Classic Anti-Wycliffe, Anti-Lollard Work: Doctrinal Antiquities of the Catholic Faith   

Doctrinale Antiquitatum Fidei Ecclesiae Catholicae  

by Thomas Netter of Walden, English Carmelite

Translated from original Latin by Protestant Reformation Publications 

Revised and edited with notes by Carmelite Father Bonaventura Blanciotti 

1757 Venice Edition; 1557 original publication date 

On Wycliffe’s General Errors: First Class 

In the year of salvation, 1415, the holy Synod of Constance passed a resolution concerning forty-five articles by John Wycliffe, after careful examination. I submit them here in the order in which they are referred to in the great Synod aforesaid. [N.B. The editor, Father Blanciotti, adds this note: “The Synod condemned many as heretical which were long ago reprobated by the Holy Fathers; others not Catholic, but erroneous; others scandalous and blasphemous; some offensive to pious ears; some were called rash and scandalous.”] 

1. The material substance of the bread, and likewise the material substance of the wine, remain in the Sacrament of the Altar. [The editor adds: Luther and Calvin drank from this fountain. 

2. The accidents of bread do not remain without a subject in the same Sacrament. [I.e., the bread itself remains bread and does not transubstantiate into the literal body, soul and divinity of Christ.] 

3. Christ is not in the same Sacrament identically and really in his own bodily presence. [The editor adds: Calvin was taught in this school.]

4. If a Bishop or Priest exists in mortal sin, he does not ordain, consecrate, fully perform, or baptize. 

5. It is not founded in the Gospel that Christ instituted the Mass. [The editor adds: An allegation accepted by Luther and Calvin.]  

6. God must obey the Devil. [N.B. This alleged proposition of Wycliffe is widely in dispute.] 

7. If a man is duly contrite, all outward confession is superfluous and useless. [ The editor adds: Luther and Calvin learned this proposition.]

8. If the Pope is foreknown to be evil and consequently a member of the devil, he has no power over the faithful, except perhaps that given him by Caesar. 

9. After Urban VI, [d. 1389], no one is to be accepted as Pope, but one must live according to the Greeks’ own laws. 

10. It is against Holy Scripture that ecclesiastical men should have possessions. 

11. No prelate should excommunicate anyone unless he first knows that he has been excommunicated by God: and whoever so excommunicates is therefore a heretic or excommunicated. 

12. A prelate excommunicating a cleric who has appealed to the King or to the Council of the Realm is by that very fact a traitor to the King and the Realm. 

13. Those who forsake preaching or hearing the word of God because of the excommunication of men are excommunicated themselves and are considered traitors of Christ in the judgment of God. 

14. It is permissible for any Deacon or Priest to preach the word of God without the authority of the Apostolic See or a Catholic Bishop. 

15. No one is a civil Lord, no one is a Prelate, no one is a Bishop while he is in mortal sin. 

16. Temporal lords can take temporal goods from the Church at their own discretion, for possessions are habitually given to offenders, that is, by habit, not only by actual offenses. 

17. The people can correct offending lords at their discretion. 

18. Tithes are pure alms and parishioners can take them away at their own will because of the sins of their Prelates. 

19. Specific prayers applied to one person by Prelates or Religious are no more beneficial to him than general ones, all else being equal. 

20. One is excommunicated for conferring alms to the Friars. 

21. If someone enters a private religious sect of any kind [religious orders], whether of those who hold possessions or of the Mendicants, he is rendered more unfit for the observance of God’s commandments. 

22. The [Catholic] saints sinned by establishing religions for private individuals. 

23. Religious people living in private religions [religious orders] are not of the Christian religion. 

24. The Friars are bound to acquire their livelihood through the labor of their hands and not through begging. 

25. All are simoniacs who bind themselves to pray for others, assisting in temporal matters. 

26. Prayer to the foreknown [reprobate] is of no avail.

27. Everything happens out of absolute necessity. [The editor adds: Hence Luther learned to attack free will.] 

28. Confirmation of young men, ordination of clerics, and the consecration of places are reserved for the Pope and Bishops because of their desires for temporal gain and honor. [The editor adds: Hence Luther and Calvin drew a similar error.] 

29. Master’s degrees from universities, colleges and schools introduce vain paganism and of the same benefit to the Church as the devil.  

30. The excommunication of the Pope or any Prelate is not to be feared, because it is the censure of Antichrist. [The editor adds: Luther felt the same way.] 

31. Those who founded the cloisters sinned, and those who enter are diabolical men. 

32. Enriching the clergy is against the rule of Christ. 

33. Pope Sylester and Emperor Constantine erred in endowing the Church. [I.e., the alleged Donation of Constantine.] 

34. All the order of Mendicants are heretics and those who give them alms are excommunicated. 

35. When they enter a religion or any order, they are thereby incapable of observing the divine precepts and consequently, of reaching the kingdom of heaven, unless they have apostatized from them. [The editor adds: Luther and Calvin, enemies of vows and monastic life, did not teach anything more sound than that apostasy of their teacher.] 

36. The Pope, with all his Clerics who have possessions, are heretics because they have possessions; as well as those who consent to them; namely, all secular lords and the rest of the laity. 

37. The Roman Church is the synagogue of Satan: nor is the Pope the closest and immediate Vicar of Christ and the Apostles. [The editor adds: Luther, Calvin, and some of the Innovators made this error.] 

38. The Decretal Epistles are apocryphal and lead astray from the faith of Christ; and the clerics are fools who study them. 

39. The Emperor and secular lords are deceived by the devil when endowing the Church with temporal goods. 

40. The election of the Pope by the Cardinals was introduced by the devil. 

41. It is not necessary for salvation to believe that the Roman Church is supreme among other Churches. [The editor adds: In this Luther and Calvin were in agreement with Wycliffe.]  

42. It is foolish to believe in the indulgences of the Pope and Bishops. [The editor adds: Here also the error of Luther and Calvin is condemned.] 

43. Oaths which are intended to strengthen human contracts and civil transactions are unlawful. 

44. Augustine, Benedict and Bernard were damned unless they repented of the fact that they had possessions, instituted and entered into religious orders: and thus, from the Pope to the last religious all are heretics. All religions, however introduced, are from the devil. 

Second Class of General Errors 

1. Peter and the Roman Pontiffs, some of whom are likely to be devils, are not the head of the entire Church Militant. 

2. They are heretics who claim Peter’s power more excellent than the other Apostles. 

3. The power which the Pope exercises is derived from the imperial power; nor does it have a foundation in the faith of Scripture. 

4. The Pope is more obligated to the Emperor than vice versa. 

5. The Pope is the Antichrist. 

6. Where human laws are not founded on Holy Scripture, subjects are not bound to obey. 

7. The Church is the assembly of the predestined, and we must believe that each [true] member is predestined to glory. 

8. The Church Militant is divided into clergy, soldiers, and workers. 

9. No Prelates should define anything in matters of faith unless they have the authority of Sacred Scripture for this, or a special revelation from the Holy Spirit, and that without a Council. 

10. Among the wise, anything not expressly stated in sacred Scripture should be left aside as irrelevant to the truth. 

11. The Pope and Cardinals are to be believed, and their advice acted upon when their evidence is gathered from holy Scripture alone. Otherwise, whatever they presume beyond that is to be despised as heretical. 

12. The judgment of the General Council is not to be upheld. 

13. The prominent divisions of Antichrist consist of the Pope, Cardinals, Patriarchs, Archbishops, Bishops, Archdeacons, Officials, Deans, Monks, Canons, & Mendicant Friars. 

14. With the Pope and all the Bishops removed, the Church would prosper more; and Christ, sitting vertically in heaven above the righteous Priests, would give them the power to do whatever the Pope and Bishops do. 

15. In the primitive [Jewish] Church there were two orders of clergy, namely, Priest and Deacon [Elder]. In the time of the Apostle Paul there were also two orders of clergy: Priest and Bishop. The other ranks were invented by imperial pride. 

16. No matter how much the secular power may be in need, it is not to be helped by goods from the Church; nor is it permissible for the clergy to return them without committing sacrilege. Furthermore, Wycliffe, a common enemy of both the living and the dead, attacked the intercession of saints, their invocation, canonization, feast days, the worship of relics, and prayers for the dead. 

Third Class of General Errors 

1. It is not for certain that Christ assists or concurs with the Priest celebrating and administering the Sacraments. 

2. An unbelieving minister does not perform the Sacrament. 

3. The foreknown [as reprobate] cannot perform the Sacraments. 

4. Material water baptism is not absolutely necessary, but the baptism of the spirit is sufficient through the merit and the outpouring of material water from the side of the Savior; and finally, by water baptism, infants themselves can be saved. 

5. Baptism does not erase venial sins of omission. 

6. The sacramental character [indelible mark] has no foundation in Holy Scripture or reason and is utterly useless. 

7. Adoration of the Eucharist is idolatry.

8. The Body of Christ in the Eucharist is a creature worse than a flea because it is bread. [I.e., at least the flea is another living thing, whereas bread is not.] 

9. The office of consecrating the Eucharist is fitting for holy priests: however, it may also be appropriate for non-ordained laypeople.  

10. The Sacrament of Penance and Absolution has no foundation in Holy Scripture. 

11. It must be said that auricular confession was invented by novices and was instituted by Innocent III. 

12. Confession is a means invented by Antichrist or a member of his for knowing all the secrets, as well as a means of searching out the possessions of worldly people. 

13. All the sins of those foreknown [destined to destruction] are mortal, all the sins of those predestined are venial. 

14.The difference between these sins is not gathered through external acts. 

15. Only the sin of final impenitence, which is the sin against the Holy Spirit, is properly mortal. 

16. A mortal sin in a person with fruitful penance ultimately taking place is not deserving of perpetual punishment, but only of temporary punishment. 

17. Extreme unction is not a Sacrament. 

18. Extreme unction can be a Sacrament for some, if the Priest merits it by his prayers. 

19. It is not truly a marriage that is contracted without the hope of children. 

20. Judges who judge in favor of marriage based on mere words, judge against the law of God.

 21. Words about the future, more than words about the present, are suitable for entering into marriage. Furthermore, Wycliffe ridiculed the solemn rite by which a priest joins a man and woman in the Church; he called the sacred words trifling and false. He also asserted that the degrees of consanguinity, even among brothers and sisters, do not dissolve marriages by divine law, but only by human ordinance; and he said that love among people expands not only from kinship but also from affinity. Moreover, he considered this human ordinance to be too weak; nor was there a reason why it should be forbidden today, that which was allowed in the time of the first man and during the times of the patriarchs. 

SUMMARY OF THE FIRST DOCTRINE OF THE WYCLIFFITES & LOLLARDS

First, Wycliffe teaches, as did the ancient heretics, that whatever the Pope or the so-called Church says is to be condemned, unless it is proved from Holy Scripture. [N.B. The so-called ‘ancient heretics’ were true Christians, dating back to the 12th century, who believed in the principle of sola Scriptura.]

1. Beware, faithful, of the leaven of the Pharisees, and the initial doctrine of heretics, which the followers of Wycliffe and the Lollards adhere to, claiming and asserting that they only hold to the Holy Scriptures, following them plainly, and proving all things by them. “We condemn” (says Wycliffe) “whatever the Pope or the so-called Church say, if they do not prove it from the Holy Scripture in which all truth is contained.” [The editor adds: To strengthen the rebellion against the Church, even more recent heretics reject all Apostolic tradition, boasting that they follow Scripture alone. Thus, Luther in his Epistle to the Friars Minor, followed by Martin Bucer and Martin Chemnitz. Likewise, Calvin in his book 5, Institutes, chap. 10, accepting only Scripture, declaims against all traditions, as he does against the tyranny of the Church.] 

2. But Christ warns us in the Gospel: If they say to you, ‘There is Christ,’ or ‘He is in the desert,’ do not go out. Many will come in my name, whom I have not sent, whom I have not commanded. Nor from the beginning to this time has there been any heretic who has not produced his heresy from Scriptures falsely presumed: not Basilides, not Marcion, not Valentinus, not Photinus, not Sabellius, not Arius, not Manichaeus, not Donatus, not Pelagius; in short, not even the devil has ever contended against the faith without Scripture. Whence against Christ: It is written (he says) that God commanded His angels concerning thee. What then if the impudent Wycliffites make a noise in the chambers and taverns: the holy Evangelical Doctor utters only the Gospels; the Holy Scriptures are acquitted. [N. B. The Lollards used Scripture and facts to warn the public of the evil contained in Catholicism.] Does he reject the glosses of the Mendicant Friars as the useless laws of Caesarian clerics? 

3. I declare on behalf of the Church: We reject both Wycliffe’s heretical glosses and his erroneous expositions by which he defiles and perverts the Holy Scriptures, changing them to his own opinion by a false meaning: and even an idiot will see all the Scriptures as quite contrary to him. But with his little leaven he corrupts the Holy Scriptures, rendering them infected. Hence in Jerome’s Exposition on Micah 7:5, book 2, chapter 8, do not believe your friends, he says, “[This pertains to] heretics who have previously believed the Scriptures which were written and published by the Holy Spirit, who now transfer to themselves new doctrines, which are the leaven of the Pharisees, and the commandments of men.” — It follows – “Who without a teacher, and the grace of the Lord, changing the opinions of the Scriptures to their own judgment, are puffed up and know nothing: and languish about questions, and contentions, and fights of words, who, while claiming the truth is in their house, are enemies of the truth.” This from Jerome. 

