In introducing the name of Wycliffe it is well to state at the outset that we have nothing here to do with his position as a precursor of protestant theology. The works in which he first treated the subject of dominion were the production of his years of teaching at Oxford; in these the doctrine is completely developed, and his later writings do but presuppose and resume their contents. At this time he was vigorous indeed in exposing the political abuses of the hierarchy, but in dogmatic theology he was without blemish.[1] His criticism was directed against the outer not the inner organisation of the church, and in such criticism he was the ally of many of the loyallest catholics. They saw as he did that the church was falling under the weight of an administration into which the vices of the world had entered almost too deeply to be eradicated. The necessity of reform was becoming gradually felt throughout Christendom; and except among those whose interests were identified with the existing state of affairs, the only question related to the means of carrying the reform into effect. It is important to bear this fact in mind, lest we should infer (as we are apt to infer, knowing Wycliffe's later history) that in resisting Roman encroachments he was therefore also resisting the current of catholic feeling. He was acting in truth as many catholic Englishmen had done before him. His Christianity did not efface his patriotism, and it was with honest reverence for the papacy that he sought to free it from those mundane temptations which
- ↑ The nineteen conclusions condemned by Gregory the Eleventh in his bulls of May 1377 relate exclusively to ecclesiastical politics, church-lands, the power of excommunication, and the like. Only one can be held to be of dogmatic significance; that, namely, which asserts that every priest has authority to dispense the sacraments and to absolve the penitent: nr xvi, in J. Lewis, History of the Life and Sufferings of John Wiclif 317, 2nd ed., Oxford 1820 (nr xv, in the Fasciculi zizaniorum 253, ed. W. W. Shirley, 1858). But this too when read with the context in Wycliffe's original, De civili dominio i. 38 cod. Vindob. 1341 f. 93 B, proves to be of political purport; since the explanation runs, 'Nam quantum ad potestatem ordinis omnes sacerdotes sunt pares, licet potestas inferioris racionabiliter sit ligata.' This has been already noticed by Dr. Lechler, Johann von Wiclif und die Vorgeschichte der Reformation 1. 573 n. 2.
