Wyclif’s Latin works

De ecclesia, chapter 5, part 2

One body of three churches; a digression on lines; the church seen from afar

Loserth pp. 96.20–100.12

¶196.20–97.3

96Secundo principaliter arguitur contra dicta per hoc quod nichil unum et specialiter non unum corpus componitur ex spiritibus in purgatorio, ex viantibus in mundo et ex triumphantibus in celo, cum continuacio et unio sint de essencia corporis, eo quod aliter periret sciencia linearum. Hic negatur assumptum, nec est continuacio vel unio, cum sit accidens de essencia cuiuscunque substancie; nam in quotquot partes quantitativas corpus martiris divisum fuerit, manet durante forma idem corpus in numero, et Christus fuit humanitus in limbo et mortuus in sepulchro. Absit ergo quod credamus animas fidelium defunctorum tunc non esse partes 97ecclesie, quando instar Abel a quo cepit ecclesia sunt secure de sua beatitudine corpori Christi insolubiliter incorporate.

Secondly and principally, it is argued, by appeal toarguitur per: it is argued by appeal to this, against what has been said: that nothing one, and specially not one body, is composed of spirits in purgatory, of those on the roadviantes: those on the road in the world and of the triumphant in heaven, since continuity and union are of the essence of a body; for otherwise the science of lines would perish.1 Here the assumptionassumptum: the assumption is denied; nor is continuity or union, since it is an accident, of the essence of any substance whatever; for into however many quantitative parts the body of a martyr may have been divided, it remains, while the form endures, the same body in number; and Christ was in his humanity in limbo, and dead in the sepulchre. Far be it, therefore, that we should believe the souls of the faithful departed not to be parts 97of the churchecclesia: church then, when, after the pattern of Abel, from whom the church began, they are secure of their blessedness, indissolubly incorporated in the body of Christ.2

¶297.4–97.5

97Unde in cantu ecclesie die Dedicacionis sic canitur: Rex Salomon fecit templum

Hence in the chant of the church on the day of the Dedication it is sung thus: "King Solomon made a temple,

¶397.6–97.6

97Cuius instar et exemplum

whose likeness and example

¶497.7–97.7

97Christus et ecclesia.

[are] Christ and the church.

¶597.8–97.8

97Sed tres partes sunt in templo

But there are three parts in the temple,

¶697.9–97.10

97Trinitatis sub exemplo Ymma, summâ, media.

under the example of the Trinity: the lowest, the highest, the middle.

¶797.11–97.11

97Prima signat vivos cunctos,

The first signifies all the living,

¶897.12–97.12

97Et secunda iam defunctos,

and the second those now departed,

¶997.13–97.13

97Redivivos tercia.

the third those living again."3

¶1097.14–98.22

97Et quantum ad combinaciones parcium corporum tam eiusdem speciei quam disparium, dictum est diffuse alibi; quem ille solus inter homines per se perfecte novit numerum talium cuius sapiencia non habet numerum mensurantem. Et quantum ad lineas, dicitur quod licet resolvantur in attomos manent eedem, unde priorem et cerciorem noticiam habet de eis arismetricus geometro. Alia autem est racio continuacionis, unde prius considerat arismetricus de quantitate continui quam geometer, uterque tamen sicut ignorat quantitatem numeri attomorum compositi, sic ignorat eius precisam quantitatem; quadam tamen estimacione capta a sensu excedit geometer arismetricum, cum suffragio sensus cognoscit quomodo dyameter quadrati superat costam suam. Intellectus tamen ultra imaginativam percipit utrumque errorem: nam sicut in quadratis de costis nobis finitis quoad numerum punctorum contingit accipere dyametros 98eorum que paria puncta precise continuant, sic indubie quantumcunque magna fuerit figura quadrata contingit accipere dyametrum, que paria puncta contineat cum suo latere, ut capiendo dyametrum que de qualibet costa transversatili precise contineat unum punctum. Tunc precise quot sunt puncta in costa, precise tot sunt latera transversatilia, et precise tot puncta continet data dyameter. Et tamen contingit accipere aliam diametrum in cuius composicionem racione obliquacionis plura vel pauciora puncta ingrediantur. Nec scietur diffinite proporcio aut quantitas diametri respectu lateris, nisi scita quantitate numeri punctorum ex quibus componitur. Ideo querendum est de qua diametro arguens velit loqui, cum inter eadem puncta contingit accipere infinitas lineas, quarum nulla divisibiliter excedit a rectitudine racione variacionis punctorum dyametrum quantitative componencium. Et sic communiter est dyameter super qua cadit imaginacio maior costa, ut communiter dicitur in medietate proporcionis duple, sed certitudo deficit in tali imaginacione, cum error sensus in capiendo lineas corrigitur ex subtilitate intellectus (ut alias exposui).