4. I advise you, therefore, on behalf of Christ: when you receive the bread of the Scriptures from them, beware of the leaven of heretical interpretation, which they infuse into the sacred bread, and say: Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you? I accept the sayings of Christ and the writings of Paul; but how your sayings agree with them, I do not know. For by this art he instructed both himself and his hearers to believe, as that Jovinian heretic, of whom Jerome in his Epistle, ad Dominionem, says, “A skilled and veteran soldier strikes both with a single swing of his sword to show the people that whatever he wished, the Scripture would agree.” 

SUMMARY OF THE SECOND DOCTRINE OF THE WYCLIFFITES & LOLLARDS

The Wycliffites, having once satisfied themselves that the Holy Scripture alone is the rule of Faith, declare that whatever the common Church or the Holy Fathers have taught, or indeed whatever the sacred Councils have decreed, is to be despised [if it contradicts Scripture]. 

1. Beware, faithful, the leaven of the Pharisees, according to Wycliffite doctrine, by which they say, write and agree that the documents of the common Church, the approved Councils of the Holy Fathers, and the decrees commended by the mouths of many, are to be despised because (they say) “the consensus of many in one thing is not always to be approved because it was a mob of Jews that laudably killed Christ, and five hundred prophets of Baal had supplanted Elijah.” [The editor adds: “In our multitude we attend not only to the consent of many, but especially to the testimony of the tradition and doctrine of Christ and of the Apostles: of the tradition, I say, and doctrine, which has come down to us through the unbroken succession of the Fathers. We know, of course, that the multitude of men often agree in error; but we also know that the multitude of witnesses, or the multitude of all the Churches, successively testifying through their Bishops to the UNITY of the doctrine of Christ and the Apostles, reminds us that that doctrine is truly Divine and Apostolic.”] 

But I say that the Church, which teaches that doctrine itself must be believed, under penalty of contumacy, (I mean that which is present, which has decreed right judgments, from the time of the Apostles until the present, through the succession of the Fathers themselves, wise teachers), must be believed, I say, under penalty of treachery. 

2. Councils are also to be believed, if not to be rejected, as established by the edicts of the Holy Fathers. And for this reason, the Council of the Pharisees is to be most justly separated from the Council of the Apostles; and the Council of Nicaea in Bithynia from the alleged Council of Nicaea in Thrace. 

3. In this way Blessed Paul cleverly wished to inquire about the Council of the Apostles celebrated in Jerusalem, whether he had done rightly, preaching that the Baptism of Christ was valid without Circumcision. Hence in the book of Reconsiderations on the Acts of the Apostles, Bede states, “He discussed with them the Gospel which he preached, carefully examining it in the Council of the Apostles, whether he was doing right in preaching that the Gentiles could attain salvation through the baptism of faith, without circumcision: not that he himself had any doubt about this matter; but that the minds of those who doubted might be confirmed by the authority of the Apostolic Synod.” Thus Bede. 

SUMMARY OF THE THIRD WYCLIFFITE DOCTRINE 

Not only do the Wycliffites despise the teachings of the Holy Doctors, but they also reject their expositions, following the example of Wycliffe who said all the Holy Fathers before the first millennium had erred. 

1. Beware, faithful, of the leaven of the Pharisees, and the third doctrine of the Lollards, who refute the expositions of the Holy Doctors (d), concerning the subject of the Eucharist. Wycliffe repudiates all Doctors before the first millennium and calls Ambrose apocryphal. On the subject of endowment, he says all the Holy Fathers erred, as they did on the subject of Religion, and other matters. In short, he teaches that all the Saints are to be dismissed because, (he says), “they had from ancient times a tendency to sin.” 

[The editor adds in note (d): “Calvin, book 3, Institutes, chapter 5, § 6 & 10, writes that the ancient Fathers prayed for the dead without the command of God, nor had a legitimate example to do so; and therefore, they are not to be imitated. He adds that Augustine issued an old decree to pray for the soul of his mother Monica, and that his book on the dead is very cold. Luther, in a book entitled, Little Confession, says that the Church has fallen; that Bishops and Academics are not to be heard. In the Epitome of Sylvester, he despises the Angelic Doctor Saint Thomas and the other Scholastics: and says that the faith has long since been extinct in the Church, the Gospel proscribed, and Christ exiled.”]  

For truly, with this cursed leaven he intends to render the hearers deprived of all the ancient doctrine of the Church and the Holy Fathers, so that he may freely cover over his errors. The Holy Church teaches you the opposite: that you should not presume to accept anything from the letter of the Scriptures without the spirit of Christ. The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. If you have received the spirit of Wycliffe in the letter of the law, you have already drunk the deadly drink. If you have received the spirit of Paul, of Victorinus after him, eventually of Hilary, lastly of Augustine, and in the meantime of Gregory, and through his succession of Isidore; and so, through the series of the Holy Fathers, from the time of Christ and the Apostles, whom Christ included in this Scripture, you may safely believe. In this way Augustine refutes Julian in book 1, Against him, chapter 8 at the end: “So much so,” (he says), “that Pelagius and Caelestius can not only abandon so many ancient Doctors and defenders of the Catholic faith, and those who are contiguous to our age, sleeping and even remaining among you, but you dare call them [our teachers] Manichaeans? I wonder how this could ever come out of your mouth, which the wickedness of your error compels you to cry out. But it is strange if in a man’s face there is such a distance between the forehead and the tongue that in this case the forehead does not compress the tongue.” Thus Augustine. 

2. But let Augustine cease to admire Julian, who somewhat reverently took the Holy Fathers as witnesses; and let him come to our Wycliffe and at the same time blame his forehead and eyebrows because he does not restrain his smooth tongue from being impudent because, putting aside all the Saints, he demands to be believed as a recent teacher, [despite] what Christ understands in the Scriptures and what the whole Church has taught from its earliest times. The ancient Father Didymus would have vomited out such an author, when he said in the book on the Holy Spirit, at the beginning, from the translation of Jerome, “Since certain individuals, out of recklessness rather than the right path, are even elevated in the heavenly realms and boast of these things regarding the Holy Spirit which are neither found in the Scriptures nor used by any of the ancient Ecclesiastics; we are compelled to yield to the frequent exhortation of our brothers and thus to substantiate our opinion on it with the testimonies of the Scriptures.” 

Truly, as will be taught below, this is the first presumption of a heretic, that he prefers himself to all others as a teacher, and much better to be followed (c). [The editor adds note (c): How much this arrogance has labored in recent heretics is amply attested by their deeds. Calvin calls the Parisian theologians, the most ardent and courageous defenders of the Catholic faith, “a pack of animals” [like those who were in Noah’s Ark] in his Antidote against the Paris Faculty. Thus, Luther in his book against Jacobus Latomus, Flemish Theologian, calls Catholic Theologians Sophists, Pigs, Donkeys.] 

And therefore, Nestorius fell into heresy, because he despised to adhere to the documents of the ancient Fathers. In book 12, Tripartite History, chapter 4, Cassiodorus writes, “While he was naturally eloquent, and thought himself learned, he disdained to dwell on the books of ancient interpreters and thought himself better than all, unaware that in ancient copies of the catholic [universal] Epistle of John it is said: Every Spirit who does not acknowledge Jesus is not of God – And below – It appears therefore that Nestorius was ignorant of the lessons of the ancients.” This is Cassiodorus. Certainly, Against Academics, book 3, towards the end, Augustine asks the help of the Doctors: “What shall I do to the man who is driving you out of my camp, unless I implore the aid of the Doctor, with whom, if I cannot overcome him, perhaps I will be less ashamed of my superiors?” Thus says Augustine.

3. It is so, believe me, Brethren: everyone who fights for the faith does not fear the witnesses of the faith, but seeks them. He who presently fights against the faith fears every Catholic. This you see in secular cases. The more dishonest the defendant is, the more he accuses honest witnesses. 

SUMMARY OF THE FOURTH WYCLIFFITE DOCTRINE

Wycliffites arrogantly exalt themselves, boasting they are far more learned than the Bishops and other Catholics, so that when they are openly defeated, they can escape by making the Orthodox look vile in comparison with themselves.  

1. Beware, fourthly, faithful of Christ, of the leaven of the Pharisees, and the fourth doctrine of the Lollards and Wycliffites, according to which they boast themselves to be more learned than the holy Bishops and Catholic men; whom all in comparison with themselves they call ignorant and, according to Wycliffe’s grammatical abstraction, amateurs, so that in this way, when they are openly defeated, they may escape by making the reputation of the Orthodox vile to the people. 

2. But they are themselves ignorant because they do not know that simplicity of faith is the power of God; and that the Apostle himself said to the Corinthians that he was ignorant in speech, but not in knowledge. But also, Jerome in his Commentary on Obadiah rebukes the heretics of his time, saying thus, on this text, Behold, I have made thee little among the Gentiles, “It is lawful for you, O heretic, to appear great and to despise the smallness of the Church; yet you are small among the nations and contemptible. And not only contemptible, but very contemptible. The pride of your heart has exalted you. For which of the heretics is not exalted in pride, despising the simplicity of the Church and considering faith to be ignorance?” Thus Jerome. Jerome says well that heretics underestimate the simplicity of the Church and the firm faith of a simple man who says, “I believe as the Church teaches.” They consider it ignorance and say, “It is fitting for you to know your faith, look at the Scriptures, do not trust your soul to the cursed Clerics.” Among ignorant common people and women burdened with sins, they make them aware of their crimes and, wishing to be called great experts, they say: “Behold, you simple and foolish, you are deceived: for your bishops condemn you,” as if there were no wise bishops who would condemn them or instruct their flocks aright.” Thus, the Pelagians had called the Bishops of Gaul, Italy, and England, “Simple,” when they themselves fled to Asia, condemned. Hence, in Against the Two Epistles of the Pelagians, Book 4, Chapter 12 [?] Augustine says, “What is it that they say to the simple bishops, sitting without a synod gathered in their places with a coerced signature? Was a signature extorted against these, before these, from the most blessed and most excellent men in the Catholic faith, Cyprian and Ambrose? How can we find anything contradictory to the doctrines of these impious individuals, when they manifest such overwhelming evidence?” Similarly, a certain heretic, Sabinus, had called the Fathers at the Council of Nicaea, ‘idiots,’ as Cassiodorus has in Book 2 of his Tripartite History: “Let us not believe Sabinus,” (he says), “who called them idiots and unlearned. For Sabinus, Bishop of Heraclea in Thrace and the Macedonians, having considered the accumulation of those things which were brought out in writing by the diverse Councils of Priests, disrespected those who assembled in the City of Nicaea, calling them idiots and simpletons; and Eusebius, with much evidence supporting his belief, is known to be disrespected as if he were an ignorant person.” – And below – “But he blames the faith set forth in Nicaea as if it had been handed down by idiots and those who knew nothing; and he willingly despises the words of him who is accustomed to be called wise as ultimately a false witness.” Behold, never was the Council of Nicene more praised in the world, besides the Apostles; concerning which so many, so holy, as well as most learned Fathers, agreed in one opinion and yet an arrogant heretic then dared to call them all idiots. When therefore you hear your Wycliffe, or any Wycliffite, calling our bishops simple idiots, refer him to his former heretical Fathers, from whom, as though they were considered wise, God hid the Sacraments of faith which He reveals and opens to His little ones. Stupid and uneducated, therefore, are these Lollards, desiring to be considered [true Christians] by the laity. They humiliate Catholic Ecclesiastics by their paltry knowledge, Ecclesiastics whose bonds they are not worthy to untie, nor are they wont to be called when they return to the Catholic faith. 

SUMMARY OF THE FIFTH WYCLIFFITE DOCTRINE

The Wycliffites declare Catholic doctors unfit to understand Wycliffe’s doctrines. 

1. Beware of the Wycliffite’s 5^th Pharisaical doctrine. For they elevate themselves to such an extent in knowledge that they say Catholic men neither understand their Master nor the books which reveal Catholic errors (b). Not one of the Friars (c), Monks or pseudo-Caesarian Clerics (d) understands the subtilties of their Evangelical Master. And whoever is such, who so extols his Master Wycliffe, if he appears favorable to himself, he brings down the one he has raised up; and to that I refer to Elihu, the tropical head of the heretics, who, being exalted by a similar arrogance, thought that the most wise Job could scarcely understand the skill of his words.

