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Do kind of a little review of what was going on in the background in which he was living. It's a very, very difficult time. We're talking about the 14th, 15th centuries, all right, which is really 1300s, 1400s, the way that works. And this is just a very chaotic time in Western Europe.

And so I have listed out for you some of the problems they have. They were having severe economic difficulties during this time period. And of course, you got endemic warfare. In fact, the longest war on record. Who knows what that is? 100 years war. 100 years war is raging.

And on top of that, you're going to have peasant rebellions. In France, they come the Jackaris. And then, of course, England just call them peasants' rebellions. And then on top of this, you've got the disaster, the catastrophe of the bubonic plague, the Black Death, sweeping across Europe, which wipes out just huge, some cases, you know, there are some cities hit by the plague, and we're talking over 50% of the population is wiped out within a matter of days.

And of course, on top of this, at the very time when you would think that, you know, the church could really stand in there and really help in this dire time, the church is having huge, huge problems. And you could say it's a failure. Add to this list, but I might also add that at this date, you have Muslims in Western Europe still in Spain battling.

Now, you got basically at this point in time the Reconquesta is taking place, where these tiny little northern kingdoms are battling with the Muslims who control the majority of Spain. And of course, the Muslims also are knocking on the gates of Eastern Europe trying to take Constantinople. And of course, Constantinople will fall 1415.

And so, I mean, you know, it's just Europe is getting hit every ritual way you can imagine. And yet, in spite of this, 1492, Columbus sells the ocean blue, right? And talk about an incredible turnaround. I mean, I jokingly talk with my students about this time period, say, you know, let's imagine there were aliens and they're hovering over Earth during this time period.

Which civilization would you assume is going to become the dominant civilization? You probably wouldn't choose Europe. You know, you probably choose something like, say, China. All right. But you would be wrong. Because after 1492, What we call Western civilization, which I would say is a global civilization today, is going to explode upon the globe and will become the world-dominant civilization, which is really, really remarkable when you think of that.

And of course, going on, well, this thing's been giving me trouble. Yeah. Just in general, was the terrible. Jonathan, could you come grab this, put a new battery in it? I think it's dead. Oh, good. Yes, sir. Was the terrible situation in Europe behind Columbus sailing Ocean Blue, or was that just coincidental?

Oh, well, I'm a Christian. Nothing's coincidental. Okay. All right. There's all sorts of factors at work here, which would take a long time to get into. But for one thing, we're about to become dominant in technology and in science. And ironically, despite what those who are, you know, it's astonishing when you look at some of the scientific profession today, you know, they would say that Christianity has held back science.

Any philosopher of science will tell you that it is because of Christianity, science is, I mean, just off the top of my head, you know, all the major world civilizations had astrology. Only in Christian Europe does it become astronomy. And on and on we could go. And there's all sorts of things.

You have, and really, in polytheism are all the other religions of the day, only Christianity and Judaism. Even within Islam, even though it was a theistic religion, it had some very anti-science elements within it. And I know a lot of people say, well, the Muslims did this, the Muslims did that.

You'll see YouTube articles about that. But what you'll find out is most of the accomplishments in these Islamic countries where the Nestorian Christians are the Jews. And even though they may have Arabic names, with cursory investigation, you'll find out that these were occurring within Islamic lands, but it was a time period where they weren't being virulently Islamic.

And therefore, these people were allowed briefly to flourish. But in Christian Europe, there's all sorts of. You need to go back to previous lectures on YouTube, Rise of Christianity, and particularly the section on medieval Christianity. And I talk about this. But we're going to try to launch ahead because I'm trying to get further this year.

Okay, so in fact, I think even this lecture may be up there, but I figured this would be a good place to launch off again. So, you got all these problems, yet, remember, we got the Renaissance is about to hit, and all this science and technology. I would just re-emphasize on science.

It is no accident that the scientific so-called revolution, and that's controversial in itself, it happened when it happened and where it happened. Because since, you know, in polytheism, you can't really have science because you can't examine the forces of nature because that would be blasphemous, right? You know, thunder, lightning, you know, Jupiter, this other God, Zeus, you know, that's the reason for that.

And you question that, then you're committing blasphemy. What you need is a system in which you have a God who is outside and greater than the creation. And that's what you have with Judaism and Christianity. The problem is the Jews, you know, were interested in theology. They weren't too interested in science.

The Greeks were very interested in science, but they really couldn't do true science because of their polytheism. So what you need was Greek ideas fusing with Judaic ideas. And that happens when and where. Well, it begins with the Roman Empire, because Rome conquers. Judah. And then even then, you have problems with Judaism mixing with the pagans, obviously.

