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John Wycliffe (1320–1384)

Born of lower nobility in 1320 A.D. near Yorkshire, England where the people of his time spoke an English dialect with a distinct German impress, John Wycliffe never learned Greek, but was a close student of Latin. Wycliffe was ousted from Canterbury Hall (which later merged with Christ Church College at Oxford) for his training with Archbishop Islip to reform the abuses and false teachings of the Church. His appeal to the Pope Urban V was rebuffed, and the Vatican bribed the King in order to gain his action in sustaining the appeal against Wycliffe.

Wycliffe lived in a time when the Church strictly and violently enforced its mandate that the Bible was not meant to be read by the average person and was not to be translated from the Latin Vulgate into English. Wycliffe long believed, however, that every English-speaking Christian should have access to the Word of God in his own language. Members of French nobility were allowed by Rome to possess bibles in French, but the Pope bitterly opposed any translation into English, and opposed giving access to the commoner. Later, even his brethren of the cloth were given to say that “the jewel of the clergy has become the toy of the laity.”

Although others had translated portions of the Bible into English, Wycliffe was the first to translate the entire Bible into English. While some consider Wycliffe to have been a pre-Reformation Christian, his translation, together with his fight against Rome’s abuses and false teachings earned him the moniker “Morning Star of the Reformation.”

He said of his efforts to translate the Bible, “[this table is where] I sit not only by day, but often far into the night. Just a few lines only will sometimes cost me hours and days of study before I can satisfy myself as to the correct rendering. … If God spare my life another year, I hope to put the entire Bible in English into the hands of the copyists.” Wycliffe’s Bible, with its simple and direct language, was intended for commoners, and not as a scholarly interpretation. He wanted the Word to be understood.

Wycliffe was persecuted for his work, but was not killed by the Church. The Church did, however, expel Wycliffe from his teaching position at Oxford, and 44 years after he died, the Pope ordered his bones exhumed and burned. Wycliffe was a forerunner to other great reformers like Martin Luther, and translators like William Tyndale, who brought us the beautiful prose of the modern Bible from the Hebrew and Greek. His name should be revered by all Christians for his efforts to gain access to holy writ for every believer.