Iohannis Wyclif Operis Evangelici Liber Tertius Et Quartus Sive De Antichristo Liber Primus Et Secundus. With Critical And Historical Notes; Vols III And IV (Classic Reprint) 12+

📒 Excerpt from Iohannis Wyclif Operis Evangelici Liber Tertius Et Quartus Sive De Antichristo Liber Primus Et Secundus: With Critical And Historical Notes; Vols III And IVThe word Antichrist has for Wyclif a very wide signification. According to him, every man whose teaching and whose manner of living are contrary to Jesus Christ, is Antichrist. The Pope that is not one Pope in particular, but the Papacy in general has laboured under this Opposition to Christ, ever since it became Caesarian and worldly by its secular possessions and temporal power. How little Millenarian ideas and tendencies influenced our author may be seen by the fact that, though he admits that Antichrist has reigned ever since Constantine and Pope Sylvester, he does not think that the end of the world is near, but believes this state of things to be transient, a passing stage in the development of the Church, which, as it existed centuries before Anti christ, will also outlive him in the future. Still I will not deny that the Western Schism made a considerable impression upon Wyclif. It is even demonstrated that he began to disseminate and to establish his doctrine concerning Antichrist after 1378, till he set it forth fully developed in the present work, afterwards in the unsparing language of his tract <'de Christo et suo adversario Antichristo, and lastly, though not at great length, in his exposition of the Gospel of St. Matthew.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of...