BOOKS.
WYCLIF AND HUS.*
WYCLIF has not hitherto been one of the popular heroes of England. As the "Morning Star of the Reformation," or under some similar title, he occasionally serves to decorate a peroration, but there are comparatively few people who know or care much about him. This cannot be set down simply to a want of interest in the Reformation. Cranmer, Ridley, and. Latimer are still household names, in spite of the pertinacity with which an active school of historians have exposed their faults and weaknesses. It is true that in comparison with them Wyclif has the serious disadvantage of having died in his bed, but this misfortune he shares with Luther and Calvin, who are in no danger of being forgotten. He is uninteresting partly because we cannot know him personally. We have no table talk or record of his daily life which would make him familiar to us in his weakness as in his strength, and give us a picture of the man apart from the theologian. But there is another and more important reason why be fails to win atten- tion,—it is that we have a difficulty in seeing what he did for us. When we can associate a man with any existing institu- tion or belief, it gives us a tie to him ; we regard him with gratitude or dislike, and whether by attraction or repulsion, we acknowledge some concern in him.
Englishmen as a rule do not feel that their Protestantism is at all due to Wyclif. Their impression of him (when they have one) is that he tried his work a century too soon, and failed. utterly in consequence. True, he translated the Bible, but he did not give us our translation ; he raised a party of reform, but it was too slightly rooted, and withered under persecution. Few know, and still fewer realise, that he was not only a precursor but a founder; that his Bible was widely circulated and read up to the time when Tyndale's superseded it ; and that throughout the fifteenth century the English Church was honeycombed with Lollardry. Still less is there any general recognition of the effect of Wyclif's writings in Europe at large ; that the condemnation of his doctrines at Constance was no slaying of the slain, but a serious attempt to repress widespread and dan- gerous heresies.
Dr. Loserth's book is written to show that at least in one direction Wyclit's influence was very important, since John Hue was distinctly his follower and disciple, working almost entirely on the lines which he had drawn. A work of this sort has to be received with caution. The party feeling between Czech and German is very strong indeed in the Austrian Empire. What can be more delightful to a German living among Slays than to show that the religious hero of Bohemia is a second-rate person, a mere disciple of a Teutonic teacher P For it must be remembered that, while the origin or the mass of Englishmen is a subject of dispute, there can be no doubt that all who have attained to any touch of greatness were essentially German. We have thought it our duty, as critics, to bear all this in mind, especially as we remarked that Dr. Loserth dated from Czernowitz, where doubtless the contest between Slav and. Teuton goes on merrily ; but we are bound to say that his book does not bear the stamp of party feeling. We will not go so far as to say that he never overstates a point ; such impartiality in a controversial writer would be hardly human; but he brings a goodly array of proofs, which are amply sufficient to support his main thesis. He shows that some of Hus's most
• Wish/ and Hue. From the German of Dr. Johann Loserth, Professor a History at the University of Czernowitz. Trenalated by the ROY. M. J. Brunk B.A. London: Hodder and Stoughton. 1884.
celebrated works are not merely founded on Wyclirs teaching ; bat, as made evident by parallel extracts, are fall of long pieces taken word for word from Wyclif.
It may seem curious at first sight that such a discovery should have been left till now, but it must be remembered that the writings of Wyclif have been, and for the most part still are, hidden away in manuscript at Vienna. Hue's works have been printed, but it was not until Dr. Loserth applied himself to the Wyclif MSS. with a view to comparison, that it was possible to see what the later Reformer owed to his predecessor. Even now it is fair to suppose that many debts are left unregistered, which will be proved only when Wyclirs works are printed and can be thoroughly examined and indexed, for Has does not con- tent himself with borrowing from some one work which has dealt with the subject in hand. He does this freely, but in addition he works-in long extracts from other writings of the "master of deep thoughts," as he calls Wyclif, and such passages are at present hard to trace.
The first bond between Wyclif and Has was a philosophical one. Wyclif, the greatest schoolman of his time, was a Realist, and was consequently in opposition to the Nominalism that but for him would have been reigned in the schools almost without challenge. To Wyclif his philosophy seemed to be bound up with the cause of religion, and he declared that to be orthodox one must have correct ideas as to Universals. His opponents were not more tolerant of difference, and at Constance D'Ailly proved to his own satisfaction that the realist views of Hue and Wyclif were enough to convict them of heresy. Probably he did not consider how many saints he was implicitly consigning to damnation. When so much depended on one's philosophical opinions, it was natural that an agreement in them should go farther, and Has became in his university a strenuous sup- porter of Wyclifite ideas. When the Archbishop of Prague, in obedience to a Ball from the Pope, ordered some of Wyclirs books to be horned, Hus and those who agreed with him announced a series of public disputations in defence of Wyclif, and this, it may be remarked, was Has's first act of opposition to constituted Church authority. This defence did not concern itself merely with points of philosophy, for Has already shared most of the opinions characteristic of the English reformers. Like Wyclif, he was a strong pre- destinarian; and when he wrote upon the Church, he borrowed from Wyclirs treatise of the same name (de Ecclesia) his definition of the Church as the congregation of all the pre- destinate. Like Wyclif, he allows for the popular use of the term "Church" to exclude the reprobate, and draws the dis- tinction between those who are "de ecclesia " and those who are only "in ecclesia."