[The editor adds note (b): “Philip Melanchthon published a similar work in his Apology for Luther against the Parisian Theologians, Jean Daille in his Apology, and Beza in his History of the Reformed Churches. Note (c): ”Both Wycliffe and his followers everywhere scornfully call the Friars of the four mendicant orders, ‘Religious.’ ” Note (d): “The Catholic clergy are called Caesareans by Wycliffe, and after him by his followers, because of the temporal dowry which the clergymen contend they had from Caesar [The Donation of Constantine] and which Wycliffe himself criticizes with many slanders, condemns with many calumnies, as will be seen below in Book 4, Article 3, Chapter 33, ff. The Wycliffites are rebuked for this biting harshness below in Volume 2, Chapter 120, and it is proved that they, rather than Catholics, should be called Caesareans by the apostate Caesar Julian.”] 

Hence in xxiv Morals, c. xiv. Blessed Gregory says: “All arrogant people have this characteristic, that when perhaps they feel something pointed, they immediately break out into the vice of arrogance and despise the sense of all [other interpretations] in comparison with themselves; and in their judgment they place themselves above the merits of others.” — And afterward — “Behold how pride prospers for a little while through the increase of words. Previously, he doubted whether Blessed Job could utter what is just, but now he discusses whether he could hear what is said: a lie. There he said, if you have anything to say, answer me; as if he were saying, ‘Say something, if indeed you can be worthy to say it.’” — It continues — “Now this was also about pride. He doubted Blessed Job could speak what is just. But while he neglected to consider this in himself, he reached such wickedness that he not only doubted that Job could say what is just, but also despaired of being understood by others when he said that he was just.” These things he said.

 2. Then from this their father, [‘Elihu’ was written in the margin], (that the faithful may see how their offspring follow the Father), I also send him to the disciple of the heretic Jovinian, who similarly denied that Jerome understood the books of his master, as Jerome relates in his letter, to Domnion, “If all the writers have received the rod of censorship and therefore, think themselves learned because only Jovinian understands, (for it is the proverb, It is better to know the words of a babbler than to be a babbler), let us expel all the writers from such a judge.” 

3. The stutterer teaches the stuttering: that is, the heretic teaches the heretic. Thus, if the matter is to be handled by such a rash judge, who so lightly judges as many heads of which he is ignorant; I also desire to be expelled and I wish to use the opinion of Nicholas of Saint Alban in his Letter to Peter the Lesser Pontinian, when he said, “At first I blushed at this misfortune, blaming myself for not being unusually slow: but since it is a well-known fact, and since the Parisians themselves are not endowed with the vigor of a noble intellect, they make no progress in reading what you write, I put an end to my blush, having the consolation of dullness in the number of the many, and the excuse of the slowness of the subtleties. Therefore, either write differently; or write and explain, but the explanation itself should be Latin, not barbaric.” However, this was the usual refuge of the ancient heretics, namely, when they were condemned in heresy, they would say that the bishops who condemned them did not understand what they were saying: as Wycliffe clearly said about the bishops summoned in the Council (as he himself calls it) of the Earthquake, in his work, Epistolary Sermon 54, books 3 & 4. So also, a certain heretic Marcellus, when he was condemned in the Council of Sardis, said they did not understand his books. Hence, in the Tripartite Histories, Book 3, chapter 9, Cassiodorus says, “While Marcellus, as he had promised, refused to burn the illicit conscription, they deposed him from the episcopate; in whose place they sent Basil to Ancyra. Later, however, Marcellus received the episcopate in the Council of Sardinia, saying that his book was not understood, and therefore, it should be considered as trustworthy as if it were Pauline.” 

SUMMARY OF THE SIXTH WYCLIFFITE DOCTRINE

They praise Wycliffe’s books so much that they provoke the Orthodox [Catholics] to read them. 

1. Beware also, faithful Christians, of the fermented doctrine of the Pharisaical Wycliffites when they provoke you to read their books, in which you are caught like an unwary bird in an unperceived net. Oh (they say) he says many good things, many useful things! Not all are damned. But beware: Holy Mother Church is anxious about your salvation. She cares for her children. For the Jews do not allow tender children to read the beginning of Isaiah, Jerome does not willingly agree that the first-born Virgins should read the Song of Songs; how much more are we not to read books full of heresy and curses, and which prudent theologians hardly read, which disgust them or make them waver? Jerome says in his Epistle to Leta about the education of a daughter, “The work of the most prudent man is to seek gold in the mud. And no one sends his virgins to a brothel, although some may be found there mourning for shameful corruption. No one commits his heir to a band of robbers, that he may learn daring. No one enters a leaky boat that he may learn to avoid shipwreck. Do you direct your soul, still innocent of evil, free from deceit to a volume full of heresies that there he may learn Catholic truth?” Therefore, the holy Bede composed his book, In Cantica, for the faithful to read, so that they might restrain themselves from reading the heretic Julian in the same. According to Bede, ”First, I thought it necessary to admonish the reader to read the Opuscula of Julian of Eclan, Bishop of Campania, which he has compiled into one book with great caution, lest through the abundance of flattering eloquence he falls into the pit of harmful doctrine. But, as is usually said, he so plucks the cluster that he also avoids the thorn; that is, he so examines and chooses the sound senses in his words that he no less hates the unsound. But rather do that of Maronis who picks the flowers and the strawberries that grow on the ground: Cold, (oh boys, flee from here) the snake lurks in the grass. [This is] to restrain himself from reading it in all things, when he has those who have thus expounded the same book in sound senses and simple words.” This is the beginning of Bede’s treatise on the Canticles. The Doctor did well when he warned certain volunteers to read prudently, submitting a plan to withdraw himself from all his reading and ordering them to seek the true meaning there, where they could navigate without danger. Thus, take away from Wycliffe’s books the curses and insults: take away false imputations and heresies; Among the Fathers there is nothing of their predecessors more theologically subtle, or equal philosophically or grammatically. Therefore, read those whom you wish to read, out of whom you can preach safely. No one was formerly permitted to read the books of Origen without a note, until the Church approved them through Jerome and Rufinus.

SUMMARY OF THE SEVENTH WYCLIFFITE DOCTRINE

They affect piety, they declaim against vices, and they inculcate Divine Scripture, so that they may deceive the unsuspecting with their artifice. 

1. Beware also, ye faithful Christians, especially the unwary, of the leaven of the Pharisees and Wycliffites, who entice you by holy preachings and exhortations against vices (h). [The editor adds note (h): “The Pelagians were also preachers of rigid discipline, (not to mention many more), who were before Wycliffe. They thundered from the pulpit that riches are an obstacle to earthly salvation; that all oaths are to be avoided altogether; that a Christian should be so forbearing, that if anyone wishes to take away his own, he should gladly give them; and many other things like these. After Wycliffe, Calvin affected bodily possessions with the utmost gravity. Luther dared address his book on Indulgences to the Supreme Pontiff Leo X, and showed the utmost humility of mind and reverence for the Holy Apostolic See in the Letter given to the same Supreme Pontiff.] 

For this is what all heretics do when they first endeavor to sow their worst doctrines. For no poison, without a sweet condiment, intoxicates. Many are heard to say, How is he a heretic? He preaches holy things; he attacks vices; he quotes the Holy Scriptures; he announces Christ. But Chrysostom says in his fourth homily about the praise of Paul, “Do not present to me various and diverse heresies. All, indeed, preach Christ, although not all preach him truly and legitimately. For all preach him who was born and suffered in Palestine, who, under the judgment of Pontius Pilate, was crucified.” These things he said. For truly, if any heretic did not preach Christ, he would not be able to deceive Christians under the name of Christ. Unless he also preached the Scriptures, it would be said: This is a Pagan: why do we believers still listen to him? But they pretend to accept Christ and the Holy Scriptures; they inveigh against vices; and under this guise they inveigh against the faith of the Eucharist, the Sacraments, and the Saints of the Church. They more cunningly achieve all they desire. Oh (I heard John Oldcastle say) I never ceased to sin before this doctrine, yet how I have learned so much from those Wycliffites! But I replied: Woe to me, if, with so many holy and immaculate men, as we see preaching daily, and with the Holy Scriptures and the sacred words of Christ either set aside or despised, I have no grace to amend the matter committed to me, unless I first hear the devil preaching. And it immediately occurred to me what Jerome says in the Lesser Breviary, treating this text, from the incursion and the noonday demon, Jerome said, “Since we have midday, therefore even the devil transforms into an Angel of light. And he himself pretends to have light, to have midday. When heretics promise certain mysteries; when they promise the kingdom of Heaven, fasting, holiness, or renunciation of the world; they promise midday: but since it is not the light of Christ, it is not midday, but a Noonday Demon.” 

SUMMARY OF THE EIGHTH WYCLIFFITE DOCTRINE 

Not only do the Wycliffites arrange their words, but they also shape their behavior, so that they might more effectively deceive through the appearance of a good life. 

1. Beware also, faithful Christians, of the leaven of the Pharisees of the Wycliffites, which is hypocrisy when they pretend to be saints and accuse the Orthodox of the impurity of their lives. Oh, if you knew from what an impious life almost the entire multitude of Wycliffites burst out! 

2. But just as a beast, leaping from a lesser mud pit, throws itself entirely into an abyss, so, too, the Wycliffite heretics, while making a conscience show of their crime, jump into the chasm of heresy. It is a great deceit of the devil that, from a defect of morals lower than [true] faith, under the guise of repentance, they slip into the boundless pit of treachery! Therefore, Jerome says, treating that passage of Jeremiah, Go, and possess the girdle, in Book 3 of his Commentaries, “Let him beware who can say: But for me, adhering to God is good, lest through negligence he be separated from His reins, and cross the Euphrates and be given into the power of the King of Assyria, and by no means nest in the most solid rock, but in the crevice of a corrupted and decayed rock, that is, be caught in the filth of heretics and vices, and come to such decay that he cannot return to the service and girding of the Lord.” 

3. Truly, there is no greater heretical putrefaction than idolatry. But this [feigned] holiness the Wycliffite learns from his Fathers: hence, homily 7 on Ezekiel, Origen says, “Show me any Marcionist, or Disciple of Valentinus, or certainly the defender of any heresy, and consider how he clothes his idols; that is, the fictions which he has composed with meekness and chastity so that he may creep more easily into the ears of his hearers, adorned with the goodness of his life; and when he has done this, understand that he has assumed various garments of morals and the best conduct, subjecting [his hearers] to idols which he has constructed. And according to my mind, truly, a heretic of good life is much more harmful, and has more authority in his doctrine than he who stains his doctrine by his [poor] conduct. For he who leads the worst life does not easily entice men to false doctrine; nor can he deceive the simplicity of his hearers by the shadow of holiness.” — It continues. — “Therefore, let us beware carefully of heretics, who are of the best conduct, whose lives, perhaps, are not so much instructed by God as by the devil. For they are just like fowlers who set forth certain lures of food that they may more easily catch birds by the gluttony of which they delight. Thus, (to say it more boldly), there is a certain chastity of the devil, that is, a snare of the human soul, that by such chastity and meekness and justice he can more easily catch and ensnare with false words. The devil fights using diverse snares so that he may destroy wretched man, and he gives a good life to the wicked to deceive those observing, while he inscribes a bad conscience on the good.”

4. The ancient words of Origen surely speaks to those of our country who praise the heretical leader, Wycliffe, for his morals; lauding his humility, chastity, sincerity, and modesty. But if they truly praise his gentleness, his writings, which are quite bitter, sufficiently prove it to have been feigned. For the poison of asps is under the lips of him and his followers, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Julian, the ardent heretic of this School of Wycliffe (against whom Augustine wrote six books), was a great Master, who seduced Christians to his doctrine with the image of piety. Hence, On Illustrious Men, chap. 54, Gennadius Scholarius says, “This Julian, having bestowed alms upon all the needy in times of famine and distress, enticed many nobles, especially religious, to join his heresy under the pretense of compassion.” See similar comment about the Martyrs from Augustine, On the Manners of the Manichaeans, also from Peter Abelard, according to Bernard in his Epistle concerning the same group.

 SUMMARY OF THE NINTH WYCLIFFITE DOCTRINE 

In the manner of ancient heretics, they babble against Catholics and say they do not understand the sayings of Wycliffe; or Catholics recite falsehoods; or they rashly impute to him things which he did not say.

1. Moreover, you faithful of Christ, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the doctrine of Wycliffe’s disciples who defend their Master against the Catholic [apologist] and say (as they are wont to do): this man imposes a false sense upon our Wycliffe: he recites falsely: he does not touch upon his logic; either he omits his Scholia, or he does not introduce the Scriptures, or he falsely or ineffectually introduces Augustine and the Doctors.

