French/Swiss theologian and reformer
Studying
law at Bourges in 1530, Calvin became familiar with the ideas of Humanism
and was probably exposed to the ideas of Martin
Luther.
His growing sympathy with the Reformation movement led to his flight from Paris in 1533, after the Rector of the University of Paris delivered a controversial address thought to have been composed by Calvin, which showed affinities with Erasmus and Luther.
In 1534 Calvin resigned his ecclesiastical benefices and eventually fled to Basle in 1535. The first edition of his Institutes was published there in March 1536. Passing through Geneva later that year, he was persuaded to stay and assist in organizing the Reformation in that city. However, on Easter Day 1538, Calvin publicly defied the city council’s instructions to conform to the Zwinglian religious practices of Berne and was ordered to leave the city.
 Calvin, John, 1509-1564 Ioannis Calvini in omnes D. Pauli epistolas, atque etia in epistola ad Hebraeos commentaria luculentissima Geneva: John Gerardus, 1551. |
After serving as pastor to the French congregation in Strasbourg for three years, Calvin accepted the invitation of Geneva to return to that city. In 1541 he began fourteen years of work to establish a theocratic regime in the city. His Ecclesiastical Ordinances were adopted by the city council in November 1541. These distinguished four ministries within the church: pastors, doctors, elders, and deacons. Other reforming measures included introducing vernacular catechisms and liturgy.
Calvin also produced extensive commentaries on the New Testament which he later supplemented with a series dealing with Old Testament works.
Calvin’s Institutes are still regarded as one of the most important literary and theological works of the period.
The first edition of Institutio Religionis Christanae, Calvin’s Institutes, was published in Latin at Basle in 1536. Deriving much of its form and substance from Luther’s Kleiner Katechismus (1529), its six chapters expound on the Decalogue, the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, the sacraments, and Church government. Calvin intended the work to be a defense of Reformation principles and a plea for religious toleration. In 1539, a version extended to seventeen chapters appeared, and the first French translation was published in 1541.
Calvin responded to the considerable interest in the work and the controversy it generated by issuing a much expanded eighty-chapter version (Latin, 1559; French, 1560). The text became the most important theological text of the Reformation. The 1559 edition was widely circulated in various forms, becoming the theological source document of Protestantism.
