John Calvin

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John Calvin (July 10, 1509 – May 27, 1564) was an important French Christian theologian during the Protestant Reformation and is the namesake of the system of Christian theology called Calvinism. He was born Jean Chauvin (or Cauvin) in Noyon, Picardie, France, to Gérard Cauvin and Jeanne Lefranc. French was his mother tongue; Calvin derives from the Latin version of his name, Calvinus. Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses in 1517, when Calvin was 8 years old.

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Biography

Image:John Calvin - Young.jpg In 1523, Calvin's father, an attorney, sent 14-year-old John to the University of Paris to study humanities and law. By 1532, he was a Doctor of Law at Orléans. His first published work was an edition of the Roman philosopher Seneca's De clementia, accompanied by a thorough commentary.

In 1536,he settled in Geneva, halted in the path of an intended journey to Basel, by the personal persuasion of the reformer William Farel. He pastored in Strasbourg from 1538 until 1541, before returning to Geneva. He would live there until his death in 1564.

John Calvin sought marriage to affirm his approval of marriage over clerical celibacy. He asked friends to help him find a woman who was "modest, obliging, not haughty, not extravagant, patient, and solicitous for my health ." In 1539, he married Idelette de Bure, a widow of a converted Anabaptist in Strasbourg. Idelette had a son and daughter from the previous marriage. Only the daughter moved with her to Geneva. In 1542, the Calvins had a son who died after only two weeks. Idelette Calvin died in 1549. Calvin wrote that she was a helper in ministry, never stood in his way, never troubled him about her children, and had a greatness of spirit.

Calvin's health began to fail when he suffered migraines, lung hemorrhages, gout and kidney stones. At times, he was carried to the pulpit. According to his successor, Theodore Beza, Calvin took but one meal a day for a decade, but at the advice of his physician, he ate an egg and drank a glass of wine at noon. His recreation consisted mainly of a walk after meals. Towards the end Calvin said to those friends who were worried about his daily regimen of work, "What! Would you have the Lord find me idle when He comes?"[1]

John Calvin died in Geneva on May 27, 1564. He was buried in the Cimetière des Rois under a tombstone marked simply with the initials "J.C", partially honoring his request that he be buried in an unknown place, without witnesses or ceremony.

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Writings by Calvin

Calvin published several revisions of his Institutes of the Christian Religion — a seminal work in Christian theology that is still read today — in Latin in 1536 (at the age of 26) and then in his native French in 1541, with the definitive editions appearing in 1559 and 1560, respectively.

He also produced many volumes of commentary on most of the books of the Bible. For the Old Testament (referring to the Protestant organization of books), he published commentaries for all books except the histories after Joshua (though he did publish his sermons on First Samuel) and the Wisdom literature other than the Book of Psalms. For the New Testament, he omitted only the brief 2nd and 3rd Epistles of John and the Book of Revelation. (Some have suggested that Calvin questioned the canonicity of the Book of Revelation, but his citation of it as authoritative in his other writings casts doubt on that theory.) These commentaries, too, have proved to be of lasting value to students of the Bible, and they are still in print after over 400 years.

In the eighth volume of Philip Schaff's History of the Christian Church, the historian quotes Dutch theologian Jacobus Arminius (after whom the anti-Calvinistic movement Arminianism was named) with regard to the value of Calvin's writings:

Next to the study of the Scriptures which I earnestly inculcate, I exhort my pupils to peruse Calvin’s Commentaries, which I extol in loftier terms than Helmich himself (a Dutch divine, 1551–1608); for I affirm that he excels beyond comparison in the interpretation of Scripture, and that his commentaries ought to be more highly valued than all that is handed down to us by the library of the fathers; so that I acknowledge him to have possessed above most others, or rather above all other men, what may be called an eminent spirit of prophecy. His Institutes ought to be studied after the (Heidelberg) Catechism, as containing a fuller explanation, but with discrimination, like the writings of all men.

Although much of Calvin's practice was in Geneva, his publications spread his ideas of a correctly reformed church to many parts of Europe and from there to the rest of the world.

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Reformed Geneva

Image:John Calvin.jpg John Calvin had been exiled from Geneva because he and his followers were suspected of wanting to create a "new papacy" and that's why he went to Strasbourg during the time of the Ottoman wars and passed through the Cantons of Switzerland. While in Geneva William Farel asked Calvin to help him with the cause of the church. Calvin wrote of Farel's request "I felt as if God from heaven had laid his mighty hand upon me to stop me in my course". Together with Farel, Calvin attempted to institute a number of changes to the city's governance and religious life. They drew up a catechism and a confession of faith, which they insisted all citizens must affirm. The city council refused to adopt Calvin and Farel's creed, and in January 1538 denied them the power to excommunicate, a power they saw as critical to their work. The pair responded with a blanket denial of the Lord's Supper to all Genevans at Easter services. For this the city council expelled them from the city. Farel travelled to Neuchâtel, Calvin to Strasbourg.

