Fordham


IHSP

Medieval History


Selected Sources Full Text Sources Saints' Lives Law Texts Maps Medieval Films Search Help


Selected Sources Sections Studying History End of Rome Byzantium Islam Roman Church Early Germans Anglo-Saxons Celtic World Carolingians 10 C Collapse Economic Life Crusades Empire & Papacy France England Celtic States Nordic Europe Iberia Italy Eastern Europe Intellectual Life Medieval Church Jewish Life Social History Sex & Gender States & Society Renaissance Reformation Exploration
IHSP Credits

Medieval Sourcebook:
John Wyclif: On the Sacrament of Communion


Wyclif's Trialogus is a long treatise in the Scholastic style on various subjects which he believed were being wrongfully taught in the Catholic Church. He cast the argument in the form of a classical dialogue between three people called Alithia, Pseudis and Phronesis. The argument against transubstantiation, a small part of which follows, is based on his logical proof that bread and body cannot be in the same place at the same time.

 


ALITHIA. I must request you, brother, to show still farther, from reason or Scripture, that there is no identification of the bread with the body of Christ... For I am no means pleased with the spurious writings which the moderns use, to prove an accident without a subject, because the church so teaches. Such evidence should satisfy no one.

PHRONESIS. As to identification, we must, in the first place, agree on what you mean by the term. It signifies, God's making natures, which are distinct in species or number, one and the same - as though, for instance, he should make the person of Peter to be one with Paul... For if A is identical with B, then both of them remain; since a thing which is destroyed is not made identical, but is annihilated, or ceases to be. And if both of them remain, then they differ as much as at first, and differ consequently in number, and so are not, in the sense given, the same...

PSEUDIS. In the first place, you cannot escape from this expository syllogism: First, This bread becomes corrupt, or is eaten by a mouse. Second, The same bread is the body of Christ. Third, Therefore the body of Christ does thus become corrupt, and is thus eaten; - and thus you are involved in inconsistency.

 


From: Tracts and Treatises of John de Wycliffe, ed. Robert Vaughan. London: Blackburn and Pardon, 1845, pp. 150, 152.

 

This HTML text prepared by Belle Tuten of Emory University

 


This text is part of the Internet Medieval Source Book. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and copy-permitted texts related to medieval and Byzantine history.

Unless otherwise indicated the specific electronic form of the document is copyright. Permission is granted for electronic copying, distribution in print form for educational purposes and personal use. If you do reduplicate the document, indicate the source. No permission is granted for commercial use.

Paul Halsall November 1996
halsall@murray.fordham.edu



The Internet History Sourcebooks Project is located at the History Department of  Fordham University, New York. The Internet Medieval Sourcebook, and other medieval components of the project, are located at the Fordham University Center for Medieval Studies.The IHSP recognizes the contribution of Fordham University, the Fordham University History Department, and the Fordham Center for Medieval Studies in providing web space and server support for the project. The IHSP is a project independent of Fordham University.  Although the IHSP seeks to follow all applicable copyright law, Fordham University is not the institutional owner, and is not liable as the result of any legal action.

© Site Concept and Design: Paul Halsall created 26 Jan 1996: latest revision 11 March 2024 [CV]