The English clergyman and scholar Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800-1882) was one of the major figures of the Oxford Movement, which began at Oxford in 1833 to overcome the dangers threatening the Church of England.

Edward Pusey's lineage was noble. His father had inherited the estate of Pusey, in Berkshire, where Edward was born on Aug. 22, 1800. His childhood was calm and self-assured but isolated. He accepted his mother's High Anglican teaching and moved confidently toward a clerical vocation by way of Eton and Oxford. As a student, Pusey labored endlessly, reading for as much as 17 hours a day. He won a first-class degree at Christ Church, Oxford, and then in 1823 was elected a fellow of Oriel College, where he met John Keble and John Henry Newman.

Pusey then determined "to devote my life to the Old Testament," and he studied theology and Semitic languages at the universities of Gö...