Early years (1509–1535)

A young John CalvinCalvin was born Jean Cauvin in Noyon, Picardie, France, the second of three sons that survived infancy. His father, Gérard Cauvin had a prosperous career as the cathedral notary and the registrar to the ecclesiastical court. His mother, Jeanne le Franc, was the daughter of an inn-keeper from Cambrai. She died a few years after his birth. Gérard intended that his three sons, Charles, Jean, and Antoine, should attain the priesthood. Jean was particularly precocious and by the age of twelve, he was employed by the bishop as a clerk and he received the tonsure. 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 was taught Latin by one of the greatest of Latin teachers, Mathurin Cordier. Once he completed the course, he proceeded toward the philosophia arts course in the Collège de Montaigu. The college's most influential headmaster, Jean Standonck, had reformed it into an educational monastery for the poor.

In 1525 or 1526, Gérard withdrew Jean from Montaigu and enrolled him in the University of Orléans to study law. Contemporary biographers of Calvin, Theodore Beza and Nicolas Colladon, as well as Calvin himself assign Gérard's motive to better earnings in a legal career. After a few years of quiet study, Calvin set off for the University of Bourges in 1529 when he learned that the humanist lawyer, Andreas Alciati, had taken up residence there. His eighteen months stay in Bourges had a decisive impact on his development as it was here where he learned Greek. Sometime during this period, Calvin was converted to the reformed faith. Not much is known of the circumstances surrounding his conversion. He made one reference to the event in his preface to his Commentary on the Book of Psalms.

God by a sudden conversion subdued and brought my mind to a teachable frame, which was more hardened in such matters than might have been expected from one at my early period of life.

Scholars have argued on the interpretation of this account, but it is agreed that his conversion corresponded with a rupture with the Roman church.

By 1532, he received his licentiate in law and he 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, the university was under some tension between humanists/reformers of the Collège Royal (later to become the Collège de France) and conservative senior faculty members. One of the reformers, Nicolas Cop, was a close friend of Calvin. Cop was elected that autumn as rector of the university and on 1 November 1533 he devoted his inaugural address to the need for reform and renewal in the church. It provoked a strong reaction from the faculty and they denounced the address as heretical. Cop was forced to flee to Basel. Calvin was also implicated in Cop's offence and for the following year, he went into hiding. He remained on the move, sheltering with a friend, Louis du Tillet, in Angoulême as well as short stops in Noyon and Orléans. He was finally forced to flee France during the Affair of the Placards in mid-October 1534. Unknown reformers posted placards in various cities attacking the mass and it provoked a violent backlash against the Protestants. In January 1535, Calvin joined Cop in Basel, a city under the influence of the reformer, Johannes Oecolampadius.

Reform work commences (1536–1538)

In March 1536, Calvin published his first edition of the Christianae Religionis Institutio or The Institutes of the Christian Religion. The work was an apologia or defense of his faith, a statement of the doctrinal position of the reformers. He intended that it serve as an elementary instruction book for anyone interested in the Christian religion. Calvin would later update and produce new editions of the book, but in 1536, this was the first expression of his theology. Shortly after its publication, he left Basel for Ferrara in Italy where he served as secretary to Princess Renée of France. He did not stay there long and by June he was back in Paris with his brother Antoine who was in the process of winding up their parents' affairs. Following the Edict of Lyon which allowed for a six month period for heretics to reconcile with the Catholic faith, Calvin decided that there was no future in France. In August he set off for Strasbourg, another city of refuge for reformers. Due to troop movements of imperial and French forces, he was forced to make a detour to the south and this brought him to the city of Geneva. Calvin only intended to stay a single night in the city, but then William Farel, a fellow French reformer who resided in the city, implored Calvin to stay and assist him in his cause.

William Farel was the reformer who convinced Calvin to stay in Geneva.Although it was not clear what office Calvin eventually took, he was given the title of "reader" which most likely meant that he gave expository lectures on the Bible. It was sometime in 1537 that he was elected to the position of "pastor". For the first time, the lawyer-theologian took up pastoral duties such as baptisms, weddings, and conducting church services.

On 16 January, Farel and Calvin presented their Articles on the Organisation of the Church and its Worship at Geneva to the city council. The document described how and how often the Lord's Supper would be celebrated, the reason for the need 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. However, implementing the subscription to the confession of faith took a slow pace. Only some of the citizens of Geneva subscribed. Throughout the year Calvin and Farel's reputations began to suffer. On 26 November, there was a heated debate between the two ministers and the council on the reluctance to enforce the subscription requirement. During this time, France was taking an interest in Geneva and as the two were Frenchmen, rumours were started that raised suspicion on whether they were loyal to the city. Finally, a major ecclesiastical-political quarrel developed when Bern, Geneva's evangelical ally, proposed to introduce uniformity in the ceremonies of the Swiss reformed churches. One proposal was to require that the bread used for the Eucharist be unleavened. The two ministers were unwilling to follow Bern's lead and delayed until a synod in Zürich would be convened to take the final decision. Eventually the council ordered Calvin and Farel to use unleavened bread for Easter Communion. The ministers preached as usual during Easter, but in protest did not administer communion. A riot broke out and the very next day, the council told the ministers to leave Geneva.

