Why were John Wycliff and Jan Huss persecuted?
• There was always a very narrow limit, of course, as to how much the Church was willing to tolerate concerning the criticism by some people of its obvious hunger for wealth and power. • At Oxford university, John Wycliff by 1370 stirred up controversy in teaching the personal freedom of the individual believer, who stood in matters of faith accountable only to God–and to no one else. Wycliff also pointed out that many of the practices of the church not only had no support from scripture but indeed went against what scripture clearly taught about the Christian life. To demonstrate his point he translated the Latin Bible into English so that the common Englishman could read for himself what it was that God and Christ had once taught the world. • Soon his teachings not only had stirred up Oxford University but were spreading to the universities on the continent. • The Church was furious about his challenge to its unquestioned authority–but seemed unable to do anything about them until