2. I know that these and similar ones will bark against me, as they used to blabber against the Fathers. However, I intend to maintain his order so that I may carefully insert his words intact, with the [exact] quotation from his book, with chapter or part notated, without altering the letter as he himself wrote, and subscribe it to its proper place; so that anyone can clearly see where and to what extent he erred; and that I impose this solely on him, and without [prejudice], maintaining that same logic or reasoning in which he spoke. I learned this from Augustine, acting against Felicianus, where, at the beginning, Augustine says, “It has seemed to me that I should include in the brevity of the preceding book the conversation which recently took place between me and Felicianus, having previously noted only the first letters of the names because of the discretion of the parties.” And below.  “When Felicianus was asked for his reasoning, replied: Do not think that I am so carried away by my praises that I do injury to the preceding Saints. Nor will I ever presume in the wisdom of words, lest the Cross of Christ be made void, but content with the authority of the Scriptures I will strive to obey simplicity rather than pride.” And below. “In matters of faith, it is easier to believe in testimonies than to investigate reason.” And how much did the unanimous testimony of the Holy Fathers help him in disputing about the faith? Look at Augustine’s book, On Nature and Grace: look at that which he most victoriously compiled against Julian [the Pelagian Bishop of Eclanum]: and listen to Augustine saying in the Prologue to the third book, On the Trinity: “From what we have already read about this matter written by others, greatly supported and assisted, we ponder and discuss that which I believe can be piously inquired and spoken about regarding the Trinity, the one supreme and supremely good God. And let my detractor cease to mock me for placing hope in a man, saying that it is cursed for a writer to trust in a man and make flesh his strength (c). For I believe those who are guided by the Spirit of God and to whom neither flesh nor blood has revealed things, but the heavenly Father, are more spiritual and possess the Spirit of God.” 

[The editor adds note (c): “These criticisms have been levelled against Catholics by the heretics Luther, Calvin and Brenz, etc., in order to persuade them that Divine Scripture alone, with all Tradition removed, is the sole rule of faith to be consulted; not noticing that Divine Scripture itself has authority and strength from the testimony of Ecclesiastical Tradition.”] 

SUMMARY OF THE TENTH WYCLIFFITE DOCTRINE

They excuse their master Wycliffe, saying he retracted many things before his death and changed some; and that Catholic writers conceal certain things and reveal others to incite hatred against him. 

Beware also, faithful Christians, of the leaven of the Pharisees and the doctrine of Wycliffe’s followers, if ever they say that I speak against their Master in vain, or because he has retracted this, added that, or has now introduced something new [and I do not acknowledge it]. Or if they say that I have omitted or added differently than [that which he wrote]. Firstly, because not all his retractions, if he has made any, are known. And often, without withdrawing any personal statement, he unquestionably contradicts himself; and whatever he himself may have said, it is fitting that the Church be taught the truth. Even his own students do not fully understand his sophisms; often I ignore them because they are irrelevant; sometimes I shake them up. And the ignorant think he states absolutely that which he subtly hides in a sophism: just as it is with the idea that Christ begged, which he never denies; but not in the same way as the Friars do vocally. And so, the Eucharist is truly the Body of Christ and everything is God, and similar things. God will grant strength so that his sophistries will not remain hidden from the Church as they think: this will not happen by my boast, but always by the one Wise and Holy Teacher, whom I will present, of whom Jerome speaks in his Commentary on Amos, book 2, text, He smiles at the desolation upon the mighty: “In Proverbs we read, The wise man entered strong cities and destroyed the fortress in which the wicked trusted. This, indeed, speaks to all secular strength; but he says it specifically against heretics who try to strengthen the falsehood of their dogmas with arguments, sophisms, and dialectical art. But the wise man will destroy it and, aided by God’s help, will show every fortress to be most vain, so that he will bring misery upon it and, bowing down to his pride, he will be able to say with the Apostle: Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death?“

 SUMMARY OF THE AUTHOR’S PRAYER TO GOD FOR THE SUCCESSFUL COMPLETION OF HIS WORK

He implores divine help so that the English Church may be able to cleanse itself from the errors of Wycliffe, who aborts fetuses, rather than birthing Christians. Truly, there is no good man he has not corrupted, nor pastor of the Church, nor ultimately, Kings. Moreover, not even God Himself and all sacred matters has he left uninjured by his provocations. 

1. Grant, therefore, O Lord Jesus Christ, to your beloved, the Bride of Christ, the favor of Mother Church, that your Daughter, the Church of the English nation, may wipe away with her own hand the filth which she contracted in life through her aborted fetuses; the defiant eye (according to the Proverbs [30:7] of Solomon) that scorned birth by his Holy Mother; let it be plucked out, at least if not by a noble eagle, by some poor raven born from its own stream and region. Do not disdain, Illustrious Mother, noble offspring of the great King, through me your servant, the least among so many distinguished Doctors and Magistrates of tribunals; through me, I say, a mere foot soldier, inert, ragged, and a mournful Hermit from the captivity of Babylon, whom Nabuzaradan Wycliffe, Prince of infernal torturers, led you captive, to be restored to Jerusalem, free with your family. For whom among your children, according to his doctrine, has not felt exile when driven from his rightful place? What Friar (a), what Monk, what Canon, what professed Knight, what Nun, what Cloistered person does not dare to scorn their Order, to disdain their Holy vow, to violate their resolve? [The editor adds note (a): Wycliffe always uses this phrase to signify the Religious of the Mendicant Orders.] What Pope is not considered useless, or a treacherous Antichrist? What Cardinal, what Patriarch, what Bishop is not called a Caesarian Cleric who exchanges curses for blessings? What Official of the Canons, what Scholastic Professor, what Theologian does not feel that, according to Wycliffe‘s doctrine, he imitates the name and rite of the Gentiles, and is void of all Ecclesiastical office?

2. I speak of the Pastors of the second order [i.e., the cloistered]. Who among them does not feel himself to be a fool, when he sees that all the Tithes and Offerings are subject to the will of his subjects? Who now (to turn to another side) of Kings, or Princes, does not see himself to be soon cast off from the Throne, when he hears that he has lost all his dominion by the least mortal sin? Who will not suspect that he is at least an intruder when he hears that he is more excellent in virtue, and that, with the consent of the people, he has the best title to rule civilly? 

3. Do we surpass humans who are not troubled in mind hearing that our God can be called anything – an ass or a devil – and that the Almighty can do nothing more than He has already done, nor could he have killed a fly yesterday which survives today, and many other blasphemies which will be recounted fully in due time?

4. Also, who will not grieve over the injuries against the Sacraments and Sacramentals? That is, regarding the prayers of the faithful, the consecrations of holy relics, the adoration of images, the desecration of tombs, the offerings of dowry, and the gifts of the Church’s devotees. In short, concerning the dispersion of the whole flock of the Lord, and all devotion from the beginning of the first Church and the perpetual banishment of holiness? 

5. I believe the Israelitish people (captive in Babylon, as the English people are held in Wycliffite error) were not led into such a remote and far-flung exile. For, if it is permissible to compare, the Wycliffite error is many thousand times further from the Catholic Faith than earthly Babylon is from Jerusalem. Bounteous Mother, grant me permission. I therefore desire, with Saint Nehemiah, to recall the captive people to rebuild Jerusalem. Nourishing Mother, grant me permission. I wish (if I may) first to renew the wall around the city, namely, the ancient profession and doctrine of the Holy Fathers, with which, from the times of the Apostles through the successions of Bishops and holy parishes, due to incursions of heretics and persecuting Tyrants, the Faith of the Church has been variously shaken until now. I will try to effect this by persuasion alone. Some may clothe their arguments with images of genius using a scholastic verse, distinguishing the orders of reason; others with a subtle style may distinguish the flowers and roses of moral allegories. I have no other aim than to add the simple stones of Scriptures with the mortar of the ancient exposition of the Holy Fathers, so that from this I might easily, as is fitting, fortify the citizens of the Church and repel the hostile incursions of the heretics. But in the case of Nehemiah, this was a minor matter and less significant because Benjamin and Hasshub built opposite their own house, and Azariah opposite his own house, and at the Horse Gate, each of the Priests built opposite his own house. I, who am but a poor religious, and a Carmelite, do not propose to build against my own house, but against the houses of all who have felt wronged, whether by the Pope, the Bishop, the King, or the Soldier. The work is too great for me, and unless Christ is the foundation upon which I stand and aspire the work is unequal to my strength. And what is it to me, if my enemies denigrate what I would now like to write, accusing my teacher’s pen of being dipped with [the feather of] a little crow? I will at least answer like that of Rabanus on Matthew in the Prologue, “I have yielded only to brotherly charity, not caring for the empty talk of those who denigrate and insult, who perhaps attribute our labor to presumption rather than piety. And it is no wonder, since they are more ready to tear apart the work of others than to create their own small works because no one can avoid slander and envious bites, except those who write nothing at all. I choose rather to pass by the vain complaints with a deaf ear than to neglect the grace of Christ in idle sloth; to whom alone we wish to be pleasing, for we consider the vain rumors of men to be nothing. 

6. And Rabanus said well that envious bites will not be avoided, except by one who writes nothing at all. For some who write nothing because they are completely idle know how to lie in wait for those who do write; as one casually said to me: you make long written homilies. On the contrary, why should I not reply as did Martial? You complain that I write long epigrams quickly. You yourself write nothing: you make shorter ones. 

7. But perhaps the Samaritan and Sanballat and the rest of the remnants of the Wycliffite lineage will say: What are these weak brothers doing? Will the nations forgive them? And Tobiah, their colleague, says: If they are building and a fox climbs over, it will cross their stone wall. This means a subtle and cautious heretic. He will surpass all their defense through Scriptures and the teachings of the Fathers with our subtle doctrine and logical response, as Origen explains in a section of his first homily on the Song of Songs: “However, that which we mentioned is written in the holy book of Esdras should not be completely overlooked: where, while the Holy of Holies were being built, that is, when the faith of Christ and the mysteries of the saints were being established; the enemies of truth, and those opposed to faith, who are the wise of this age, seeing the walls of the Gospel rising without the art of grammar and philosophical skill, say with a certain derision that this can easily be destroyed by the cunning of speeches, through sly fallacies and dialectical arguments.” – It continues. – “It seems, therefore, in the Song of Songs, a command is given by the Bridegroom to his friends, the virtues, to seize and challenge opposing powers that lurk around human souls, so they do not destroy the beginnings of faith; and the flowers of virtues under the guise of some secret and hidden knowledge, which, like foxes in burrows, lie hidden in those individuals who have exposed themselves to behold these things.” While they seize and argue there are two works: building together and fighting.  However, in the aforementioned book the Scripture notes that the young Israelites did the work with one hand and held the sword with the other [………….] 

CHAPTER 49 

The Pope is Not the Antichrist: A Response to Wycliffe’s 5 Arguments  

1. The Pope is not Antichrist, contrary to the impious Wycliffe who endeavors to prove otherwise by five arguments. 

Let it now be permitted for the son of the Church to contend with the Father; and which, like Absalom, desirous of the kingdom, prepared weapons of argument against the Father, against the author of the [so-called] crime. Behold, he has established for himself one conclusion, which, like a golden statue, compels the many tribes and languages to adore; which is among the thrice-damned Conclusions, Conclusion 5: “The Pope is that Antichrist (a) who is expressed in the Scriptures, since he is a special agent of the Devil procuring by means of lies he animates control against Christ. This is the open Antichrist. And in the presence of this deified principle, he causes the trumpet and the symphony to sound, in addition to all kinds of musicians, whose first provocation is the cultivation of this idol of his. Another condition (says he) of the Antichrist who is opposed to Christ stands in this: Christ flees from being dominated in a worldly way, but the Antichrist especially wishes to be exalted above the Lord Jesus Christ because, as the liar he is, he pretends by his title to be exalted over every secular kingdom of the world, as if the devil were to grant to himself that which Christ refused to take from the devil [Matt. 4:8-10]. Also, On Christ and Antichrist, chap. 12. And his first argument is also found in the second part of his Sermon of the Lord on the Mount, chap. 36, where Christ (he says) was extremely humble, and as regarding secular dominion, extremely poor. But the Pope seems to be the most exalted among men, and the most dominant regarding the world; – So, on account of what is stated a little above – Who, then, would be the Antichrist, if not the Devil so exalted?” This is Wycliffe. 

[The editor adds footnote (a): “On this subject Calvin also exercised his style in lib. 4, Institutions, chap. 7, par. 23, in which he would follow Wycliffe, his teacher and guide in everything, as I have already noted in chap. 32, no. 5. But both Calvin and the rest of the heretics, who afterwards wrote about the Pontifical Antichrist, are greatly mistaken when imagining the Antichrist not as one singular person, but a singular throne, or a tyrannical kingdom, and the apostate seat of those who preside over the Church. Now it is certain the Antichrist must be understood as one singular person, for it is said in John 5:43: I am come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive. [This is] where the Lord opposes [the heretics’ theory of] other people and another kingdom. Here, Christ says, Antichrist is to be accepted by the Jews as the Messiah. It is agreed [by us] that the Jews should wait for one certain and unique person. See more in Bellarmine, de Roma Pont., lib. 1, chap. 2.]

2. Wycliffe claims there are two states of the Church to be considered: in the former, it was under persecutors, but in the latter, it was under obedient kings. 

