John Wyclif, De Veritate Sacrae Scripturae (1378)
John Wyclif
A very long Latin argument that the book on the lectern outranks every hand that has ever held it.
Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.
The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.
Burnt, dug up and burnt again, and still here. Fuller’s line about the ashes reaching the sea is not decoration — it is what actually happened to the man and did not happen to the argument.
It attacks, and that is unusual for a book about a book. Wyclif is not defending Scripture’s honour; he is using it to take ground off everything that had been put above it.
Middling on purpose. He was condemned in his lifetime, condemned again after his death, and his own university turned on him.
Latin, enormous, and written for doctors. What travelled was the English Bible and the preachers, not this.
John Wyclif, Oxford’s leading philosopher, argued that nothing may be believed that is not grounded in Scripture, and set men to translating the Bible into English. The Council of Constance later condemned him and had his bones dug up. Thomas Fuller wrote: “They burnt his bones to ashes and cast them into Swift, a neighboring brook running hardby… And thus the ashes of Wicliffe are the emblem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed the world over.”
By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.
| Lv | Move | Type | Cat. | Pwr | Acc | PP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | This Is My Hand | Bible | Argument | 76 | 100% | 15 |
| 1 | Random Verse | Bible | Argument | 10 | 100% | 30 |
| 4 | Chapter… | Bible | Scripture | — | — | 12 |
| 8 | Nothing Is To Be Added | Bible | Argument | 78 | 100% | 15 |
| 10 | Affirm | — | Status | — | — | 1 |
| 14 | God’s Word Arouseth Insurrection | Ecclesiology | Argument | 80 | 100% | 10 |
| 20 | They Stand To Eternity | Bible | Argument | 82 | 100% | 10 |
| 28 | Where the Word Is Preached | Ecclesiology | Argument | 93 | 100% | 5 |
| 50 | Speak Latin | History | Status | — | 100% | 5 |
How to read these. In Scholar’s Dream, books argue with each other. Each thing a book can do in a debate is a move, and most moves carry a real quotation — the words the book puts on the table when it uses that move.
Strong against lists the opposing books and arguments a move was written to answer. Used against one of them, it hits much harder than usual: ×2 means twice the normal force, ×4 four times. It is the game’s way of saying: this is the sentence that answers that argument. Open an entry to read why.
“For if I say, This is my hand, and if it be not a hand, then am I a liar…”
Wyclif, sermon on Matthew 26:26, in Grenville Kleiser, The World’s Great Sermons I (1908, public domain). (trimmed quote)public domain
In the gameWords mean what they would mean in a mouth. Wyclif will not let a sentence do something in church that it could not do at a table.
“Nothing is to be believed that is not founded upon this book, and to its teachings nothing is to be added.”
Wyclif, De Veritate Sacrae Scripturae, as summarised in Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church VI § 41 (public domain).public domain
In the gameThe rule Wyclif argued for a century and a half before anyone called it sola scriptura, and the rule this whole game is played by.
If nothing may be believed but what stands in the book, then everyone who must believe has to be able to reach the book.
“For in him we live, and move, and have our being. As some of your own poets have said.”
Acts 17:28 (WEB) — Paul at the Areopagus, quoting the Athenians’ own poets back to them.
In the gamePick the part of the opponent’s case that is true and affirm it. That point can no longer be used against you, and the opponent’s Defend falls sharply. It deals no damage. Affirm something false and you have only agreed with an error.
“They said it in Wyclif’s day, and the hypocrites say now, that God’s Word arouseth insurrection.”
Tyndale, quoted in Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church VI § 40 (public domain).public domain
In the gameThe oldest reason given for keeping the Bible out of ordinary hands: that people who read it will not stay quiet. Tyndale had heard it too, and answered it by naming it.
Name the real reason and it stops sounding like care for the reader. Tyndale heard the same sentence a hundred and fifty years later and said so.
“Logic, as in Oxford, changes very frequently, yea, every twenty years, but the Scriptures are yea, yea and nay, nay. They never change. They stand to eternity.”
Wyclif, De Veritate Sacrae Scripturae, as summarised in Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church VI § 41 (public domain).public domain
In the gameSchools change their minds every twenty years. The text does not. Whatever is settled by a fashion can be unsettled by the next one.
A council can reverse a council, and this one did. The text it was condemning has not moved.
Schools change their minds every twenty years, and the text does not. A meaning that could be put off for ever would have moved by now. Nobody in the history of the church has read John 3:16 as a recipe.
“Wherever we see the word of God sincerely preached and heard, wherever we see the sacraments administered according to the institution of Christ, there we cannot have any doubt that the Church of God has some existence, since his promise cannot fail.”
Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion IV.1.9 (trans. Beveridge, 1845), public domain.public domain
In the gameRefuses to produce a lineage, because a lineage was never the test. Look for preaching and sacraments; where you find them you have found the church, and where you do not, a list of bishops will not supply one.
It does not produce a lineage. It changes what would count as one — and the church turns out to have been in a great many buildings that were flying his flag.
Refuses to produce a lineage, because a lineage was never the test.
Where the Word is preached and heard, there is a church. That is the test, and a decree is not it.
A definition of the church, aimed at a market stall. True, and nowhere near it.
The passages the Scriptorium holds on screen, word for word from a public-domain translation. Written in Latin.
“Nothing is to be believed that is not founded upon this book, and to its teachings nothing is to be added.”
Wyclif, De Veritate Sacrae Scripturae, as summarised in Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church VI § 41 (public domain).
“Logic, as in Oxford, changes very frequently, yea, every twenty years, but the Scriptures are yea, yea and nay, nay. They never change. They stand to eternity.”
Wyclif, De Veritate Sacrae Scripturae, as summarised in Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church VI § 41 (public domain).
“For if I say, This is my hand, and if it be not a hand, then am I a liar…”
Wyclif, sermon on Matthew 26:26, in Grenville Kleiser, The World’s Great Sermons I (1908, public domain). (trimmed quote)
“They said it in Wyclif’s day, and the hypocrites say now, that God’s Word arouseth insurrection.”
Tyndale, quoted in Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church VI § 40 (public domain).
Oxford’s best philosopher turned on the machinery of his own church and argued, book by book, that nothing may be believed which is not founded on Scripture. He set men to putting the Bible into English.
The Council of Constance condemned him thirty-one years after he was buried, and had his bones dug up and burnt. Thomas Fuller: the ashes were cast into a brook, and “the ashes of Wicliffe are the emblem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed the world over.”