John Wycliffe was an English scholastic philosopher, theologian, biblical translator, reformer, priest, and a seminary professor at the University of Oxford. He became an influential dissident within the Roman Catholic priesthood during the 14th century and is considered an important predecessor to Protestantism.
Wycliffe attacked the privileged status of the clergy, which had bolstered their powerful role in England. He then attacked the luxury and pomp of local parishes and their ceremonies.Wycliffe also advocated translation of the Bible into the vernacular. In 1382 he completed a translation directly from the Vulgate into Middle English – a version now known as Wycliffe's Bible. It is probable that he personally translated the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; and it is possible he translated the entire New Testament, while his associates translated the Old Testament. Wycliffe's Bible appears to have been completed by 1384, additional updated versions being done by Wycliffe's assistant John Purvey and others in 1388 and 1395.
Wycliffe's followers, known as Lollards, followed his lead in advocating predestination, iconoclasm, and the notion of caesaropapism, while attacking the veneration of saints, the sacraments, requiem masses, transubstantiation, monasticism, and the very existence of the Papacy.
In the 16th century and beyond, the Lollard movement was sometimes regarded as the precursor to the Protestant Reformation. Wycliffe was accordingly characterised as the evening star of scholasticism and as the morning star of the English Reformation. Wycliffe's writings in Latin greatly influenced the philosophy and teaching of the Czech reformer Jan Hus , whose execution in 1415 sparked a revolt and led to the Hussite Wars
of 1419–1434.
Wikipedia
“I believe that in the end the truth will conquer.”
Statement to the Duke of Lancaster (1381), as quoted in Champions of the Right (1885) by Edward Gilliat, p. 135
As quoted in Great Voices of the Reformation : An Anthology (1952) by Harry Emerson Fosdick, p. 37
Variant: I believe that in the end truth will conquer.
As quoted in Wyclif, by Anthony Kenny, p. 90. (1985) published by Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-287646-5
Quoted in William Tyndale: If God Spare My Life — Martyrdom, Betrayal and the English Bible (2003) by Brian Moynahan, p. xvii
“This Bible is for the Government of the People, by the People, and for the People.”
General Prologue to the Bible translation of 1384, as quoted in Lincoln at Gettysburg : An Address (1906) by Clark Ezra Carr, p. 75;
Latin statement in De Quattuor Sectis Novellis, as translated in Typical English Churchmen (1909) by John Neville Figgis, p. 16
As quoted in Typical English Churchmen (1909) by John Neville Figgis, p. 15