Both hold the same views as to the right and duty of the civil power to restrain and correct the Clergy, or even in case of need to deprive them of their endowments. Both insist on the uselessness of indulgences, and we may notice in Hue's treatise on this subject a characteristic example of his use of Wyclire works. He takes from Wyclirs de Ecclesia a series of objections to indulgences, and rearranges the points ; so that, e.g., Wyclirs " Dico primo " becomes Hus's "Dice tercio ;" but he gives the same objections, and for the most part in the same words, the only alteration of importance being that he omits Wyclif's sixth point, which is a denial of the Pope's power to grant indulgences for a fixed time. A little farther on Hus borrows in the same way long pieces from Wyclirs de Abso- laciorte, and here again he occasionally softens down attacks upon the Pope. In this case the alterations are rather in form than substance ; but, as a rule, Has is inclined to admit the primacy of Peter and the Pope's authority, although drawing from his admissions the same moral as Wyclif as to the Pope's duty to follow Peter in humility and readiness to serve. Even on the doctrinal question he is at times more trenchant, and he writes of Christian of Prachatitz in language that is purely Wyclifite, that the Pope, if living in wickedness, is the chief of Antichrists.
On the use of images Has wrote a tract which is little more than an excerpt from Wyclif. This is the more noticeable be- cause the abuse of images and relics had already been denounced in Bohemia by Mathias of Janow, whom one might have ex- pected Hue to follow rather than an English teacher. In other matters Has is less decided than Wyclif, though going the same way. While he says that oral confession and absolution are not in all cases necessary to salvation, he does not venture, hlre Wyclif, to make each Christian his own judge, free to con-
fess or refrain as he finds most profitable. Again, when Wyclif declares that two orders—priests and deacons—are enough now as in the primitive Church, Hue does not follow him to his con- clusion, although he adopts the premiss, saying, "Cam igitur ex ordinacione Christi tempore apostolornm duo ordines cleri pro. sua ecclesia suffecerint scilicet diaconns et sacerdos."
It is unnecessary to pursue further the details of agreement between the two reformers. It is evident that Has followed on. the lines marked out by Wyclif, but with a mind less absolute in its logic and less active in its search for principles of belief, turning by preference to the moral side of controversy, and shunning speculative heresy. On one point, and that of great importance, Transubstantiation, Hue remains quite unaffected. by the doctrine of Wyclif. Indeed, on the question of the Encharist.he is perfectly orthodox, and does not seem even to. have led the way to the doctrine which was to become pre- valent in Bohemia soon after his death. At Constance he was charged with holding the Wyclifite heresy as to the change in the elements, but he steadfastly denied it, and there is no reason to doubt that the charge was false. Yet he cannot have entered fully into the orthodox horror at this heresy, or he would hardly have retained his respect and admiration for Wyclif to the last, as he did even when dissociating himself on this point from the English reformer.
We may add a few words as to Hus's method of borrowing.. As already noticed, he takes long passages from the works of Wyclif, which he uses as the ground of what he has to say, and weaves in with it selections from other treatises. The " con- veyance " is of the most wholesale kind, both in substance and form. Leading ideas, definitions, illustrations, and arguments. are all taken with unsparing hand, and the adaptation is of the simplest. Thus, in a discussion on the royal right of withdraw- ing endowments that have been abused, Hue simply writes for
reges Anglia3," " imperator vol rex," and for "nostrara eccle- siam," "ecclesiam Pragensem," and the argument is his own. A. little further on he takes his statistics in the same easy way. "Cum plus quern quarto pars regni sit devoluta ad manum mortuam, sequitur,quod rex noster non sit rex tocins Boemize,. cum plus quam quarto pars in mann mortua est decisa." This,. and the argument which precedes it, is word for word from Wyclif, except that in the original " Angli" stands for " Boemiw."
These examples are enough to show the manner of borrow- ing, but of its extent no idea can be formed without turning to Dr. Loserth's book. We are pleased to hear that the author is now engaged on an edition of Wyclirs de Ecclesia, which will give materials for a completer judgment than can be formed on any extracts. Meanwhile, such examination as we have been able to make assures ne that the extracts are fairly given, and that the case is proved. As Englishmen we may acknowledge some satisfaction in this fresh testimony to the importance and influence of our great reformer, and we receive it with the more pleasure that while Wyclif gains, Has cannot be said to lose. His glory has never been that of speculative originality, but of a noble, steadfast character that would shrink from no danger when truth was at stake. We see now that he was as free from literary vanity as from fear, that he was willing to adopt the words that he thought best set forth the truth without any attempt to set his own personal stamp upon them. It can detract nothing from him to know that the chief intellectual influence upon him came from England, and that his most revered teacher was John Wyclif.
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