And as to the combinations of the parts of bodies, both of the same species and of disparate [species], it has been said at length elsewhere; the number of such things he alone among men knows perfectly of himself whose "wisdom" has "no number" measuring [it].4 And as to lines, the answer is that although they are resolved into atoms they remain the same; hence the arithmetician has a prior and more certain knowledge of them than the geometer. But the account of continuity is another; hence the arithmetician considers the quantity of the continuum before the geometer; yet each, just as he is ignorant of the quantity of the number of atoms in the composite, so is ignorant of its precise quantity; yet by a certain estimation taken from sense the geometer exceeds the arithmetician, since with the aid of sense he knows how the diameter of a square exceeds its side.5 Yet the understanding, beyond the imagination, perceives the error of both: for just as in squares whose sides are finite to us as to the number of points it is possible to take diameters 98of them that continue precisely equal [numbers of] points, so without doubt, however great the square figure may be, it is possible to take a diameter that contains as many points as its side, as by taking a diameter that contains precisely one point of each transverse side. Then precisely as many points as there are in the side, precisely so many are the transverse sides, and precisely so many points does the given diameter contain. And yet it is possible to take another diameter into whose composition, by reason of its obliquity, more or fewer points enter. Nor will the proportion or quantity of the diameter with respect to the side be known definitely, unless the quantity of the number of points of which it is composed be known. Therefore it must be asked of which diameter the arguer wishes to speak, since between the same points it is possible to take infinitely many lines, none of which departs divisibly from straightness by reason of the variation of the points that make up the diameter in quantity.6 And so commonly the diameter on which the imagination falls is greater than the side, as is commonly said, by half of the double proportion; but certainty fails in such imagination, since the error of sense in taking lines is corrected by the subtlety of the understanding (as I have expounded elsewhere).7

¶1198.23–99.31

98Sed redeundo ad materiam de ecclesia dicitur primo quod sicut sensus errat circa magnitudinem et rectitudinem linee, quia ignorat numerum punctorum ex quibus componitur, sic viantes errant circa magnitudinem dignitatis vel meriti viantis, quia ignorant numerum et mensuram in quibus verbum eternaliter disposuit ponere sponsam suam. Multi enim obliquant a rectitudine iusticie, et sensus infixi in legibus humanis hoc non Percipiunt, sed intellectus considerans veritatem ac sapienciam scripture probabiliter percipit quod declinant a mandatis domini, quia solum in speculo scripture sacre discitur, tenetur et docetur sapiencia mandatorum. 99Dicitur secundo quod propter elongacionem a vera ecclesia et ab irradiacione luminis capitalis frequenter putatur ecclesiam Christi esse continuam quoad locum et tempus, dum tamen membra Christi et sponse per vacuitates predestinacionis et operis rarenter sunt positi. Multi enim putant totum populum et totum genus sibi succedencium esse christianos verissimos et capitales precipuos in area sancte matris ecclesie, cum tamen sunt vacuitates et membra diaboli. Sicut enim iuxta naturales et perspectivos videns silvam vel campum segetum a longinquo iudicat totum esse continuum consitum arboribus vel frumento, sic nos inperfecta fide videntes ecclesiam a longinquo, non obstante quod habeat in se arbusta sterilia atque zizannia, iudicamus eam plenam fructuosis arboribus et frumento. Et ad istum sensum exponit Lincolniensis propheciam Michee VII°: Ve, inquit, tanta christianismi dilatacio, tanto opere Christi et suorum mediante lege scripture elaborata, est hodie velut in brevis anguli angustia coartata. Plurimam namque mundi partem occupavit infidelitas et a Christi ecclesia separavit; de parte vere dicta christiana separavit a Christo scisma, de parte vero residua que respectu duarum prenominatarum admodum est parva et pauca (ut puto) non modicam porcionem separavit a Christo pravitas heretica, quasi autem totalitatem residui concorporarunt diabolo et separarunt a Christo septem criminalia peccata, ut iam voce lugubri plangat Christus dicens: Ve mihi quia factus sum sicut qui colligit in autumpno racemos vindemie, non est botrus ad comedendum. Uvas preciosas desideravit anima mea;

