by Pope Gregory XI., Wyclif says that every properly ordained priest has plenary power to dispense all the sacraments, and therefore to pronounce absolution to every penitent for every kind of sin. And on the other hand, he says, the Pope can only loose or bind so far as he acts according to the law of Christ. Wyclif boldly asserted that no man could be excommunicated by the Pope, unless he were first of all excommunicated by himself. In his address of the year 1377,* referring to the possibility of the Pope's laying England under an interdict, he says, with still more asperity and force: "If we could even suppose the apostle of Antichrist to break out into such evident lunacy, we should still have the consolation that mock censures of this sort are not binding before God." t

From making statements like this in such a form, there is, under such circumstances, but a short step to a direct opposition to the papacy. Wyclif would probably have taken this step at once, even if the schism of the Popes, some twenty months after the termination of the "Babylonian Captivity," had not given a new and greater shock to Christendom. In January, 1377, the papacy had returned from Avignon to Rome in the person of Gregory XI., who died March 27, 1378. The first words and deeds of Urban VI., who was raised to the chair of St. Peter on the 8th of April, awakened in Wyclif the liveliest hopes. The reformer was then occupied with the composition of the sixth book of his Summa, the portion which treats "of the Church." In the second chapter of that book he wrote: "Blessed be the Lord of our Mother (the Church), who in these days has given to our Virgin Pilgrim a Catholic head, an evangelical man, in Urban VI., who begins the work of church reform at the right end, viz.: with himself and his own household; for, from his works, we must believe that he is the head of our church." A certain fear, indeed, ought to accompany this belief, as to whether Urban would obtain the crown of him that endureth to the end."

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*The reply in which Wyclif answered the question of the Parliament that met in October, 1377 (see above, p. 9).

+Fasciculi Zizaniorum, 265. Compare F. D. Matthew, "The English works of Wyclif hitherto unprinted" (London, 1880, E. E. T. S.), p. xiii.

Even when the cardinal-bishop, Robert of Cambray, Count of Geneva, came forward in the autumn of the same year, as a rival Pope, under the name of Clement VII., and the church was divided into two hostile camps, Wyclif at first remained quite firm in his recognition of Urban. But as the scandal of the schism gradually increased, and as the "regular" Pope departed from the gospel ideal by his violent and reckless conduct, Wyclif became involved in anxiety and doubt, and his belief and hopes in the primacy of Urban disappeared. In a Latin sermon, delivered on St. Matthias's Day, probably in the year 1379, he says: "Let Urban only continue in righteousness as the true representative of St. Peter, and his election is valid. . . But if he errs from the way, his election is void, and it would be better for the church to be rid of both Popes.' What Wyclif here states conditionally, he states afterwards as his fixed opinion.

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The declining respect for the Pope, and the corresponding increase in reverence for the Bible, the growing conviction that nothing useful to the good cause was to be expected from the English clergy, or even from the initiative of the English king, must have suggested to Wyclif the question, whether the great object he had in view could not be attained in another way and by means not yet attempted. It was, therefore, not by accident that at this very time-about 1378-the reformer began to see clearly the great mission, the accomplishment of which had been reserved by destiny for his closing years.

For the first time it now appeared to Wyclif, with a vividness expelling every doubt, that he was called, not only to influence theologians and statesmen by learned. dissertations, Latin memorials and pamphlets, but above all to make accessible to the masses of the people, in their mother tongue, a truer knowledge of the Word of God. It is highly probable that this idea occurred to him by the experiment and great success of the English work, the Vision of Piers Plowman, which appeared in its completed form in the edition of 1377.

**Lechler, i. 580, note. In a later sermon in English, preached probably at Lutterworth, on St. Matthias's Day (select works, ed. Th. Arnold, i. 351), speaking of the election of the apostle, Wyclif likewise goes on to speak of the election of the Pope and the schism,

For the fulfillment of his mission Wyclif needed the support and aid of men after his own mind. Such men were not wanting at Oxford. He had around him there a narrow circle of thoughtful, learned men, whom he had converted to his views, and also a larger company of enthusiastic, eager disciples. The master now began to develop his Reformation plans on a large scale. He began to send out his itinerant preachers, to translate the Bible, and to issue tracts and pamphlets in the ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

