The Wycliffe Bible

J.W. Richter

Fig. 1: In þe bigynnyng was/þe word

Beginning of the Gospel of John from a 14th century copy of Wycliffe's

translation

The beginning of the Gospel of John in a copy of John

Wycliffe's translation of the Bible. This copy was made in the
late 14th century and was pocket sized, probably for the use of
a wandering preacher, perhaps a Lollard. The edition contained
only segments of the New Testament. This copy eventually
worked its way to Wycliffe biographer John Lewis (1675-
1747).
The gospel begins at the large, red & blue decorated character
"I" and reads: ‘In þe bigynnyng was/þe word & þe word/was at
god/& god was/þe word.’
1 Wyclif's Bible
Wyclif's Bible1 is the name now given to a group of Bible
translations into Middle English that were made under the
direction of, or at the instigation of, John Wycliffe 2. They
appeared over a period from approximately 1382 to 1395.

Fig. 2: Wycliffe's Bible

Beginning of the Gospel of John from a 14th century copy of Wycliffe's
translation3

1:
Source: Wikipedia's Wyclif's Bible
2:
ca. 1330 - 1384
3:
Folio 2v of MS Hunter 191 (T.8.21)

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These Bible translations were the chief inspiration and chief
cause of the Lollard movement, a pre-Reformation movement
that rejected many of the distinctive teachings of the Roman
Catholic Church. In the early Middle Ages, most Western
Christian people encountered the Bible only in the form of oral
versions of scriptures, verses and homilies in Latin (other
sources were mystery plays, usually conducted in the
vernacular, and popular iconography). Though relatively few
people could read at this time, Wycliffe’s idea was to translate
the Bible into the vernacular. “[…] it helpeth Christian men to
study the Gospel in that tongue in which they know best
Christ’s sentence.”
Long thought to be the work of Wycliffe himself, it is now
generally believed that the Wycliffite translations were the
work of several hands. Nicholas of Hereford is known to have
translated a part of the text; John Purvey and perhaps John
Trevisa are names that have been mentioned as possible
authors. The translators worked from the Vulgate, the Latin
Bible that was the standard Biblical text of Western
Christianity, and the text conforms fully with Catholic
teaching. They included in the testaments those works which
would later be called deuterocanonical along with 3 Esdras
which is now called 2 Esdras and Paul's epistle to the
Laodiceans.
Although unauthorized, the work was popular. Wycliffite Bible
texts are the most common manuscript literature in Middle
English. Over 250 manuscripts of the Wycliffite Bible survive.

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2 Versions of the Wycliffite Bible
Surviving copies of the Wycliffite Bible 4 fall into two broad
textual families, an "early" version and a later version. Both
versions are flawed by a slavish regard to the word order and
syntax of the Latin originals; the later versions give some
indication of being revised in the direction of idiomatic
English. A wide variety of Middle English dialects are
represented. The second, revised group of texts is much larger
than the first. Some manuscripts contain parts of the Bible in
the earlier version, and other parts in the later version; this
suggests that the early version may have been meant as a rough
draft that was to be recast into the somewhat better English of
the second version. The second version, though somewhat
improved, still retained a number of infelicities of style, as in
its version of Genesis 1:3
• Latin Vulgate: Dixitque Deus fiat lux et facta est lux
• Early Wyclif: And God seide, Be maad liȝt; and maad
is liȝt
• Later Wyclif: And God seide, Liȝt be maad; and liȝt
was maad
• King James: And God said, Let there be light: and there
was light

4:
Source: Wikipedia's Wyclif's Bible

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3 Suppression
The association between Wyclif's Bible and Lollardy caused
the kingdom of England and the established Roman Catholic
Church to undertake a drastic campaign to suppress it. In the
early years of the 15th century, Henry IV (De haeretico
comburendo), Archbishop Thomas Arundel, and Henry
Knighton (to name a few) published criticism and enacted
some of the severest religious censorship laws in Europe at that
time. Even twenty years after Wycliffe's death, at the Oxford
Convocation of 1408, it was solemnly voted that no new
translation of the Bible should be made without prior approval.
However, as the text translated in the various versions of the
Wyclif Bible was the Latin Vulgate, and as it contained no
heterodox readings, there was in practice no way by which the
ecclesiastical authorities could distinguish the banned version;
and consequently many Catholic commentators of the 15th and
16th centuries (such as Thomas More) took these manuscript
English bibles to represent an anonymous earlier orthodox
translation. Consequently manuscripts of the Wyclif Bible,
which when inscribed with a date always purport to precede
1409, the date of the ban, circulated freely and were widely
used by clergy and laity.