That's oil and water. But what happens? The pagans are converted by Christianity. And so you have this walla, this incredible synthesis take place. And of course, this shake, shake, shake, medieval period, you already have the beginnings of science, foundations being laid during this time period. And so all of that is working, percolating in the background.

Now, but we need to focus on what's going on with the church. And so let's get into that. This is just depicts for you: it's a rough time to live in Europe. And this, you know, some talk about the terrors of the, you know, the church previously is involved in, shall we say, you know, punishing heretics.

This is just to show you that secular punishments were every bit as bad, in fact, worse. You know, these are some of the capital punishments. You know, the guy began drawing and quartering. They got, of course, different various hangings, putting you on the rack, just all kinds of terrible.

It was not a good time to face justice back then, needless to say. Now, so we got the problems with the church. And I want you to understand, though, do not think that means that people were irreligious during the medieval period. Period. They were very religious. I would say almost bordering on superstition.

You have just thousands of people going on pilgrimage still. You have, of course, along with this, though, you know, these, every, every little community would try to gather collections of their holy relics, you know. And you have, you know, one of the wags of the day made a comment that if all the splinters of the true cross were really, you know, splinters of the true cross, the entire forest would be denuded.

You know, because people would chop down a tree, make splinters, dip it in a little blood, and then they say, this is, you know, and people would buy this stuff. There's all kinds of fakery and quackery going on at this time. But this is nothing really new, is it?

I can remember a number of years back, we had this Reverend Tilton. You show your age, you remember him. You know, he's up there in Dallas, and, you know, he, you know, I remember one of the news programs finally went after him and got him, so to speak, exposing all his quackery.

And I was sitting there. At that time, we would have not only ladies in the lighthouse, but we also took in some men. And a gentleman was seated there while we're watching this program. And the Reverend, they were saying how Tilton would have these prayer cloths, you know, and you write these prayer requests to them.

And he had it in the shape of a handprint, and he promised he'd put his hand on your prayer request and pray for you directly. Just all kinds of little gadgets to try to get people sending money. And then they showed where all these requests actually wound up.

Anyone know? You saw the photo. Yeah, a dumpster behind the bank where all these things, he didn't go to the church, went straight to the bank, and they just opened the envelopes, get the money out, and throw the request and pictures of people who are ill and sick.

You know, it's just terrible. Well, he went to prison, by the way. But anyway, you know, you had a lot of this going on in the medieval period, too. But you also have some very sincere Christians, which we're about to run into here. And so, with this, let's talk a little bit about the big scandal in the church during this very difficult time period in European history and how the church failed the people, at least the organized church did.

The Catholic Church is what we're talking about. And here we got, of course, we're talking about the Great Schism, our schism. And that word is just a fancy word for division, dividing. And this is a dispute that has its roots going back to something that is going on before the schism itself happens, which is what we're about to talk about.

And that's the so-called Babylonian captivity of the church, right? Now, what was the original Babylonian captivity? Students of the Old Testament. Somebody, anybody. Well, it's the taking of the Jews. Yeah, by Nebuchadnezzar, right? And of course, that's what they're referring back to. Now, this is not the true Babylonian captivity.

This is when the popes. Now, by the way, the popes are also the bishops of what? Rome. Huh? Rome, bishops of Rome. Okay, well, if you're a bishop of Rome, where should you reside? Rome. You would think, right? Well, the Babylonian captivity of the papacy is a time period in which the popes abandon Rome and they go up to a beautiful little valley that's today in southern France.

At the time, it's technically part of the Holy Roman Empire, but it's very, very close to the border of France. And it's called Avignon. Just a beautiful, beautiful location. And one of the popes traveling through there decides, oh, I'll build myself sort of like a vacation place here.

And then what we're about to launch into, you're going to have a whole group of popes decide, we're not going to just visit, we're going to stay. And this is where we're going to build our papal palace in Avignon. And these popes, they're up. There at Avignon would be referred to as the Babylonian captivity popes.

Although it was voluntary captivity, they go up there and they abandon Rome. All right, so the origins of this go back to Pope Boniface VIII. And he doesn't leave. He's in Rome. Let's keep that straight. He gets into a dispute with Philip the Fair. That's his nickname. He had fair complexion.

He's not fair, though. He's one of the most corrupt kings of the medieval period. And of course, Philip the Fair, as is typical of this time period, is having problems with England, right? And so he wants money to fight his war with England. And he decides the church has a lot of money, which it definitely does, right?

