Wyclif’s Latin works

De ecclesia, chapter 9, part 5

Naboth’s vineyard and St Thomas; the sixth objection, on the foreknown and privilege; the three pairs of Matthew 24

Loserth pp. 198.25–202.29

¶1198.25–199.10

198Sicut ergo Naboth noluit vel vendere regi vineam hereditariam, ut transferatur in ortum olerum (ut patet III, Regum XXI°, cap. I°), sic clerus pure accipiens Christum, vitem veram in porcionem hereditariam, non venderet illud privilegium paternum, sic quod ortus deliciarum in ortum olerum transferatur. Sed heu Jesabel, hoc est, effeminati et lubrici, voluptati dediti, dominantes satrapis primevum privilegium subverterunt; ideo caveant de malediccione et pena minata Achab et Jesabel. Istam moralitatem tangit venerabilis 199Beda super epistolam Jacobi. Insuper, si vitis noluit deserere vinum suum quo dii letificantur et homines, ut imperet ceteris lignis silve (ut patet Iudicum IX° et expositum est IV° cap. libri VIⁱ), quanto magis clerus non desereret primevum privilegium quod Christus instituit propter libidinem civiliter dominandi; ita solutio sathane regis superbie post mille annos (de quibus Apocalypsis XX°) retardat quod ecclesia non sit ad privilegium primevum restituta. Et ista causa rectificavit gloriosum martirium sancti Thome, cum de eo canit ecclesia:

As, then, Naboth would not even sell the king his inherited vineyard, that it be turned into a garden of herbs (as is clear, 1 Kings 21), so the clergyclerus; clericus: the clergy; cleric, receiving Christ purely, the true vine, as its portion of inheritance, would not sell that paternal privilegeprivilegium / privilegiare / privilegiacio: privilege / to privilege / privileging so that the garden of delights should be turned into a garden of herbs.1 But alas, Jezebel, that is, the effeminate and slippery, given to pleasure, lording it over satrapssatrapa: satrap, have overthrown the primeval privilege; therefore let them beware of the curse and the punishment threatened to Ahab and Jezebel. This moral sense the venerable 199Bede touches on the Epistle of James.2 Moreover, if the vine would not desert its wine, by which gods and men are gladdened, to rule over the other trees of the forest (as is clear, Judges 9:13, and has been expounded in chapter 4 of book 6), how much more would the clergy not desert the primeval privilege which Christ instituted, for lust of lording itdominus; dominari: lord; to exercise lordship / to lord it civilly? So the loosing of Satan, the king of pride, after a thousand years (of which Revelation 20 [speaks]), delays the church’s being restored to its primeval privilege.3 And this cause made right the glorious martyrdom of Saint Thomas, since the church sings of him:4

¶2199.11–199.11

199Nec in agnos sustinet

He suffers not, against the lambs,

¶3199.12–199.12

199Lupos desevire

the wolves to rage,

¶4199.13–199.13

199Nec in ortum olerum

nor into a garden of herbs

¶5199.14–199.27

199Vineam transire. Nec credo quod est causa verior vel alia qua fuit martir nisi resistendo lupis sevientibus in agnos gregis dominici et impediendo ne vinea inebrians transferatur in ortum olerum; herba quidem melancolica preservat ab ebrietate ex amissione temporalium gignens vecordiam. Sexto arguitur contra dicta per hoc quod iuxta predicta nichil sonat in privilegium hominis, nisi de quanto sapit graciam vel virtutem; sed hoc nullus preter Christum potest concedere, ergo nec privilegium, et sic nullus prescitus haberet privilegium, ymmo sciencia cum inflat et omnia bona citra virtutes non forent privilegia abutenti, que videntur legibus et modo loquendi vulgari contraria.

