He was not further molested,--at least for the next two years. This interval was busily employed. A host of opponents sprung up against him after the adjudication at Oxford, and he was not of a temper to let them pass unanswered. His intense energy was little impaired by age or anxiety, and his opponents still found him a ready antagonist. Bowed down by persecution, his life by illness made a living death, he wavered not, nor ceased from his labours. During his last years Wiclif suffered much from paralysis--the effect, no doubt, of his anxious and stormy life. His first attack was in 1379. Perhaps the knowledge of his weak state prevented his enemies from pressing for the infliction of physical punishment. But a few months before his death he was cited by Urban II. to appear before him at Rome, to answer for his heresies. Wiclif was unable from illness to go, but he addressed a letter to his holiness in which he "tells his belief." The main points of it are his declaration of his entire dependence on Christ as the Son of God, and of his assurance of the supreme authority of Scripture. He acknowledges the pope to be Christ's chief vicar on earth--but adds, that he ought to follow the example of his master, who was the poorest of men when in this world. "This I take as wholesome counsel that the pope leave his worldly lordship to worldly lords, as Christ gave (charged) him, and move speedily all his clerks (clergy) to do so: for thus did Christ, and taught thus his disciples, till the fiend had blinded this world." He declares that if he were able he would go to the pope; but as he cannot, he supposes the pope will not show himself open anti-Christ by commanding him again to do that which God had rendered him unable to do. If his opinions can be prayed to be wrong, he is ready to recant; if it be necessary to die for them, he is willing, "for that I hope were good for me."