But, returning to the matter of the church, the answer is, first, that just as sense errs about the magnitude and straightness of a line, because it is ignorant of the number of points of which it is composed, so those on the road err about the magnitude of the dignity or merit of one on the road, because they are ignorant of the number and measure in which the Word eternally disposed to set his bridesponsa / sponsus: bride / bridegroom. For many slant away from the straightness of justice, and senses fixed in human laws do not perceive this; but the understanding that considers the truth and wisdom of scripture perceives with probability that they decline from the commandments of the Lord, since only in the mirror of sacred scripture is the wisdom of the commandments learned, held and taught. 99The answer is, secondly, that on account of distance from the true church and from the irradiation of the light of the head, the church of Christ is often thought to be continuous as to place and time, whereas the members of Christ and of the bride are set sparsely, through vacancies of predestination and of work.8 For many think that the whole people, and the whole line of those succeeding them, are most true Christians and foremost chiefs on the threshing-floor of holy mother church, when in fact they are vacancies and members of the devil. For just as, according to the natural philosophers and the writers on perspective, one seeing a wood or a field of crops from afar judges the whole to be continuously planted with trees or corn, so we, seeing the church from afar with imperfect faith, notwithstanding that it has in it barren shrubs and cocklezizania: cockle, judge it full of fruitful trees and corn.9 And to this sense Lincoln expounds the prophecy of Micah 7: "Woe," he says, "so great an expansion of Christianity, wrought with so great labour of Christ and his own by means of the law of scripture, is today as it were confined in the narrowness of a small corner. For unbeliefinfidelitas: heathenism, unbelief has occupied the greatest part of the world and separated it from Christ’s church; of the part truly called Christian, schism has separated [a part] from Christ; of the remaining part, which in respect of the two aforenamed is very small and few, heretical depravityheretica pravitas: heretical depravity (as I think) has separated no small portion from Christ; and almost the whole of the remainder the seven criminal sins have concorporatedconcorporacio: concorporation with the devil and separated from Christ; so that now Christ laments with mournful voice, saying: 'Woe is me, for I am become as one that gleaneth in autumn the grapes of the vintage: there is no cluster to eat. My soul desired precious grapes;

¶12100.1–100.12

100sanctus de terra et sanctus in hominibus non est Nam sponsus ecclesie plus invenit de ficu fatua et vite sterili, plus de zizannia quam de lignis fructiferis et frumento. Nam vitis que solebat facere uvas, ex quibus tamquam uberibus solebat mater ecclesia inebriare suos palmites (ut superius exponitur a Bernardo) iuxta vaticinium prophete Isaie V° 2 facit labruscas, id est, fatuitates honoris mundani atque discordias. Ideo non restat ut quid tales terram occupant in agro dominico, nisi ut reserventur colligendi in finali iudicio et (ut dicitur Matthei XIII° 30) ad laudem ecclesie comburendi.

100there is no holy man of the earth, and no holy man among men.'"10 For the bridegroom of the church finds more of the foolish fig tree and the barren vine, more of cockle, than of fruit-bearing trees and corn. For the vine which used to make grapes, from which, as from breasts, mother church used to inebriate her branches (as is expounded above by Bernard), according to the oracle of the prophet Isaiah 5:2, makes "wild grapes", that is, the follies of worldly honour, and discords.11 Therefore no reason remains why such should occupy the ground in the Lord’s field, except that they be reserved to be gathered at the final judgement and (as is said in Matthew 13:30) to be burned to the praise of the church.12

