Wyclif’s Latin works

De ecclesia, chapter 8, part 1

A digression on the Westminster case; two suppositions; would lying be a virtue?

Loserth pp. 157.26–160.24

¶1157.26–160.12

157Quia sciencia secundum philosophos gaudet extraneis ac sciencie de sancta matre ecclesia sit nimis extraneus infamis casus qui contigit nuper in Anglia et in Roma, ideo gracia declaracionis fidei et cavendorum errorum ecclesie restat parumper disgredi circa 158ista, primo supponendo tria per ordinem. Primo, inquam, ex supradictis supponatur predicta sentencia de quiditate sancte matris ecclesie, nec est illa abicienda a Christi ecclesia, cum nec contingit ecclesiam speculative nec practice quicquam cognoscere nec meritorie debite conversari, si sit omnino destituta ab eius noticia. Nam iuxta dicta XVⁱ cap. theologus foret nimis inscius racionum scripture et fidei orthodoxe qui omnino ignoraret quiditatem sancte matris ecclesie. Nec dubito quin deest decretistis, legistis et philosophis fructuosa speculacio qui omnino ignorant quid sit sancta mater ecclesia. Nam omnes leges humane sunt finaliter ad defendendum iusticiam huius matris et purgandum eam ab erroribus quibus pro tempore vie temptacionum adversitatibus implicatur. Cum ergo finis inponit maximam necessitatem operibus, ex II° Phisicorum manifestum est quod oportet omnes doctores speculativos statuere matrem nostram ut regulam ad tractatum speculabilium mensurandum, et per idem nemo intendit praxi laudabili, nisi in quantum tenderet ad honorem vel commodum huius matris; nec dubium quin nemo viat meritorie secundum beneplacitum sponsi ecclesie, nisi de quanto operatur ad honorem et commodum sponse sue. Et hinc precipitur in primo mandato secunde tabule quod fidelis honoret patrem et matrem, quod indubie principaliter intelligitur de Christo et sua ecclesia. Nec honorat eam vel diligit fideliter quam non noscit. Ideo necesse est, ut omnis fidelis det operam ad cognoscendum direccius matrem suam. Secundo supponitur quod procedatur in isto tractatu sine duplicitate mendacii. Nam mendacium est precisa cautela per quam diabolus illudit fidelibus, ut 159honorent meretricem secum adulteram tamquam reginam et matrem fidelium sponsam Christi. Unde istam sentenciam de quiditate sancte matris ecclesie oportet ut fundamentum supponere, ut sciatur qui procurant pro eius veris privilegiis et qui degenerant, in quo consistit verum privilegium ac edificacio ecclesie et in quo stat eius oppositum secundum fidem scripture, et de congruitate status moderni in comparacione ad florem etatis ecclesie iuxta modum loquendi scripture. Sed in ista materia sunt quidam moderni doctores approbantes mendacium et dicentes quod veritates tales scripture non sunt dicende tum propter perturbacionem ecclesie, tum eciam propter scelera que hostes ecclesie ex eorum audacia perpetrarent. Unde arguitur et tenetur quod doctores vocati ex mandato domini regis et iurati ad dicendum veritatem de casu qui nuper contigit in Westmonasterio ad honorem Dei, ad utilitatem ecclesie et ad expurgacionem errorum in regno, ut exinde stet constancius in virtute, mentiri debuerant propter duo: primo pro fama sua servanda qui actenus reputati sunt hostes ecclesie; quilibet autem debet diligencius servare famam propriam quam famam alienam pro qua in casu mentiri est licitum. Secundo debuerant mentiri ad conservandum privilegia ecclesie que essent aliter destructa, veritate detecta dominis temporalibus et patronis. Cum autem dicta privilegia sint prestanciora quam vita hominis pro qua servanda licitum est mentiri, multo magis debuerunt mentiri pro illis privilegiis conservandis. Quantum ad principium illius sentencie patet ex tractatu De Mendacio quod est cuilibet fideli detestabile ut hereticum et blasphemum. Nam si aliquod mendacium sit meritorium et aliquod superhabundans 160in menciente ultra quam oportet, aliquod autem in extremo deficiente apud eum qui ex cauterizata consciencia nimis parce mentitur, sequitur quod habitus mendacii inter hec duo extrema tenens medium foret virtus. Patet consequencia ex diffinicione virtutis posita II° Eth. VI°, cap.: Virtus est habitus electivus in medietate consistens quoad nos determinatus racione. Hoc tamen abhorreret gentilis philosophus Aristoteles, cum IV° Ethicorum, C. IV°, tractans de virtute veridici et duplici vicio falsidici, ita scribit: Per se autem mendacium pravum et fugiendum, verum autem et bonum laudabile.