As far as I can see, this heretic is following in the footsteps of the ancient heretics, who, not knowing how to distinguish the intervals of time, try to argue against the state of the Church whenever she has increased in dignity. For we [Catholics] conceive of two states of the Holy Church: one under Kings persecuting her from the first beginnings of Christ’s humanity: the other under Kings as obedient patrons of the Church. In the first state the Church of Christ was poor and needy, and filled with miserable sores. In the second, she began to be the mistress of nations and the ruler of provinces, exempt, that is to say, from the tribute of persecuting princes; but not from the heretics who were furious and envied the glory of her dignity, as Augustine explains in Psalm 70:2:  “There are times when the Church is in a state of distinct persecution, and that in succession. There was an attack on the Church when the Kings were persecuting, and because the Kings were appointed both to persecute and to believe, when one was fulfilled, the other certainly followed. For that which was consequent was done.” Therefore, as Kings believed, peace was given to the Church. Though the Church had ascended in dignity on this earth, in this life the roar of the persecutors is not lacking. Their impulses turned to thoughts. In those thoughts, as if caught in a net, the devil is bound and snarls, but does not break free. For it has been said about those times of the Church, The sinner will see and be enraged (Psalm 112:10). Behold Wycliffe, for under the persecutions of Kings peace in the Church followed, where it now attains the summit of dignity. Seeing this, the heretic, a sinner, is angry, gnashing his teeth and wasting away because the Church is now not placed under, but above persecution in this life. Why do you introduce Christ as fleeing secular rule? That was the beginning of the first season. What do you invoke concerning the Apostles? What about the succeeding Church up until Prince Constantine? Wait for the time and remember the end when the Kings of the earth stand and the Princes are gathered against the Lord and His Christ (Psalm2:2). A time will follow when all the kings of the earth will adore Him in His Church and all nations will serve Him (Psalm 72:11). Kings as obedient patrons of the Church. In the first state the Church of Christ was poor and needy, and filled with miserable sores. In the second she began to be the mistress of nations and the ruler of provinces, exempt, that is to say, from the tribute of persecuting princes; but not from the heretics who were furious and envied the glory of her dignity, as Augustine explains in Psalm 70:2:  “There are times when the Church is in a state of distinct persecution, and that in succession. There was an attack on the Church when the Kings were persecuting, and because the Kings were appointed both to persecute and to believe, when one was fulfilled, the other certainly followed. For that which was consequent was done. Therefore, as Kings believed, peace was given to the Church. Though the Church had ascended in dignity on this earth, in this life the roar of the persecutors is not lacking. Their impulses turned to thoughts. In those thoughts, as if caught in a net, the devil is bound and snarls but does not break free. For it has been said about those times of the Church, The sinner will see and be enraged (Psalm 112:10). Behold Wycliffe, for under the persecutions of Kings the Church was oppressed with great want. After the time of the persecution of the Kings, peace in the Church followed, where it now attains the summit of dignity. Seeing this, the heretic, a sinner, is angry, gnashing his teeth and wasting away because the Church is not now placed under, but above persecution in this life. Why do you introduce Christ as fleeing secular rule? That was the beginning of the first season. What do you invoke concerning the Apostles? What about the succeeding Church, up to Prince Constantine? Wait for the time and remember the end when the Kings of the earth stand and the Princes are gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ (Psalm 2:2). A time will follow when all the Kings of the earth will adore him in his Church, and all nations will serve him (Psalm 72:11).  The following motive is added consequently by Wycliffe, On Christ and Antichrist, chapter 13, “The Pope seems to be contrary to Christ in all these things: first, because he took away half of the [Western] Roman Empire which neither Christ nor any of his Apostles attempted; just as he did not approve of the dominion of the endowed clergy, and of those who cunningly claim secular dominion. All these the Pope joyfully approves and confirms. It seems that because of this contradiction, the Pope is clearly the Antichrist.” — And he adds at the end of the chapter. — “But since an unequal distribution of temporal goods is the cause of discord and wars, it appears that the Pope, ruling over all secular domains within the Clergy and removing them from the secular arm, is the source of discord and wars: and this is the condition of the Antichrist.” 

3. Wycliffe, following the older heretics, more than foolishly gathers that the Church, with its abundance of temporal goods, is unfit for the glory of heaven. With an unequal distribution he views that which is small to be that which is great, and as is usual, from the influx of temporal goods in the Church he prophesies from his heart necessary future evils and disturbances among the people. He says that the ecclesiastics, too, because of the generosity of the dowry offered to them by the faithful principalities, are unfit for heaven, and will be deprived of its glory. Here and there Wycliffe prophesies, which he learned from the ancient heretics, complaining of kinder days, and the Holy Father Gregory XXIII, Morals, chap. 4, dealing with this text (Job 32:13): Beware, lest you say, we have found wisdom, God may vanquish him, not man. “As I see it, there is no one among you who can accuse Job, and answer his sermons, lest perhaps you should say, ‘We have found wisdom, God has rejected him, but not a man.’ Often heretics, because of the fact that they are also contemptible to men, when they see the Holy Church is venerated by almost all the nations, they strive to destroy its opinion by whatever abuses they can, saying, ‘The reason all temporal things are available to them is because the rewards of eternal gifts are taken away from them.’ Elihu meets their voices, saying, Lest you say, We have found wisdom, God may vanquish him, not man; as if the arrogant within the Holy Church, but nevertheless faithful, should say against the heretics, “Because you see the Holy Church flourishing in the honor of men for a time, do not believe that she has been cast out by the Lord. For her Redeemer knows how to bestow comforts on her on this journey and to reserve heavenly rewards for her who has arrived at her eternal homeland. In vain, then, do you say that God, and not man, has rejected her, when you see her venerated by almost all men; for thus is the aid of earthly glory attributed to her, that she may be advanced more manifold to heavenly things. Nor should they think that it is cast off and deserted by the Lord, when they see it flourishing in temporal things to the eye and venerated by all nations and peoples.”

Here again Gregory encounters the third argument. For Wycliffe argues in Chapter XXXVI of the Sermon on the Mount, part two, that the Pope is Antichrist from this seventh condition of his: “Christ taught both by life and by words how worldly honor and its gain, along with those who are wise in them, are to be shunned by the faithful. But the Pope dogmatizes how, having abandoned the doctrine of Christ, these are to be eagerly embraced.” And at the end of the eighth chapter, On Christ and Antichrist: “Thirdly (he says) it was said, if Christians worship this kind of Antichrist, as if he were the true Christ, then the devil has through this the desired means to seduce the people to hell.” 

4. Honor and obedience are owed to Kings and Princes of the Church, although Wycliffe teaches otherwise. Briefly, let this place suffice for Christians that having dismissed the Lollard dogma, so they may adhere to the admonitions of Saint Paul, who says thus to Timothy: Let the presbyters who preside well be honored with double honor [1 Timothy 5:17]. This is also found in Jerome’s Annotations, namely, On Office and Doctrine.  Therefore, in the High Priest this duality of honor has the highest place, in view of the highest office and doctrine, because from him, under Christ, both flow together into the whole body of the Church. Nor does the Church pretend, (which you bring to contempt) that Christians worship the Pope in the name of Christ, although they do not have this saying in common use; but this is the very thing the Prophet used, saying of the Church: Kings shall be thy nursing fathers and queens thy nurses: upon the face of the earth they shall adore thee, and lick the dust of thy feet; Isaiah 49:23 on which place, book 13, the Commentaries of Jerome, he says, “all ages, sexes, and dignity will adore Zion, because of Him who dwells in her. For if the head of the Church is Christ, the head is adored in the body. And if it is said to some: Exalt the Lord your God, adore the footstool of His feet: (not that the footstool is to be adored, but that the majesty of His feet is indicated) why should not the Church, which embraces the whole body of Christ, be adored, so that what is written in Zephaniah may be fulfilled, They shall adore Him, each from his own place, all the isles of the nations?” Thus says Jerome. Therefore, the Lord can be adored in the footstool, as well as Christ in his body, which is the Church. Now if the Church is adored in Christ, is the Pope, the Supreme Vicar of Christ, to be deprived of due honor when the whole Church is honored? But the Christian princes have well followed the Prophet of the Lord, consummating honor to the Supreme Pontiff, whom he so clearly predicted to the letter: “Kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and queens thy nursing women: upon the face of the earth shall they adore thee.” Upon the face of the earth, we are to understand of earthly goods, and temporal substance. But for this reason, Wycliffe argues that the Pope is the Antichrist, where it is already stated above concerning the Sermon on the Mount, for according to the third condition of Antichrist, Wycliffe says, “Christ did not wish to be occupied with temporal things acquired for himself by Caesar [i.e., the Donation of Constantine], but with spiritual things which were more useful.” Again, in his book, On the Pope, he alleges in the third part of the Sermons, chap. 6, calling both the Priests and the rest of the secular people as having fallen from the faith, saying that they follow in the Pope as in the Chronicle of the Foolish Emperor, [Constantine VI], the law of Christ being abandoned. “Here (Wycliffe says) men fall away from the faith, both priests and laymen, when they regard the Chronicle of one foolish Emperor more than the law of Christ, who is the Emperor of the Heavens.” Thus says Wycliffe. 

5. While heretics are too greedy in their pursuit of riches, they strive to plunder the Church of them. As I said, Wycliffe is always mistaken about the times. In the first period of the Church, Christ was pleased to have a poor Church, while in its second state he was pleased to have a rich one. However, in every age heretics greedily embrace riches, and as experience proves, for the sake of depriving the Church of them they exercise all hypocrisy in words and deceit in their treatises. For they say of the Church, to which they bear Cainite envy, as to Abel: This is the heir, come, let us kill him; and we will have his inheritance (Matt. 21:38). For this they hope with all their heart, and therefore, to this end they make the endowment of the Church appear unlawful to all: and they distort the words of the devout Emperor. But God, who formed the Emperor’s edicts for this purpose, is certainly not mocked. 

6. What the Emperors commanded for the good of the Church, they commanded at the command of God. Do not mock my saying that God formed the King’s edicts. Hear Augustine in his Treatise 11 on Psalm 103: From thy rebuke they shall flee, etc., “This was done, brethren, from the rebuke of God the waters fled, that is, they withdrew their pressure against the mountains. Now the mountains themselves were Peter and Paul, who now stand out, who before were oppressed by persecutors but are now venerated by Emperors. For the waters fled from the rebuke of God because the heart of the King was in the hand of God, which He turned whithersoever He would, commanding peace should be given to the Christians through them. The Apostolic authority shone forth and excelled. Did the greatness of the mountains fail even when the waters were above them? But nevertheless, brethren, that all might see the eminence of the mountains, that through these mountains are salvation to the human race; for, I have lifted up my eyes to the mountains, from whence shall my help come: the waters fled from the rebuke of God, they shall be afraid at the voice of thy thunder. — it then follows — “The mountains were laid bare, the Emperor commanded. But what would he have commanded if God had not thundered? But because God willed, he commanded, and it was done. Therefore, let no man arrogate anything to himself. The waters were afraid by the voice of God’s thunder. For behold, when God willed, the waters fled, lest they should press upon the mountains.” These are Augustine’s words. Why then do you cause trouble, why do you malign Caesar, calling him a foolish Emperor because he venerates the Apostles in Sylvester, while honoring the Church? The Papal authority was eminent before the peace of Caesar, when the waters of secular persecution were above it. Nor did the mountains lack greatness then, nor did it increase after the dowry through Caesar, but it appeared only when he withdrew the waters, and restored peace and dowry to the Churches. And now you cannot call the Emperor a fool, who did what he did by divine command. Thus says Augustine: “The Emperor commanded; but what would he have commanded, if God had not thundered?” Therefore, men do not here slip from faith, considering this deed [the Donation] of the devout Emperor to be the execution of a divine command. [N.B. The Donation of Constantine was not proven to be a fraud until after Wycliffe’s death.]

7. Wycliffe’s fifth argument is adduced, and the answer is that in the Church there are two swords, one spiritual, the other temporal: the one in the Church; the other to be wielded by the Church. Fifthly, our Wycliffe argues that the Pope is Antichrist, On Christ and Antichrist, chapter 13: “Christ (he says) forbade his own to strike with the sword, but to suffer as he when he could easily, if he had wished, overcome his enemies, as is clear from John 18. But the Pope is said to equip soldiers with the goods of the poor in order to accumulate for himself the surpluses of dung.” — It continues — “From this truth practically declared, it can be asserted even more clearly that the Pope who thus provokes wars is the manifest Antichrist.” This is according to Wycliffe. Here it is clear he confuses things when he indiscriminately condemns the Pope for provoking others to war in the cause of Christ’s Church, as well as proceeding to war himself. And why then did Christ hand over to Peter both swords, the spiritual and the temporal? Bernard commendably expounds the latter in his fourth book, when he says, “Why do you try to take up the sword again, which you were once commanded to put into its sheath? But he who denies yours, does not seem to me to pay sufficient attention to the word of the Lord, who says: Return your sword to its sheath. Therefore, you yourself, perhaps at your nod, and if not by your hand, it shall be drawn. Otherwise, if it pertains in no way to you and he, with the Apostle saying, Behold, here are two swords, the Lord would not have answered, it is enough, but instead, it is too much. Both, therefore, are of the Church; that is, a spiritual sword and a material one; but the former is, indeed, the Church’s to wield, but the other is to be wielded by the Church.” This is the other. 

