He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later

called Calvinism. Originally trained as a humanist lawyer, he broke from the Roman Catholic

Church around 1530. After religious tensions provoked a violent uprising against Protestants

in France, Calvin fled to Basel, Switzerland, where he published the first edition of his

seminal work Institutes of the Christian Religion in 1536.

In that year, Calvin was recruited by William Farel to help reform the church in Geneva.

The city council resisted the implementation of Calvin's and Farel's ideas, and both men

were expelled. At the invitation of Martin Bucer, Calvin proceeded to Strasbourg, where

he became the minister of a church of French refugees. He continued to support the reform

movement in Geneva, and was eventually invited back to lead its church.

Following his return, Calvin introduced new forms of church government and liturgy, despite

the opposition of several powerful families in the city who tried to curb his authority.

During this period, Michael Servetus, a Spaniard regarded by both Catholics and Protestants

as having heretical views, arrived in Geneva. He was denounced by Calvin and executed by

the city council. Following an influx of supportive refugees and new elections to the city council,

Calvin's opponents were forced out. Calvin spent his final years promoting the Reformation

both in Geneva and throughout Europe. Calvin was a tireless polemic and apologetic

writer who generated much controversy. He also exchanged cordial and supportive letters

with many reformers, including Philipp Melanchthon and Heinrich Bullinger. In addition to the

Institutes, he wrote commentaries on most books of the Bible, as well as theological

treatises and confessional documents. He regularly preached sermons throughout the week in Geneva.

Calvin was influenced by the Augustinian tradition, which led him to expound the doctrine of predestination

and the absolute sovereignty of God in salvation of the human soul from death and eternal damnation.

Calvin's writing and preachings provided the seeds for the branch of theology that bears

his name. The Reformed, Congregational, and Presbyterian churches, which look to Calvin

as the chief expositor of their beliefs, have spread throughout the world.

Early life

John Calvin was born as Jehan Cauvin on 10 July 1509, in the town of Noyon in the Picardy

region of France. He was the first of four sons who survived infancy. His father, Gérard

Cauvin, had a prosperous career as the cathedral notary and registrar to the ecclesiastical

court. He died in his later years, after suffering two years with testicular cancer. His mother,

Jeanne le Franc, was the daughter of an innkeeper from Cambrai. She died a few years after Calvin's

birth from an unknown cause. Gérard intended his three sons—Charles, Jean, and Antoine—for

the priesthood. Jean was particularly precocious; by age 12,

he was employed by the bishop as a clerk and received the tonsure, cutting his hair to

symbolise his dedication to the Church. He also won the patronage of an influential family,

the Montmors. Through their assistance, Calvin was able to attend the Collège de la Marche,

in Paris, where he learned Latin from one of its greatest teachers, Mathurin Cordier.

Once he completed the course, he entered the Collège de Montaigu as a philosophy student.

In 1525 or 1526, Gérard withdrew his son from the Collège de Montaigu and enrolled

him in the University of Orléans to study law. According to contemporary biographers

Theodore Beza and Nicolas Colladon, Gérard believed his son would earn more money as

a lawyer than as a priest. After a few years of quiet study, Calvin entered the University

of Bourges in 1529. He was intrigued by Andreas Alciati, a humanist lawyer. Humanism was a

European intellectual movement which stressed classical studies. During his 18-month stay

in Bourges, Calvin learned Koine Greek, a necessity for studying the New Testament.

During the autumn of 1533 Calvin experienced a religious conversion. In later life, John

Calvin wrote two accounts of his conversion that differ in significant ways. In the first

account he portrays his conversion as a sudden change of mind, brought about by God. This

account can be found in his Commentary on the Book of Psalms:

In his second account he speaks of a long process of inner turmoil, followed by spiritual

and psychological anguish. "Being exceedingly alarmed at the misery into

which I had fallen, and much more at that which threatened me in view of eternal death,

I, duty bound, made it my first business to betake myself to your way, condemning my past

life, not without groans and tears. And now, O Lord, what remains to a wretch like me,

but instead of defence, earnestly to supplicate you not to judge that fearful abandonment

of your Word according to its deserts, from which in your wondrous goodness you have at

last delivered me." Scholars have argued about the precise interpretation

of these accounts, but it is agreed that his conversion corresponded with his break from

the Roman Catholic Church. The Calvin biographer, Bruce Gordon, has stressed that "the two accounts

are not antithetical, revealing some inconsistency in Calvin's memory, but rather [are] two different

ways of expressing the same reality." By 1532, Calvin received his licentiate in

law and published his first book, a commentary on Seneca's De Clementia. After uneventful

trips to Orléans and his hometown of Noyon, Calvin returned to Paris in October 1533.

