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The Lollards have been England’s first evangelicals. This is the story …
John Wycliffe
In the mid-fourteenth century John Wycliffe (c1324-1384), who was a dean at Oxford University, protested in opposition to the abuses of the Established Church.
Wycliffe protested in opposition to most of the abuses and corruption of the organised Church. At that point the Catholic Church used Latin for the companies and used the Latin Bible. It was mainly a very good translation however few folks, together with most of the monks, knew Latin nicely.
The Church was a sequence of rituals and ceremonies which most individuals did out of responsibility. The gospel was there however typically misplaced beneath layers of custom, corrupt practices, problems and superstitions, blended up with politics. Instead John Wycliffe emphasised private religion and an easier type of faith, with monks residing in poverty.
Wycliffe was himself a priest who wished to see the Church radically reformed, and he believed that they need to use English as an alternative of Latin. His quarrel was not with religion itself. He was a powerful Christian who emphasised private religion based mostly upon the Bible, however he was against the errors of synthetic organised faith.
In 1368, Wycliffe moved from Oxford to Bucks when he turned rector of Ludgershall, close to Aylesbury. He was there till 1374, when he turned a priest at Lutterworth, in Leicestershire, the place he stayed till he died in 1384.
Wycliffe Bible
Wycliffe and his followers translated the Bible from the Latin Vulgate into English, which was accomplished about 1382, and went by way of varied revisions. This was the primary full Bible in English, and it opened up the Scriptures to strange folks. This was earlier than the printing press got here to England, and elements have been copied by hand and distributed broadly.
The Lollards
Many folks supported Wycliffe’s concepts which unfold throughout England. Some folks turned itinerant preachers. They went in pairs to cities and villages, telling folks the excellent news (gospel) about Jesus, and doing so in English. These have been referred to as the Lollards. They have been notably quite a few within the West Country, the Chilterns, the East Midlands and East Anglia. They have been primarily in England, however there have been additionally some in Scotland.
Lollards met and not using a priest and have been primarily a lay motion though some monks have been additionally Lollards. They prayed in English and skim the Bible in English as an alternative of Latin, and held conferences exterior a consecrated constructing. People gathered in one another’s houses, to wish and skim the Bible in English. They have been educated and peaceable folks.
They emphasised private religion and piety. Their companies revolved round studying and expounding the Scripture. They didn’t imagine within the necessity for monks to be celibate. Not many individuals have been literate and so these conferences have been led by those that may learn, whether or not male or feminine, married or single. They taught their kids the Lord’s Prayer in English, and taught folks to learn the Scriptures.
They didn’t reject the Church as such, however they wished an easier, extra pious Church, with educated monks who have been free to marry, and who carried out companies in English (or regardless of the native language was). They condemned the extreme wealth and corruption of the mediaeval Church, and objected to pilgrimages and monasticism. They additionally rejected the supremacy of the Pope, however as an alternative believed within the authority of the Bible.
In phrases of beliefs one of many key heretical beliefs was that they believed that the bread and wine of communion have been simply symbolic, which went in opposition to the usual view then, referred to as transubstantiation. Their beliefs and practices have been a problem to the primary Church authorities they usually have been regarded with suspicion and sometimes thought to be heretics.
Persecution
In 1401, Henry IV enacted a merciless statute that Lollards who refused to resign their beliefs needs to be executed by burning. In 1408, translations of the English Bible have been banned except authorised by a bishop (which none have been), so from then proudly owning and utilizing a translation of the Scriptures in English turned a criminal offense.
In 1415, the Council of Constance posthumously declared John Wycliffe to be a heretic, though he was not condemned as one in his lifetime. Many Lollards have been condemned as heretics and given varied punishments, and a few have been burnt on the stake for heresy, particularly the rejection of transubstantiation.
Similar actions
The views of the Lollards weren’t distinctive. Some equivalents of the Lollards have been present in mainland Europe, notably within the Netherlands, and the Waldensians of the French and Italian Alps, and the Hussites of Bohemia and Morava (now referred to as the Czech Republic).
Reformation
Later in Germany, an identical motion to the Lollards was began in 1517, by a monk referred to as Martin Luther. The German phrase for somebody who protests, on this case in opposition to abuses within the Church, is ‘ein Protestant’, in English we would say ‘a protester’. The Lollards have been protesters in opposition to most of the similar points, so within the early 1500s the Lollards related themselves with the brand new Protestant motion, which that they had loads in widespread with.
Were the Lollards Protestants? On one hand it’s anachronistic to name them Protestants, since they predate the Protestant Reformation and predate the primary use of the phrase ‘Protestant’; but alternatively they have been successfully Protestants earlier than the phrase was a part of the English language. Once the Protestant Reformation started the Lollards have been successfully absorbed into it, though their beliefs did differ from Lutheranism in some respects.
William Tyndale
One of crucial folks to be produced by the Lollard motion was William Tyndale. He grew up amongst Lollards in South Gloucestershire utilizing the Wycliffite Bible. Once Erasmus had printed his Greek and Latin diglot of the New Testament, folks in numerous international locations have been in a position to make use of it to translate the New Testament from Greek. William Tyndale used the 1522 version of Erasmus’s Greek New Testament to translate the New Testament into on a regular basis English. It was in additional fashionable and customary English, and simpler to know that Wycliffe’s translation. It was printed in Germany and later Antwerp, and first smuggled into England in early 1526. Tyndale’s New Testament turned highly regarded and was adopted by the Lollards. Tyndale additionally wrote different theological works, which right now could be classed as mainstream evangelical.
Legacy
The Lollards created an urge for food in England for reform. They have been England’s first evangelicals. Certainly when the Church of England was created and the English Bible was launched in 1539, and when monks may marry in 1549, these reforms have been highly regarded, and have been views already espoused by many individuals. The Great Bible which Henry VIII launched in 1539 integrated William Tyndale’s New Testament and Pentateuch, which successfully had been the Lollard Scriptures. Lollardy had grow to be mainstream. The English Reformation owed extra to Lollardy and Tyndale, than Lutheranism and Luther.
Lollard beliefs and practices have been rooted of their plain studying of the Scriptures, and by fashionable requirements have been fairly mainstream within the Protestant world. Some of their beliefs would even be thought-about mainstream within the fashionable post-Vatican II Catholic Church, which now holds companies in native languages and encourages use of the Bible.
Let us keep in mind the Lollards who have been England’s first evangelicals.
