1945-1946 DMLC Messenger Vol. 36

but the verdict returned against the favor of Wyclif. It was during this time he was made a Doctor of Theology and with it obtained the right to lecture.

When Pope Martin V demanded feudal tribute to be paid him of England, Wyclif was drawn into ecclesiastical politics.

The Parliament of 1366 declared the king could not make the country subject to a foreign power, and therefore, would not allow the tribute to be paid. Wyclif led this opposition. He here stated that he believed the church and the state should 'be separated.

From Scriptures, John Wyclif learned that things allowed by the papal power were evil. He proved by the Word that the mendicant orders of monks were not based on God's Word and were also a danger to the state. The vices of these beggars were also opened to the eyes of the people. These accusations set aglow a torch between this man and the monks which lasted until his death. .

His zeal to oppose the papal demagogues became greater after he had served on a committee in the Netherlands at which papal emissaries were present.

After Wyclif became more and more outspoken, he attacked the doctrine of transubstantiation.

As the church taught it, it seemed to him a way of saying the priests held the power to create the Creator. He also saw no sense in not giving the bread and wine to the laity. In his main writing, "Trialogues," he set forth these views on the Lord's Supper: "The bread and wine remain such, but are jointly in a figurative and sacramental sense the body of the Saviour, which believers receive spiritually."

He also wrote a thesis on this subject.

He could not carryon his teachings without meeting opposition. The mendicant orders claimed to hold nineteen heretical passages against him. To account for these, Wyclif was ordered before the archbishop in 1378. But authorities, fearing popular opinion, only declared that no one should defend his teachings. They commanded him not to lecture on subjects which were being disputed.

These decisions only helped to bring more people to his side; for after this dispute, he wrote Latin and English letters to the cornman people and the nobles.

The "earthquake synod" of 1382 declared him a heretic.

Commons, however, would not allow the churchmen the power to arrest a heretic.

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