the vineyard to pass. Nor do I believe that there is a truer cause, or any other, for which he was a martyr, than resisting the wolves raging against the lambs of the Lord’s flock, and preventing the inebriating vineyard from being turned into a garden of herbs; the melancholic herb indeed preserves from drunkenness, begetting faint-heartednessvecors; vecorditer; vecordia: faint-hearted; faint-heartedly; faint-heartedness from the loss of temporal goodstemporalia: temporal goods.5 Sixthly, it is argued by appeal toarguitur per: it is argued by appeal to this, against what has been said: that according to what was said before nothing counts as a privilege of man except in so far as it savours of grace or virtue; now no one except Christ can grant this; therefore no one [can grant] a privilege either; and so no foreknownprescitus, -i: the foreknown [man] would have a privilege; indeed, knowledge, since it puffs up, and all goods short of the virtues, would not be privileges to one who abuses them: which seem contrary to the laws and to the common way of speaking.6

¶6199.28–202.29

199Hic dicitur quod prima consequencia non procedit, cum prescitus habet privilegium, dum est in gracia. 200Ideo signanter additur in descripcione privilegii quod est bonum concessum ecclesie vel persone. Datur enim quandoque temporale privilegium persone prescite que non est membrum ecclesie, verumptamen predestinatus habet excellenciori modo privilegium, quia ad maiorem utilitatem, scilicet ad beatitudinem, percipit donum Dei (ut patet in fine capituli VIⁱ). Prodest autem privilegium prescito quoad commodum temporale et quoad mitigacionem pene perpetue, sed manifestum videtur ex fide quod nulli prescito est privilegium bonum quod habet, dum est iniustus, quia ut sic abutitur dato ad sui incommodum; abutitur, inquam, quia debet uti dato in caritate honorando Deum et merendo sibi ac sancte matri ecclesie, et facit omnino oppositum deteriorando se ipsum. Ideo patet ex diffinicione privilegii quod peccatum facit prius privilegium desinere esse privilegium, quod quidam vocant mortificacionem privilegii. Et sic verum dicit beatus Gregorius (ut recitatur XIª, q. III): Privilegium omnino meretur amittere qui sibi permissa abutitur potestate. Et patet (ut ostendit glosa) quod non exinde debet sancta ecclesia privari privilegio, sed in privilegio innovari. Nam privilegium foret clericum in casu privari bonis fortune tam sibi quam ecclesie; privilegium eciam foret in casu ecclesie quod heretici sibi molesti subtrahantur morte civili ecclesiastica, naturali vel violenta. Et hec racio quare oportet consulere regulas scripture sacre in dando privilegia positiva vel privativa ecclesie. Nunquam enim debet quis punire personam in ecclesia, nisi sub intento privilegiandi ecclesiam; quod quia Apostolus fecit inconsulta scriptura (ut patet Act. IX°), ideo blasphemavit; et sepe contingit hodie quod seculares putantes se privilegiare 201ecclesiam perturbant et retardant eam, fortificando inimicos ecclesie et specialiter in