So he wants to tax the church. That's always been controversial. Here in this country, we've solved that how you're tax exempt. You know, there's forces right now that want to do away with that, and they need to go to stay their medieval history. That's going to cause trouble if you do that.

So anyway, he gets into this big tussle with Pope Boniface over taxation of the church. I'm just greatly summarizing here. And Pope Boniface responds, and not too good of a picture of him there, with unum sanctum. Unum sanctum. This is a papal bull which he issues. And he basically tells King Philip the Fair that the Pope is a supremest most being on the planet.

I am more powerful than you. In fact, I'm more powerful than any other king on the planet. And whatever I say goes, and if you refuse to go along with me, basically, you're going to go to hell, literally. All right. Okay, unum sanctum. This was, you know, a big, big power grab by the Pope.

Well, Philip the Fair responds to that by having some of his henchmen kidnap the Pope. This is almost unprecedented in history. We already have had some wild situations with popes prior to this, but to kidnap the Pope. And they take him up into northern Italy, and they're holding him at a castle, and they're still trying to get him to agree to this taxation, and he's not agreeable, and so they start beating the daylights out of him, literally.

And some of the servants at the castle are shocked, you know, and so they run out into the streets of the village below. So they're beating the pope, they're beating the pope, and the people get all upset and they rush the castle and they free Boniface. He flees back to southern Italy and subsequently, shortly thereafter, though, dies.

He's a very old man while this happened to him. This must have been pretty traumatic for him. And of course, Clement. Well, excuse me, his successor is Benedict XI, but he only rules for one year as pope. And he dies under mysterious circumstances. At the time, many people believe he was poisoned, and they think he's poisoned by henchmen of Philip the Fair, who's not fair, right?

Got that down now. And then he's replaced by Clement V. And Clement V was basically an outright puppet of Philip the Fair. And in fact, they apparently had a prior agreement for him becoming Pope. And so he becomes Pope, and he pretty much cooperates with Philip the Fair.

And one of the most, and so let me try to get this in a little bit more order for you. Here you got Boniface VIII, then Benedict XI, and now we're to Clement V. And one of the really notorious, just sickening things that he is involved with Philip the Fair with is the destruction of the Knights Templar.

Now, you know, the Knights Templar got their start over in the Crusades, but they had basically become bankers, which is a topic that can get real confusing in a hurry because technically, you see, at this time in Europe, you're not supposed to be, Christians are not supposed to be charging other Christians.

Interest, right? And especially a monastic order, which is what the Knights Templar are, but they had ways to get around it where basically they're not calling interests interest. And so they had become incredibly wealthy. And there's all kinds of wild stories about the Knights Templars, you know, that they had discovered and were holding in secret the Holy Grail, just all kinds of wild stories about them.

All sorts of things you go on YouTube, oh, you can just have incredible fun listening to stuff about the Knights Templars. About 95% of it's not true. Okay, just know that. They actually did a lot of good works. If you need to build an orphanage, go to the Knights Templar.

They would give you a very low-cost loan, basically. Or if you want to build a church, you know, and that's why you got Knights Templars stuff all over a lot of churches. It's not because it's secret signs, it's mainly advertisements. This is how you go to if you want to get a cheap loan, stuff like that.

But what he did to get rid of the knights, and the reason Philip the Fair goes after the Knights Templars is because they had large reserves of cash and he wanted it. And so what does he do? He comes out with this blanket accusation that they're all homosexuals, which is a capital offense back then.

And he has them arrested, has them tortured until many of them confess to this, even though it wasn't really true. And then he executes them. You know, a Christian monastic order which had done just incredible good works. He just wipes it out and with the connivance and support of the then Pope.

All right, Clement V. Now, and it is also Clement who goes to Avignon and decides to stay there. It is Clement V that starts the Babylonian captivity of the papacy. All right, so he's the Pope of the notorious suppression of the Knights Templars. He's the Pope that basically sells out to this corrupt king.

He's the Pope that begins the Babylonian captivity. And so just a couple other examples of the Babylonian captivity popes. You got John 22. He is notorious because this is the high point or low point, whichever you want to call it, of the overly over-the-top materialism. One thing I can say about the Babylonian captivity of the papacy there at Avignon, in terms of bureaucracy, it was a well-oiled cash machine.

You got to remember, this is a time period in which everyone pays a tithe, you know, tenth of your income. It's not voluntary, okay? It is required. And that makes the church the richest. You could say, like this, bureaucracy or corporation in the world. And all this is coming into Avignon, and they are just lavishly spending this on parties and all kinds of lavish entertainments, sumptuous furnishings, and just beautiful palaces that they're building for the Pope and the bishops and all of this.

