CALVIN, John (1509-1564), was bora at Noyon, in Picardy, July 10, 1509. His father, Gerard Calvin or Cauvin,[1] was a notary-apostolic and procurator-fiscal for the lordship of Noyon, besides holding certain ecclesiastical offices in connection with that diocese. The name of his mother was Jeanne Lefranc ; she was the daughter of an innkeeper at Cambray, who afterwards came to reside at Noyon. Gerard Calvin is described as a man of considerable sagacity and prudence, and on this account held in esteem by the leading men of the district. His wife added to considerable personal attractions the graces of a vivid and earnest piety. Their family consisted of four sons, of whom John was the second, and two daughters.
Of Calvin s early years only a few notices remain. His father destined him from the first for theological studies, being moved to this by the evidences afforded in his boy hood of a religious tendency, and perhaps also by a shrewd apprehension of the kind of pursuits in which he was most fitted to excel. The esteem in which the father was held opened for the boy a place in the household of the noble family of De Montmor, where he received his elementary education along with the children of the house, though at his father s expense. In his thirteenth year his father, whose circumstances were not affluent, procured for him from the bishop the office of chaplain in the Chapelle de N6tre Dame de la Gesine. A few days after his appoint ment he received the tonsure, and on the 29th of May 1521 he was installed in his office. The plague having visited Noyon, the young De Montmors were sent to Paris to pursue their studies there, and thither Calvin accompanied them, being enabled by the income received from his benefice to meet the expense of a residence in the metropolis. His first school was the College de la Marche, at that time under the regency of Maturin Cordier, a man of excellent character, of sound learning, and of high repute as a teacher. To him Calvin ever acknowledged himself indebted for the benefits received under his tuition. In dedicating to him his Commentary on the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, as " eximiai pietatis et doctrinas viro," he declares that so had he been aided by his instruction that whatever subse quent progress he had made he only regarded as received from him, and " this," he adds," I wish to testify to posterity that if any utility accrue to any from my writings they may acknowledge it as having in part flowed from thee." From this institution he removed to the College Montaigu, where he had for instructor a Spaniard, who is described as a man of learning, and to whom Calvin was indebted for the culture of his already acute intellect, by the study of dialectics and the scholastic philosophy. Whilst at school the future reformer distinguished himself by his superior abilities, and his indefatigable assiduity. He speedily outstripped all his competitors in grammatical studies, and by his skill and acumen as a student of philosophy, gave fruitful promise of that consummate excellence as a reasoner, in the department of speculative truth, which he afterwards displayed. Intensely devoted to study he cared little for the pastimes in which his fellow scholars indulged ; he shunned society, and was more disposed to censure the frivolities of those around him than to seek the solace of their companionship; severe to others he was still more so to himself, and his pale face and attenuated frame bore witness at once to the rigour of his abstinence and the ardour with which he prosecuted his studies. In his nineteenth year he, through the influence of his father, obtained the living of Marteville, to which he was presented on the 27th of September 1527. After holding this preferment for nearly two years, he exchanged it in July 1529 for the cure of Pont 1 Eveque, a village near to Noyon, and the place to which his father originally belonged. He appears to have been not a little elated by his early promotion, and although not ordained, he preached several sermons to the people. But though the career of ecclesiastical preferment was thus early opened to him, Calvin was destined not to become a priest of the Church of Rome. A change came over the mind both of his father and himself respecting his future career. Gerard Calvin, looking at things only from a worldly point of view, began to suspect that he had not chosen the most lucrative profession for his son, and that the law offered to a youth of his talents and industry a more promising sphere.[2] His son, on the other hand, had come under an influence of a very different kind, but which, with still more decisive impulse, inclined him to relinquish the ecclesiastical life, Through the counsels of his relation, Pierre Robert Olivetan, the first translator of the Bible into French, he had been led for the first time to study the sacred volume, and to test his religious opinions and practices by its dictates, The result was that, though not yet detached from the faith of the Romish church, he was very willing to relinquish all thoughts of becoming a priest in that communion. He accordingly readily complied with his father s suggestion ; and having resigned his cure, he removed from Paris to Orleans, in order to study law under Pierre de 1 Etoile, a distinguished jurisconsult, and at that time professor there. On this new pursuit Calvin entered with characteristic ardour, and such was his progress in legal knowledge, that he frequently occupied the chair of the professor, while his general reputation for ability and scholar ship stood so high that, on leaving Orleans, he received the grade of doctor without payment of the usual fees, as a compliment to his merits, Other studies, however, besides those of law had occupied him whilst in this city, God, who had destined him for a very different career, was in His providence preparing him for the work he had to do. His mind, at first hardened by the influence of early superstition, was, he himself tells us, brought by sudden conversion into a state of docility.[3] An ardent desire to attain proficiency in sacred knowledge took possession of him, and though this did not lead him to renounce other studies, it rendered him frigid in the pursuit of them. At all times, indeed, a diligent student, he seems at this time to have been impelled by his zeal beyond those bounds which a wise regard to health would impose. It was his wont, after a frugal supper, to labour till midnight, and in the morning when he awoke, he would, before he arose, recall and digest what he had read the previous day, so as to make it thoroughly his own. " By these protracted vigils," says Beza, " he secured indeed a solid erudition, and an ex cellent memory ; but it is probable he at the same time sowed the seeds of that disease which occasioned him various illnesses in after life, and at last brought upon him premature death."[4]
studies under a learned Italian of the name of Alciati, whom Francis I. had invited into France, and settled as a professor of law in that university. Here he became acquainted with Melchior Volmar, a German, then pro
fessor of Greek at Bourges, and a man of sound erudition- ↑ The family name of Calvin seems to have been written indifferently Oauvin, Chative, Chauvin, Calvus, Calvinus. In the contemporary notices of Gerard and his family, in the capitular registers of the cathe dral at Noyon, the name is always spelt Cauuin. The anagram of Calvin is Alcuin, and this in its Latinized form Alcuinus appears in two editions of his Institutio as that of the author (Audin, Vie de Calvin, i. 520). The syndics of Geneva address him in a letter written in 1540, and still preserved, as " Doeteur Caulvin." In his letters written in French he usually signs himself "Jean Calvin." He affected the title of " Maitre," for what reason is not known.
- ↑ Calv., Prcef. ad Comment, in Psalmos.
- ↑ Prcef. ad Psalmos.
- ↑ Jo. Calvini Vita, sub init.