Behold, now the Pope cannot be the Antichrist, even if he has a temporal sword. He has it at his beckoning, by which the soldier kills for the Church; but if not at his beckoning, namely, that he cannot exhort soldiers in the cause of Christ to strike with the sword, why then does he have it? He certainly has it, or Christ is mistaken, who gave it to him, I say, at his beck and call, not in the hand, as Augustine says in the 22nd book, Against Faustus the Manichaean, chap. 70 at the end, “Of course, the Lord had commanded that his disciples should bear the sword; but he had not commanded that they should strike. What then is incongruous if Peter, after this sin, became the Pastor of the Church, just as Moses, after the smiting of the Egyptian became the ruler of the Congregation?” 

CHAPTER 50 SYNOPSIS

We declare that according to Wycliffe’s four properties of Antichrist, the Pope is not Antichrist.

1. Christ had jurisdiction not only over the Jews, but also over all nations, although he was sent first to the sheep of the house of Israel. 

2. The Apostles, by the command of Christ, expanded the boundaries of the Church, which is not content with one place, but occupies the whole world with heavenly preaching. 

3. It is the duty of the Pope and the Ecclesiastics, by the command of the Holy Spirit, to extend the kingdom of Christ, as far as it is in them, through faith. 

4. The knighthood and other splendid trappings of the Pope are not contrary to Christ if, indeed, he acknowledges they are to be tolerated for the time being, and not to be desired for the sake of duty. 

5. The throne of the Pope, which is the symbol of the authority to teach and judge, has its foundation in the Holy Scriptures and in the Fathers; but not in the Imperial endowment. 

6. Peter erected three Sees, but the chief one was Rome. 

7. Bishops have the right to crown and anoint Kings and Emperors, not by recent, but by very ancient right. 

8. Since in the Holy Scriptures men are called Gods, it is no scandal to the Church if the Supreme Pontiff is also called ‘God on earth.’ This is especially for the terror and vengeance of the wicked. 

I

Our Wycliffe supposes the properties of Antichrist, from which he takes up arms against the Pope in his book, On Christ & Antichrist, chap. 4, he says, “The first is that Christ has reasonably limited to himself the place of jurisdiction in Judea: I was not sent (he says) but to the sheep, etc., as is clear from Matt.15:24. But when he visited Samaria, Tyre and Sidon, or other lands, he did this as a figure, to denote that the nations were afterwards to be converted into the fold of the Lord: and in these lands he converted the children of Israel. But the Pope would wish to extend his jurisdiction throughout the entire habitable earth, while he would savor the profit for himself.” — He continues — “Indeed, if he [Christ] believed it would be to his advantage, he would have wished to extend his jurisdiction throughout an infinite void.” Thus Wycliffe. And he resumes [this train of thought] in the second part of the Sermon on the Mount, chapter 61. How willingly this man errs against Christ, so that under such a false color it may be brought against the Pope! But what Christian believes that Christ had no jurisdiction except over the Jews, hearing him say, All things have been given to me by the Father. And again, I will draw all to myself; and that he has other sheep which are not of this fold, etc., and that he will have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth; which the Prophet (Psalm 72:8) foretold concerning the Church of Christ? And Paul said that he had received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all nations for his name’s sake in Romans 1. And how could he himself have received in the name of Christ an apostleship to the Romans, over whom Christ himself had no jurisdiction? Let us not, therefore, dwell on this heresy, which so openly prejudices the episcopate of Christ: but let us respond to what has been introduced.  

Christ (he says) limited the place of jurisdiction to Judea, saying, I was not sent except to the sheep, etc. From this he insinuates that Christ is not sent to the Gentiles. However, he understands falsely. Christ was sent to the Gentiles; and he called them his other sheep, which he did not bring. Yet he was sent first to the sheep of the house of Israel, according to that of the Apostle in Romans 1:16: The Gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. And in the Commentary on the same place, and the text already mentioned, Matthew 15, I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, Jerome says, “Not that he was not sent to the Gentiles, but that he was sent first to Israel. So that those who did not receive the Gospel might be justly removed to the [status of] Gentiles.” But also, blind and treacherous, why do you not consider that Christ, who said, I was not sent except to the sheep of Israel, also said to his disciples for the same reason, Go not into the way of the Gentiles? But if by this he had no jurisdiction outside Judea, why did he afterwards rashly send his Apostles thither when he had said, Go into the whole world and preach the Gospel to every creature, except that he wished to extend his jurisdiction throughout the entire inhabited earth? And how else did the Spirit of Christ gather the Apostles? For what reason did he again divide them among the strong, as the non-fabulous story which seems to follow in the Commentary on Isaiah, book 10, relates on the text: He cast lots for them, which Jerome explains, “The Lord had commanded them, Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. His Spirit gathered them together and gave them strength, so that some might go to the Indians, some to Spain, some to Illyricum, some to Greece, and each one might rest in the sphere of the Gospel and doctrine.” And Cassiodorus on the Canticles, expounding the text, What is this, which progresses like the rising dawn: “What is this, that is, what kind and how great is the Church, which progresses, that is, gains advantage from virtue to virtue? For the Church is said not to stand still, but to advance, because it is not content with one place, but occupies the whole world with heavenly preaching.” 

[N. B. Netter conveniently omits this pertinent quote from Wycliffe in the same book: “The second condition contrary to Christ in the Antichrist is that Christ refused to rule secularly, whereas the Antichrist specifically desires to be exalted above the Lord Jesus Christ in this regard, because he falsely claims, with a deceitful title, that he is exalted secularly over any kingdom of the world, as if the devil had granted him that which Christ refused to take from the devil as contrary to the law, as is evident in the third temptation of Christ in Matthew four.”]

II

Did Paul make this his gain, for whom Judea was not sufficient, nor spacious Greece, but that he should fill the Illyrian Sea with the Gospel of Christ? And Blessed Peter first extended his jurisdiction through Rome and then through Europe: and John through Asia; and all the faithful of Christ still desire most Christian-like that the faith of Christ be spread throughout the whole world, crying out to God, that the Church be not imprisoned in narrow Judea, as Isaiah prophetically foretells: The children whom you have lost will say in your ears: This place is too narrow for me; make me a place to dwell in, Isaiah 49:20, on which Jerome says in his Commentary, book 13, “For they which were formerly deserted and fallen into loneliness and ruin, will be restored with the coming of the Gospel of Christ, and will have such a multitude of inhabitants that they cannot contain them. So long as the persecutors flee far away.” — It continues — “Those who destroyed and scattered you will go out from you. And the children of your barrenness, whom you thought you had completely lost and to whom you were a widow, will say in your ears: ‘The place is narrow for me in the synagogues; make room for me in the churches, that I may dwell more widely, that I may not be oppressed by the blasphemies of the Jews, that your breadth may encompass the whole world with me.’” 

III

You see, behold, it is the wish of the Holy Spirit that the breadth of the jurisdiction of the Church be extended throughout the whole world. And this the Holy Spirit commanded both the Pope and the whole Church, that they should extend the kingdom of Christ through faith as much as they could throughout the world, through the mouth of the same Isaiah, as Augustine explains in Book 18, On the City of God, chapter 29, “Now let us hear what follows about the Church: Rejoice, barren one who does not bear: break forth and cry out, you who do not give birth, for the desolate one has more children than she who has a husband. Enlarge the place of thy tabernacle and of thy tents: fasten, spare not, lengthen thy cord, and strengthen thy stakes. Extend still to the right and to the left. And your seed shall inherit the nations, and you shall inhabit the desolate cities. Fear not because thou art confounded; neither be thou dismayed because thou art rejected; for thou shalt forget thy everlasting shame, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy nakedness: for the Lord that made thee, the Lord of hosts is his name; and he that redeemeth thee, the God of Israel is called the God of the whole earth.” [Isaiah 54:1-5]. You see, then, that it is the duty of the Pope to expand the Church of Christ throughout the whole earth. How do you interpret his fulfilling the commandment as evil? Therefore, from your heart come forth these thoughts, blasphemies and false testimonies about the Pope, that he does this for his own gain, unless you also equally blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. But would you not in vain turn the argument against yourself, who, working with the devil, for the gain of Antichrist, extends his jurisdiction through the lands which you possess. [The editor adds in the margin: Wycliffe seeks to expand the dominion of the devil.] Or after glorious England, why did you subdue Bohemia? [The editor adds: By John Huss the Bohemian, who brought the Trialogues from England to his homeland, Wycliffe corrupted the whole of Bohemia.] From the parts of Portugal and Spain, recall your perverse shepherds. [The editor adds: “In his zeal for the propaganda of the sect, Wycliffe sent his emissaries as far as Spain, Portugal and Lusitania, not having equal success, as in Bohemia. For our author wrote earlier about the Waldenses and the heresy of Wycliffe, chap. 22, no. 5, ‘What the Spaniard marvels at, the Hungarian had not yet received, or the Pole, etc.’ Similarly, modern heretics, especially Calvinists, who have sent their ministers even to the borders of Greece, have been led by the same itching to spread falsehood and increase partisanship.”] Why do you prepare the empire of Antichrist throughout the entire inhabited earth, to the detriment of Christ’s Church and the loss of the souls of the faithful? 

IV

The second property expressed by Wycliffe by which the Pope is exposed as the Antichrist opposed to Christ is that of “Christ’s entering Jerusalem on a donkey and a colt without a saddle, while the disciples placed their cloaks upon them for Jesus to sit on, Matt. 21:7. The Pope is said to have Cardinals, and a family too superfluous for the burden of the Church, and when they ride, they have splendid saddles. And finally, the Pope is said to move the Caesars to lead him by the bridle with superfluous trappings; and afterwards, sitting on the throne, to make the great and worthy faithful kiss his feet with genuflections. But what agreement is there between Christ and Belial?” This is found in chapter 4 of his book, On Christ and Antichrist. As for the horse of the Pope with a splendid and copious family, the Church does not need admonitions from heretics. The admonitions of his sons sufficiently instruct our great Bishop (if indeed it is permissible to instruct). He hears well what his wise son [Bernard of Clairvaux] who once said to Eugenius in the fourth book of Bernard, [On Consideration to Pope Eugenius III]: “Either deny that you are the shepherd of these people or show it by your actions. You will not deny it unless you deny that you are the heir of him whose throne you hold. This is Peter, who is known never to have gone in procession adorned either with jewels or silks, covered with gold, carried on a white horse, attended by a knight or surrounded by clamoring servants. But without these trappings, he believed it was enough to be able to fulfill the Lord’s command, If you love me, feed my sheep. In this finery, you are the successor not of Peter, but of Constantine. I suggest that these things must be allowed for the time being but are not to be assumed as a right. Rather, I urge you on to those things to which I know you have an obligation. You are the heir of the Shepherd and even if you are arrayed in purple and gold, there is no reason for you to abhor your pastoral responsibilities; there is no reason for you to be ashamed of the Gospel.” Saint Bernard better explains this splendor of the Papal apparatus than the profane Wycliffe. He counsels it to be tolerated for the time being, not to be desired for the sake of duty. Who would not counsel any Saint about such antichristian quality (according to Wycliffe)? Who would not discourage it by all means and ways? And if there is grumbling about the great clamor surrounding the Pope’s family, the Pope will not be contrary to Christ, who, as was noted, when he was going to Jerusalem, faced such great crowds, some of whom preceded him, while others followed; all of whom came from the people. They accompanied him from Jericho, according to Jerome in his Commentary on Matthew, and with such a great multitude he entered the Temple, overturning the unseemly tables of the merchants by human effort.

V

And as for rebuking the high throne upon which the Pope sits, it seems to me you have not noticed the Psalmist saying of the Chair of Peter, Let them exalt him in the Church of the people, and in the Chair of the elders let them praise him [Psalm 107:32]. The chair of the elders, that is, of the Priests: for so I have deduced the Priests were called. Hence, the Chair of Moses was high, which until the time of Christ successively received his law, teaching it. Hence the Lord, the Scribes and the Pharisees sat upon the Chair of Moses. So that the aforesaid manner of establishing the Chair was drawn from the custom of the Scriptures, where the Chair of Moses was deputed to the successors of his Chair because of the authority of teaching the law received. Hence, Against Adimantus, the disciple of Manichaeus, chapter 16, Augustine says, “They sit upon the Chair of Moses; do what they say, but do not do what they do: for they say and do not. In this place the Lord confirms the authority of the law, which was given through Moses, and yet most clearly shows that the habits of those who did not obey the received law are to be avoided and shunned.” This [chair of Moses] is the Chair of the Pope who has the authority to teach the received law of Christ. Zechariah also prophesied of this throne, chapter 6, The man from the east is his name. It follows, He shall sit and rule upon his throne, and he shall be a priest upon his throne, and the counsel of peace shall be among them. 

Behold Christ on his throne, and the Priest on his throne, peace be upon him. Likewise, in Job 29 it is called the Chair: For in the street they prepared a Chair for me; which, expounding in the book of annotations on Job according to another translation, Augustine says, “In the streets a chair was laid for me, that is, the authority of teaching was brought to me by the crowds.” Therefore, what you expound in a perverse sense as pomp, this Augustine, this faithful Catholic, considers the power of teaching. Nor can we be accused of having received this throne of glory as the result of a Caesarian endowment which Pope Urban anticipated, establishing in all Churches a high chair for the Prelate, in his first Decree, chap. 4, he says, “The seats in the Churches of Bishops are high, established, prepared and founded on the throne which teaches the matter of scrutiny with the power of judging and of loosing and binding given to them by the Lord. Hence, the Savior says in the Gospel, Whatever you bind on earth, etc. And elsewhere, Receive the Holy Spirit, whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven them.

