Calvin, John 1509-64
French theologian, one of the most important reformers of the 16th century

Calvin was born in Noyon, in Picardy, where his father, G�rard Caulvin or Cauvin, was procureur-fiscal and secretary of the diocese. He studied Latin in Paris from 1523 and later, while studying law in Orleans, received from the Scriptures his first impulse to study theology. From Orleans he went to Bourges, where he learned Greek, published an edition of Seneca's De clementia and began to preach the reformed doctrines. After a short stay (1533) in Paris, which had become a centre of the 'new learning' and of religious excitement, he visited Noyon. He went to Nerac, Saintonge, Angoul�me, the residence of Margaret of Angoul�me, Queen of Navarre, and then to Paris again. Calvin fled France to escape persecution; and at Basle in 1536 he issued his Christianae Religionis Institutio ('Institutes of the Christian Religion') with the famous preface addressed to Francis I.

In Geneva, Guillaume Farel persuaded Calvin to assist in the work of reformation. A Protestant Confession of Faith was proclaimed, and moral severity took the place of licence. The strain, however, was too sudden and too extreme. A spirit of rebellion broke forth under the 'Libertines', and Calvin and Farel were expelled from the city (1538). Calvin, withdrawing to Strasbourg, devoted himself to a critical study of the New Testament. In 1542 he was invited to return to Geneva, where, through his College of Pastors and Doctors, and his Consistorial Court of Discipline, he founded a theocracy, which was virtually to direct all the affairs of the city, and to control the social and individual life of the citizens. His struggle with the Libertines lasted 14 years, when the reformer's authority was confirmed into an absolute supremacy (1555).

Calvin rendered a double service to Protestantism: he systematized its doctrine, and organized its ecclesiastical discipline. His commentaries embrace the greater part of the Old Testament and the whole of the New except the Revelation. In 1559 he founded a theological academy at Geneva that later became the university.

Bibliography: McGrath, Alister E, A Life of John Calvin (1990), W J Bouwsma, Calvin (1987); T H L Parker, John Calvin: A Biography (1975); Richard Stauffer, The Humanness of John Calvin (1971).