SOURCE: Heseltine, G. C. “The Myth of Wycliffe.” Thought 7, no. 1 (June 1932): 108-32.

In the following essay, Heseltine questions Wyclif's status as “a profound philosopher or theologian who paved the way to a purer Christianity on a basis of reason, logic, and sound theological principle.”

It has become an accepted belief amongst Protestants, and an historical reproach against the Catholic Church, that John Wycliffe, the learned and holy reformer, labored all his life unceasingly for the promulgation of a purer Christianity, was the first to translate the Bible into the vernacular, and suffered shameful persecution for his beliefs. He has been hailed as the father of the Reformation, the pioneer of religious freedom and a man of profound learning, because it has been the fashion of the historians of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries so to represent him.

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In the Life and Opinions of John de Wycliffe, D...