So it is a time period of incredible worldliness within the church. So that's John 22nd. And by the way, he had such a lavish personal lifestyle. He is the Pope who at one time came very close to the cusp of totally suppressing, in fact, he almost abolished the Franciscan order.

You know, if you know anything about medieval Christianity, the Franciscans were some of the true believers who, you know, they would give up everything and go two by two, you know, with their staff, you know, following the directions of Jesus Himself, and they would witness. In fact, many say the Franciscans are one of the reasons that Christianity survived in the newly growing urban cities.

You know, they went not only to the countryside, but to the urban areas, what we would say, the low-income areas of town, and they would witness and they would, you know, in a very personal way share, and they would refuse to take an income. They would beg for their food.

For the day, you know, and they're just very humble. And this made them embarrassing to Pope John XXII because his lifestyle was so in opposition to their lifestyle. And so he doesn't totally shut them down, but he's moving that direction. But fortunately, he dies. He's replaced by Benedict XI.

And of course, our Benedict XI, you have the Hundred Years' War beginning. Now, he didn't start it. English and the French do that by themselves, but he doesn't do much to help. In fact, well, I shouldn't say that, he does do quite a bit. He basically comes out and says, the French are the good guys, and the English are the bad guys.

And by the way, you Englishmen, give your tithe so I can then take it and loan it to the king of France, who will then use it to hire soldiers to kill your sons on the battlefield. Now, what are the tithes supposed to be used for? Yeah, to do good works, to take care of the widowed, the poor, dispossessed, all this sort of stuff.

Was it intended to be loaned to the king of another country at war? No. And by the way, this should help you understand: when we get to Wycliffe, probably one of the reasons Wycliffe is going to get away with so much is because the English were so angry at the Catholic Church.

You know, the papacy said. Siding with the French and even giving assistance to the French, you know, to make war on England. And so he, and this also really convinces everyone, at least in England, that the Avignon popes are just basically French puppets. Now, the truth is, not all of them were, but several were.

And it just, they have this sort of bubbling anger. I think this is also a reason when Henry VIII finally breaks with the Catholic Church. There's really amazingly very little opposition. You know, most countries of Europe, we have a split from the Catholic Church during this time period.

You know, you've got the, we call it the Wars of Reformation. You don't have a War of Reformation in England. You know, Henry, we'll get to that later. He says, you know, today you're Catholic, tomorrow you're going to be Protestant, you're going to love it. You know, and, you know, it's not nearly that simple, but it's amazing how easily the English got through that.

So you get Benedict, then I'm sorry to say it keeps on going. You got Clement VI, and he's Pope at the height of the Black Death. Now, we don't have time to get into details of the Black Death, but you know, it's pretty bad, and the Pope, of course, is looking very helpless.

And by the way, who had the highest incidence of death during the Black Death? What group of people? Well, they're all Christians, technically, right? You know, in Europe this time, you're born and you're immediately baptized, and so they would say, you know, their view. But, well, stop and think of it.

People living in close proximity with one another, sometimes drinking from the same cup. Who would that describe? Large numbers of people in a closed community, the monasteries and the convents. They were, in some cases, just, you know, I used to have students read a letter from a monk writing at the height of the Black Death, and his diary entries, and he says, Bury Brother so-and-so today.

Bury it so-so-so. And finally, he gets to say, Bury Brother so-and-so. Now only I remain, and I have it. Who will bury me? That's how bad it was, okay? And so what Clement does is he comes out and he just makes this declaration that everybody dies of the Black Death.

I'm going to give you preliminary grace. In other words, by power of the Pope, I'm going to open the gates of heaven and you'll all be saved. All right. Now, what do you think in the backs of a lot of people's minds? Mind, do you really have the power and the authority to do that?

Right? And so, even though, you know, I'm sure it gave comfort to some folks, but it may have been false comfort, right? In fact, I'm pretty sure it was. Okay, and he didn't have that power. And so, this also, I think, these sort of drip, drip, drip things that the popes are doing is really causing people to begin to question the authority of the papacy.

So, now let's skip for it. You know, we've had enough Babylonian popes. We're going to skip down to the last one, which is Gregory XI, and see, 1378. He is going to finally end the Babylonian captivity because he leaves Avignon and he goes back to Rome to retake up his residence there.

All right. Now, you see, this has been a big complaint, all kinds of controversies this whole time they're up there at Avignon. And so, he decides, well, I'll go back to Rome. All right. Now, he's also the pope that we're going to see is going to confront Wycliffe, at least the first time.