Farel and Calvin went to Bern and to Zürich in order to plead their case. The synod in Zürich placed most of the blame on Calvin for not being sympathetic enough toward the people of Geneva, but it asked Bern to mediate in order to get the ministers restored. A delegation was sent to Geneva, but the council refused to readmit the two ministers. Farel and Calvin were refugees once again and now homeless and penniless, they set off for Basel. It was while in Basel that Farel received a call to lead the church in Neuchâtel. As for Calvin, the leading reformers of Strasbourg, Martin Bucer and Wolfgang Capito, took an interest and invited him to come and lead a church of French refugees within their city. Initially Calvin refused the invitation as Farel was not included. Bucer appealed to him again and by September, 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 (1538–1541)

Calvin ministered to four or five hundred members in his church. He preached or lectured every day with two sermons on Sunday. Communion was celebrated monthly and congregational singing was encouraged. He also worked on the second edition of the Institutes. Although the first edition was sold out within a year, Calvin was dissatisfied with it, hence the second edition was greatly expanded and published in 1539. He worked at the same time on another book, the Commentary on Romans which was published in March 1540. The form of the book was the model for his commentaries that were to follow. It included a translation from the Greek rather than the Latin Vulgate followed by the exegesis and the exposition.

Martin Bucer invited Calvin to Strasbourg after he was expelled from Geneva.It was while in Strasbourg that Calvin's friends began to urge him to marry. Several candidates were presented to him including one young lady from a noble family. Reluctantly, Calvin agreed to the marriage, on the condition that the young lady would learn French. Although a wedding date was planned for sometime in March 1540, he changed his mind. Instead he married in August, Idelette de Bure, the widow of a former Anabaptist with two children.

Meanwhile Geneva had begun to reconsider its expulsion of Calvin. Church attendance had dwindled and the political climate had changed with the alliance with Bern in decline as the two cities quarreled over the control of certain lands. 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 to take the task, the council asked Calvin. He agreed and his Letter to Sadoleto, written in the stern tone of a lawyer, strongly defended the evangelicals. The council came to the conclusion that Geneva needed John Calvin back. On 21 September 1540 the council commissioned one of its members, Ami Perrin, to find a way to recall him. An embassy reached Calvin while he was at a colloquy in Worms. His reaction to the suggestion of returning to Geneva 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.

Despite these strong feelings, he 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 to determine the next steps. However, the negotiations continued and by summer 1541, it was decided that Strasbourg would lend Calvin to Geneva for six months instead. Calvin returned on 13 September 1541 and quite unlike his first entry into Geneva as a refugee, he arrived with an official escort and a wagon for his family.

Reform in Geneva

Upon his return, armed with the authority to craft the institutional form of the church, Calvin began his program of reform. He established four categories of offices based on biblical injunctions:

Ministers of the Word were to preach, to administer the sacraments, and to exercise pastoral discipline, teaching and admonishing the people.

Doctors held an office of theological scholarship and teaching for the edification of the people and the training of other ministers.

Elders were 12 laymen whose task was to serve as a kind of moral police force, mostly issuing warnings, but referring offenders to the Consistory when necessary. Deacons oversaw institutional charity, including hospitals and anti-poverty programs.

In 1546, a faction headed by Ami Perrin, who had been behind Calvin's return to Geneva, were worried by the influx of refugees and ministers into the city, fretted that Emperor Charles V might attempt to take Geneva by force, and disliked the Consistory's strictures. Perrin was tried and acquitted of treason for allegedly planning to bring a French garrison into Geneva, and being then restored to his post as head of the Genevan militia, he played a part in the so-called Libertine opposition to Calvin a few years later.

The Reformation Wall in Geneva. From left: William Farel, Calvin, Theodore Beza, and John KnoxCritics often look to the Consistory as the emblem of Calvin's theocratic rule.[citation needed] The Consistory was an ecclesiastical court consisting of the elders and pastors, charged with maintaining strict order among the church's officers and members. Offenses ranged from propounding false doctrine to moral infractions, such as wild dancing and bawdy singing. Typical punishments were being required to attend public sermons or catechism classes. Whereas the city council had the power to wield the sword, the church courts held the authority of the keys of heaven. Therefore, the maximum punishment that the consistory could decree was excommunication, which was reversible upon the repentance of the offender. However, the officers of the church were considered to be the state's spiritual advisors in moral or doctrinal matters. Protestants in the 16th century were often subjected to the Catholic charge that they were innovators in doctrine, and that such innovation did lead inevitably to moral decay and, ultimately, the dissolution of society itself.