The itinerant preachers had, for the most part, been trained for their calling by Wyclif himself; he gave them the models for their sermons, and frequently also the outlines. These preachers consisted of learned and unlearned men; but the number of the unlearned afterwards gradually increased, as did also the unordained who entered the ranks of the "pore preestes." This last appellation best describes the class. In long, dark-brown garments of coarse wool, barefooted and staff in hand, these new apostles went about from place to place. Stared at by the multitude, scoffed at and maligned by ill-wishers, they preached the gospel wherever they found a willing ear-in church or in chapel, on the market-place or in the street. Their sermons must have astonished the masses still more than their appearance; for their discourses were radically different from those of the popular pulpit orators of the time. They were not interwoven with legends and fascinating tales, after the manner of the Gesta Romanorum, nor were they adorned with the charm of verse and rhyme. They did not make their impression by a brilliant display of rhetoric, nor by endless divisions and hair-splitting distinctions. They had but little of that aroma, that tinge of poetry, which breathes throughout the language of the Ancren Riwle and even through the prose of Hampole, and which arises from the depths of a mystic and dreamy mind. The discourse of the Poor Priests was dignified, unadorned, sober, and severely practical. It was directed less to the imagination than to the sound common sense and the indestructible moral nature of the people. Short and concise in its arguments, the discourse was made to tell

by its illustrations from everyday life, but never by coarse or farcical analogies. Its effect was due to the earnestness with which it was delivered; to the boldness with which the speaker drew his inferences, and which recognized no authority but the Word of God; to the warmth of Christian love, which broke forth at times involuntarily. And finally the discourse owed not a little of its animation to the keen satire which the preacher directed, when occasion offered, at the prelates, monks, the Roman Curia, and the Pope himself. The arrangement of ideas was always clear and intelligible, though not always strictly logical. But its main characteristics were its constant references to the Bible, its use of Biblical language, and its teaching in the spirit of the Bible.

And now the great work, the translation of the Bible, likewise inspired and commenced by the master at Oxford, became a powerful assistance to his itinerant preachers. The translation of the entire Bible, which Wyclif now undertook, had never been accomplished in Saxon England; nor in the subsequent centuries was it ever once seriously attempted; although, in the course of the fourteenth century, important translations were frequently made which may be considered as significant attempts in the right direction. Wyclif's object was nothing less than a complete and faithful version of the entire Bible from the Latin Vulgate into English prose. In this gigantic undertaking Wyclif secured the assistance of one of his most learned and sturdy supporters, viz., Dr. Nicolas of Hereford. Nicolas began the translation of the Old Testament, while the master reserved for himself the smaller but far more important portion of the work, viz., the New Testament.

Also, the English tracts and pamphlets which were issued, mostly from Oxford, for the spreading of Wyclif's ideas and views, were not altogether the work of his own hand. Several of his students and followers seem to have helped in the production of these compositions; now and then even such as did not belong to his immediate circle wrote in the style and spirit of the master-and this is true not only of English versions of works first

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written in Latin, but also of other works originally Engglish. A whole literature of this sort, though only the remains of a once richer store, is still extant, and is connected by tradition with Wyclif's name; some portions of this have been proved by modern criticism not to belong to Wyclif, and other portions to be of very doubt. ful authorship. But everywhere in this mass of writings, both where criticism is in doubt and where it has not yet begun to doubt, there is a wide and fertile field, though not very enticing, for patient and methodic investigation. This field has lain hitherto almost uncultivated, especially that side of it which concerns language and style.

In his earlier English tracts Wyclif appeared princi pally as a moralist, and only secondarily as a dogmatist. His polemics, as a rule, were only directed against the abuses in the church, against traffic in benefices, against the idolatry in relics, the pride and wantonness of the clergy, and the greed and ambition of the Curia—in short, against the things which for above a century had furnished the favorite subjects of satire against the clergy in England. The ironical indifference of method employed in his violent attacks on official representatives of the church, and his fearlessness in facing the lightnings of the Vatican, must, indeed, have seemed remarkable. His habit of always referring again and again to the Bible must also have seemed new and strange, as he contrasted the pure simplicity of the divine Word with the confused subtlety of human invention.

But, on the whole, the difference between the Visian of Piers Plowman and Wyclif's tracts cannot have been great. Those who had been edified by Langland's poem must have now rejoiced to read similar thoughts in clear and vigorous prose.

After the year 1381 the whole question was changed. From that time everyone must have seen clearly that the Reform desired by the Oxford doctor meant a Revolution.

After a long struggle Wyclif had attained to clear and definite views upon the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. He had at last drawn the inferences from a proposition stated in a philosophical work of his first period.

* In the dissertation De Ente; see Matthew, p. xxiii.

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