de a heretic of Christ, it
is an easy inference for them to count simple Christians heretics." He
seems indeed to have been sick at the moment, but the announcement of the
final sentence roused him to life again. He petitioned the king and
Parliament that he might be allowed freely to prove the doctrines he had
put forth, and turning with characteristic energy to the attack of his
assailants, he asked that all religious vows might be suppressed, that
tithes might be diverted to the maintenance of the poor and the clergy
maintained by the free alms of their flocks, that the Statutes of
Provisors and Praemunire might be enforced against the Papacy, that
Churchmen might be declared incapable of secular offices, and imprisonment
for excommunication cease. Finally in the teeth of the council's
condemnation he demanded that the doctrine of the Eucharist which he
advocated might be freely taught. If he appeared in the following year
before the convocation at Oxford it was to perplex his opponents by a
display of scholastic logic which permitted him to retire without any
retractation of his sacramental heresy. For the time his opponents seemed
satisfied with his expulsion from the University, but in his retirement at
Lutterworth he was forging during these troubled years the great weapon
which, wielded by other hands than his own, was to produce so terrible an
effect on the triumphant hierarchy. An earlier translation of the
Scriptures, in part of which he was aided by his scholar Herford, was
being revised and brought to the second form which is better known as
"Wyclif's Bible" when death drew near. The appeal of the prelates to Rome
was answered at last by a Brief ordering him to appear at the Papal Court.
His failing strength exhausted itself in a sarcastic reply which explained
that his refusal to comply with the summons simply sprang from broken
health. "I am always glad," ran the ironical answer, "to explain my faith
to any one, and above all to the Bishop of Rome; for I take it for granted
that if it be orthodox he will confirm it, if it be erroneous he will
correct it. I assume too that as chief Vicar of Christ upon earth the
Bishop of Rome is of all mortal men most bound to the law of Christ's
Gospel, for among the disciples of Christ a majority is not reckoned by
simply counting heads in the fashion of this world, but according to the
imitation of Christ on either side. Now Christ during His life upon earth
was of all m