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The Place of Metaphysics in Wyclif’s Theology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2016

Gordon Leff
Gordon Leff*
Affiliation:
University of York
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Extract

Wyclif’s theological doctrines are reasonably familiar and I do not intend to dwell upon them unduly here. They had their focus in his concepts of the Church, the Bible and the eucharisr, and they were the outcome of a singular combination of a metaphysics of realism—the belief in the reality of universal essences or natures, such as genera and species, and including being itself as the most universal essence of all—and an apostolic or evangelical view of Christian life, modeled on the life of Christ and his disciples, as one of purely spiritual mission and temporal renunciation. It was that combination which made Wyclif’s religious beliefs distinctive, and it is that which I wish to consider here.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History Subsidia , Volume 5: From Ockham to Wyclif , 1987 , pp. 217 - 232
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1987 

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References

1 For recent accounts see Leff, G., Heresy in the Later Middle Ages (Manchester 1067) ii pp. 494–558Google Scholar, and Kenny, A., Wyclif (Oxford 1985).Google Scholar

2 My own earlier tendency.

3 E.g. McFarlane, K. B., John Wycliffe and the Beginnings of English Nonconformity (London 1952) pp. 27, 30, 67–8, 84.Google Scholar

4 Printed in Fasciculi Zizaniorum, ed. W. W. Shirley (RS 1858) pp. 242-52.

5 Catto, J. I., ‘Wyclif and the Cult of the Eucharist’, in SCH Subsidia 4 (1985) pp. 269–86.Google Scholar

6 De Universalibus, ed. I. J. Mueller (Oxford 198 5) cap. 3, p. 77, and translated by Kenny, A. as On Universais (Oxford 1985) p. 22Google Scholar. Henceforth cited as Mueller and Kenny; I have followed Kenny in the English citations made in the text.

7 De Eccles.p. 288.

8 De Civ. Dom. i. 366.

9 Note 6 above.

10 De Univ. cap. 7, Mueller pp. 126-8, Kenny pp. 48-50.

11 Kenny, Wyclif pp. 29-30.

12 De Univ. cap. 7, Mueller pp. 130-1, Kenny p. 51.

13 Ibid., pp. 128-30 and 49-50.

14 Cf. Leff, Heresy ii. 503-5.

15 De Univ. cap. 14, Mueller p. 335, Kenny p. 157.

16 Ibid., pp. 340 and 160.

17 Ibid., pp. 243-3 and 161.

18 Ibid., pp. 343 and 163.

19 Leff, Heresy loc. cit.

20 De Univ. cap. 14, Mueller pp. 346-7, Kenny p. 163.

21 Leff. Heresy ii. 504.

22 De Univ. cap. 13, Mueller p. 314, Kenny p. 146.

23 Ibid.

24 Ibid., Kenny p. 147.

25 Ibid.

26 Robson, J. A., Wyclif and the Oxford Schools (Cambridge 1961) pp. 162–70.Google Scholar

27 Leff, Heresy ii. 512.

28 De Ver. Sac. Scrip. i. 107-13.

29 Trial, pp. 242-3.

30 De Eccles. pp. 2, 7, 107.

31 Ibid., pp. 102-3.

32 Ibil., p. 251.

33 Ibid., p. 106.

34 Ibid., p. 7, 94, 99.

35 De Pol. Pap. p. 179, De Ecoles, p. 31, De Civ. Dom. 1387.

36 De Eccles. p 571, De Ver. Sac. Scrip, ii 248, De Off. Reg. pp 134, 149, De Euch. pp 98-9.

37 De Ver. Sac. Scrip, i. 61, 136, 201, 249.

38 Ibid., p. 70, De Civ. Dom. iii. 59, 217, De Bias. p. 61.

39 De Off Reg. pp. 13, 16, 137, 143.

40 Ibid. pp. 4-6, 346.

41 Ibid. pp. 61, 64, 71, 84, 97, 188, 207.

42 Vol. i passim.

43 For what follows see Leff, Heresy ii. 549-57, G. Leff, ‘Ockham and Wyclif on the Eucharist’, Reading Medieval Studies 2 (1976) pp. 1-13, and Kenny, Wyclif pp. 80-90.