concedendo elemosinas perpetuas, cum necesse est discolos subintrare in tales elemosinas, propter necessitatem ignorancie quam oportet nos hinc habere de membris ecclesie. Ideo dicit decretum sub auctoritate Gregorii XXIIIª q. IV: Hec autem, quod sicut habitacio ecclesie militantis est inter celum et terram, sic utrarumque parcium cives recipit, sed in finali iudicio discernentur. Et hec racio quare regula Christi precipit benefaciendo diligere tam amicos quam eciam inimicos (ut patet Luce VI°, 27, et ad Romanos VIII°). Omnis, inquit, iniquus bonorum est inimicus. Omnis enim amicus huius seculi inimicus est Dei, inimicus autem Dei bonitatis et iusticie est inimicus. Racionabile itaque et securum est diligere inimicos, quia necesse est dileccionem illam premiari in retribucione finali; odium autem extra caritatem necesse est sequi demeritum. Et hec racio quare Christus voluit hic filios suos atque diaboli esse permixtim nobis absconditos. Nam Matthei XXIV°, 40, loquens de die iudicii dicit confuse: In illa die erunt duo in agro uno, unus assumetur et alter relinquetur, due erunt molentes in una mola, una assumetur et altera relinquetur, duo in lecto uno, unus assumetur et alter relinquetur. Illud autem exponit Augustinus super Psalmum XXXVIᵘᵐ de tribus statibus ecclesie militantis, qui sunt pastores, laboratores et ociatores. Pastores sunt prepositi ovibus Christi, quia instar floris campi et suorum agricultorum debent evellere, destruere, edificare et plantare, ut patet Jeremie I° et Ia Cor. III°, 6, dicit Apostolus: Ego plantavi, Apollo 202rigavit, sed Deus incrementum dedit, et sequitur: Dei adiutores sumus, Dei agricultura estis. Illud autem genus pastorum dividitur in duas personas quorum filius Dei assumetur ad beatitudinem et filius diaboli relinquetur ad dampnacionem. Ista autem logica est rectissima sed confusa, quia ignoramus quot et qui descendent ad inferos vel ascendent. Secundum iugum, signans infirmiores activam vitam ducentes, signanter exprimitur per terminos feminini generis; molaris inferior est terra quam colimus, recipiens undique constanter secundum variacionem anguli incidentalis et reflexionis influenciam celestium radiorum. Molaris autem superior qui pigre circumducitur est spera celestium; cui activi molentes preparant terre nascencia et alia mixta inanimata sive artificialia sive naturalia de quibus est negociacio activorum. Celum enim sua circulacione ministrat illis tempus et auram ac unicuique sui generis complementum; cum autem gracia hominis celum circumducitur, signanter dicitur activus molere in pistrino. Tercium vero iugum est quiescencium ab istis duobus officiis, sive sint clerici contemplantes, sive promiscui deprecantes, sive seculares domini imperantes omnes enim tales quiescunt in lecto (ut patet Canticorum III°), et sunt ambo iuga, ut primum secundum predestinacionem et prescienciam ac finalem perseveranciam et finalem inpenitenciam bipertiti, cum ibunt hii in supplicium eternum, iusti autem in vitam eternam (ut dicitur Matthei XXV°, 46).