And he's not going to be successful, but he will be the first one to condemn Wycliffe. But when he dies at Rome, he goes back to Rome, but then shortly thereafter dies, the College of Cardinals, which now is the Group that elects the popes, right? They were all in Rome, so they decided to convene their meeting to elect a new pope.

Okay, now you've got to remember all this time, the kings of France, starting with Philip the Fair, they have been stacking the deck in favor of French cardinals. In other words, so they could elect popes that would be favorable towards France. Usually, popes are what? Nationality. They're usually Italian.

But some of them, since the Babylonian captivity, have not been. And now imagine what life has been like in Rome all these years of the Babylonian captivity. What's the problem from Rome not having a pope there? What's the number one industry of Rome? Tourism. And what's the number one thing you want to see?

Yeah, go to St. Peter's and be standing that vast crowd of people, and the Pope comes out on that balcony and does this, you know, and people go crazy. All right, well, and then all around the city of Rome, you got all kinds of religious trinkets for sale, you know, and no pope, no sale.

All right, no pope, no crowds. And so the Italians had been. In economic depression all these years because the Pope hadn't been residing. And they got a legitimate gripe here. The Pope is also the Bishop of Rome. He should be in Rome. So, what happens during this conclave of the cardinals about to elect a new pope?

The people of Rome rise up in a riot and they besiege the palace where the bishops are meeting, and they're screaming, You better elect Italian pope, or we're going to tear you to shreds. Now, of course, you know, popes are supposed to be elected by inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

That's what the cardinals will say. And so, they, guess what? They have an Italian Pope. And this is going to be urban. Okay. And Urban VI. Now, the choice of Urban was very curious at the time because most popes are almost always very upper-class nobility. All right? There'd be, usually, it's the second, third, fourth sons of nobility.

And why is that? Because they don't inherit. That's right. Yeah, you see, many of the nobility treated the church as sort of the. I'd almost say the retirement home are what would take care of my younger sons because you know only the eldest you know would inherit and but usually you know so bishops were often this third fourth you know sons of nobility the upper level of the medieval church remember the church is is reflecting the governmental structure of the day where you have you know kings or emperors and then you have dukes or nobles lords and then you have you know the knights and then of course the 95% of people are peasants right and early medieval period they wouldn't even be that they'd be serfs so in the church you know you got the pope then you have cardinals archbishops bishops you know and down to the priests would be the equivalent of the knights right okay and and and remember this totally flies against there is neither what male nor female Jew nor Greek for we're all one in Christ Jesus you see but remember this is why Wycliffe is so important how many medieval people have ever read that passage yeah they don't want you to read that right okay and that's why Wycliffe is going to be so very very important he's going to blow the lid off this all right so anyway you got Urban he Is selected and he is a peasant background.

Why do you think these cardinals would nominate a person of such low background? Yeah, they think, okay, well, we can't have a French pope or someone favorable to France. The Italians demand an Italian pope. I think we better give them one, or they're going to tear us to shreds.

So let's pick one that we can easily manipulate. And so they pick Urban VI. Trouble, they don't know this. Urban is apparently, we're not sure what. My guess would be he's beginning to show signs of entering into schizophrenia. Or is they nominate a mad pope? Okay, yeah. And Urban, after being elected, turns around and arrests some of these very, you know, guys who elected him into prison and then order them to be tortured.

Now, this is very unusual for high-class nobility, who's also clergy, to be put to torture. And so the rest of the conclave flee back up to Avignon. All right, these are most of the French ones. And they have another conclave and they elect a second pope. Right? And So, therefore, they select a new pope, and I think I got the number wrong there.

And they so, what you now have is the Great Schism. All right, Great Schism has now emerged. You got two popes, Urban and then Clement, and they're reigning at two different courts. One's down in Rome, one's up in Avignon, and they both are claiming to be the one and only legitimate pope.

And just to make clear everyone understands this, they excommunicate each other. Okay? Now, can you imagine the split this causes and the scandal? There have been so-called anti-popes in the past, but never before had you have one that was duly elected by a conclave of cardinals. All right?

And of course, Urban has the advantage of being the first one elected, but he has the disadvantage of the very people who elected him turn around and say, No, you were elected under duress, you know, which is partly true. And so, now the thing is, this is going to self-perpetuate itself because which pope do you think those who are enemies of France are going to follow?

