John Calvin - The Early Years

Priest or Lawyer?

John Calvin (originally Jean Cauvin) was born in Noyon in Picardy, France, on 10^th July 1509. He often claimed to have come from among the common people - a working class background. It is true that his grandfather had been of the common people but his father had broken away from that background to become an ecclesiastical registrar. John was the second of five children. He was so studious at school that, by the age of twelve, he had become a clerk - a churchman obviously destined for the priesthood.

John was sent to study at the University of Paris but his father fell out with the bishop of Noyon and decided he did not want Jean to study for the priesthood after all. He recalled him from Paris and sent him to Orleans to study law.

Calvin's Conversion

While studying in the Universities of Orleans, Paris and Bourges, Calvin met, and was influenced by, various groups of Protestants. He himself was converted to the Protestant faith sometime around 1532. He had failed to find peace through the penances and absolutions of the Catholic faith but discovered it in direct relationship with Christ. In 1533 he was forced to flee Paris because of anti-Protestant feelings in the city.

He spent three years travelling around France, Germany and Switzerland. In Strasburg he met Martin Bucer, one of the great scholars of the Reformation who further influenced his thinking.

At Basel, in 1536, Calvin published the first edition of his Institutes of the Christian Religion which was to grow into one of the most important documents of the Reformation within the next quarter century. The Institutes was the first truly systematic approach to Reformed Theology.