To this the answer is that the first inferenceconsequencia: inference does not hold, since a foreknown [man] has a privilege while he is in grace. 200Therefore it is markedly added in the definitiondescripcio: definition of privilege that it is a good granted to the church or to a person.7 For a temporal privilege is sometimes given to a foreknown person who is not a membermembrum: member of the churchecclesia: church; yet the predestinatepredestinatus, -i: the predestinate (sg. "a predestinate [person]") has privilege in a more excellent way, because he receives the gift of God to a greater utility, namely to blessedness (as is clear at the end of chapter 6). And a privilege profits the foreknown as to temporal advantage and as to the mitigation of everlasting punishment; but it seems manifest, as faith teachesex fide: as faith teaches; with a genitive, from the faith of [scripture], that to no foreknown [man] is the good that he has a privilege while he is unjust, because as such he abuses what is given, to his own disadvantage: abuses, I say, because he ought to use what is given in charitycaritas: charity, honouring God and meriting for himself and for holy mother church, and he does altogether the opposite, making himself worse. Therefore it is clear from the definition of privilege that sin makes the former privilege cease to be a privilege, which some call the mortification of the privilege.8 And so blessed Gregory says truly (as is recited at C. 11 q. 3): "He deserves altogether to lose his privilege who abuses the power permitted to him." And it is clear (as the glossglosa: gloss shows) that holy church ought not on that account to be deprived of privilege, but to be renewed in privilege.9 For it would be a privilege for a cleric, in a case, to be deprived of the goods of fortune, as much for himself as for the church; it would also be a privilege for the church, in a case, that heretics troublesome to it be withdrawn by death, civil [or] ecclesiastical, natural or violent.10 And this is the reason why it is necessary to consult the rules of holy scripture in giving privileges, positive or privative, to the church. For no one ought ever to punish a person in the church except with the intent of privilegingprivilegium / privilegiare / privilegiacio: privilege / to privilege / privileging the church; and because the Apostle did this without consulting scripture (as is clear, Acts 9), therefore he blasphemed. And it often happens today that secularsecclesia laycalis / secularis: the lay church / the secular church, thinking that they privilege 201the church, disturb it and hold it back, strengthening the enemies of the church, and especially in granting perpetual almselemosina: alms, since it is inevitable that frowarddiscoli: froward men creep into such alms, because of the necessary ignorance which we must have, here, about the members of the church.11 Therefore the decree says, under the authority of Gregory, C. 23 q. 4: "And this" [holds]: that as "the dwelling of the church militantecclesia militans / triumphans / dormiens: the church militant / triumphant / sleeping is between heaven and earth, so it receives citizens of both parts; but at the final judgment they will be separated."12 And this is the reason why the rule of Christ commands us, by doing good, to love friends and enemies alike (as is clear, Luke 6:27, and Romans 8). "Every unjust man," he says, "is the enemy of the good." For every friend of this world is the enemy of God; now the enemy of God is the enemy of goodness and justice.13 It is therefore reasonable and safe to love enemies, because that love must necessarily be rewarded in the final retribution; but demerit must necessarily follow hatred outside charity. And this is the reason why Christ willed his sons and the devil’s to be mingled here, hidden from us. For in Matthew 24:40, speaking of the day of judgment, he says indistinctlyconfuse / confusus (fides, noticia): indistinct(ly): "In that day two shall be in one field: one shall be taken and the other shall be left. Two women shall be grinding at one mill: one shall be taken and the other shall be left. Two in one bed: one shall be taken and the other shall be left."14 And Augustine expounds this, on Psalm 36, of three states of the church militant, which are pastors, labourerslaboratores: labourers and men of leisureociatores: men of leisure. The pastors are those set over the sheep of Christ, because, after the likeness of the flower of the field and its husbandmen, they must root up, destroy, build and plant, as is clear, Jeremiah 1:10; and in 1 Corinthians 3:6 the Apostle says: "I have planted, Apollo 202watered: but God gave the increase"; and there follows: "We are God’s coadjutors: you are God’s husbandry."15 And that kind of pastors is divided into two persons, of whom the son of God will be taken to blessedness and the son of the devil left to damnation. And this logic is most right but indistinct, because we are ignorantignorare: to be ignorant of how many and which will descend to hell or ascend. The second yokeiugum: yoke (a pair), signifying the weaker, who lead the active life, is markedly expressed by terms of the feminine gender. The lower millstone is the earth which we till, receiving constantly on every side, according to the variation of the angle of incidence and of reflection, the influence of the heavenly rays. And the upper millstone, which is slowly turned round, is the sphere of the heavens, against which the active grinders prepare what the earth brings forth, and the other inanimate mixed bodies, whether artificial or natural, in which the trade of the active consists. For the heaven by its circling ministers to them time and air, and to each the completion of its kind; and since the heaven is turned round for the sake of man, the active man is markedly said to grind in the mill.16 And the third yoke is that of those who rest from these two offices, whether they be contemplative clerics, or people of every kind who pray, or secular lords who command; for all such rest in the bed (as is clear, Song of Songs 3:1); and both [these] yokes, like the first, are divided in two according to predestination and foreknowledgepresciencia: foreknowledge, final perseverance and final impenitence, since "these shall go into everlasting punishment: but the just, into life everlasting" (as is said, Matthew 25:46).17