Since knowledge, according to the philosophers, delights in things foreign [to it], and the infamous case which lately befell in England and in Rome is all too foreign to the knowledge of holy mother churchecclesia: church, therefore, for the sake of declaring the faith and of the church’s errors that are to be guarded against, it remains to digress a little concerning 158these things, first supposing three things in order.1 First, I say, let the aforesaid teachingsentencia: CONTEXTUAL: teaching / sentence on the quiddityquiditas: quiddity of holy mother church be supposed from what was said above; nor is it to be cast out of Christ’s church, since it is not possible for the church to know anything, speculatively or practically, or to live meritoriously as it ought, if it is wholly destitute of the knowledge of it. For, according to what was said in chapter 15, a theologian would be all too ignorant of the reasons of scripture and of the orthodox faith who was wholly ignorant of the quiddity of holy mother church.2 Nor do I doubt that fruitful speculation is lacking to decretists, legists and philosophers who are wholly ignorant of what holy mother church is. For all human laws exist, as their end, to defend the justice of this mother and to purge her of the errors in which, for the time of the wayvia / patria: the way / the homeland, she is entangled by the adversities of temptations. Since, then, the end imposes the greatest necessity on works, it is manifest from Physics II that all speculative doctors must set up our mothermater nostra: our mother as the rule for measuring the treatment of things that are objects of speculation; and by the same token no one applies himself to praiseworthy practice except in so far as he would tend to the honour or benefit of this mother; nor is there doubt that no one is a wayfarerviator: wayfarer meritoriously, according to the good pleasure of the bridegroom of the church, except in so far as he works for the honour and benefit of his bridesponsa / sponsus: bride / bridegroom.3 And hence it is commanded in the first commandment of the second table that the faithful man honour father and mother (Exodus 20:12), which is without doubt understood principally of Christ and his church. Nor does he honour or love faithfully her whom he does not know. Therefore it is necessary that every faithful man give effort to knowing his mother more directly.4 Secondly, it is supposed that one proceed in this treatise without the doubleness of lying. For lying is precisely the wilecautela: wile by which the devil deludes the faithful, so that 159they honour a harlot, adulterous with him, as the queen and mother of the faithful, the bride of Christ.5 Hence this teaching on the quiddity of holy mother church must be supposed as a foundation, so that it may be known who act on behalf of her true privileges and who degenerate; in what the true privilege and edification of the church consists, and in what its opposite stands, according to the faith of scripture; and [what is to be said] of the fittingness of the modern state in comparison with the flower of the church’s age, according to scripture’s manner of speaking. But in this matter there are certain modern doctors approving lying and saying that such truths of scripture are not to be spoken, both on account of the disturbance of the church and also on account of the crimes which the church’s enemies would commit from their boldness.6 Hence it is argued and held that the doctors called by command of the lord king, and sworn to tell the truth about the case which lately befell at Westminster, for the honour of God, for the profit of the church and for the purging of errors in the kingdom, so that it might thenceforth stand more constantly in virtue, ought to have lied, for two reasons: first, to preserve their own reputation, they who hitherto have been reputed enemies of the church; now each man ought to preserve his own reputation more carefully than another’s, for which [another’s], in a given case, it is lawful to lie.7 Secondly, they ought to have lied to preserve the privileges of the church, which would otherwise have been destroyed, once the truth was exposeddetegere: to expose to the temporal lordstemporales domini: temporal lords and patronspatronus: patron. Now since the said privileges are more excellent than the life of a man, to save which it is lawful to lie, much more ought they to have lied to preserve those privileges.8 As to the principle of that teaching, it is clear from the treatise On Lying that it is detestable to every faithful man, as heretical and blasphemous. For if some lie is meritorious, and some is superabundant 160in the liar beyond what is fitting, and some, again, is in the deficient extreme in him who from a seared conscience lies too sparingly, it followssequitur: it follows that the habit of lying, holding the mean between these two extremes, would be a virtue.9 The inferenceconsequencia: inference is clear from the definition of virtue laid down in Ethics II, chapter 6: "Virtue is an elective habit consisting in a mean relative to us, determined by reason."10 Yet the gentile philosopher Aristotle would abhor this, since in Ethics IV, chapter 4, treating of the virtue of the truthful man and of the twofold vice of the false-speaker, he writes thus: "And in itself the lie is base and to be shunned, but the true is good and praiseworthy."11

¶2160.13–160.24

160Item, cum omnis virtus sit de genere tertii boni maximi, descendens desursum a patre luminum qua virtute nemo abuti potest (ut sepe meminit beatus Augustinus), sequitur quod omnis virtus mendacii sit a Deo, et cum omnis pater et auctor virtutis sit autonomatice virtuosus, sequitur quod Deus, pater et auctor mendacii, sit summe mendax, sicut Christus secundum humanitatem foret homo mendacissimus potens esse, et per consequens, nullus fidelis dubitat esse blasphemum, cum Manichei blasfemi dixerunt micius quod non Deus bonus, sed Deus malus sit origo et principium talis mali.

