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The Plague's Failure by Rev. Raymond Parnell
Bubonic plague is one of the worst epidemic diseases caused by bacteria called Yersinia pestis. "Plague is transmitted to human beings chiefly by fleas from infected rats" (World Book Encyclopedia). The first records of plague in Europe tell of an epidemic in Athens in 430 B.C. One of the worst occurred in Rome in A.D. 262, and killed 5,000 persons a day. Plague entered New York City from South America in 1899 and San Francisco from Honolulu or Hong Kong in 1900. Enlightened countries have controlled plague with strict quarantines, antibiotics and campaigns to exterminate rats. There are still cases of plague in every continent except Australia, and epidemics occur in Asia and Africa.
As sobering and shuddering as this killer disease is, there is one time it failed! Dr. Craig Lampe in his treatise, The Forbidden Book, tells the thrilling story of the reformer, John Wycliffe. Wycliffe was a brilliant 14th century Oxford Scholar and translated the Bible from Latin into English in order to enlighten the masses oppressed through ignorance. "Wycliffe decried transubstantiation that was contrary to Scripture, popery, Mariology and all other false dogma inflicted on men by the Roman Church. His answers and solutions to life were for Believers to live by faith. To live by faith required knowledge of Scripture." Wycliffe was a mental giant, well versed in law, theology, science, philosophy and logic. He taught so forcefully that his classrooms overflowed with disciples who were amazed at his candor and logic. He did not fear to mock the Church as a disgrace to God, who tried to silence him but could not. His young preachers, called Lollards, would take handwritten portions of translated Scripture from village to village to read and instruct the people.
It took up to eighteen months to transcribe a whole Bible, and the undertaking was very expensive (Johannes Gutenberg of Mainz, Germany, would not invent movable type until 1454 A.D.). Wycliffe urged his young preachers not to fear death if it came, and by 1408 the spread of Lollardism caused great alarm in the church. Time was not on the side of the white haired, white bearded soldier of the cross. On the last day of 1384, New Year’s Eve, Wycliffe charged a follower to continue the work and then left this world to receive his reward. He was not to rest in peace, however, for in 1428, forty-four years after his death, Pope Martin V ordered the bones of Wycliffe to be dug up and burned. How ironic that John Huss, who later initiated a religious movement based on the ideas of John Wycliffe, was burned at the stake with his tormentors using his manuscripts from Wycliffe’s lectures as kindling! Between 1348 and 1358, it was believed that 80% of England perished from the plague. “You woke up with a fever and were buried with the sunset.” Oxford had 15,000 inhabitants in 1348 but only 3,500 were left alive five years later. The plague failed, however, to kill John Wycliffe! How blessed the world was and is because of this Godly man! |