Notes

  1. 1 A margin Secunda obieccio (96.20), Purgatorium (96.22); B unio sunt (96.24). The no after linearum (about 96.25) is a fragment of the English side-note at 96.26 ("Separation is no bar to unity"), not Wyclif’s, and is not translated. Sciencia linearum: geometry. The spirits in purgatory are the church sleeping.
  2. 2 A margin Responsio (96.26). Cum sit accidens: continuity and union are accidents, so not of the essence of a substance. Humanitus: in his human nature; soul in limbo and body in the tomb, Christ remained one. Abel as the beginning of the church (ecclesia ab Abel) is a commonplace: Gregory, Hom. in Ev. 19.1, ab Abel justo usque ad ultimum electum (PL 76:1154B; cited by Wyclif at 02-b); Augustine, Enarr. in Ps. 142.3, initium habet ab ipso Abel (PL 37:1846). Wyclif names no source here.
  3. 3 The Dedication sequence Rex Salomon fecit templum (Loserth: Daniel, Thesaurus hymnologicus V, p. 106); its ascription (Adam of St Victor?) is not independently checked (same row). Cuius (97.6) is Loserth’s: the MSS Quorum, as the Angers missal in Daniel; Cuius as Wyclif quotes the stanza in his Sermones mixti (sermon Propter fratres meos et proximos, Ps. 121) and in the second part of the gospel sermons (Egrediente Jesu de templo, Mark 13) (Loserth). Ymma: ima; summâ (97.10) carries a circumflex on the plate. The working transcription divides the stanza into ¶2–9 by its printed lines.
  4. 4 Quem (97.15): so the MSS (Loserth sic); it construes only as drawn to numerum ("the number of such things, which …"). Ps. 146:5, DR "of his wisdom there is no number", alluded to; "he alone among men" is Christ. Dictum est … alibi: in another work, not identified here.
  5. 5 The digression answers the objection’s "science of lines" (96.25): lines are resolved into indivisible points (attomi), so the arithmetician, who counts, knows them before the geometer, who measures. A margin (96.29): Arismetricus et geometer hec videant. Dyameter: the diagonal; costa, the side. Suffragio sensus: with the aid of sense (not the suffragia of the glossary, ).
  6. 6 B signa quadrata (98.2); A quantitatem (98.17). Paria puncta: an equal number of points in diagonal and side. Costa transversatilis: a transverse row of points parallel to a side; a diagonal taking one point from each row has as many points as the side. De costis nobis finitis: with sides finite "to us", i.e. countable. Divisibiliter: by any divisible amount: the many point-lines between the same ends differ from straightness by less than any part.
  7. 7 In medietate proporcionis duple: in the medieval doctrine of ratios, the diagonal stands to the side in half the double ratio (in modern terms √2 : 1). Ut alias exposui: in another work, not identified here.
  8. 8 A margin Nota (98.23). Wis. 11:21, DR "thou hast ordered all things in measure, and number, and weight", alluded to (numerum et mensuram … disposuit). Verbum: the Word. A margin (99.1): Nota quare iudicium nostrum errat circa ecclesiam. B lacks a vera — ecclesiam (99.1–3). Luminis capitalis: the light of the head, Christ. Positi (99.5): masculine by sense, though membra is neuter. Vacuitates: empty places, gaps.
  9. 9 Capitales precipuos: the foremost chief men; capitalis echoes caput. Area: the threshing-floor, where grain and chaff lie together (cf. 89.3). Naturales et perspectivi: the natural philosophers and the writers on optics (perspectiva).
  10. 10 "Lincoln": Robert Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln; his Sermo before Innocent IV at Lyon, 1250 (Brown, Fasciculus rerum expetendarum II, 1690, p. 251), quoted closely, uvas preciosas included. His words end at in hominibus non est. A margin Lincolniensis (99.16), Ecclesia sancta catholica quantum sit artata (99.17). Mediante: Loserth’s expansion of the MSS medi° (99.18). Vere: Loserth; the MSS vero (99.22), "but of the part called Christian"; we translate the print. Quia factus: the MSS qui factus (Loserth’s foot). Micah 7:1–2 (Loserth): Wyclif agrees with the Vulgate as far as ad comedendum (DR used); then uvas preciosas for the Vulgate’s praecoquas ficus (DR "the first ripe figs"), and sanctus de terra et sanctus in hominibus non est for Periit sanctus de terra, et rectus in hominibus non est (DR "The holy man is perished out of the earth, and there is none upright among men"). B Uvas preter quas desideravit (99.31); B in hominibus non erit (100.1). Septem criminalia peccata: the seven deadly sins.
  11. 11 Isa. 5:2: Wyclif facit labruscas, the Vulgate fecit; DR "it brought forth wild grapes". B tanquam universalibus for uberibus (100.5). A Bernardo: the place "above" is most likely Bernard, Super Cant. 12.11 (PL 183:833B, Quisquis et inebriat verbis and meliora sunt ubera tua vino), quoted in 03-g; the vine is not in it. Ficus fatua: the barren fig tree (cf. Luke 13:6–9).
  12. 12 Iudicio (100.10): the print (plate); the OCR had iudic. Ut quid … terram occupant echoes Luke 13:7, DR "Why cumbereth it the ground?"; we construe non restat ut quid … nisi ut: "no 'why' remains … except that". Matt. 13:30, DR "Gather up first the cockle, and bind it into bundles to burn", paraphrased; ad laudem ecclesie is Wyclif’s.
How the Latin of this chapter was established
  • Plate readings; page · reading · note):
    • 96: quod
    • 96: componitur (com-/ponitur hyphenated; main token holds whole word)
    • 96: Hic
    • 97: summâ (leaf zoom: circumflex over final a)
    • 97: attomorum (atto-/morum hyphenated; main token holds whole word)
    • 98: eorum
    • 98: que
    • 98: ∅ (inserted "each" is the English side-note; print has Sed at box, no extra word)
    • 98: humanis (huma-/nis hyphenated; main token holds whole word)
    • 98: hoc
    • 99: frequenter (is is the English side-note)
    • 99: Christi
    • 99: vacuitates (5 is the line number)
    • 99: VII°
    • 100: sanctus
    • 100: de
    • 100: est
    • 99: secundo
  • OCR scars corrected in the Latin; plates for 96.27, 100.10), and doubts: 96.25 no (side-note fragment, not translated); 96.27 uni; 100.4 aBernardo; 100.9 restatut; 100.10 iudic et; 98.29 Percipiunt (capital only).