george wishart
born: 1513
died: 1546
father: james wishart [1]
mother: elizabeth learmount [1]
spouse:
briefly, wishart's show trial for heresy and subsequent ritualistic murder by the catholic church was the event that set the scottish reformation in motion.
- taught greek at a school created by john erskine of dun. specifically, new testament greek. this was a revolutionary act at the time. as surreal as it sounds, the bible could only be read in latin. this is not the language it was written in; anybody wanting to get at the oldest manuscripts would need to read the greek or aramaic. yet, the church was hardly interested in this. rather, it enforced the law specifically to prevent the laity from reading the bible on it's own and coming to it's own conclusions; only the clergy was permitted to read and understand the book. as literacy spread with the renaissance, the blatantly absurd nature of this reality became apparent: the western world was run by a nearly omnipotent church that based it's power in a book that nobody was allowed to read. this was one of the major causes of the reformation. so, it seems silly now, but distributing biblical material in greek was, at the time, a deeply revolutionary act.
- once the authorities found out what he was doing, he had to flee to england where he studied "reformed doctrines" at cambridge.
- friend of hugh latimer, bishop of worcester. upon latimer's suggestion, wishart went to bristol to preach. he was quickly arrested, charged with blasphemy and sent to thomas cromwell, chief minister to henry VIII, who had his own reasons to engineer an overthrow of papal supremacy. however, a law was then quickly passed through parliament that restored catholic ascendancy and wishart was forced to recant.
- when the church successfully forced somebody to recant, they had to wear an embroidery on their sleeve that illustrated a heretic being burned at the stake. this was meant to remind everybody of what happens when you challenge the authority of the church. as punishment, wishart was forced to wear the badge as he continued to preach.
- the nature of his initial heresy is unclear, which strikes me as suspicious. was there a heresy at all, or was the church merely attacking the language issue? some people have suggested that wishart carried on the views of latimer: denial of purgatory, rejection of the saints, rejection of the virgin birth and some other typical reformist views. others have suggested socinianism. all that is clear is that he recanted and continued preaching with the burning heretic sewn into his sleeve.
- he left for germany and switzerland soon after, no doubt realizing his own luck in escaping death. he seems to have studied calvinism while there. eventually, he went back to england, and then returned to scotland under the apparent protection of his maternal uncle, john learmount, who was in the inner circle of the scottish monarchy.
- he seems to have started preaching again at the age of 32 or 33, which is clearly consistent with all of the other evidence that strongly suggests 'jesus freak'. he also stopped running from persecution, plausibly under the hope that he would die horribly. see, this is the creepy side to jesus freaks: an obsession with being the object of sacrifice. i know from experience...
- as it was, a law was passed in 1543 that allowed for people to read the bible in greek. so, wishart was safe from direct persecution on that level. however, the evil cardinal was still out to get him for challenging his authority. wishart was sent a cease and desist order; he reacted with a speech full of fancy, delusional language that was saturated by an egotistical grandeur that saw his persecution as having some kind of divine purpose. see, this is why you can't persecute these nutcases. it's like arguing with a conspiracy theorist. the more tyrannical you are, the more virtuous their suffering is. strategically working towards the final abolition of religion requires a different set of tactics that digs deeper into it's root causes.
- wishart seems to have collapsed into irrational behaviour at this point, fully expecting his own ritual murder. or, perhaps, the stories enter the realm of exaggerated legend rather than historical fact. he began preaching in public spaces, getting involved in private quarrels, preaching to the sick - that sort of thing. he also started spending an unhealthy amount of time by himself in the garden in the middle of the night, which began to concern people. of the more obvious jesus freak fabrications, which appear to be attributable to knox, there's a story about him catching a priest that was sent to kill him and then pleading with the angry crowd not to harm the fucker. there's also a story where he predicts his own death.
- wishart eventually ended up in edinburgh, where he was allowed to preach under the personal protection of some powerful local landowners (alexander chrichton of brunstone, hugh douglas of longniddry, john cockburn of ormiston). some of these landowners appear to have been involved in a plot against the existing cardinal that also included the maternal uncle and brother of george wishart. that is to say that there were political reasons for this protection. here, he became a sort of mentor to knox. however, his ministry was not well attended. the plan to "make it big" in the city was a failure, and wishart began to lose funding from his investors. so, wishart became morose and suicidal, stating he was 'weary of the world' and other such things. it's not stated whether or not he turned to drugs, but he'd be a shitty failed corporate rock star if he didn't. while wishart went home to be burned alive, knox stayed in edinburgh to spearhead the scottish reformation.
- wishart was arrested while under the care of john cockburn in a less treacherous spin on the judas myth. knox seems to have recreated the story of the last supper in his retelling of events, with minor modifications. then, like jesus, wishart went quietly with his capturers, stating that what happens is god's will. he was then tortured by the earl of bothwell, who plays the part of judas. a trial then follows, in which wishart is convicted of heresy. there's much jesus freak wordiness in his last words, which knox somehow obtained a perfect recollection of.
- one of the accusations against wishart is that he denied the sacrament of confession, claiming instead that confessing to the priest "has no warrant" and that confession ought to be done with god directly. this is particularly interesting to me, as confession is one of the most blatant examples of religion being used as a means of statist control.
- overall, knox' narrative of wishart seems to be directly adapted from the life of jesus - to the point that it is questionable if it has any historical value whatsoever. the catholic church is even substituted into the role of the pharisees, cartoonish villainy and all. but, what strikes me most about the story is how wishart is a scottish substitution of jesus, and how that may have played into a nationalist discourse. i'm going to leave this page here because he has no descendants and it is of little consequence how historical the account of his life actually is. historically, he's an important person. yet, if i were to make a rationalist guess based on the nature of the stories surrounding george wishart, it would be that he did not exist at all as we know him - that he was almost entirely a fabrication of knox and perhaps even purposefully designed as his socrates.
[1]: memoir of george wishart