The one in Avignon or the one in Rome? Yeah, guess which one England's for then? I've already told you. Yeah, there's. They're following Urban, and they pretend it becomes very obvious that he really is loony. Okay, they still know he's the right pope, okay, because he's not the French pope, okay?

So now, and throughout, now this is very, you know, it sounds kind of humorous. I guess as Protestants, we can kind of chuckle at this. It was devastating because, remember, for the sincere believers, you know, they take popes very seriously. And if you follow the wrong pope, this might mean what?

You're going to hell, right? And you actually had some situations where you got two different priests showing up to take over the local church. You know, one follows Clement, one follows Urban. And the people are there, they have no idea. You know, Baptists, we'd have a nice, you know, Baptist fight, right?

Okay, and, you know, we're going to argue this one out. They had no experience. They have no self-rule. They have no self-government. And they're just, which one's right? We have no idea. You know, and it was a crazy, crazy situation. And the politicians actually love this. Why do you think they love it?

Well, think of yourself as a local prince, and you know, it's governmental responsibility to collect the tithe to ship it over to the church. And how about this little game you might play as a politician? I am distraught over this situation. And all this money I've collected, big pile of money, it would be sinful for me to send it to the wrong pope.

So I'm just going to hold it here. You know, might have to use a little bit of it until the church hashes this out. We're just not going to send a tithe to either one. Now, of course, others would send a tithe to one or the other because it's politically beneficial for them to do so.

So it was a horrible situation, needless to say. And the trouble is, as I also said, both of them excommunicate the other. And the hope was when one dies, there'll only be one pope and they'll end it, right? Well, no, it doesn't. Guess why? Both forms their own separate college of cardinals.

And when one dies, then this is perpetuated. You have this period. Now, of course, Wycliffe is going to really benefit in the background because of this. That's probably one of the main reasons he's never burned at the stake like other people with his ideas would be. Okay, so everybody understands this.

I just kind of want to jump forward. You know, just a little cartoon showing the pope's fighting here. And with this, we get to John Wycliffe. Now, we really don't know very much about his early life at all. You know, John Wycliffe. And by the way, his name's spelled various different ways.

In fact, I think I got to the Spellings, there's one slide here, but various spellings. But he was apparently a brilliant young man. And we do know from one of his writings he was kind of full of himself, very prideful. He, of course, winds up at Oxford. He's somewhat delayed because of the confusion of the day before he got his doctorate, but he finally gets his doctorate.

He is a very popular professor teaching there. And then he actually gets in trouble with the church initially, not so much over doctrine, but over politics. Because Wycliffe, I put it like this: he had some political views that were colored, shall we say, by the day in which he was living.

Wycliffe, at some point, apparently had a personal conversion experience. We're not quite sure when it happened, but we know that he came to the belief that Christians should not be about materialism, that Christians should be sharing Christ. And the church should be the exemplar of this. And what does he see at the church of his day?

Yeah, the opposite. And now you've got to remember, this is a time in which there are no Baptists. This idea of separation, church and state, is not even a glimmer in any person's eye at this point in time. And all he knew was the church had utterly failed at behaving itself, so to speak.

So he thought probably the best thing to do is let each ruler of each nation be the one to be in authority over the church. Now, we know that that doesn't work either, but at the time period, I think you can understand why he thought this. And he therefore felt he was in favor of the state taking over the wealth of the church because he didn't think the church, he thought money and wealth was one of the things ruining the church.

And so he comes out and he argued that the government should take over these ecclesiastical properties. Now, let me remind you: the church is the largest landowner in Europe. How did this happen? Well, during the medieval period, let's say you were a scoundrel. You lied, cheated, stole, took advantage of people.

But now you're on your deathbed. And remember, this is a time period nobody questions heaven, but also nobody questions what else? Hell. And you're there on your bed, and you're. You're thinking, oh, what a scoundrel I've been. I'm probably going where? Hell. And of course, they had the idea that, well, perhaps I can buy myself out of hell, give my worldly possessions, since I'm dying, it's not going to do me any good now.

You finally come to that realization. I'm going to give all my worldly possessions to the church, and they're going to have these monks and nuns pray for me for 30 years out of purgatory, and then I'll be okay. Right? And so, guess what happens century after century after century after century of this happening?

More and more people gave their possessions to the church, and so the church has these vast landed estates all over the place. And Wycliffe, you know, he, you know, foxes have holes, birds have nests, said who? Jesus. But the Son of Man has not even the place to lay my head.

And now, what we have with the institution he founded, pretty much all the places you could lay your head, the church owns now, you see. And so Wycliffe said, this should not be, okay? And so he is going to, and partly what initiates all this, which I don't really have time to get into, you have ruling in England at this time Edward III.