For three years Calvin served as a lecturer and pastor to a church of French Huguenots in Strasbourg. It was during his exile that Calvin married Idelette de Bure. He also came under the influence of Martin Bucer, who advocated a system of political and ecclesiastical structure along New Testament lines. He continued to follow developments in Geneva, and when Jacopo Sadoleto, a Catholic cardinal, penned an open letter to the city council inviting Geneva to return to the mother church, Calvin's response on behalf of embattled Genevan Protestants helped him to regain the respect he had lost. A number of Calvin's supporters having won election to the Geneva city council, he was invited back to the city in 1541.

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, with distinct hierarchy:

  • Doctors held an office of theological scholarship and teaching for the edification of the people and the training of other ministers.
  • Pastors were to preach, to administer the sacraments, and to exercise pastoral discipline, teaching and admonishing the people.
  • Deacons oversaw institutional charity, including hospitals and anti-poverty programs.
  • 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.

Critics often look to the Consistory as the emblem of Calvin's theocratic rule. The Consistory was an ecclesiastical court consisting of the elders and pastors, charged with maintaining strict order in the church caste and among its 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, catechism classes, floggings or torture. 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 a school for training children as well as a hospital for the indigent.

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Calvin and power

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Some allege that Calvin was not above using the Consistory to further his own political aims and maintain his absolute control over civil and religious life in Geneva, and, it is argued, he responded harshly to any challenge to his actions. Calvin was reluctant to ordain Genevans, preferring to choose pastors from the stream of French immigrants pouring into the city for the express purpose of supporting Calvin's program of reform. When Pierre Ameaux complained about this practice, some contend that Calvin took it as an attack on his absolute authority as the authority, and he persuaded the city council to require Ameaux to walk through the town dressed in a hair shirt and begging for mercy in the public squares.Template:Fact

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 that poetic". As Gruet had been heard threatening Calvin a few days earlier, he was arrested in connection with the anonymous placard and was tortured "after the inhuman fashion of that age". He confessed to the placard and to writing various other heretical documents that were found in his house, and he was beheaded.[2]

Calvin's acceptance of torture in particular is reprehensible to modern sensibilities, but in this view, he was in accord with the prevailing attitude of that age. Few persons of any position or religious denomination were critical of the practice, though there certainly were exceptions such as Anton Praetorius.

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Calvin and Servetus

In 1553, the Spanish scholar Michael Servetus (viewed by many Unitarians as a founding figure) was sentenced to death on the stake for the heresy of Antitrinitarianism with Calvin's approval, although he counselled the magistrate without success to mitigate the legal penalty by substituting the sword for the fire. Ironically, Servetus had arrived in Geneva while fleeing from a similar fate at the hands of the French Inquisition. Calvin stood by his position until his death,[3] as did Servetus, who proclaimed his defiance even up to the moment of his death at the stake. Some have argued that Servetus' trial and execution were a form of personal revenge for his having snubbed Calvin in a debate years earlier while both men were students at the University of Paris (Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone, Out of the Flames, Broadway, 2002). Kyle Borg has attributed John Calvin as being the greatest theologian

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Calvin and witchcraft

John Calvin and the other Reformers (as well as Catholics in Middle Europe) 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. Calvin comments on these passages under his analysis of the first of the Ten Commandments, which he understands to condemn the practice of other religions. Of witchcraft in particular, he says, "God would condemn to capital punishment all augurs, and magicians, and consulters with familiar spirits, and necromancers and followers of magic arts, as well as enchanters. And...God declares that He 'will set. His face against all, that shall turn after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards,' so as to cut them off from His people; and then commands that they should be destroyed by stoning."[4] Following this understanding of the Old Testament law, in 1545 twenty-three people were burned to death under charges of practicing witchcraft and attempting to spread the Plague over a three year period.[5]

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Trivia

  • The character Calvin in Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes was named after John Calvin. It is thought that this reflects the young male character's belief in predestination (as justification for his behavior), while his stuffed tiger Hobbes shares Thomas Hobbes's view of human nature.
  • The 1979 film Hardcore has discussion between George C. Scott's Jake VanDorn explained to the prostitute Niki on Calvin's teachings concerning predestination and salvation.
  • In His Dark Materials, the trilogy of novels by Philip Pullman, the protagonists spend a considerable amount of time in a parallel universe where Calvin became Pope, moved the Church's center of power to Geneva, and abolished the Papacy upon his death.
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References

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ar:جون كالفن ca:Joan Calví cs:Jan Kalvín da:Jean Calvin de:Johannes Calvin es:Juan Calvino eo:Kalvino fa:جان کالون fr:Jean Calvin ko:장 칼뱅 hr:Jean Calvin id:Yohanes Calvin ia:Johannes Calvin it:Calvino lt:Jonas Kalvinas nl:Johannes Calvijn nds:Johannes Calvin ja:ジャン・カルヴァン no:Jean Calvin nn:Jean Calvin pl:Jan Kalwin pt:João Calvino ro:Calvin ru:Кальвин, Жан scn:Giuvanni Calvinu sk:Ján Kalvín fi:Jean Calvin sv:Jean Calvin vi:John Calvin uk:Жан Кальвін zh:加尔文

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