This year, as Crossway marks the 25th anniversary of the English Standard Version and Christians mark 500 years since William Tyndale’s New Testament, I am thinking afresh about how books are made. A faithful translation, a theological treatise, or a classic sermon comes into our hands only through the labor of many people. Behind the author or translator whose name appears on the cover was a supporting cast: researchers, copyists, typesetters, designers, proofreaders, printers, and — in Tyndale’s case — smugglers and merchants who risked their lives. Zachary Purvis’ “Reading the Reformation: How Theologians, Printers, and Scribes Fueled the Growth of Protestantism” (Baker Academic, 2026) brings this often-overlooked labor into view.
Purvis, associate minister at Christ Reformed Church in Anaheim, California, and formerly a lecturer in church history and theology at Edinburgh Theological Seminary, has written a work of serious scholarship that is genuinely delightful to read — a rare feat. His subject is the material work behind the Reformation’s texts: how books were read and marked up, how manuscripts were copied and corrected, how sermons moved from pulpit to printed page, and how the records of ecclesiastical assemblies were preserved. Borrowing Anthony Grafton’s image of “inky fingers,” Purvis brings us into a world of paper, quills, cramped handwriting, printing shops, stoves, shipping barrels, deadlines, debts, and an extensive web of human relationships — the material realities that helped carry the Reformers’ message across Europe.
The book unfolds through four substantial case studies. Chapter 1 examines how Martin Luther, Jan Łaski, Huldrych Zwingli, and Guy de Brès read, annotated, excerpted, and repurposed books. Chapter 2 explores the demanding work of secretaries and amanuenses, especially those in Martin Bucer’s household, whose faithful service sustained scholarly careers and preserved theological legacies. Chapter 3 reconstructs the extraordinary process by which stenographers captured John Calvin’s preaching so that his sermons could be copied and printed for congregations beyond Geneva, including persecuted churches in France. Chapter 4 turns to the scribes who recorded ecclesiastical gatherings, culminating in the Westminster Assembly.
Together, these chapters show that reading, writing, preaching, editing, and preserving were communal enterprises. Purvis keeps the celebrated theologians in view while bringing the people who worked alongside them into the light.
The second chapter, “Martin Bucer and His Secretaries,” is worth the price of the book. Its setting alone is unforgettable. At the center of Bucer’s scholarly household stood not Luther’s famous dinner table but a stove. Exiled from Strasbourg and living in cold, damp Cambridge, Bucer received 20 pounds from King Edward VI to buy what Bucer’s frail body badly needed: heat. Around that stove he read, wrote, dictated, taught, prayed, and supervised a large household. One can easily picture the inky fingers and the cold hands warming by the fire. Even “De Regno Christi” — Bucer’s great gift to the young king — depended on a stove, a skilled copyist, fine binding, and a loan to buy the unpaid secretary a coat.
The Reformers’ studies were not quiet sanctuaries but busy workshops within busy households. Purvis uses this domestic scene to focus on the work of the amanuensis, or famulus: the secretary or assistant who helped a scholar produce and circulate his writings. These assistants did far more than take dictation. They managed correspondence, prepared clean copy for printers, corrected proofs, delivered messages, oversaw household affairs, taught children, traveled as trusted representatives, and sometimes preached. Their work crossed the boundaries we now draw between household service, scholarship, ministry, and publishing. It demanded both patient labor and intellectual judgment.
Wolfgang Musculus, for example, entered Bucer’s household as a secretary and pupil. A former Benedictine monk, he arrived in Strasbourg with his pregnant wife. His main task was to decipher Bucer’s notoriously difficult handwriting (sometimes illegible even to Bucer) and turn it into clean manuscript copy for the printer. Working line by line through Bucer’s commentaries, Musculus absorbed his teacher’s exegetical instincts. As he worked to preserve his mentor’s sentences, he deepened his own knowledge of God and his word. In time, the secretary who had come to Strasbourg thinking he might have to dig ditches became a theologian himself, producing major commentaries, translating Greek Fathers into Latin, and writing an influential volume on systematic theology.
Purvis also introduces Konrad Hubert. He served Bucer for 18 years, and his faithfulness continued for more than a quarter century after Bucer’s death. Like Musculus, he deciphered Bucer’s nearly illegible hand and copied manuscripts. He also managed correspondence, represented Bucer, carried out church duties, and became a trusted member of the household. In his will, Bucer called him “a most learned man, dear brother in the Lord, and companion in the service of God” (63).
After Bucer died, Hubert became Bucer’s curator, archivist, editor, literary agent, and defender of his reputation. He gathered letters scattered across Europe, arranged manuscripts, supplied dates and names, wrote headings and summaries, and pursued publishers. He assisted with posthumous editions of works by Bucer, Johannes Oecolampadius, and Peter Martyr Vermigli. He even acted as a commercial agent for the Basel printer Johannes Oporinus, arranging dry storage and onward transport for barrels of books traveling down the Rhine. Sometimes Swiss butter or cheese hidden among the books served as his compensation!
Hubert hoped to publish a 10-volume edition of Bucer’s collected works: six volumes of Latin texts and four of German. But family tensions, confessional conflict, rival editions, censorship, lost manuscripts, a publisher’s debts and death, and finally Hubert’s own death prevented the project’s completion. Yet it was not fruitless: His gathering and organizing preserved documents that later scholars used. His headings and annotations helped readers navigate sprawling letters long before a digital database could assist, and his editorial judgment shaped the way we know Bucer today.
Chapter 2 also corrects the way we sometimes tell intellectual history, focusing on the supporting cast instead of merely spotlighting the leading characters. Bucer’s theology emerged from a household marked by family, hospitality, illness, plague, exile, financial strain, and disciplined routines. Bucer’s “formula vivendi” (“rule of life”) was a set of 25 articles governing his household, especially the daily work and study of two assistants. It demanded prayer, Scripture reading, study of languages and other subjects, careful copying, chores, and care for guests.
The arrangement could be severe, and Purvis does not romanticize the labor. Still, he shows how the household became a school of Christian discipleship and learned vocation. A secretary did not merely process Bucer’s theology. He lived near enough to see the kind of life from which it came.
“Reading the Reformation” is one of the most illuminating books I have read on the Reformation’s material and intellectual life. It honors the great theologians without perpetuating the myth that greatness works alone. It recovers forgotten labor while keeping in view the gospel that gave that labor purpose. Pastors, scholars, editors, publishers, and serious readers will find much to enjoy and ponder. And those of us privileged to publish Christian books today may close the volume with renewed gratitude for every person who helps move faithful words from an author’s desk into a reader’s hands. Purvis has taught us to notice the ink on their fingers — and to thank God for it.
Douglas Sean O’Donnell is a PCA teaching elder and serves as senior writer for Crossway.