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4 Encoding Antipodes

Genesis 1-5
1 In the bigynnyng God made of nouyt heuene and
erthe.
2 Forsothe the erthe was idel and voide, and derknessis
weren on the face of depthe; and the Spiryt of the Lord
was borun on the watris.
3 And God seide, Liyt be maad, and liyt was maad.
4 And God seiy the liyt, that it was good, and he
departide the liyt fro derknessis; and he clepide the liyt,
5 dai, and the derknessis, nyyt. And the euentid and
morwetid was maad, o daie.

Genesis1-5 demonstrates the strange wordings of the medieval

text:
• ‘In þe bigynnyng‘ applies the sacred “Icelandic”
character “þ” as “th” in “the”
• heuene = sky
• erthe = earth
• seide = said
• seiy = saw
• liyt = light, in which the “y” is transformed to “gh”.
• nyyt5 = night, in which the first character “y” is
transformed to “i” and the second “y” is transformed to
“gh”.

5:
Equivalent to French “la nuit”

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 • euentid6 = evening
• morwetid = morning

light and night

The language is archaic expressing a strange poetic character in
carefully selecting the words and characters for newly created
words. Genesis reveals special contrasts in the expressions for
created antipodes “light” and “night”, which have been chosen
purposely to contrast light against night. In modern English the
contrast is highlighted by simply exchanging the “l”-character
in “light” against the negating character “n” in “night”.
Obviously “nyyt” has been derived from the French word “La
nuit”, in which the first character “y” replaces a “u” and the
second character “y” replaces a “i”. This is a rather strange way
of transforming words from French into a newly created
language. Why did the authors prefer to writing “nyyt” instead
of “nuit”.
The similar word “liyt” for “light” exchanges the first negating
character “n” in “nyyt” to produce the light “liyt”. An exact
transformation would have chosen “lyyt” for “light” to match
the wording for “nyyt”.
Obviously the “y”-character has been used to represent two
different, antipodal symbols “u” and “i”, which have been
identified as the female, respectively male elements7 in the
creation legend.

6:
Eventide = the “twi”-light with equal amounts of liyt and nyyt between
day and night
7:
See: The Hermetic Codex - including a History of PIE-Religion and The
Sky-God Dyaeus

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The bivalent symbolism in the “y”-character may also be found
in the personal pronoun of the first person singular, which in
modern English “I” differs form the archaic “Y” in Wyclif's
Bible.

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5 The Ego-pronoun
In Wyclif's Bible the personal pronoun of the first person
singular has been defined as an upper case character “Y”.

Hosea 11-98
9 Y schal not do the strong veniaunce of my wraththe. Y
schal not turne, to leese Effraym; for Y am God, and
not man. Y am hooli in the myddis of thee, and Y schal
not entre in to a citee.

In Hosea 11-9 the personal pronoun of the first person singular

has been defined as “Y” instead of the modern “I”. The word
“Y” correlates to the Spanish word “yo”9.

Upper Case Characters

It has been suggested the English people capitalize “I” to
highlight the “I”-pronoun against a lower case “i”. This may be
a good argument for an “i”, but there is no good reason to
capitalize “Y” to highlight the “Y”-pronoun against a lower
case “y”. The Spanish word “y”, representing “and” has not
been written in capital letters as well.
Capitalizing “Y” may have been selected to symbolize divine
concept in the “Y”-character.

8:
Book Osee in Wyclif's Bible
9:
to be translated as the pronoun “I”

