Scenario:
PhDr. Zdeněk Uhlíř

INTRODUCTION

John Wyclif (ca 1324/28 - 1384) ranks among the controversial thinkers; some praise him to the skies, the others repudiate him. As the Oxford University professor he tried to shake with the ingenious building of scholastic theology by its own means and to initiate a radical reform of the medieval religious life. In England, he was followed by the movement of Lollards (ca 1380 – ca 1430), but it had not the hoped-for effect. And so it was only after transferring the Wyclif´s writings to Prague, when his teaching seemed to have found practical use. However, his thoughts were unsuccessful either at last. On the other hand, thanks to a great popularity of the Wyclif´s ideas in Bohemia before the breakout of the Hussite movement, plenty of manuscripts have been preserved for studying his work and ideas. National Library of the Czech Republic keeps in its collections a considerable part of the heritage. The exhibition thus, allows us, at least in brief, to reconstruct the historical mission of wyclifism face to face with the tradition of Czech reform thinking and with the originating Czech Reformation.

The 14th century was a turning point in Czech history. This fact became evident around the middle of the period. Christianity, that had penetrated since the 9th and 10th centuries, at first only into the privileged groups, reached right at that time the lowest orders of the socio-cultural ladder. Although from the point of view of theologians and saints, it was only very rough and superficialI Christianity, we can say that the whole country became Christian. Also the University in Prague was established in the mid-14th century (1348), as the first one in Central Europe. Czech Christianity began to cultivate and, above all, to intellectualize itself. The Prague University was a cosmopolitan institution, so that it was open to the modern streams of thinking of the time. However, the development was too quick, and the Czech environment was not able to absorb all the news properly. The tension grew up among intellectuals as well as in the whole society.

The Eucharist and the penance, two out of the seven Catholic sacraments, became an important theme of the religious life. They should have been set against a sin, which is the obstacle in the path to salvation and its danger was perceived with a pressing urgency in that inner confusion. It was the period, when confession handbooks came out, the Holy Communion and its frequent receiving was discussed, the Eucharist was connected with preaching and listening to the preaching. All that, of course, only added fuel to the flames and increased all-embracing uncertainty, which, to the contrary, strengthened the thirst for a simple order. That lead to creating the idea of the unchangeable and clearly applicable rules of life derived directly from The Bible. The way to arouse the interest in teaching of the rigorous theologian John Wyclif was prepared.

The English environment was more advanced than the Czech one. Christianity there originated in as far back as the Roman period and has laso the later renewed Celtic and Anglo-Saxon roots. Also the Universities in Oxford and Cambridge were established earlier than the University in Prague. The tradition of theological studies and thinking was infinitely longer than in Bohemia. The fact that theology was interrelated with philosophy and consequently with other secular sciences had not caused, for long, any sensation in England. At the same time, also the society, in which all the aforementioned took place, had been developed differently, because in clashes between the common law and the Roman law the former prevailed since the beginning, and finally, it won a decisive victory; quite to the contrary was the situation on the Continent and in Central Europe. Consequently, the English society and its religiousness took the specific form very early.

Unlike Bohemia, lay religiousness in England - including female elements - had been more developed as early as the 12th and definitely from the 13th centuries. That was related to the fact that not only strength and purity of the doctrine were appreciated, but also simple religious experience, from time to time manifested in visionariness and mysticism. And so thanks to the continuity of the common law as well as to the emancipated activity of the lay element in religious life, the Church of England – however still involved in the universal Church – gained significant features of the national church. That peculiar interrelation between religious and secular life was the ground in which the aloofness from papacy originated as well as the aversion to papalism, ideology of papal monarchy. The sources of the so-called premature Reformation, for the work and activities of John Wyclif and Lollards are quite natural.

