Engraved from the original oil painting in the University Library of Geneva, this is considered Calvin's best likeness.

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Calvin

John Calvin (July 10, 1509 â€“ May 27, 1564) was a French Protestant theologian during the Protestant Reformation and was a central developer of the system of Christian theology called Calvinism or Reformed theology. more...

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In Geneva, he rejected Papal authority, established a new scheme of civic and ecclesiastical governance, and created a central hub from which Reformed theology was propagated. He is renowned for his teachings and writings and infamous for his role in the execution of Michael Servetus.

Biography

Calvin was born Jean Chauvin (or Cauvin, in Latin Calvinus) in Noyon, Picardie, France, to GÃ©rard Cauvin and Jeanne Lefranc. In 1523, Calvin's father, an attorney, sent his fourteen-year-old son to the University of Paris to study humanities and law. By 1532, he had attained a Doctor of Law degree at OrlÃ©ans. In 1536, he settled in Geneva, Switzerland. After being expelled from the city, he served as a pastor in Strasbourg from 1538 until 1541, before returning to Geneva, where he lived until his death in 1564.

After attaining his degree, John Calvin sought a wife in affirmation of his approval of marriage over clerical celibacy and 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, who had a son and daughter from her previous marriage to an Anabaptist in Strasbourg. Calvin and Idelette 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, and at times he had to be carried to the pulpit to preach and gave lectures from his bed. According to his successor, influential Calvinist theologian Theodore Beza, Calvin took only one meal a day for a decade, but on the advice of his physician, he ate an egg and drank a glass of wine at noon. His recreation and exercise consisted mainly of a walk after meals. Towards the end Calvin said to those friends who were worried about his daily regimen of work amidst all his ailments, "What! Would you have the Lord find me idle when He comes?"

John Calvin died in Geneva on May 27, 1564, and was buried in the CimetiÃ¨re 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.

Calvin's thought

Calvin was trained to be a lawyer. He studied under some of the best legal minds of the Renaissance in France. Part of that training involved the newer humanistic methods of exegesis, which dealt with a text directly via historical and grammatical analysis, as opposed to indirectly via layers of commentators. His legal and exegetical training was important for Calvin because, once convinced of the evangelical faith, he applied these exegetical methods to the Scripture. He self-consciously molded his thinking along biblical lines, and he labored to preach and teach what he believed the Bible taught.