And Edward III, of course, is in the midst of the Hundred Years' War. And he has several sons, five sons after. Actually, but the two we're going to talk about. One is the Black Prince. You know, the Black Prince is very famous in medieval history, particularly the Hundred Years' War.

He's called the Black Prince because he had this armor that was painted black. And of course, he was a very charismatic war leader, defeated the French over and over again, very, very famous. And then you have his younger brother, the third brother, which is going to figure very promptly what we're about to talk about, which is John of Gaunt, who's also, by the way, protector of Geoffrey Chaucer.

But anyway, John, you have the church at this time was trying to enact tax additional revenues on England. This goes back to King John, you know, of Magna Carta fame, although he was opposed to Magna Carta. You know, long story, but John had made a deal with one of the popes at that time that the kings of England would give the church a certain payment.

And the kings of England had ceased doing that, and now suddenly they come back and say, You need to start making those payments again, right? And well, they ask leading churchmen in England, you know, a scholar, what do you think about this? Wycliffe. And what's Wycliffe going to say?

No, the church has got too much money as it is, you know. And so they're actually going to send him on a sort of like ambassador to. Negotiate terms with the church. And in the process, he's going to write this big document in which he goes into excruciating detail of the abuses of the church.

You know, he is a churchman himself, and he knows the score. And this is going to be very embarrassing to the church. And by the way, remember Bendit condemning Wycliffe? This was the initial condemnation of his political writings, which, of course, are heavily involved with religion as well.

So, you're going to have him arguing the church should divest itself of material wealth. Okay, that was a pretty radical idea. You know, a pope like John XXII that we've mentioned, what do you think he'd think about that idea, divesting itself of its wealth? No, that's not going to go over very well.

Then he also comes out with this: the church is made up of predestined believers. Shows a little bit of Augustinian influence here, and you could say early Reform theology already, but not quite the same. But here he says, The church is the totality of those who are predestined to blessedness.

It includes the church triumphant in heaven, and the church militant are men on earth. No one who is eternally lost has part in it. There is one universal church, and outside of it, there is no salvation. Its head is Christ. No pope may say that he is the head.

Remari unum sanctum, right? He's just going directly in. The face of the popes, this claim that they're the supremest being on earth. And he says, no pope may say he is a head, for he cannot say that he is elect or even a member of the church. In other words, he's saying, ultimately, we don't know who the elect are, and obviously, by the behavior of some of the popes, even some of the popes are going to hell.

Now, by the way, if you think that is a very radical statement, you go to Dante's Divine Comedy, one of the most classic literary pieces of the day, and guess what Dante does with the popes he didn't like? He puts them in different levels of hell. And by the way, some of those Babylonian captivity popes were very promptly mentioned by Dante at the lower levels of hell that they're in.

So it's not just, you know, this is not that radical. Other people have the same attitude. In fact, in some ways, he's almost like a Luther in that he's touching on hot button issues that a whole bunch of people are agreeing with. You know, he's vocalizing what a lot of people are thinking here.

Okay, so and then this is also quite amazing. It sounds very Protestant. In fact, Wycliffe is often referred to, I think, is a beautiful description of him. He's described as the morning star of the Reformation. In other words, he's not really part of the Reformation, but he's a A precursor to the Reformation.

And I really do believe that he, in many ways, sets the foundation for the coming of the Reformation with some of his ideas here. They approach Protestantism, but since he is thoroughly within the medieval period and he's totally immersed in this medieval Catholicism, he doesn't quite get there in some areas, but in other areas he gets amazingly close.

And here he comes: the Bible alone is the basis for all belief and authority. Now, can anyone tell me why this so goes against Catholic teaching at this time? Well, they say church tradition, but it's even more basic than that. Guess what the Catholic Church position to this day is as far as the Bible?

Well, they say that they gave us the Bible. All right. Mean the Catholic Church. And only they, the Catholic magisterium, only they can interpret the Bible. All right. All right. And that was the view. And he's saying, no, the Bible alone is the basis for all authority. He argued for the unique authority of the Bible as the basis for belief in the life of a Christian.

Therefore, he declared that every Christian should know the Bible. And that's radical, because at this point in time, probably 90%. Of people are illiterate. Now, remember, if you had gone back and heard me when I gave the lecture on medieval Christianity, medieval Christians knew more about Christianity than I would say modern Americans do, despite the fact they were illiterate.