During this time, tensions rose at the Collège Royal between the humanists/reformers and

the conservative senior faculty members. One of the reformers, Nicolas Cop, was rector

of the university. On 1 November 1533 he devoted his inaugural address to the need for reform

and renewal in the Catholic Church. The address provoked a strong reaction from

the faculty, who denounced it as heretical, forcing Cop to flee to Basel. Calvin, a close

friend of Cop, was implicated in the offence, and for the next year he was forced into hiding.

He remained on the move, sheltering with his friend Louis du Tillet in Angoulême and taking

refuge in Noyon and Orléans. He was finally forced to flee France during the Affair of

the Placards in mid-October 1534. In that incident, unknown reformers had posted placards

in various cities attacking the Catholic mass, which provoked a violent backlash against

Protestants. In January 1535, Calvin joined Cop in Basel, a city under the influence of

the reformer Johannes Oecolampadius. Reform work commences

In March 1536, Calvin published the first edition of his Institutio Christianae Religionis

or Institutes of the Christian Religion. The work was an apologia or defense of his faith

and a statement of the doctrinal position of the reformers. He also intended it to serve

as an elementary instruction book for anyone interested in the Christian religion. The

book was the first expression of his theology. Calvin updated the work and published new

editions throughout his life. Shortly after its publication, he left Basel for Ferrara,

Italy, where he briefly served as secretary to Princess Renée of France. By June he was

back in Paris with his brother Antoine, who was resolving their father's affairs. Following

the Edict of Coucy, which gave a limited six-month period for heretics to reconcile with the

Catholic faith, Calvin decided that there was no future for him in France. In August

he set off for Strasbourg, a free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire and a refuge

for reformers. Due to military manoeuvres of imperial and French forces, he was forced

to make a detour to the south, bringing him to Geneva.

Calvin had only intended to stay a single night, but William Farel, a fellow French

reformer residing in the city, implored a most reluctant Calvin to stay and assist him

in his work of reforming the church there – it was his duty before God, Farel insisted.

Yet Calvin, for his part, desired only peace and privacy. But it was not to be; Farel's

entreaties prevailed, but not before his having had recourse to the sternest imprecations.

Calvin recalls the rather intense encounter:

Then Farel, who was working with incredible zeal to promote the gospel, bent all his efforts

to keep me in the city. And when he realized that I was determined to study in privacy

in some obscure place, and saw that he gained nothing by entreaty, he descended to cursing,

and said that God would surely curse my peace if I held back from giving help at a time

of such great need. Terrified by his words, and conscious of my own timidity and cowardice,

I gave up my journey and attempted to apply whatever gift I had in defense of my faith.

Calvin accepted his new role without any preconditions on his tasks or duties. The office to which

he was initially assigned is unknown. He was eventually given the title of "reader", which

most likely meant that he could give expository lectures on the Bible. Sometime in 1537 he

was selected to be a "pastor" although he never received any pastoral consecration.

For the first time, the lawyer-theologian took up pastoral duties such as baptisms,

weddings, and church services. During the fall of 1536, Farel drafted a confession

of faith while Calvin wrote separate articles on reorganizing the church in Geneva. On 16

January 1537, Farel and Calvin presented their Articles concernant l'organisation de l'église

et du culte à Genève to the city council. The document described the manner and frequency

of their celebrations of the eucharist, the reason for, and the method of, excommunication,

the requirement to subscribe to the confession of faith, the use of congregational singing

in the liturgy, and the revision of marriage laws. The council accepted the document on

the same day. As the year progressed, however, Calvin and

Farel's reputation with the council began to suffer. The council was reluctant to enforce

the subscription requirement, as only a few citizens had subscribed to their confession

of faith. On 26 November, the two ministers heatedly debated the council over the issue.