VI

Therefore, the throne of the Pope has its foundation at the least among the chairs of the Holy Pontiffs from the very first Peter and the successors of the Patriarchs. For thus it seems to be reckoned in the sixth book of the Register, the Epistle to Eulogius of Alexandria, as well as Gregory’s Epistle 37 which begins, Most sweet to me is your Holiness: “Thus, since there are many Apostles for the Principality itself, the See of the Prince of the Apostles alone prevailed in authority, which is in three places as one. For he himself exalted the See, in which he also deigned to rest and end his present life. He himself adorned the See, to which he sent the Evangelist disciple. He himself established the See, in which he sat for seven years, although he was about to depart.” Behold, Peter erected three Sees and sat, although preeminently in Rome. 

VII

Wycliffe still inserts another condition of Antichrist, from which he accuses the Pope of being the Antichrist, in the second part of the Sermon on the Mount, chapter 36, where he says, “The third condition of Antichrist is that by seeking his own gain, he seeks his own glory and thus does whatever he does for the ostentation of the world.” — And he expresses much below in particular. — “For by crowning Caesar, conferring Episcopacies, and other dignities which he does not know whether they agree with the good pleasure of God the Father or not, he seems to aspire in every way first to worldly glory and gain.” Thus says Wycliffe. As far as I see, it is not of recent tradition that it was entrusted to the Holy Bishops to crown Kings and anoint them. For father Ambrose says in the 8th book of the Epistles, in the letter which is entitled, On the Tradition of the Basilica and the Saints, “In the ancient law we read that Empires were given by Priests, without having usurped an office not theirs; and it is commonly said that Emperors preferred the Priesthood rather than the Priests preferred the Empire. Christ fled, lest he should become King.” Thus says Ambrose. Behold, not by new, but by old law, the Priests bestowed Empires. But it would not have been an old but a new law, if it had begun in Constantine, who did not precede Saint Ambrose by many years. But perhaps you wish that Kings should distinguish themselves [with a mark of their own personal power] and thus refuse the Sacraments of consecration from others? I think you want this to be true of Kings, which you believe to be of recent tradition for priests. But the very beginning of this institution is seen when we read that Joshua was consecrated as a Prince by the command of the Lord through Moses, Num. 27, The Lord said to Moses, “Take Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the spirit [of leadership], and lay your hand upon him, and let him stand before Eleazar the priest, and all the congregation, and you shall give him commandments in the sight of all, and part of your glory.” Here, behold, three things concur in the consecration of the Prince: the consent of the multitude, in whose presence he was offered; the authority of the Priest, who was designated by name; and the consecration of the consecrator, to whom he was made equal in the power of glory. Hence in the Questions On the book of Numbers, question 54, reciting what is said, In whom is the spirit, Augustine says, “Where else should we receive the Holy Spirit? For he did not say this about the Spirit of man, which every man has. Yet Moses was commanded to lay hands on him, lest any man, overpowering any grace, dare to refuse the Sacraments of consecration.” Thus Augustine. But I know the enemy’s snares. I know immediately, Wycliffe will answer, “How then will the office of consecrating Kings by this law befit the Priest, when here it was not the Priest Eleazar, but the Leader Moses who consecrated him?” Let nothing be overlooked in the things to be noted: the figures; and by this all these things are resolved into their principle. All Powers in the Old Law are derived from Moses, and all Powers in the New Law are drawn from Christ. Moses, I tell you, there bore the figure of Christ, as Isidore says, book 2, Of the Origin of the Offices, Chapter 5: “Perhaps it is asked whose figure Moses bore. For if the sons of Aaron formed the figure of the Priests, and Aaron the High Priest, that is, the Bishop; of whom did Moses? Undoubtedly Christ, and truly in all things Christ, since he was the likeness of the Mediator of God who is between God and men, Jesus Christ, who is the true Leader of the people, the true Prince of Priests, and the Lord of the Pontiffs.” These are the words of Isidore. From Christ, therefore, all consecration and imposition of hands began in the new law, which before was permitted only to the Priests, or sometimes to the Prophets, to signify the imperfect Priesthood of that time. Thus, Samuel anointed Saul and anointed David in the house of the Father by consecration, whose two other anointings signified only the consent and gratuitous election of the people. And Zadok the Priest anointed Solomon, and so on: so that in our time the conferral of this Sacrament is appropriate only to the Priests by ancient law, as cited by Ambrose above. 

VIII

In Wycliffe’s book, On Christ and Antichrist, the last chapter, he takes the fourth occasion to malign the Pope because certain glossators call the Pope ‘God.’ Wycliffe says, “It is said of the Pope that his whole life and deeds were for seeking glory from this world. Wherefore I ask, for what [other] reason would he consent to be called the Most Holy Father, and by his glossators to be called God mixed, or God on earth?” Thus Wycliffe. Let us briefly explain this calumny: for at the same time Wycliffe’s verbose wit has ended. What so little a hearer of the Scriptures is there who does not know that men are called Gods abusively by participation, as the Lord says in the Gospel (John 10:35) that in ancient times those were called Gods to whom the word of God was addressed? And in Psalm (95) Great King above all Gods. On which in the same Psalm, Augustine says, “Here he takes men as Gods: for the Lord is not King over demons. And here we have the testimony of Scripture, God stood in the synagogue of the Gods, but in the midst, he discerns the Gods (Psalm 82:1). He said Gods by participation, not by nature, but by grace by which he willed to make Gods. How great is God who made Gods?” Thus, Augustine. See now whether they are not Gods, whom God himself makes Gods by grace. Why then do you bark at the Pope, the Father under the Father Christ and the Vicar of divine graces? Why are all, by the grace of his administration, [called] Gods, and will not God himself be among all Gods? But I also dare to say something else, HE IS GOD TO YOU AND YOUR FOLLOWERS. How? Through terror, just as Moses is the God of Pharaoh, Exodus 7:1. Which, expounding on the Blessed Immaculate verse, Portion my lord, Ambrose says, “Pharaoh was king, but he was not God. Moses became a God to him, that is, a terrible one to the King himself, whom the King feared and dreaded. But this was the power of Holiness. In the assembly of such Gods, God stands and is distinguished. And you, if you want to be a God, a terror to sinners, revered by Kings, so that those who work in the name of God may seem to be subject to you as God: despise the things of this world and strive to prefer the reproach of the Lord’s passion to all riches.” Thus Ambrose. And in the first book of Kings, the Prophets are called the mouth of God because they spoke from the mouth of the Lord. Hence, in the Hebrew Questions on Samuel, Jerome says, “If you fear the Lord, serve him, obey his voice, and do not provoke the mouth of the Lord. ‘The mouth of the Lord’ speaks of the mouth of the Prophets because they spoke from the mouth of the Lord.” So says Jerome. Therefore, it is not a scandal to the Church if others have written that the Pope is God, for he ought to be a terror to all evil powers and should strike down sentences against sins speaking as the mouth of the Lord, being a capital fear to them in the name of Christ Jesus, whose double sword he carries. And indeed, the Holy Fathers fix this very title upon the Pope. Hence in Book 4, to Eugenius, at the end summarizing the office of the Papacy, Bernard says, “However, consider that you must be the form of justice, the mirror of holiness, the model of piety, the asserter of truth, the defender of the faith, the Doctor of the Gentiles, the Leader of Christians, the friend of the Bridegroom, the paramour of the Bride, the organizer of the clergy, the Shepherd of the people, the teacher of the foolish, the refreshment of the oppressed, the advocate of the poor, the hope of the miserable;” – It continues — “THE AVENGER OF WICKEDNESS, THE FEAR OF EVIL, the glory of the good, the rod of the powerful, the hammer of tyrants, the Father of Kings, the moderator of laws, the dispenser of the Canons, the salt of the earth, the light of the world, the Priest of the Most High, the Vicar of Christ, the Christ of the Lord, and finally the GOD OF PHARAOH.” Thus says Bernard.   

Chapter 51 Synopsis 

We affirm it is necessary that there be a Pope, although Christ is seated in Heaven as a plumb line above all the righteous.  

1. Wycliffe’s error is adduced.  

2. It is shown how Wycliffe intends to remove the Pope and all the Prelates from the Church.  

3. The mystical significance of the plumb line angle is explored.

4. Although Christ resides as a plumb line at the zenith of the head of any man in heaven, the Supreme Pontiff and the other Prelates of the Church are not therefore superfluous because he comes to men through the regular lines of the Sacraments which they offer. 

5. It is not in vain that God instituted order in all things, namely, that the lowest things may be transmitted through the middle to the highest. 

6. Christ, by special privilege, confers grace on someone through himself and without anything between. 

I

This heretical flame which consumes mountains, namely, the presiding officers of the entire Church of Jesus Christ, spreading like a furnace by three arguments of the ravaging spirit, always dissolving the office of the Roman Prelate, trying to prove the Pope presides in the world in vain because Christ, who resides in heaven directly over the faithful is sufficient by himself to abundantly minister every spiritual grace to those who ask, without the Pope. Hence his Conclusion among the damned 60, Wycliffe says, “We know from experience that if the Pope were either dead or deposed, along with his Cardinals and Prelate Caesars, the Church would prosper not less, but more. As regards the Sacrament of Confirmation with the Sacrament of Orders and the blessing of Chrism, along with the dedicating of Churches, which are appropriated to Bishops, it would seem that [allegedly according to the RCC] Christ, residing as a plumb line in heaven above those Priests, granted them the power to do such things [which He did not].” Thus Wycliffe. The declaration of this and express proof is found in his Tractate 2, On the Sermon on the Mount, chap. 38, where Wycliffe says, “They speak blasphemies who say that it is necessary for a celestial ray to descend from heaven upon the Roman Pontiff, and from him to be reflected according to an angle to the adjacent provinces through lands and seas; as if the first truth sought angles [through the Pope], which means that every good gift given descending from the Father of lights [must go through the Pope], so that God is not a plumb line above the head of every man. But what is even more heretical, is the fact that God, by his immensity, is necessarily everywhere, [which the Papacy, in effect, denies].” Thus says Wycliffe. 

[N. B. The question in dispute is the claim that God dispenses His gifts through a Pope, whose position and authority in the Church has no biblical warrant, let alone approval of God. Such a claim helps give credence to the Pope as a super-human being with God-like powers.]

 II

Without a doubt, this mystical allegory concerning plumb lines, which are few and far between in the Scriptures, occasions a departure from the aforementioned heresy in two locations, even contrarily. Or here, as is clear, from the plumb line supremacy of God, Wycliffe argues that the Roman See of the Pontiff should be done away with. Read Isaiah 34:11. And because of the plumb line residence of God, it is declared by the opinion of all the power of the nobles and kings of Zion that it be reduced to nothing and become a plumb line for desolation. The text is this: “For it is the day of the vengeance of the Lord, the year of recompenses of the judgment of Sion. And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the ground thereof into brimstone: and the land thereof shall become burning pitch.” — Followed by — “and a line shall be stretched out upon it, to bring it to nothing, and a plummet, unto desolation. Its nobles will not be there, and all its princes will be in nothing: and thorns and nettles will arise in its houses.” On which place in his Commentary on Isaiah, Book 9, Jerome says, “And this will happen because the Lord’s line, the plumb line, that is, his sentence, cannot be changed. His nobles, that is, the Apostles, and believers, will not be there, nor will they be joined with the number of the lost, but will call upon Christ the King.” Thus Jerome. This is, therefore, a plumb line of desolation and destruction, which first removes the Apostles and their successors, the Bishops, so that it may also be destroyed and directed into nothingness. Read also in Zechariah the plumb line of reformation and grace, when the house of the Lord was to be rebuilt under Zerubbabel and Joshua the son of Jehozadak. The text is as follows: “Therefore, thus saith the Lord: I will return to Jerusalem in my mercies: my house shall be built in it, saith the Lord of hosts: and the plumb line shall be stretched out over Jerusalem, ” Zech.1:16. Where the Gloss says: “Let it be built under the hand of Zerubbabel and Joshua the son of Jehozadak.” And elsewhere, “The Lord promises that out of mercy he will rebuild it, and that a plumb line or a measuring line, according to the measure and orders of each, must be kept in it.” Thus, the Gloss. 

[The editor adds: “In order to better build his Church as invisible, Wycliffe argues that Catholics do not want the grace of God to flow in directly as he teaches, but indirectly and obliquely; that is, not from God immediately, but through the Priests and ministers of the Church, namely through the Supreme Pontiff and the lower Prelates who believe they are sanctified. But in order to make some potion for the foolish, Wycliffe diverts to the Scriptures, deducing from Isaiah 34:11 that God does not dwell obliquely, but in a plumb line in the heavens. And from this he concludes it is superfluous to have God communicate His gifts to men through the Pope and other Prelates of the Church.”] 

