Wycliffite politics

Figgis has his Catholic prejudices, but he’s on to something in this summary of the political ecclesiology of Wyclif, forerunner of teh Reformation:

“Scholastic in form, Wyclif’s writings are modern in spirit. His de Officio regis is the absolute assertion of the Divine Right of the King to disendow the Church. Indeed his stated theory is more Erastian than that of Erastus. His writings are a long-continued polemic against the political idea of the Church or rather the political claims of the clergy; for his State is really a Church. How far his communism was more than theoretical is very doubtful. In practice, and now and then in theory, he was the sup0porter of aristocratic privilege. Yet he asserts the duty of treating all authority as a trust, and there can be little doubt that he recognised the dignity of every individual as a member of the community in a way which we are apt to regard as exclusively modern. Wyclif indeed was in many respects more modern than Luther, as he was a deeper thinker – except in his entire lack of sentiment. His world of thought is the exact antithesis of medieval ideals, in regard to politics, ecclesiastical organisation, ritual and external religion.”

The combination of concerns in the last clause is worth pondering.