John Wyclif: Scriptural Logic, Real Presence and the Parameters of Orthodoxy.

Jeffrey, David Lyle

John Wyclif: Scriptural Logic, Real Presence and the Parameters of Orthodoxy. By Ian Christopher Levy. Marquette Studies in Theology, 36. Milwaukee, Wisc.: Marquette University Press, 2003. 351 pp. $35.00 paper.

Ian Christopher Levy, in this elaboration and reworking of his fruitful 1997 doctoral dissertation, has added to the series in which his work appears a monograph of particular value to students of late medieval theology. Levy's study, as much else in this series, is indebted to the mentoring of Kenneth Hagen, whose own primary interests included cultivation of a concern for resituating biblical interpretation in the heart of Catholic theological thought, and for a Catholic reinterpretation of Luther and Reformation exegesis as a crucial nexus in interpretation history. Levy's work on the scriptural logic and Eucharistic theology of John Wyclif extends somewhat the range, even as it reflects the contours of Hagen's own interests.

From a Catholic point of view, Wyclif is remembered primarily as a heretic, and for heresy concerning doctrines of the Eucharist most notably. In Protestant historical accounts of his life, it has been conventional to regard him as a hero of ecclesiastical reform and promoter of lay-instruction, through biblical translation and the training of priests capable, among other things, of expository preaching in the vernacular. Levy strives to set these realities in a judicious balance. Accordingly, this study considers the way in which Wyclif's larger opus of works in logic, metaphysics, political theory, and biblical commentary develops inexorably over his career toward a theology in which, admirably for the Protestant view, Scripture in its plain sense is elevated to the place of supreme theological authority, but also in which, disastrously for the Catholic, Wyclif's insistent literalism concerning Christ's words in the institution (hoc est corpus meum) lead him to renounce, formally, the doctrine of transubstantiation. Levy is at pains to show what many accounts, however, do not, namely that rejection of the scholastic arguments for transubstantiation as incompatible with the plain sense (for Wyclif the intentio auctoris) of the scriptural phrase in its canonical light does not in fact lead Wyclif to reject belief in the "real presence" of Christ in the sacrament. Indeed, Wyclif, deeply pious, went to some lengths to protect and defend the real presence as such.

As is well known, Wyclif was a metaphysical realist. This was not unusual at Oxford; since Grosseteste and Ockham it had been the dominant position there. But Wyclif pushed the implications of metaphysical realism along a trajectory of affective piety that connects his thought to a number of late medieval "Augustinians" for whom spiritual "purity," as Levy puts it (52), (or "holiness of thought and work," as both Walter Hilton and Chaucer describe it) is deeply determinative of reliability in one's intellectual vision. Levy draws attention to this, not as he might, to explain Wyclif's concerns for spiritual rectitude as a condition for office (De domino; De domino civilo), but rather to get at Wyclif's evident distrust of any attempt at theological thought not grounded in a vital practice of faith and biblical obedience.

Levy seeks to show how Wyclif's metaphysical realist convictions prohibit his accepting the "annihilation of substance" idea that the conventional doctrine of transubstantiation requires. He then ties this feature of Wyclif's thought to his high view of Scripture and its perspicuous revelation of divine intent in the words of institution as that is situated logically among other dicta of the lex Christi. At each step Levy contextualizes helpfully in relation to prevalent theological discussion and normative consensus. The result is a nuanced, yet more accurate reading of Wyclif on what are, after all, his central ideas. And in the process Levy reveals to us an historical irony of the sort his mentor--and other Catholic theologians of course--have found upon reexamining the thought of Martin Luther. As Levy puts it, "perhaps the greatest problem is that Wyclif himself does not see how close his own position regarding 'true and real' presence is to that of his adversaries" (325). Many others before Levy have failed to appreciate the proximity; his book should help make that misunderstanding less conventional.

David Lyle Jeffrey

Baylor University