Calvin claimed his wish was to establish the moral legitimacy of the church reformed according to his program, but also to promote the health and well-being of individuals, families, and communities. Recently discovered documentation of Consistory proceedings shows at least some concern for domestic life, and women in particular. For the first time men's infidelity was punished as harshly as that of women, and the Consistory showed absolutely no tolerance for spousal abuse. The Consistory helped to transform Geneva into the city described by Scottish reformer John Knox as "the most perfect school of Christ that ever was on the earth since the days of the Apostles." In 1559 Calvin founded the Collège de Genève as well as a hospital for the indigent.

Civil punishments

Jacques Gruet sided with some of the old Genevan families, who resented the power and methods of the Consistory. He was implicated in an incident in which someone had placed a placard in one of the city's churches, reading:

Gross hypocrite, thou and thy companions will gain little by your pains. If you do not save yourselves by flight, nobody shall prevent your overthrow, and you will curse the hour when you left your monkery. Warning has been already given that the devil and his renegade priests were come hither to ruin every thing. But after people have suffered long they avenge themselves. Take care that you are not served like Mons. Verle of Fribourg [who was killed in a fight with the Protestants, while endeavoring to save himself by flight]. We will not have so many masters. Mark well what I say. Gruet's views on religion were well known in Geneva, and he wrote verses about Calvin and the French immigrants that were "more malignant than poetic" (Audin). As Gruet had been heard threatening Calvin a few days earlier, he was arrested in connection with the anonymous placard and was tortured. He confessed to the placard and to writing various other heretical documents that were found in his house, and he was beheaded.

Calvin's acceptance of torture was in accord with the prevailing attitude of that age, and few persons of any position or religious denomination were critical of the practice, though there were exceptions such as Anton Praetorius and Calvin's former friend Sebastian Castellio. Such practices, however, have been rejected by followers of Calvin since at least the 1800s.

Calvin and the other reformers (as well as Catholics in middle Europe) also believed that they should not permit the practice of witchcraft, in accord with their understanding of passages such as Exodus 22:18 and Leviticus 20:27, and in 1545 twenty-three people were burned to death in Geneva under charges of practicing witchcraft and attempting to spread the plague over a three–year period.

Jacques Gruet sided with some of the old Genevan families, who resented the power and methods of the Consistory. He was implicated in an incident in which someone had placed a placard in one of the city's churches, reading:

Gross hypocrite, thou and thy companions will gain little by your pains. If you do not save yourselves by flight, nobody shall prevent your overthrow, and you will curse the hour when you left your monkery. Warning has been already given that the devil and his renegade priests were come hither to ruin every thing. But after people have suffered long they avenge themselves. Take care that you are not served like Mons. Verle of Fribourg [who was killed in a fight with the Protestants, while endeavoring to save himself by flight]. We will not have so many masters. Mark well what I say. Gruet's views on religion were well known in Geneva, and he wrote verses about Calvin and the French immigrants that were "more malignant than poetic" (Audin). As Gruet had been heard threatening Calvin a few days earlier, he was arrested in connection with the anonymous placard and was tortured. He confessed to the placard and to writing various other heretical documents that were found in his house, and he was beheaded.

Servetus controversy

Michael ServetusThe most lasting controversy of Calvin's life involves his role in the execution of Michael Servetus, the Spanish physician and theologian.

Servetus first published his views in 1531 to a wide yet unreceptive audience. He denounced the Trinity, one of the cardinal doctrines that Catholics and Protestants agreed upon. Calvin knew of these views in 1534, when he accepted Servetus' invitation to a small gathering in Paris to discuss their differences in person. For unknown reasons Servetus failed to appear.

Around 1546, Servetus initiated a correspondence with Calvin that lasted until 1548, when the exchange grew so rancorous that Calvin ended it. Each man wrote under a pen name and each tried to win the other to his own theology. Servetus even offered to come to Geneva if invited and given a guarantee of safe passage. Calvin declined to offer either. In 1546 Calvin told Farel, "[Servetus] takes it upon him to come hither, if it be agreeable to me. But I am unwilling to pledge my word for his safety, for if he shall come, I shall never permit him to depart alive, provided my authority be of any avail."

Calvin's zeal was very much the rule among civil and church authorities in 16th century Europe, above all toward Servetus' effort to spread what they deemed heresy. As early as 1533 the Spanish Inquisition had sentenced Servetus to death in absentia. Years later, in 1553, he was charged with heresy while living under an assumed name in Vienne, France. After Servetus escaped from the French prison in April 1553, the authorities there convicted and burned him in effigy.