Furthermore, France was taking an interest in forming an alliance with Geneva and as

the two ministers were Frenchmen, councillors began to question their loyalty. Finally,

a major ecclesiastical-political quarrel developed when Bern, Geneva's ally in the reformation

of the Swiss churches, proposed to introduce uniformity in the church ceremonies. One proposal

required the use of unleavened bread for the eucharist. The two ministers were unwilling

to follow Bern's lead and delayed the use of such bread until a synod in Zurich could

be convened to make the final decision. The council ordered Calvin and Farel to use unleavened

bread for the Easter eucharist; in protest, the ministers did not administer communion

during the Easter service. This caused a riot during the service and the next day, the council

told the ministers to leave Geneva. Farel and Calvin went to Bern and Zurich to

plead their case. The synod in Zurich placed most of the blame on Calvin for not being

sympathetic enough toward the people of Geneva. However, it asked Bern to mediate with the

aim of restoring the ministers. The Geneva council refused to readmit the two men, who

took refuge in Basel. Subsequently, Farel received an invitation to lead the church

in Neuchâtel. Calvin was invited to lead a church of French refugees in Strasbourg

by that city's leading reformers, Martin Bucer and Wolfgang Capito. Initially, Calvin refused

because Farel was not included in the invitation, but relented when Bucer appealed to him. By

September 1538 Calvin had taken up his new position in Strasbourg, fully expecting that

this time it would be permanent; a few months later, he applied for and was granted citizenship

of the city. Minister in Strasbourg

During his time in Strasbourg, Calvin was not attached to one particular church, but

held his office successively in the Saint-Nicolas Church, the Sainte-Madeleine Church and the

former Dominican Church, renamed the Temple Neuf. Calvin ministered to 400–500 members

in his church. He preached or lectured every day, with two sermons on Sunday. Communion

was celebrated monthly and congregational singing of the psalms was encouraged. He also

worked on the second edition of the Institutes. Although the first edition sold out within

a year, Calvin was dissatisfied with its structure as a catechism, a primer for young Christians.

For the second edition, published in 1539, Calvin dropped this format in favour of systematically

presenting the main doctrines from scripture. In the process, the book was enlarged from

six chapters to seventeen. He concurrently worked on another book, the Commentary on

Romans, which was published in March 1540. The book was a model for his later commentaries:

it included his own Latin translation from the Greek rather than the Latin Vulgate, an

exegesis, and an exposition. In the dedicatory letter, Calvin praised the work of his predecessors

Philipp Melanchthon, Heinrich Bullinger, and Martin Bucer, but he also took care to distinguish

his own work from theirs and to criticise some of their shortcomings.

Calvin's friends urged him to marry. Calvin took a prosaic view, writing to one correspondent:

"I, who have the air of being so hostile to celibacy, I am still not married and do not

know whether I will ever be. If I take a wife it will be because, being better freed from

numerous worries, I can devote myself to the Lord."

Several candidates were presented to him including one young woman from a noble family. Reluctantly,

Calvin agreed to the marriage, on the condition that she would learn French. Although a wedding

date was planned for March 1540, he remained reluctant and the wedding never took place.

He later wrote that he would never think of marrying her, "unless the Lord had entirely

bereft me of my wits". Instead, in August of that year, he married Idelette de Bure,

a widow who had two children from her first marriage.

Geneva reconsidered its expulsion of Calvin. Church attendance had dwindled and the political

climate had changed; as Bern and Geneva quarrelled over land, their alliance frayed. When Cardinal

Jacopo Sadoleto wrote a letter to the city council inviting Geneva to return to the Catholic

faith, the council searched for an ecclesiastical authority to respond to him. At first Pierre

Viret was consulted, but when he refused, the council asked Calvin. He agreed and his

Responsio ad Sadoletum strongly defended Geneva's position concerning reforms in the church.

On 21 September 1540 the council commissioned one of its members, Ami Perrin, to find a

way to recall Calvin. An embassy reached Calvin while he was at a colloquy, a conference to

settle religious disputes, in Worms. His reaction to the suggestion was one of horror in which

he wrote, "Rather would I submit to death a hundred times than to that cross on which

I had to perish daily a thousand times over." Calvin also wrote that he was prepared to

follow the Lord's calling. A plan was drawn up in which Viret would be appointed to take

temporary charge in Geneva for six months while Bucer and Calvin would visit the city