Since the 13th century, scholasticism was a dominant way of thinking in Europe. Its roots can be found as far back as the year 1100. The essence of it is a gradual reception of Aristotle´s philosophy and utilization of Greek, or more precisely Greek and Arabic, heritage at all. Concerning the form and methodology of scholasticism, logical and dialectic approaches prevailed, which enabled not only clear racional argumentation in a discussion, but also explicitely structured explanation in teaching. Scholasticism is the offensive of Christianity as a doctrine, but less as an active faith. Its logical and dialectic method allows unprecedented amplification in speculations about the questions of faith. At the same time, it is open to both pedagogical and preaching simplification as well as doctrinaire primitivism. All that is a result of the fact that it understands the faith as a problem and not a secret. In the 14th century, the faith became a sophisticated racional play and so its concepts began to be considered, almost generally, to be the only constructions of human reason, and not an expression of real being. Thus, doubts arose quite naturally about obligatoriness of contentions created in this way. Systematic theology finally turned into dogmatic theology, in which the criterion of the truth was not the persuasive force of the thing itself, but the teaching authority of the Church and the papal authority

And so the question of universals and ideas emerged, dealing with two concepts establishing and explaining the world and human activities. John Wyclif pushed through the opinion that they are to be found in the mind of God, and thus they are independent on the human reason, they are not subordinated to any human authority. No man, regardless his hierarchic position, can be the ultimate criterion of the truth. If he considered himself to be like that – as does the Pope and, to a less extent, also bishops – then it is a sacrilegious usurpation. The other people are not bound by his claim, even more, they are obliged to contradict him. The idea of the reality of universals and ideas considerably influenced the Czech environment, because it seemed to have been a proper philosophic expression of its idea about the biblical rules, their obligatoriness and their superiority to the so-called human findings. John Wyclif supplied the Czech environment with an intellectual legitimacy.

The Eucharist and its receiving was and is a sacrament in whatever theological interpretation, that positively asks the question of sacraments at all. The argument does not concern the sacrament itself but its nature. High scholasticism created a conceptualization of transsubstantiation, when the bread after having been consecrated by a priest during the mass is changed into the real Christ´s body. It is the secret expessed in concepts: thus, the secret is democratically brought nearer to everyone, but it depends on the persuasiveness and obligatoriness of concepts. With them, its content itself stands or falls. The faith thus began to be influenced with the only words. A doctrine, which expresses the faith, began to show signs of not having been given by God, but to be a human finding only. However, human findings in the matters of God – it is very disquieting.

In that situation, the step taken by John Wyclif was radical. He refused the doctrine of transsubstantiation as a rationally unconvincing and instead of it, he laid down the doctrine of remanence – the bread remains the bread even after its consecration. The sacrament of the Eucharist is not a secret, it is only a sign in the sense of meaning we use today. The Eucharist conceptualized as the remanence is thus the only formality of holy life, which is the life according to the rules of the sufficient Christ´s law. Admittedly, the holy life of both a serving priest and a receiving layman is not depending on outer human authorities in power, but it dangerously resembles bigotry of the code. It is the expression of a consistent emancipation of those who considered themselves pious. However, the Czech environment in its absolute majority did not accept such a radical attitude. Marginally and rather for intellectual embarrassment, it created a compromise question of consubstantiation – the bread remains itself and changes into the Christ´s body as well; but in its main stream, the Czech environment remained theologically faithful to the transsubstantiation without emphasizing it especially as a doctrine, because it understood the Eucharist and the sacraments at all mainly on the level of religious practice. Even though it pointed out rules of the Christ´s law in its tradition, its practical doctrinal attitude left more freedom to one´s heart. Meeting Wyclif in the field of the Eucharist should be the first exam, which pressed fully all but Hussites and later Utraquists.

The Church has been the subject of theological thinking from time immemorial, because – together with the communion of saints added later – it is a part of all ancient and medieval Creeds. Scholasticism interprets the Church, above all, as an institution of sacraments, as an institute of salvation, without which it is not possible for a man to be saved. The sacraments, only provided by the Church, were the means to the salvation. The Papacy of Avignon (1308-1378) and the so-called Great Schizm (1378-1415), which followed it, laid the question of the Church not only as the mystic body, but also as a social and political body. It was no doubt that Christ was the head of the mystical Church; more and still greater doubts arose concerning heads of the Church in the world. If even the sacred power of the Church was not accepted undoubtedly, then the juridical power began to be seen expressly critically.

