wycliffe in 1984.

Works (selection)

Title

• Rudolf Buddensieg (ed.): De Christo et suo adversario anti Christological. Gotha 1880.
• Josiah Forshall (ed.): The holy Bible in the earliest English Versions made ​​by John Wycliffe and his followers. University Press, Oxford 1850 ( 4 volumes).
• Anthony J. Kenny (ed.): On universals ( " Tractatus de universalibus "). Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1985, ISBN 0-19-824681-1.
• Gotthard Lechler V. (ed.): De officio pastorali. Barth, Leipzig, 1863.
• Gotthard Lechler V. (ed.): Trialogus. OUP, Oxford 1869 (Conversation between truth, lies and theology ).
• Johann Loserth (ed.): Tractatus de ecclesia. London 1886.
• De otio et mendacitate ( against the mendicant friars ).

Collections

• Thomas Arnold ( ed.): Select English works of Wycliffe. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1869-71 ( 3 volumes).
• Rudolf Buddensieg (ed.): John Wiclefs Latin polemics. Barth, Leipzig 1883.
• Pamela Gradon, Anne Hudson ( ed. ): English Wycliffite Sermons. OUP, Oxford 1988 ff

• Johann Loserth (ed.): Sermones. Johnson Reprint, New York, 1966 ( 4 vols Repr d ed London 1887/90 ).
• Frederic D. Matthew (ed.): The English works of John Wycliffe. Hitherto unprinted. Kraus Books, Millwood, N. Y. 1990 ( d Repr ed London 1902).

Remembrance

On 31 December, the Evangelical Church in Germany and the Anglican Communion to John Wyclif remember.