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Androgynous symbols in characters
It must be noted the “Y”-character graphically consists of
character “V”, respectively “U” located on top of an “I”.
Combining a female “U”/”V” and a male “I”-character will
result in an androgynous “UI”- or “VI”-combination,
representing a divine symbol. Did the authors of Wyclif's Bible
in analogy to Occitan language encode the hieroglyphs I and U
in the Ego-Pronoun “Y”?
Occitan usually applies the Ego-pronoun ieu10, respectively iu
along with the Creator God Dieu, Diu. In these cases we will
note the remarkable inclusion of the Ego-pronoun ieu inside
the Creator God's name Dieu, respectively the inclusion of the
Ego-pronoun iu inside the Creator God's name Diu.
Occitan is a Romance language spoken in Southern France, the
Occitan Valleys of Italy, Monaco, and in Val d'Aran in
Catalonia, Spain, the regions sometimes known informally as
Occitania. It is also spoken in a linguistic enclave of Guardia
Piemontese11. The languages, as spoken in early medieval
times, might be considered variant forms of the same language.
The term Provencal is often used to refer to Occitan.
In Occitan symbolism “for Y am God, and not man. Y am hooli
in the myddis of thee” would express:
For I am Diéu, and not iéu; the Holy One (é) in the midst of
iéu;

10:
One of the most marvelous applications of these words are to be found in
Frédéric Mistral 's Occitan epic Mirèio (1859).
11:
Calabria, Italy

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In analogy to Occitan the English pronoun “Y” obviously
symbolizes iéu by interpreting “Y” as an assembly of
elementary u and i-symbols.
This interpretation allows us to understand the symbolism in
the “Y”-pronoun in medieval English. Now let us analyse some
of the androgynous encodings in the Book Genesis.

Androgynous Y-Symbol for Albert Magnus12

Fig. 3: Y-Symbol for Albertus Magnus (1617)

12:
Symbola aureae mensae duodecim nationum by Michael Maier - typis
Antonij Hummij, impensis Lucae Iennis, 1617 - 621 Seiten

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This work describes 12 alchemists, each of them carrying their
typical symbols: Hermes, und Mary from Judea- Democrit
from Greece, Morienus from Rome, der Avicenna from Persia,
Albertus Magnus from Germany.
At the bottom line Arnoldus von Villanova from France,
Thomas of Aquin from Italy, Raymundus Lullus, from Spain ,
Roger Bacon, from England, Melchior Cibinensis from
Hungary and an anonymous Sarmate (from Poland or Russia).
The sixth book introduces Albertus Magnus13, who meets an
androgynous couple carrying a character Y. The symbolism of
this depiction however is unknown to me, but may be
interpreted as an explanation of the Y-character as an
androgynous symbol.
The book reveals the following introduction:
Symbola aureae mensae duodecim nationum, hoc est Hermaea seu
Mercurii festa ab heroibus duodenis selectis, artis chymicae usu,
sapientia et authoritate paribus celebrata, ad Pyrgopolynicen seu
adversarium illum tot annis jactabundum, virgini Chemiae
injuriam argumentis tam vitiosis quam convitiis argutis inferentem,
confundendum et exarmandum, artifices vero optime de ea meritos
suo honori et famae restituendum. Frankfurt a. M: Lucas Jennis,
1617.
Albertus Magnus, O.P. (1193 – November 15, 1280), also
known as Albert the Great and Albert of Cologne, was a
Dominican friar and a bishop, who achieved fame for his
comprehensive knowledge of and advocacy for the peaceful
coexistence of science and religion.

13:
1193/1206 – 1280, depicted at page 262 in Symbola aureae mensae
duodecim nationum

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Contemporaries such as Roger Bacon applied the term
"Magnus" to Albertus during his own lifetime, referring to his
immense reputation as a scholar and philosopher.

Genesis 26-27
Sky and earth have been created out of nouyt, which is the
same wording to be applied for the creation of “man”:
26
Make we man to oure ymage and liknesse, and be he
souereyn to the fischis of the see, and to the volatilis of
heuene, and to vnresonable beestis of erthe, and to ech
creature, and to ech `crepynge beest, which is moued in
erthe.
27
And God made of nouyt a man to his ymage and
liknesse; God made of nouyt a man, to the ymage of
God; God made of nouyt hem, male and female.
Genesis27 uses “God made of nouyt a man” instead of the
modern wording “In God’s image he created him”, directly to
be followed by “God made of nouyt hem, male and female”
applying a plural expression14 “hem” for the first man, being
male and female simultaneously. In a modern text we may
read:
Genesis 1-27
God created man in his own image
His own image is Diéu .

In God’s image he created him;

In God’s image (Diéu) he created iéu;

14:
The singular equivalent for “hem” is “hym”. See Exodus 6-22 “Therfor
Noe dide alle thingis whiche God comaundide to hym”.

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 male and female he created them.
male (i) and female (u) he created iéu.