In this case, too, John Wyclif chose a radical solution. He questioned not only the power of the Pope and ideology of papalism, but also hierarchic superiority within the clergy, mainly the difference between bishops and priests. The juridical power, on which the Church was based in the High Middle Ages, nearly fell into pieces in his hands. But the Church needs to be organized by secular means after all. And so John Wyclif attached importance to the secular power, exclusively to the royal power. Thus, he continued in developing the idea of the national Church by its subordinating to the state. It is another distinctive feature of the so-called premature Reformation. The Czech environment adopted, above all, the negative side of Wyclif´s ecclesiology, i.e. its criticism of papacy and hierarchy; but it omitted its positive etatist aspect. In discussions and polemics, held at the Prague University, the masters advocating the reform avoided to express clearly their opinion concerning ecclesiastic and political aspects of the problem. So the question of the Church remained open until a later period.

Patristic and monistic culture of the Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages had biblical grounds. The Early Fathers and monks were thinkers and writers finding inspiration in The Bible, rather than scholars creating on its basis extensive systems of ideas in their effort to express completely all that is theologically conceivable. Such scholars were the scholastics of the High Middle Ages. They made theology a systematic scince and left the way of only pious contemplation. Rather than to inspiration they paid attention to a method; even the inspiration itself became a subject of their methodical examination. Scholastic texts were still based on biblical texts indeed, but it ceased to be obvious at first sight: in a  discours, the biblical source was covered with an excessing amount of sylogisms, quotations of various non-biblical authors and polemic balancing with them, as the prevailing literary form of questio tempted to. People preferring simple, unsophisticated, non-doctrinaire piety saw in that a fall into blasphemous profane scholarship. And some critical scholars began to see confusion and inconsistence in it.

John Wyclif was reckoned among the above-mentioned critics, too. Having used scholastic logical and dialectical methods, he again came to the reduction on the biblical source. His preaching activity brought him to systematic biblical exegesis, from which he deduced biblical reductionism: biblical orders and examples are quite sufficient for the life of the Church and, in principle, also of the society and the state, nothing else is needed. With any other order, instruction or rule, a danger arises that those will be human findings only and will contravene the Biblical Testament. Wyclif thus tried theoretically to reduce the existing Church to the apostolic one. That went along with the Czech national tradition at least partially. But in essence, it was less rigorous, because less clear in the idea of the limits of the return: the biblical source was not so unambiguously related to the apostolic Church, it was rather connected with the whole pre-scholastic period. Acquaintance with Wyclif´s thinking thus, made it possible in the Czech environment both to develop radical quasi-apostolic rigourism and simply to be in accordance with the Early Fathers, who do not contradict The Bible. The Czech Reformation, which followed later, is then a constant struggle between the radical rigorous stream and the liberal one.

From the period of the Pope Gelasius I. (492-496), the so-called theory of two swords was well-known and recognized in the Occident. It was actually the theory of two powers, the ecclesiastical and the secular one; this idea is principally recognized up to the present. However, it was interpreted differently in different periods, therefore it was a source of constant tension between the secular politics and the ecclesiastical one as well as the permanent challenge for political theologians, philosophers and lawyers. And very often it was taken over by ideologists and publicists in order to apply it to particular cases, negotiations or conflicts. In the 14th century, the absolute consensus to find a certain balance was reached at last, rather via facti. The problem ceased to be primarily a political and ideological problem and moved on a more practical level of juridical administrative. The relation between the ecclesiastical and the secular power began to be solved on the level of individual authorities, competencies and spheres of activity.

