Abstract

John Calvin, 1509–1564, Reformer of Geneva, Frenchman, naturalized Genevan bourgeois 1559, authority for Reformed Christians throughout Europe, translator of the Bible into French, author of a famed theological text, the Institution (or Institutes) of the Christian Religion in successive Latin and French versions (first ed. 1536, last eds. 1559 (Latin), 1560 (French)), pastor, ecclesiastical organizer, bilingual preacher, and polemicist whose sermons and catechetical, controversial, and organizational works were very widely diffused.