John Calvin's father was employed as an administrator of the bishop in Noyon in France. In 1523 John entered the University of Paris to study theology but soon decided to study law in Orléans and Bourges. He returned to Paris in 1531.Preacher, politician and Protestant reformer, b. 10 July 1509 (Noyon, France), d. 27 May 1564 (Geneva, Switzerland).
John Calvin's father was employed as an administrator of the bishop in Noyon in France. In 1523 John entered the University of Paris to study theology but soon decided to study law in Orléans and Bourges. He returned to Paris in 1531.
His years at universities had brought Calvin into contact with ideas of Erasmus and other reformers, who wanted to overcome the compromised state of the church through a return to its roots, ie. through study of the Greek, Latin and Hebrew texts. Calvin learned all three languages and published a commentary on Seneca in 1532.
In 1533 Calvin left Paris, where the political climate had turned against the reformers, and eventually settled in Basel, Switzerland, a protestant city tolerant of other beliefs. It is not clear when Calvin converted to Protestantism, but the writings from his time in Basel are a clear indication of his shift away from Catholicism. His Institutio Christianae religionis ("Institutes of the Christian religion"), first published in 1536, is generally considered the most important and comprehensive statement of protestant beliefs.
Later in the same year Calvin was travelling through Geneva, intending to spend a night there. The local preacher Guillaume Farrel, who found it difficult to convert the city to Protestantism, asked Calvin for assistance and managed to talk him into staying. Geneva had been forced into Protestantism as the price for military assistance from protestant Berne, but the town council wanted to retain religious tolerance and was reluctant to hand the protestant church ministers the right to excommunication. Calvin and Farrel, who insisted on that right, were driven out of town in 1538.
In 1541 Calvin was recalled to Geneva. He had used the three intervening years to visit international religious meetings and had become a figure of major theological influence in Europe. This time he could impose his will on the town council. Over the next 15 years he installed a kind of "theocratic republic" in the city based on the ascetic work ethic and strict morality of the protestant faith.
Calvin's church was organized into pastors and teachers to preach the Gospel, elders to administer the church, and deacons responsible for charitable works. The church regulated all matters of daily life, banned Catholic "superstition", enforced puritan sexual morality, regulated opening hours for taverns and imposed heavy penalties on dancing, gambling and swearing. Theatre plays were banned and the theatres closed.
The imposition of the new regime did not go without protest. In 1553 Calvin ordered the arrest and trial of the Spanish priest Servetus, who had entered the city. Servetus was tried and burnt at the stake as a heretic. This secured Calvin's position, and from 1555 onward Calvin could afford to return to his Institutio and publish revised editions in Latin and French in 1559 and 1560.
Calvin's teachings were partly a systematization of Luther's positions. He shared with Luther the emphasis on the study of the bible as the main way to true Christian faith and the dependence of the individual on divine grace. He also shared his belief in salvation through faith alone with Luther but placed more emphasis on predestination (the belief that salvation cannot be earned but is determined by destiny), although he considered the contradiction between salvation through faith and predestination a great mystery.
Calvinism as a version of Protestantism became the main Christian faith in the Netherlands, Scotland and England, from where it spread through the USA. Its puritan work ethic and strict self-discipline reflected the bourgeois vision of the world, in which hard work leads to prosperity and progress. Calvin's successors in the Reformed Churches seized on the idea of predestination as a convenient excuse for many excesses of early and later capitalism: Those who are destined for salvation cannot do wrong. In its extreme form the Calvinist variant of Christianity has been used to justify personal wealth as a sign of God's approval for one's actions.
Portrait: engraving (detail) after a painting in the University Library of Geneva; public domain (Wikipedia)