“Monophysitism” and “Nestorianism” were tentatively explored in various late-medieval attempts to reconcile abstract authority with human fallibility. Now we may add that certain statements by John Wyclif’s followers shaded into “Donatism,”73 a heresy generally believed to include the belief that, if ministers are unworthy of their ecclesiastical offices, the sacraments they perform are thereby devalued in some way.74 The Wycliffite treatise Of Prelates claims that “a prest may be so cursed & in heresie þat he makiþ not þe sacrament”;75 a Lollard sermon suggests that, because of their evil life; priests may lose “uertu to mynystre ony sacramentis” or to do anything medefuly;76 and the third of the Lollard Twelve Conclusions claims that the Holy Spirit and His noble gifts “may not stonde with dedly synne in no menere persone.”77 According to the record of his second trial, William Swinderby (first charged with preaching heresy in 1382, in Leicester) believed “that a priest being in mortal sin cannot, by the power of the sacramental words, confect the body of Christ, or perform any other Church sacrament whatever or minister to members of the Church”—a charge he vehemently denied.78
Similar attributions of Donatist views occasionally appear in the Norwich heresy trials of 1428–31, as when Hawisia Moone is quoted as saying that “oonly he that is moost holy and moost perfit in lyvyng in erthe is verry pope, and these singemesses [‘mass-singers’] that be cleped pretes ben no prestes, but thay be lecherous and covetouse men and fals deseyvours of the puple.”79 This brings out well another crucial aspect of Donatism (essential for this, our initial, definition of the term): “sacraments derive their validity from the holiness of him by whom they are conferred.”80 In other words, the best men consecrate the best sacraments. Such doctrine was quite contrary to the ideals of Christian unity, since it held out the (highly divisive) possibility of different individuals ministering and receiving different types of sacrament. St. Augustine, who in the fifth century labored long and hard against the original Donatist sect, was acutely aware of this,81 and sought a solution in the principle that ordination confers a supra-human authority on any duly appointed clergyman, which keeps his sacraments safe and secure, despite any human fallibilities he may have.82 But Wyclif’s supporters chipped away at this principle,83 developing the view that every member of their “true church,” being one of the elect and a recipient of divine grace, “was ipso facto more priest than layman, ordained of God.”84 Therefore a righteous layman had just as much right (or indeed more right) to administer the sacraments than had an evil, albeit formally ordained, priest. To take one example from many such statements, the Lollard John Skylly “held and afermed that every trewe man and woman being in charite is a prest, and that no prest hath more poar in mynystryng of the sacramentes than a lewed man hath.”85
To what extent was John Wyclif himself responsible for such latter-day Donatism, if so it may be called? He definitely was the main target of the London Blackfriars condemnations of May 1382, which included the proposition, “if a bishop or a priest is living in mortal sin he cannot ordain, or confect, or baptize.”86 But Wyclif never defended himself against this particular charge (in marked contrast to his prompt reaction to other items on the list), which leads Ian Levy to suspect that the schoolman did not accept the doctrine as his own.87 However, his followers Nicholas Hereford and Philip Repingdon, confronted with the same proposition, were obliged to renounce it.88 Wyclif’s De apostasia (usually dated 1379) does contain the view that the priest who is “foreknown” as eternally damned lacks the spiritual presence (modus essendi spiritualis) necessary to confect the sacramental presence (modus essendi sacramentalis); this and other passages from the same treatise also appear in the text known as Wyclif’s Confessio (usually dated 1381).89 On the other hand, elsewhere Wyclif asserts the (basically orthodox) view that the sacraments of a priest who is “foreknown” and living in moral sin are useful to his subjects.90 And yet, in a sermon of 1382 he suggests that “foreknown” priests administer beneficial sacraments only secundum quid (i.e., in a relative and therefore perhaps inadequate fashion).91 Even more daringly, in his De antichristo (1384) Wyclif says that there is nothing in the Bible to support the belief that God must assist every faithless prelate in consecrating the sacraments.92 Most radical of all is the statement in De Eucharistia that one mass may be despised and condemned by God while another is deemed meritorious; the host consecrated by the good priest, who best signifies Christ’s union with the Church, must be better than the host consecrated by the bad priest, who impedes that signification.93 Levy seeks to explain such apparent contradictions by positing a crucial development in Wyclif’s thought, a “discernible movement in the direction of Donatism” which was “closely linked to his rejection of the doctrine of transubstantiation.”94 “Perhaps scholars will have to be content to say that there were times when Wyclif had been orthodox, times when a Donatist, and other times still when he had walked a perilous path between.”95 While Wyclif was not constructing a position “he was prepared to defend obstinately,” Levy further suggests, nevertheless he was quite willing to engage in “provocative speculation.”96
Many examples of such “provocative speculation” (on this as on so many other matters) may be found in Wyclif’s writings. One must suffice here, a passage from his Responsiones ad argumenta RadulW Strode, Strode having been a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, before 1360 and probably to be identified with the “philosophical Strode” who is one of the addressees of Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde (V.1856–57).97 Wyclif declares that the faithful who by true belief and love are members of Jesus Christ (who is the archpriest) are themselves sacerdotes, thanks to the spiritual oil of predestination. The implication is that in this respect they do not need to receive the material oil traditionally used in the ordination service. The officium of priest is often bestowed on those who are unfit for it, continues Wyclif, and it may be right for the true sons of God to perform that office, even though they may not have been consecrated by a bishop, and lack the priestly tonsure and the character (or sacred imprint) which ordination imposes. Now, while this certainly does not go so far as to say that the sacraments ministered by such unfit priests are useless or at least dubious, it does raise the specter of valid ministration by non-ordained individuals who derive their authority directly from God. Perhaps Wyclif rather enjoyed going so close to the brink of Donatism. Some of his followers may have gone over it.98
Another Wycliffite doctrine which threatened to drive a wedge between authoritative officium and fallible office-holder was the theory of dominion.99 According to Wyclif, dominium meant divine right of possession: the right to hold power, whether spiritual or secular, depended on grace.100 No pope, bishop, or king had true dominion over his subordinates while he lived in a state of mortal sin.101 One of the 1382 Blackfriars propositions took the form, “if the pope is foreknown [to be damned eternally], and a bad man, and consequently a member of the devil, he has no power over Christ’s faithful.”102 By the same token, the status of the deviant priest, one who failed to “lyuen wel in clennesse in þou
