Note 84 — Chapter XV · THE LITERARY PROGRESS OF FRANCE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

[John Calvin, the celebrated Protestant reformer and theologian, was born at Noyon, Picardy, France, in 1509, and died at Genoa, May 27th, 1564. His father, Gerard Calvin, was a notary-apostolic and procurator-fiscal for the lordship of Noyon, besides holding other ecclesiastical offices. His early years are obscure, but from childhood he showed great religious feeling and an intense earnestness. He studied at Paris, Orleans, and Bourges, and although brought up with the intention of entering the priesthood, after close study of the Bible, he embraced the Reformation. In 1532 Calvin published his first work, an edition of Seneca’s De Clementia with an elaborate commentary. In 1533, on account of speeches in opposition to the court, he was banished from Paris and it is said it was during his retirement at Saintonge that he made his first sketch of his Institution Chrétienne. His other works are all of a religious nature, mostly controversial. A great many of these are of an exegetical character, of which his expository comments or homilies on the books of Scripture are by some considered the most valuable of his works. (For a further account of Calvin, see the history of the Reformation movement, volume xiii.)]