He was not a visionary.

More than this we cannot safely say about his prophetic vein.
The enthusiasm which induced a priest, notary, and teacher like Knox to carry a claymore in defence of a beloved teacher, Wishart, seems more appropriate to a man of about thirty than a man of forty, and, so far, supports the opinion that, in 1545, Knox was only thirty years of age.

In that case, his study of the debates between the Church and the new opinions must have been relatively brief.

Yet, in 1547, he already reckoned himself, not incorrectly, as a skilled disputant in favour of ideas with which he cannot have been very long familiar.
Wishart was taken, was tried, was condemned; was strangled, and his dead body was burned at St.Andrews on March 1, 1546.

It is highly improbable that Knox could venture, as a marked man, to be present at the trial.