Notes

  1. 1 1 Kings 21:2 (Vulgate 3 Kings): Ahab asks for Naboth’s vineyard "that I may make me a garden of herbs". The print gives III, Regum XXI°, cap. I°; A reads Reg. 21 cap., B 12 cap. (198.27). Noluit vel vendere: would not even sell. Ortus deliciarum: the garden of delights, the vineyard set against the garden of herbs.
  2. 2 Jesabel is taken collectively: the plural verb subverterunt, and the gloss "the effeminate and slippery". Dominantes satrapis: dative, "lording it over satraps" (glossary: satrapa, the officials of the church courts); it could also be instrumental, "ruling through satraps". The threats to Ahab and Jezebel: 1 Kings 21. Bede on James 1:10–11 (PL 93:13A; Loserth: Opp. V, p. 676): Naboth vir justus mori maluit, quam vineam patrum suorum in hortum olerum transferre; Jezebel and Ahab are Wyclif’s application. A margin Beda (199.1).
  3. 3 Judges 9:13: the Vulgate has quod laetificat Deum et homines (DR "that cheereth God and men"); Wyclif’s quo dii letificantur et homines, "by which gods and men are gladdened", is translated. "Chapter 4 of book 6" is a cross-reference not identified here. The loosing of Satan: Revelation 20. A and A₁ read itaque solucio (199.6); the print is translated.
  4. 4 Rectificavit: made right, that is, this cause made Thomas Becket’s death a true martyrdom. The four lines that follow are, Loserth notes, the antiphon of the second nocturn of the feast of St Thomas, archbishop, in the Sarum Breviary (Procter and Wordsworth I, col. ccli). Loserth sets them as four lines (199.11–14), and so the working transcription has four paragraphs; together: "He suffers not the wolves to rage against the lambs, nor the vineyard to pass into a garden of herbs." A margin Conclusio (199.11), which Loserth corrects to obieccio. Side-note 199.9.
  5. 5 Herba … melancolica: the cabbage of 197.11 (09-d). We read the clause as setting the sober herb against the inebriating vine: the garden of herbs keeps the clergy from the drunkenness of the vine and, by the loss of temporal goods, breeds faint-heartedness. Ex amissione temporalium could instead go with preservat. The construal is doubtful. A reads malencolica (199.18).
  6. 6 A margin Sexta conclusio (199.20); Loserth’s side-note makes it the sixth objection. Sonat in privilegium: amounts to, counts as, a privilege. Prescitus: the glossary "the foreknown", the term explained at its first occurrence in the work. "Knowledge puffeth up": 1 Corinthians 8:1. Que videntur: these consequences. Side-note 199.20.
  7. 7 A margin Responsio (199.28). Descripcio: the definition of privilege given earlier in the treatise, "a good granted to the church or to a person"; signanter, "markedly", that is, with purpose. Side-note 200.4.
  8. 8 Mortificacio privilegii: the "death" of a privilege when it is abused. This is not the glossary mortificacio "amortization" (land put into mortmain); rendered "mortification" and left untagged. "The end of chapter 6": 06-g, 138, the justice founded in predestination beyond the natural justice the foreknown also has (substance, not words). Ex fide: the glossary "as faith teaches". Ex diffinicione privilegii: the glossary diffinicio 'definition'; the same definition is called descripcio at 200.1. A margin Correlarium (200.21). Side-note 200.10.
  9. 9 Gregory, quoted "as is recited at C. 11 q. 3"; Loserth gives no reference; the canon is C. 11 q. 3 c. 63 (PL 187:862). "The gloss": presumably the ordinary gloss on that canon, not independently checked (same row). A and A₁ read sed privilegio without in (200.22), "but renewed by privilege"; the print is translated. Side-note 200.21.
  10. 10 Morte civili ecclesiastica, naturali vel violenta: we take civil and ecclesiastical death (loss of standing in the commonwealth or in the church) as one pair and natural or violent death as the other, which A’s margin Duplex mors (200.27) supports; a list of four kinds is also possible.