Again, since every virtue is of the kind of the third and greatest good, coming down from above from the Father of lights, a virtue which no one can abuse (as blessed Augustine often recalls), it follows that every virtue of lying is from God; and since every father and author of virtue is by antonomasiaautonomatice / antonomastice: by antonomasia (pre-eminently) virtuous, it follows that God, the father and author of lying, is supremely a liar, just as Christ according to his humanity would be the most lying man that could be; and consequently [it follows that] which no faithful man doubts to be blasphemous, since the blasphemous Manichees said more mildly that not the good God but an evil God is the origin and principle of such evil.12

Notes

  1. 1 Sciencia … gaudet extraneis: we take it as a maxim that licenses the digression ("knowledge delights in things foreign [to it]"); its source is not identified. The "infamous case" is placed by Wyclif at Westminster (159.13); in England it is the violation of Westminster’s sanctuary on 11 August 1378 (Wyclif names Westminster at 159.13); the Roman half is presumably the disorder of the papal election of April 1378 (our inference).
  2. 2 A margin Tres suppositiones; B margin, another hand, Posteriora prius dicit, "he says the later things first" (158.1). Iuxta dicta XVⁱ cap.: no fifteenth chapter precedes in De ecclesia; the reference may be to another of Wyclif’s works; not traced. A margin Racio: Necessaria est noticia de sancta matre ecclesia (158.12).
  3. 3 Physics II: Loserth refers to Phys. II.2, 194a, where the end is "that for the sake of which". Ex II° Phisicorum may instead belong to the cum clause ("since, as Physics II shows, the end imposes …"). Viat: the verb of viator, to be on the way.
  4. 4 Loserth refers to p. 1 above, where the treatise opens with this commandment applied to Christ and the church. Exod. 20:12 DR "Honour thy father and thy mother" (cited, not quoted). The second supposition (158.30) is announced by the side-note.
  5. 5 B meretricium (159.1); the print meretricem is translated. Secum adulteram: adulterous with him, the devil, who deludes the faithful into honouring her as Christ’s bride.
  6. 6 B quod eius veris (159.5). Procurant pro: act on behalf of (the verb of procurator). A margin Opinio (159.14), marking the opponents’ position.
  7. 7 The doctors summoned by the king and sworn on the Westminster case, among whom Wyclif counts himself (debuissemus, "we ought", 162.6); the hearing was at the Gloucester parliament (20 October–16 November 1378) (Loserth, Introduction, pp. x, xxv). B margin Fame causa licet mentiri, "for reputation’s sake it is lawful to lie" (159.22); B quibus autem debet (159.22). Pro qua: we take the antecedent as famam alienam, another’s reputation.
  8. 8 The codices read debuerunt (159.24), where Loserth prints debuerant; the print is translated, and the sense is the same. Patroni: patrons of benefices.
  9. 9 A margin Responsio. Contra sentenciam que dicit licitum est mentiri (159.30). Tractatus De mendacio: probably Wyclif’s own treatment of lying, De veritate sacrae scripturae cap. 16, which he cites at 44.22 as libro sexto, tractatu de mendacio (Loserth there: book 6 = De veritate); it argues, as here, that a God who approved a lie would be summe deceptivus. It builds on Augustine’s De mendacio. Ex cauterizata consciencia echoes 1 Tim. 4:2, DR "having their conscience seared".
  10. 10 Loserth refers to Wyclif, Trialogus III.1 (ed. Lechler, p. 128), and Aristotle, Eth. Nic. II.6, 1106b36. Electivus: by choice.
  11. 11 Wyclif’s "Ethics IV, chapter 4" answers to Eth. Nic. IV.7, 1127a28–30, in the modern division; the Latin chapter numbering differs. Veridicus / falsidicus: the truthful man and the false-speaker, who errs in two directions.
  12. 12 James 1:17, DR "coming down from the Father of lights" (adapted). Augustine: Loserth refers to Retract. I.9 and De lib. arb. II.19, on the virtues as great goods that no one uses ill (De lib. arb. II.19.50, PL 32:1267–68, quoted in the Retractationes). De genere tertii boni maximi: so printed (plate); Augustine’s order there is great, least, middle, so the "third" is not his numbering; we translate the print. The subjunctives (sit … sit) carry the opponents’ premiss to its conclusion. The Manichees, who set an evil God as the principle of evil, are milder than a doctrine that makes the good God the author of lying (side-note 160.19).
How the Latin of this chapter was established
  • Plate readings; page · reading · note):
    • 157: CAP. VIII.
    • 158: II°
    • 159: honorent (150c folio mark, A margin letter)
    • 159: consistit (150d is the folio mark)
    • 160: II°
    • 160: C (print: Ethicorum, C. IV°; round C)
    • 158: supponendo