Therefore, the Lord resides over men with the plumb line of desolation and vengeance when the Prelates and Pontiffs of the Church are taken away: He resides according to the plumb line of grace, when the Church is built under the Prelates, being held there above and below, according to the respective orders of each presiding authority. Look at the Scriptures: if you do not believe me, believe them.  Wycliffe teaches us in this passage how the plummet of God’s most severe vengeance will descend upon us [resulting in] the removal of the Roman Pontiff, and the other Bishops subject to him, though [in Netter’s view] Christ prepared for us in his Apostle Peter to be the plummet of grace through the ranks of each. “But I would not,” (you say), “have the ray of divine grace come to us through some refracted angle.” On the other hand, I would not have the faithful hear you teaching the Scriptures, lest the plumb line of divine light, refracted in your shadow, offend the faithful. 

III

However, know that our knee is bent because of original sin, and from this, all men have limped along God’s paths with Jacob because of the touch of the sinew, which even today all true Jews, that is, confessors of Christ, avoid. Thus, [Archbishop of Mainz], Rabanus Maurus, also says that the nature of things is said to have an angle due to the bent knee, book 14, chapter 22: “Angle is derived from the Greek language, that is, from gony, which is called ‘knee’ in Latin, because it restores the bent appearance of the angle with its conforming quality. For among the Greeks, the origin of its name is entirely preserved in derivations, such as tetragon, pentagon, and similar things.” We always walk here [on earth] with bent knees and are never or rarely without fault because we are by nature children of wrath, always bending toward liability from the original plumb line of grace. You say that TRUTH DOES NOT SEEK CORNERS OR ANGLES. Certainly, the truth, when seeking the lost sheep, seeks many corners. And what do you say? The Church of Christ militant in this life, just as it will not be without a wrinkle or flaw, so it will not be without a corner because thus says the Prophet Jeremiah, 31:38: the city will be rebuilt for the LORD from the Tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate. On which in the Commentary, book 6, Jerome says, “The Church is built from the tower of obedience, or grace, and the gifts of God (for this is the interpretation of Ananiel), to the gate of the corner which, although it may seem to have a lofty beginning, yet as long as we subsist in this flesh we cannot possess the straight line of truth. Rather we stand in the corner and the measuring line goes out beyond it with broken lines, that is, the gate of the corner upon the hill Gareb, which in the Latin language is interpreted as itchy, or sojourner, to teach us that we are strangers and pilgrims, and not to have itching ears, readily giving our consent to the most persuasive doctrines.”  — It continues — “See how many stations the Church has and that it should be Apostolic, without stain or wrinkle, reserved for the future and in the heavens. Do you hear the corners, do you hear the scab, do you hear the ruins and ashes, and the region of death and darkness, and do you boast of your virtue and impenitence?” These are Jerome’s words. Jerome seeks you, my Wycliffe, he questions you. Pay attention to the angles and the scabs, without which the city is not built for the Lord from the tower of grace. Why then do you boast of your virtue, thinking that the grace of God resides in you without a plumb line? I think you should have taken care with Ethnicus [Lucanus, the Roman poet], if you were there at the time, how he would have placed Nero, one-eyed, on the axis of equilibrium, lest, sitting depressed, he should not see his Rome leaning sideways. But you who think that the right or refracted angles of Euclid, and the perspective of Alacus in the splendors of the saints should be solemnized, I beg you, do not let the people of the West receive his grace from the reflected angle, which ascends above the heavens of heavens to the East; or say, how every perfect gift, descending from the Father of lights, comes perpendicularly, when it does not come to us through the Son who, according to the vision of Stephen in the Acts, stood at the right hand of the Father: and so is consequently described in the Apostles’ Creed. But leaving aside those things, let it be said according to the Gospel truth that Christ himself is the corner: because the corner stone of which it is said, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is made the head of the corner. Therefore, I say boldly, whatever the Father of lights has transmitted to us, comes by means of the corner. Hence on Ps. 118, Augustine says, “Let us acknowledge the cornerstone, the cornerstone Christ cannot be the corner unless he has joined two walls: they come to the corner from different sides, but in the corner, they are opposed to each other. Circumcision comes from one side; uncircumcision comes from the other. In Christ both peoples have agreed: because he has become the stone of which it is written, The stone which the builders rejected, this has become the head of the corner.” – It continues – “All nations have come to the cornerstone: there they received the kiss of peace, they acknowledged him, the one who made one out of two, not as the heretics who made two out of one. For this is what the Apostle says about the Lord Christ. He is our peace, who has made both one.” These are Augustine’s words. Now I know and clearly feel why Wycliffe argues and detests the angle of the corner. It’s because he himself opposes Christ’s corner, making two parts out of one, two parts out of one Church of Christ, since it is the duty of a follower of Christ to be in his corner. And in this way he holds the heresy of the sect of the Jews, who therefore shuddered to receive Christ into the Synagogue, lest through Christ the corner of solidity of the true faith should be fulfilled, as Rabanus says in De Naturis Rerum, book 14, chapter On the Walls of Buildings: “The vain work of the Jews is exposed over and above the flood of builders. For they seemed to be the only men in the world who built and still worshipped one God, while the other nations destroyed themselves by the worship of idols. Builders always tend to the corner, so that the solidity of the joined walls may be fulfilled. But the Jews did not complete the construction of their faith at all because they thought that the very stone, which was the strongest cornerstone, should be despised, like madmen.” These are the words of Rabanus. Therefore, Wycliffe Judaizes when he does not allow Christians to build to the corner, at the end of which they cannot complete any building. For Rabanus, as usual, thinks it is insane to despise the corner in the building of faith, and as Christ is the corner, so much the more from him to the corners Peter and Paul, and afterwards their vicar, the Roman Bishop. 

[N. B. Netter is falsely accusing Wycliffe of denying Christ, the chief cornerstone, which is absurd. Rather, Wycliffe denies the presumption that Christ as chief cornerstone ultimately leads to the Pope as His designated chief cornerstone on earth from whom the divine rays of God — i.e., divine powers — emanate.]

IV

But you do not understand how Christ resides in heaven as a plumb line directed at the head of any man; and yet through his Vicar the Roman Pontiff, and subsequently other Prelates, he comes to men through the regular lines of the Sacraments. Do you perhaps believe that the divine rays deviate from the plumb line, if through sacred Bishops, and through human offices, they make Christ-like corners? If this is so, why do you preach, as you boast, the word of God, when God residing in heaven, vertically as a plumb line, would give other Christians the most full and free faculty of the word of God without you? Why do kings excel among the people, why do judges judge, when God, dwelling in heaven, could do these things very well without them? Tell the farmers not to harrow their fields, not to bury their grains, not to harvest their ripe crops because God could do these things in a vertical manner without them. And did Paul foolishly plant, or Apollo water because God alone makes the increase by his vertical plumb line? But I say that God who dwells vertically above men does not deviate from his plumb line even when making an angular corner. But while he makes a corner in the minister, he keeps the straight line, so it falls upon the faithful and generates grace. And if this theology is difficult for you, learn from Elijah why he said in 1 Kings 17:1, As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word. Does not God sit in heaven vertically with his plumb line above the heads of other men, yet it was necessary for him, by the necessity of his nature, to first descend by the mouth of Elijah, and then to return at an angle to the dry provinces? But if you grant that God says so, much more will God regularly administer through the mouth of Peter and his successors, and other Priests in the Church, the effect of grace, confirmation, and holy orders, to whom he said in Peter, I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. And, Receive the Holy Spirit: whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven them. Do they not, in effect, say from the words of Christ that the grace of the Sacramental dew or rain will not come except according to the words of our mouth? And did not God afterwards immediately and with a perpendicular plumb line bestow that dew upon the earth, although through an angle from the words of Elijah’s mouth? Thus, I say: whatever He does at an angle through a minister, He Himself immediately accomplishes, and His plumb line flows perpendicularly through Himself. See therefore, how Cornelius was reborn of God through Peter, Paul through Ananias and Christ incarnate through the Virgin. [N. B. Netter is assuming that which is in controversy: the orthodoxy of Roman Catholicism and her hierarchy, using biblical saints to prove his point, when, in fact it, proves nothing.] Therefore, He is the angle itself falling upon angles always perpendicularly like a plumb line because He does not permit obstacles in His ministers as He penetrates through super celestial bodies to reach the faithful with ultimate efficacy. For in some way Augustine seems to think this on Psalm 86, saying that He entered the room through the door, which bodies could not, “Nearly all bodies suffer distress, and they cannot be everywhere, nor always. But the Divinity, which is everywhere present, can be drawn to it in likeness from all sides.” — He continues. — “In one place He said both things. In the Gospel, saying the Shepherd enters by the door. And there He said, I am the good Shepherd, as well he said, I am the door. The Shepherd enters by the door. And who is the Shepherd who enters by the door? I am the good Shepherd. And what is the door then by which you enter, good Shepherd? I am the door. How then do you enter all things? For example, when Paul enters by the door, does not Christ enter by the door? Why? Not because Paul is Christ, but because Christ is in Paul, and through Christ Paul [enters]. He himself said, Do you demand proof that Christ is speaking through me? When his saints and faithful enter through the door, does not Christ enter through the door?” Thus says Augustine.

Behold how Christ is all, and through all Christ: in the plumb line and in the angle, in himself, and in Paul, the same Christ always. And Augustine continues, “Why do the foundations consist of the Apostles and Prophets? Because their authority bears our infirmity. Why are they gates? Because through them we enter into the kingdom of God. For they preach to us. And when we enter through them, we enter through Christ. For he is the door. There are twelve gates in Jerusalem, and one gate is Christ.” Thus says Augustine. You see, behold, that when the Apostles preach, and through them we enter the kingdom of God, we enter through Christ. Why then when the Bishops ordain, does not Christ ordain? And when the Bishops confirm, does not Christ himself confirm? All those are gates, and yet one gate because in all there is one gate, Christ. 

V

Ultimately, however, it must be considered by all believers that the order of all things is not established by God alone: he himself creates the worm, and yet the influence for this is first conceived by the Sun and transmitted to the proximate causes. Thus, Christ ministers all things here by grace, and the first ray of it is first received by the first minister of grace, namely the Bishop [of Rome]; and among the bishops he is first, and through him it flows into others, according to what is clearly taught in chapter 5 of The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy from the translation of John Scotus, according to [Pseudo-] Dionysius [the Areopagite], “This is a certain law of the most sacred Divinity to bring its light back through the first and second. Do we not perceive the sensible essences of the elements coming forth first in more related ones, and then through those dividing their proper operation into others?” — The prophet continues — “Therefore, it is the task of the foremost ones to abundantly divide to the secondary ones in the measurement that is adjacent to them, to reveal the divine spectacles contemplated in sacred matters; and to teach what belongs to the Hierarchy with the consummative knowledge of the Divine, those who, after them, are well-teaching Hierarchs, and to impart the perfect virtue of good teaching according to the dignity of the sacred, participating intelligently and integrally in the sacerdotal consummation. Therefore, the divine order of these Pontiffs is indeed the primary of the divine ordinations and most exalted. For in him, the entire disposition of our Hierarchy is perfected and fulfilled, just as we see every Hierarchy consummated in Jesus, so too, do we see each in its own divine Priest.” Thus, he spoke. Behold, the priestly order first receives divine rays, and in that first order is the Episcopal order; and within that whole order the first is the primary Bishop, who is the highest and ultimate, in whom the whole hierarchy of the living Church is consummated, just as in Jesus is contained the whole hierarchy of both the militant and the journeying Church. Hence Saint Thomas, explaining this according to the [Codex] Vercellensis, “Now it is a general law of the Hierarchy that the lower ones are led upwards by their superiors to the divine splendors shining upon them: according to what we see in sensible and elemental things: those more related and nearer to them change first and more familiarly according to their likeness: and through them they extend their operation to further things. Therefore God, who is the principle and foundation of all visible and invisible order, fittingly first infuses His vital and divine rays into the first and higher ones, as more conformable to Himself, and through them as fit to absorb and influence the divine light, shines forth, and appears above the lower ones according to their capacity.” — It then follows — “The Episcopal Order is next to the other Ecclesiastical Orders and is the ultimate and most perfected of the others because in the Episcopal Order all the adornment of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy is perfected and fulfilled, just as the whole Angelic and human Hierarchy is perfected in the Lord Jesus. So also, every special Hierarchy has its own Hierarch. However, the virtue of the hierarchy’s order contains all virtues and ecclesiastical operations, even though the provision is made through the lower orders, and it itself performs its ministries appropriately through the individual other orders.” 

[N. B. Netter using Thomas as his expert witness to prove the orthodoxy of his position is tantamount to Hitler using Goebbels as his expert witness to prove the orthodoxy of Nazism.]

VI

This is the regular institution that Christ first flows into the primary ministers of the Church, who are the Bishops, and through them into other sacramental and doctrinal rays. Although sometimes by special privilege (rarely, however, and for reasons known to himself) he flows his grace into some humble and devout person. 

End of Translated Doctrinal Excerpts