John Wycliffe

=== Scripture ===
Wycliffe expressed his theories in the book ''{{lang-la|De Veritate Sacrae Scripturae}}'' (On the Truthfulness of Holy Scripture, c.1378).

Wycliffe's dictum {{lang-la|omnis veritas est ex scriptura, et ut necessarior est expressior}} says that all truths necessary to faith are
found expressly in the Bible, and the more necessary, the more expressly.<ref name=ghosh>{{cite book |last1=Ghosh |first1=Kantik |title=The Wycliffite Heresy: Authority and the Interpretation of Texts |date=4 October 2001 |doi=10.1017/CBO9780511483288|isbn=9780521807203 }}</ref>{{rp|67}}

The whole of scripture is one word of God (''{{lang-la|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.<ref name=ghosh />{{rp|23,28}}

The scriptures were literally true (''{{lang-la|sensus . . . 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.<ref name=ghosh />{{rp|34}} [[Psalm 22]] v6 ("I am a worm and no man"),<ref>This verse is also used in the quasi-[[Joachimite]] Middle English tract ''The Last Age of the Church'', attributed to the young Wycliffe, which gives the year 1400 as start of the age of the anti-Christ, interpreting the verse using versions of a Talmudic legend and mentioning a supposed prophecy of Merlin. {{cite web |last1=Wycliffe |first1=John |title=The last age of the church |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/70258 |language=English |date=10 March 2023}}</ref> which [[Pseudo-Dionysius]] had memorably used to give 'worm' as a name of God,<ref>{{cite web |last1=Corrigan |first1=Kevin |last2=Harrington |first2=L. Michael |title=Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-dionysius-areopagite/#CharWrit |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |date=2023}}</ref> became in Wycliffe's extreme literalism a statement that Jesus had been begotten without sexual contact (as was then believed of worms) and was formally God not a simply man.<ref name=ghosh />{{rp|32}} The literal sense of scripture is that sense which the Holy Ghost first imparted so that the faithful soul might ascend to God ({{lang-la|sensum literalem scripture sensum, quem spiritus sanctus primo indidit, ut animus fidelis ascendat in deum.}})<ref name=ghosh />{{rp|36}}

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==== Vernacular Scripture====
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.

However, scholars have noted the availability of scriptures to laypeople in the vernacular was not a notable theme of Wycliffe's theological works. (It is mentioned in his ''De XXXIII erroribus curitatum'', Chapter 26 against those who would stop secular men from "intermeddling with the Gospel".<ref name=tnt/>{{rp|27}}) Nor were there any church-wide bans on vernacular scriptures in place that Wycliffe might be regarded as protesting against.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=François |first1=Wim |title=Vernacular Bible Reading in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe: The "Catholic" Position Revisited |journal=The Catholic Historical Review |date=2018 |volume=104 |issue=1 |pages=23–56 |doi=10.1353/cat.2018.0001 |s2cid=163790511 |url=https://lirias.kuleuven.be/retrieve/567000 |access-date=14 August 2023}}</ref> It was not part of Wycliffe's 1377 papal censure, nor the declaration of heresy by the [[Council of Constance]] (1415).<ref name=constance>{{cite journal |last1=Tatnall |first1=Edith C. |title=The condemnation of John Wyclif at the Council of Constance |journal=Councils and Assemblies |series=Studies in Church History |date=1970 |pages=209–218 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/councils-and-assemblies/condemnation-of-john-wyclif-at-the-council-of-constance/8C7D1C3420BFE791D5AC6D8FE36ED300 |publisher=Cambridge University Press|doi=10.1017/CBO9780511665820.013 |isbn=9780521080385 }}</ref> Vernacular scriptures were not mentioned in the two key early Lollard documents, regarded as channelling his doctrine: the [[Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards|Twelve Conclusions]] (c. 1396)<ref>{{cite web |title=The Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards |url=https://chaucer.fas.harvard.edu/pages/twelve-conclusions-lollards |website=chaucer.fas.harvard.edu |language=en}}</ref> and the [[Ecclesiae Regimen|Thirty Seven Conclusions]] (c. 1396)<ref>{{cite journal |title=The Thirty Seven Conclusions of the Lollards |journal=English Theological Review |date=1911 |volume=XXVI |pages=738–749 |url=https://lollardsociety.org/pdfs/Compston_37_conclusions.pdf}}</ref> (or Remonstrances).