  11. 11 "The Apostle": Paul, persecuting before his conversion, Acts 9; "he blasphemed": cf. 1 Timothy 1:13, "who before was a blasphemer". Elemosinas perpetuas: alms given for ever, that is, endowments, against the temporary alms of 203.17 (09-f). Hinc: here, in this life. A margin Conclusio (200.29). Side-note 201.4.
  12. 12 Loserth: Decretum, C. 23 q. 4 c. 15 (Decr. II, causa XXIII, q. IV, c. XV; the modern form is ours). Loserth gives the same canon for the Augustine passage at 203.6–10 (09-f); we have not reconciled the two references; the canon is Hec autem vita, ascribed to Gregory (Friedberg I, c. 903). Hec autem, quod … has no main verb as Wyclif quotes it; we construe what he wrote and supply "[holds]".
  13. 13 Loserth notes that the quoted words occur neither in Luke nor in Romans (201.12). The command is Luke 6:27, "Love your enemies. Do good to them that hate you." The second sentence echoes James 4:4, "Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world becometh an enemy of God". The speaker of inquit is Gratian: the words are his dictum after C. 23 q. 4 c. 15 (Omnis enim iniquus bonorum est inimicus …, PL 187:1178C–1179A), and the reference to Paul is Gratian’s. Side-note 201.10.
  14. 14 Wyclif joins Matthew 24:40–41 with Luke 17:34 (the bed; Loserth refers it to Luke 17:35). His Latin is translated: In illa die where Matthew has Tunc and Luke In illa nocte; "one field" and "one mill", where Matthew has neither uno nor una. B reads permixtum (201.19–20); A loquens de Dei iudicii (201.21). Confuse: indistinctly, without saying which (the glossary). Side-note 201.20.
  15. 15 Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos 36, sermo 1 (PL 36:356–57, the field, the mill and the bed; Loserth: Opp. IV, 1, p. 258); instar floris campi and Jer. 1:10 are Wyclif’s additions. Ociatores: men of leisure, who become the third yoke (202.20). Instar floris campi et suorum agricultorum: we take the flower of the field as Christ (Song of Songs 2:1, "I am the flower of the field") and its husbandmen as the apostles; A₁ adds id est apostolorum after agricultorum (201.29). Jeremiah 1:10 is abridged to four of its six verbs. 1 Corinthians 3:6, 9. A margin Augustinus (201.26). Side-note 201.29.
  16. 16 Iugum: a yoke, a pair, Wyclif’s word for each of the three pairs. A and B read exprimit (202.9). The feminine terms: due … molentes. Spera: sphaera (Loserth, 202.14). Cui activi molentes preparant: we take cui as the upper stone against which the grain is ground; "for which" is also possible. Influenciam: "influence" (kept apart from influxus, the glossary). A first wrote circumciditur, corrected to circumducitur (202.19). Pistrinum: the mill. Side-note 202.8.
  17. 17 Promiscui deprecantes: people of every kind who pray. Sunt ambo iuga, ut primum … bipertiti: the masculine bipertiti agrees with the persons, not with iuga; we construe "both yokes, like the first, are divided in two". Song of Songs 3:1, "In my bed by night I sought him". Matthew 25:46 in the Douay–Rheims. Side-note 202.21.
How the Latin of this chapter was established
  • Plate readings; page · reading · note):
    • 198: vineam (P is the alinea letter)
    • 198: I° (cap. I°))
    • 199: Beda (156ᵇ is the folio mark)
    • 199: gloriosum
    • 199: privilegium
    • 200: ∅ (print has nothing between Ideo and signanter; the inserted run is text from the end of p.199)
    • 200: VIⁱ (superscript i after VI)
    • 200: XIª
    • 200: Nam
    • 200: foret
    • 201: quam (5 is the line number)
    • 201: oportet
    • 201: nos hinc (main token covers two printed words)
    • 201: habere
    • 201: et iusticie (main token covers two printed words)
    • 201: est (15 is the line number)
    • 201: edificare (f clear) [NW]
    • 201: ∅ (print has 'Jeremie I° et' once; main already has I° (225) and et (226))
    • 201: I°
    • 202: ∅ ('the' is the English side-note (those at the mill))
    • 202: signans
    • 202: ducentes (glued 'ac' is the English side-note (ac-tive life))
    • 202: signanter [NW]
    • 202: influenciam [NW]
    • 202: iugum
    • 199: est
    • 200: Ideo
    • 200: privilegiare
    • 201: XXIV°, 40, (print has verse 40 after chapter (old-style 4)) [-VERSE]