John Wycliffe (/ˈwɪklɪf/; also spelled Wyclif, Wickliffe, and other variants;[a] c. 1328 – 31 December 1384)[2] was an English scholastic philosopher, Christian reformer, Catholic priest, and a theology professor at the University of Oxford.

Wycliffe is traditionally believed to have advocated or made a vernacular translation of the Vulgate Bible into Middle English, though more recent scholarship has minimalized the extent of his advocacy or involvement for lack of direct contemporary evidence.

[6] His theory of dominion meant that men in mortal sin were not entitled to exercise authority in the church or state, nor to own property.

Thomas Bradwardine was the Archbishop of Canterbury and his book On the Cause of God against the Pelagians, a bold recovery of the Pauline–Augustinian doctrine of grace, greatly shaped young Wycliffe's views,[14] as did the Black Death, which reached England in the summer of 1348.

According to Robert Vaughn, the effect was to give Wycliffe "very gloomy views in regard to the condition and prospects of the human race".

Around the year 1354, Wycliffe encountered two Waldensian men who had travelled from Piedmont to England to spread what they believed to be the true Gospel in Britain.

In the light of the virulence of the plague, which had subsided seven years previously, Wycliffe's studies led him to the opinion that the close of the 14th century would mark the end of the world.

In 1374, Wycliffe's name appears on a commission, after a bishop, which the English Government sent to Bruges to discuss with the representatives of Gregory XI a number of points in dispute between the king and the pope.

In a book concerned with the government of God and the Ten Commandments, he attacked the temporal rule of the clergy, the collection of annates, indulgences, and simony.

According to Benedictine historian Francis Aidan Gasquet, at least some of Wycliffe's program should be seen as (naive) "attempts at social reconstruction" in the aftermath the continuing institutional chaos after the Black Death (1347-1349) [27] Wycliffe entered the politics of the day with his great work De civili dominio ("On Civil Dominion"), which drew arguments from the works of Richard FitzRalph's.

[29] In 1377, Wycliffe's ideas on lordship and church wealth caused his first official condemnation by Pope Gregory XI, who censured 19 articles.

On 22 May 1377, Pope Gregory XI sent five copies of a bull against Wycliffe, dispatching one to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the others to the Bishop of London, King Edward III, the Chancellor, and the university.

[32]: ch8 Stephen Lahey suggests that Gregory's action against Wycliffe was an attempt to put pressure on King Edward to make peace with France.

However, Sir Lewis Clifford entered the chapel and in the name of the queen mother (Joan of Kent), forbade the bishops to proceed to a definite sentence concerning Wycliffe's conduct or opinions.

[37] As long as Wycliffe limited his attacks to abuses and the wealth of the Church, he could rely on the support of part of the clergy and aristocracy, but once he dismissed the traditional doctrine of transubstantiation, his theses could not be defended any more.

Wycliffe aimed to do away with the existing hierarchy and replace it with the "poor priests" who lived in poverty, were bound by no vows, had received no formal consecration,[dubious – discuss] and preached the Gospel to the people.

[38] In the years before his death in 1384 he increasingly argued for Scriptures as the authoritative centre of Christianity, that the claims of the papacy were unhistorical, that monasticism was irredeemably corrupt, and that the moral unworthiness of priests invalidated their office and sacraments.

[12] Wycliffe's corpse, or a neighbour's,[44]: page 121, middle of column  was exhumed; unusually, on the orders of the bishop the remains were burned and the ashes drowned in the River Swift, which flows through Lutterworth.

[3] In keeping with Wycliffe's belief that scripture was the only authoritative reliable guide to the truth about God, he is said to have become involved in efforts to translate the Bible into English.

Wycliffe had come to regard the scriptures as the only reliable guide to the truth about God, and maintained that all Christians should rely on the Bible rather than on the teachings of popes and clerics.

[21] While others were content to seek the reform of particular errors and abuses, Wycliffe sought nothing less than the extinction of the institution itself, as being repugnant to scripture and his theology of apostolic poverty,[29] and inconsistent with the order and prosperity of the Church.

In 1378, in the ambassadors' presence, he delivered an opinion before Parliament that showed, in an important ecclesiastical political question (the matter of the right of asylum in Westminster Abbey), a position that was to the liking of the State.

A number of Wycliffe's ideas have been carried forward in the twentieth century by philosopher and Reformed theologian Cornelius Van Til.

"[64] In Latin: De civili dominio ("On Civil Dominion", c. 1377) he discusses the appropriate circumstance under which an entity may be seen as possessing authority over lesser subjects.

Wycliffe's fundamental principle of the preexistence in thought of all reality involves the most serious obstacle to freedom of the will; the philosopher could assist himself only by the formula that the free will of man was something predetermined of God.

He left aside philosophical discussions that seemed to have no significance for the religious consciousness and those that pertained purely to scholasticism: "We concern ourselves with the verities that are, and leave aside the errors which arise from speculation on matters which are not."

According to Wycliffe faith was sufficient for salvation:[66] Trust wholly in Christ; rely altogether on his sufferings; beware of seeking to be justified in any other way than by his righteousness.

The whole of scripture is one word of God (Latin: Tota scriptura sacra est unum dei verbum): being a monologue by the same author meant that sentences from different books could be combined without much regard for context, supporting strained and mystical interpretations.

literalis est utrobique verus, cum non asseritur a recte intelligentibus) unless obviously figurative, to the extent that when Jesus spoke in parables, he was reporting events that had actually occurred.

[78] Wycliffe is popularly connected with the view that scriptures should be translated into the vernacular and made available to laymen, and that this was a critical issue in the censures against him.