John Wyclif took the question resolutely. He considered the ecclesiastical power in its mystical dimension only, he refused its institutional dimension. The mystical dimension is exclusively related to the the world beyond, while institutions belong to the existing world only. The mystical dimension concerns the salvation, but the institutions influence the earthly life and its organization. In other words, that what had worked until that time as the institutional Church worked so disorderly, because this whole sphere should not have been included among the ecclesiastical issues, but it should be solely under the control of the secular power. The theory of two swords seemed to have been preserved in absolute clearness and purity. The above-mentioned might be true if it concerned only the institutional possessions of the Church and their management as well as the general application of the state executive power. But it became a problem because it was in the Wyclif´s times. Then, the view had been generaly adopted that the Christian world is the same as the Church and that the Church is the same as the society. And in the situation like that, Wyclif grants the secular power the authority not only in really secular matters, i.e. in principle, those relating to property and criminal questions of the clergy, but also concerning the issues of morale and thinking of the clergy. It results from the fact that sacraments, which secure the salvation of a man and are served by a priest, are valid only if it is the priest of holy life. Finally, the secular power should serve as a protection not only from a danger in this world but also from the perdition, i.e. from a danger in the other world. In a certain way, at least negatively, a man´s soul is thus, left at the mercy of the secular power, the fact which alarmingly infringes the theory of two swords. The Czech environment, at first, did not pay attention to these questions consistently. Only the Article on Prosecution of Evident Sins, from which it is not clear whether it concerns only crimes and minor offences or sins at all, brought the Czech society quite outright to its solution, that time rather to the practical than to the theoretical one.

Writings by John Wyclif were very intensely read, studied, defended and transcribed in Bohemia, or more precisely in Prague, roughly in the period between 1390 and 1415. They were welcome as a support and intellectual enrichment of the national tradition. Concerning their content, it does not mean however, that they would have faithfully described the Czech national tradition or that they would have coincided with it. Their intellectual sophisticated character went beyond the standard usual in Bohemia, their radicalism and rigorous character was far from being suitable for all followers of the reform movement. And as far as the real, so-called popular radicals of later revolutionary periods are concerned, they mostly based their preachings on their own rash thinking, and a very formal and sophisticated university discourse was too complicated for them. Wyclifism played an important role of the beginning catalyst but that was all, in principle.

Its followers were mainly the English, who came to Bohemia in order to join the reform movement in another country, when the Lollards´ movement, coming from Wyclif´s ideas, could not come to the fore in their own land and gradually faded out. They defended the remanence, that had not been accepted generally by the Czech environment, as well as the question of predestination for the salvation or the perdition, and necessity of all that will come. Not only concerned the aforementioned the history of the salvation, but it dealt with the history of the mankind at all; they involved a perfect temporal determinism, i.e. in their opinion all events gained a dangerous feature of fatality. However, as it did before in its own speculations inspired by Wyclif and high scholasticism at all, the Czech environment refused it once again – this time in a harsh polemic. The polemic perhaps lead to recognizing the significance of John Wyclif for the national Anglican Church. Therefore, his teaching was also refused for the reason of the national Czech Church, the awareness of which began to be developed as early as the first revolutionary period. Thus once again, the liberal refusal of radicalism and rigourism stood at the beginning of utraquism.

Last generations used to include the Czech Reformation in the world, or more precisely European history, as the so-called first Reformation. That shall point out its connection with both the previous movements of the Waldensians, or possibly also the Franciscan Spiritualists, and John Wyclif and Lollards, as well as the later Lutheran and Calvinist Reformation. It is an explanatory construction of a certain bridge across epochs, which reminds of the notorious bridge between the East and the West with its dire consequences in the recent period. The earliest stages of the Czech Reformation in the 2nd half of the 14th and beginning of the 15th centuries are attributed, on the one hand, with an almost conscious refusal of the Catholic model of laicization of religion, i.e. mystical and visionary charismatic character, and on the other hand, with allegedly enthusiastic agreement with reformation, apostolic and biblical holiness, then revolution and finally pacifist culture-making seeing the light.