Tractatus de apostasia

INTRODUCTION. XXVII
II" it is meant that the very nature of bread becomes an accident, that is
absurd; the very idea of nature implies substance: unless indeed they
meant (which they do not) "becomes an accident in the minds of the
faithful". They indeed hold with Wyclif that bread is Christ's Body; but
they degrade that bread into the lowest of entities, whereas he maintains
its natural perfection. This heresy, expounding Scripture against
the Spirit and the interpretations of the early Fathers, is absurd in
its consequences and worthy of punishment by fire (pp. 78 — 8i).
Ch. VII. In this chapter Wyclif keeps closely to his plan of
answering all objections drawn from authority (here Gregory and
Augustine) in the same way; pointing
out contradictions with other
passages, explaining the sense by a distinction and (implicitly at least)
appealing to Scripture: with the difference that he here denies the
authenticity of the work De Eucharistia ascribed to St. Augustine,
and is probably in the right; though I have not been able to identify
the passage that he quotes (pp. 82— 86). He then attacks, not without
reason, the Nominalistic explanation of the text "As often as ye shall
eat of that bread", making it refer to Christ, because the same material
bread can be eaten only once. Occam's disciples, who said that every
substance is in its nature individual, and universal only in the mind,
would of course not admit that anv one could eat the same bread
several times. Wyclif and all the Realists, on the contrary, maintaining
that the essence of the bread already eaten is identical with that which
is to be eaten, assert that the manducation of the same bread can
take place more than once. He takes great pains to prove his assertion
by quotations and arguments (pp. 86 — 90); and then, setting on the
responsibility of the Nominalists all the corruption of the Church, he
launches into a digression concerning temporalities, arguing that the
clergy should have all things in To the possible objection that
common, and refuse endowments.
his arguments go so far as to prove
that even temporal lords ought to have all things in common, he
answers boldly: So they ought (p. 91). It is clear that he neither
overlooked nor shrank from the Socialistic consequences of his doctrine. 1
1 There being infinite shades of Socialism, the word is not used here in any
invidious sense. It is certain that Wyclif was practically a strong upholder of social
order, as all his works show; and so are some Socialists at the present dav.