Reformation Product Guide

Denis R. Janz has compiled some of the most important texts from the Reformation together in one volume. Over 100 entries have been carefully edited with notes provided to help readers understand the context for the documents. This edition covers the major movements of the Reformation, including Lutheran, Calvinist, Radical, English, and Catholic Reformations. Resources in this volume include documents focused on the theological, political, and economic causes of the Reformation. Anyone wanting to gain an overview of the Reformation from the people who lived through it must start with this volume.

Erasmus’ influence on the Reformation cannot be understated, although he refused to join the movement, opting instead to reform Catholicism from within. He influenced the new Christian humanism that was budding in Europe and created one of the first edited editions of the Greek New Testament based on his scholarly pursuits. It was this edition that both Martin Luther and John Wycliffe would use when translating the NT into their own mother tongues. Erasmus was also well known as a satirist, a poet, and a social critic, all while serving as a priest, monk, and tutor.

William Tyndale is considered one of the earliest English Protestants and possibly the earliest martyr for the Protestant cause. Influenced by both Erasmus and Luther, Tyndale worked on an English translation of the Bible based on the Greek and Hebrew original texts. While English translations of the Bible were forbidden, it was ultimately his public disagreement with King Henry VIII’s annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragorn that led to Tyndale’s execution in 1536. Henry would go on to commission the Great Bible just two years after Tyndale’s death. That version would rely heavily on Tyndale’s own version.

Huldrych Zwingli, the lesser known of the Reformation’s three leading lights, led the church of Zurich to leave Catholicism and promoted Protestant ideals. Beginning his pastorate in Zurich two years after Luther’s posting of the 95 theses. Zwingli almost immediately began critiquing key aspects of the Catholic church (including clerical celibacy, the use of iconography, and the ecclesiastical hierarchy). While initially sympathetic to Anabaptists, he eventually rejected their anti-state theology and persecuted them. He died defending Zurich from an alliance of Swiss Catholic provinces in 1531.

John Knox was the founder of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland and a leader of the Reformation. Exiled to England by the French in 1549, Knox began his ministry as a priest in the Church of England before becoming royal chaplain to King Edward VI. Upon Mary I’s ascension to the throne, Knox left England for European territories friendly to Protestants, particularly the area in and around Geneva. On account of John Calvin’s influence, Knox adopted Reformed theology and Presbyterian ecclesiology. After being forced out of the Church of England on account of his adoption of these principles, Knox left the continent for Scotland and led the Reformation there until his death in 1572.

In response to the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Church, headed by Pope Paul III at the time, convened the Council of Trent in 1545. Spanning nearly two decades, Trent helped to launch the Counter-Reformation in an effort to reclaim territories controlled by Protestants. Among the doctrines affirmed include: the seven sacraments, transubstantiation, the veneration of saints, and the deuterocanonical books of the Bible. The canons and decrees set forth during this council have defined what is central to Catholicism for nearly 500 years.