Wyclif’s Mystic Body

A Study of his Summa de Ente and De Ecclesia

Book cover: Wyclif’s Mystic Body

Extent: 209 pages

Publisher: Wiley-VCH

Subjects: Religious Studies

Series: Studia Traditionis Theologiae

Language: English

Paperback (Published)

(September 2026)

ISBN: 9782503623863

6.14 x 9.21 inches

Price: $88.00

Wyclif’s ecclesiology as expressed in De Ecclesia is shown to arise from his philosophical realism as developed in his Summa de Ente


John Wyclif’s concept of the Church as a corpus mysticum, as described in his De Ecclesia, is based in the metaphysical realism described in the treatises of Summa de Ente I. In this study, Lahey establishes that Wyclif’s ontology and philosophy of language support the distinct reality of aggregate beings, apart from their constituent parts. The Church is just such a being, Wyclif believes, a continuation of the Incarnation in history.