Because you want to be real honest, most Americans are illiterate when it comes to the Bible. But at least in the medieval era, they all went to church. And yeah, it's in Latin, they don't know what the heck they're saying. But, well, they look all around them. Stories.

Yeah, you know, on one side, you've got the stained glass windows, which were, you know, the PowerPoints of that day, telling Bible stories. And remember, the little kiddies that come in and have their catechism, and the priest will look at this window. You know, you've got this guy there, and he's got this boy on this altar, and he's got a dagger up like he's about to strike him.

And, you know, this is beautiful colored sparkling glass, the sun's playing through there. I mean, you know, that would be, oh, for a little peasant child seeing that window for the first time, this would just be visual overload, you know. You know, they'd be so bored today. But, you know, but back then, it didn't take much, you know, just incredible stimulation.

And then they tell them the story of what? Abraham and Isaac. Huh? Abraham and Isaac. Yeah, Abraham and Isaac, yeah. And so they knew Bible stories. They all sorts of oral tales. They actually were probably much more biblically literate, even though they were illiterate. If you get my point here, all right.

And, you know, I saw a news program not too long ago, and it's just going down the streets. They're asking people just very basic Bible questions like, who is Abraham? Nobody knew. You know, it's just really astonishing where we're at today. But anyway, he declared that every Christian should know the Bible, which he believed would result in every Christian realizing that Christ alone is sufficient for salvation.

Pilgrimages, which is what so many people are doing at this time, you know, make themselves worthy. Good works, also try and make yourself worthy. Attending the Mass, that would not save you. Christ and Christ alone is the author of salvation. And that was quite, quite impressive. Now, here's the next thing he does.

You know, he's not just an idealist, he's a practical person. If people need to read the Bible, they need to read it in their own language. And so he begins this epic translation of the Bible. Now, he has a big problem that Luther doesn't have, though. I think it's one of the major reasons the Reformation doesn't break out right here and now.

And what's the big problem? There's no printing press. Each of these Bibles, first off, they had to translate it. And, you know, it takes a long time. You know, just reading the Bible takes a little while. You are going to do this campaign with Jeff right now. Okay, just New Testament.

It's going to take a little while. Imagine, you know, translating the entire Bible. And he's going to have assistance to help him with this. In fact, much of the Wycliffe Bible probably wasn't actually translated by Wycliffe, others that he oversaw doing the translation. But quite a bit of it, he did translate.

And it's handwritten. But we all know the Word of God is powerful. And just the few scraps, the few books of the New Testament that he does get translated, and they hand-copied multiple copies. And he's going to, you know, his followers, a lot of them were college students, he's going to call them and send them out two by two, sort of like St.

Francis did, and they're going to go preaching, and it's going to cause a revolution. In fact, it causes what's called the Lollard movement. The meanings of Lollard is very controversial to this day, but some call them mumblers, but they are going to have a powerful, powerful impact upon the church.

And this shows him, see, over there is a very important person. Anyone want to guess who he is? In the fancy clothes over there, the red tunic. That's John Agaunt. John Agaunt, at this time, the richest man in England. He's also regent. You see, the The king Edward III was ill.

He's dying actually. His heir, which is the black prince, is also ill, and he's also dying. And so the black prince's son, which is the future Richard, he's just a little kid. And so John of Gaunt is actually the ruler. He could have seized the throne probably pretty easily had he wanted to.

He never does. Now, later on, his son will become king of England. John of Gaunt's son will be Henry Bolingbroke. But anyway, he is going to be the guy, very unlikely person in many ways, that's going to rise up and protect Wycliffe from the Catholic Church when they try to go after him.

And I cannot believe it, but we're about out of time. So let's see. Then we get to four. The English should have the English Bible. Sarah 4, he does his translation of the Bible. And let's see what y'all think about this. This is one of the hand-copied versions here.

That's kind of hard for you to see there, so let's go to this. Matt, you got your. Why don't you try to read that? I think you can read it because you know what it is. Okay. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was at God, and God was the Word.

This was in the beginning at God. All things were made by Him, and without Him. Was made no thing, that thing that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men, and the light shineth in darkness, and darkness comprehendeth not it. Where's the accent here of that?

Okay? You can see, you can still make it out, even though it's mid-English. And now, you want to really have some fun, do old English. It looks more German than English. But one of the worst times in my college career was taking a class where I had to learn Old Middle English.

Did he finish the translation? Yeah, well, not he. His major assistant is going to complete it. And then it's going. But of course, we'll find out next time that the Catholic Church is going to go after this translation big time. They're very upset about it. But it's 10 o'clock, so I'm going to have to end it there.