Genesis 28
28
And God blesside hem, and seide, Encreesse ye, and
be ye multiplied, and fille ye the erthe, and make ye it
suget, and be ye lordis to fischis of the see, and to
volatilis of heuene, and to alle lyuynge beestis that ben
moued on erthe.
The correct translation of this quotation of Genesis28 is “God
blessed them”, which implies to understand “ye” as a pronoun
of the second person plural. For a first man this can only be
understood if “ye” is an androgynous couple...
The modern translation for Genesis28 is:
1-28God blessed them. God said to them, “Be fruitful,
multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it.

God blessed iéu. God said to iéu, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill
1-28

the earth, and subdue it.

Genesis 31
31
And God seiy alle thingis whiche he made, and tho
weren ful goode. And the euentid and morwetid was
maad, the sixte day.
Genesis 1-31God saw everything that he had made, and,
behold, it was very good. There was evening and there was
morning, the sixth day.

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6 Exodus 28-4
4 Forsothe these schulen be the clothis, whiche thei
schulen make; `thei schulen make racional, and a
clooth on the schuldris, a coote, and a streyt lynnun
clooth, a mytre, and a girdil; hooli cloothis to Aaron,
thi brother, and to hise sones, that thei be set in
preesthod to me.
5 And thei schulen take gold, and iacynt, and purpur,
and ` reed selk twies died, and bijs;
6 forsothe thei schulen make the clooth on the schuldris
of gold, and of iacynt, and purpur, and of `reed selk
twies died, and of bijs foldid ayen, bi broyderi werk of
dyuerse colours.

The colours of Aaron's garments have been defined clearly as

hyacinth, purple and red, according to the new biblical
versions:

...and they shall make holy garments for

Exodus 28-4

Aaron your brother, and his sons, that he may

minister to me in the priest’s office. 5They shall
take the gold, and the blue, and the purple, and the
scarlet, and the fine linen.

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7 YY-words in Wycliffe's Bible
In analogy to the word nyyt (night) several other YY-words
have been identified in the book Genesis in Wycliffe's Bible.
These couples of Y-characters must be considered as important
elements, representing variants of religious power, e.g. in
“give”, “mighty”, “knight”:
• nyyt = night
• yyue = give – yyuen = given15; foryyuenesse =
forgiveness (→ foryyue = forgive)
• smyyt = smith16
• nyy, nyye = near17
• myyti = mighty18; Almyyti = Allmighty19; myyten20,
myyte = might21
• leiyynge = laying22
• knyytis = knights23
The YY-combinations replace the modern alternatives “igh” in
night, mighty, knight, “gi” in give, “ear” in near.

15:
Genesis 24-41
16:
Genesis 4-22
17:
Genesis 12-11
18:
Genesis 6-4
19:
Genesis 17-1
20:
Genesis 19-11
21:
Genesis 26-10
22:
Genesis 21-6
23:
Genesis 26-26

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8 Summary
In analogy to many other illuminated bibles the beginning of
the Gospel of John from the 14th century copy of Wycliffe's
translation24 applies initials in red and blue decorations, which
most probably symbolize the red (male) and blue (female)
elements of man and the purple colour symbolizing the divine
synthesis of the male and female elements.
The Wyclif Bible clearly defines an identical source nouyt25 for
the creation of the sky, earth and for “man”. “God made of
nouyt hem, male and female” defines the first “man” as a
plural individual, male and female character, which implies an
androgynous couple.
The Wyclif Bible identified the first man as a singular
individual creature, simultaneously male and female, exactly as
it had been described by Plato in Symposium. Describing these
concepts in plain English certainly must have triggered the
severest religious censorship laws of the medieval Church.
The Ego-pronoun (the personal pronoun of the first person
singular) has been defined as an upper case character “Y”26
instead of the modern “I”. In analogy to the Ego-pronoun iéu
in Occitan language the Y-pronoun symbolized an androgynous
iu-synthesis in the divine concept. The Wyclif Bible documents
some of the most remarkable versions of the ancient Book
Genesis explaining liyt (light) and nyyt (night) as antipodes in a
divine concept, in which the Y-character equally represented
the female U and the male I-elements.

24:
Folio 2v of MS Hunter 191 (T.8.21)
25:
Nought (?)
26:
From Hosea 11-9: “Y am hooli in the myddis of thee”

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