Those who have a passing knowledge of John Calvin’s theology and reforms in Geneva in the sixteenth century may picture the confident and mature theologian and preacher without appreciating the various events, people, and circumstances that shaped the man. Before there was Protestantism’s first and eminent systematic theologian, there was the French youth, the law student and humanist, the Protestant convert and homeless exile, the reluctant reformer and anguished city leader. Snapshots of the young Calvin create a collage that give a bigger picture to the grey-bearded Protestant reformer. Eleven scholars of early-modern history have joined in this volume to depict the people, movements, politics, education, sympathizers, nemeses, and controversies from which Calvin emerged in his young adulthood.
A review copy came here a few months ago and I have found it to be both wildly interesting and a bit disconcerting.
First, the disconcerting bit. In the introductory essay our editor writes
John Calvin was born 10 July 1509. At the moment of his birth, nothing about him or his ancestry signaled that the small infant would one day be remembered along with Martin Luther as one of the two titans of the Reformation.
One of the two titans of the Reformation? That sentiment, on its face, is patently a-historical. It manages to erase the third (first, if you’re counting by interesting-ness) Reformer with the scrape of a pen: Zwingli. Further, no one, that I am familiar with, talks about the titans of the Reformation in terms simply of Luther and Calvin. Instead, it is always and constantly Luther, Calvin and Zwingli.
Zwingli is eventually mentioned, however, but, alas, only in connection with Luther and the controversy over the Supper (on page 9). Whitford seems blissfully, and perhaps willfully unaware of Zwingli’s wider and consequential influence. And he never mentions him again.
Whitford is certainly free to dislike Zwingli, but to ignore Zwingli is historically unjustifiable.
Fortunately the remaining essays, past the introductory one, are much better. Less disconcerting, and more historically responsible. Indeed, the difference is night and day. Take note, for instance, of
Sixteenth-Century French Legal Education and Calvin’s Legal Education, by Christoph Strohm, who observes
Traces of all three of the aims of humanistic jurisprudence outlined above can be found in Calvin’s later activities as theologian: his lifelong pursuit of a philological-contextual explanation of biblical texts; the weight he assigned to questions of ethics and church order; and finally, his interest in a systematic presentation of Christian doctrine, which took shape in his Institutes of the Christian Religion. Beyond these common goals, Calvin’s entire doctrinal profile was influenced by the formative years he spent in the milieu of humanistic jurisprudence.
Or the intriguing essay titled The Meaux Group and John Calvin, by Jonathan A. Reid where we read
In his biography of Calvin, Bruce Gordon writes, “he was … ruthless, and an outstanding hater. Among those things he hated were the Roman church, Anabaptists and those people who, he believed, only faint-heartedly embraced the Gospel and tainted themselves with idolatry.” The faint-hearted, of course, included so-called Nicodemites, Spiritual Libertines, and other ‘scandalous’ figures whom Calvin attacked in a series of tracts starting in 1537.
That reminds me, I need to re-read Gordon’s book. Anyway, Reid further remarks
The following essay attempts to contribute to our understanding of Calvin’s early career and evolving reform agenda by shifting the primary focus from the Genevan reformer to the French evangelicals.
And contribute it does. But my favorite contribution has to be ‘Those Satanic Anabaptists’: Calvin, Soul Sleep, and the Search for an Anabaptist Nemesis, by Brian C. Brewer. Brewer remarks, laconically,
That John Calvin did not favor the Anabaptists is evident to any cursory reading of his works.
That’s quite the understatement. Brewer continues
… this essay will argue two paradoxical ideas: First, that John Calvin, through all of his writings, did not always demonstrate a precise knowledge of what exactly the Anabaptists actually believed and, second, that Calvin was, at the same time, both theologically and personally shaped by the Anabaptists in fashions he never publicly admitted and in ways which profoundly molded the foundations of what we know today as Reformed Christianity.
And the rest is a treasure trove of details and historical facts which both Calvinists and Mennonites will find utterly enlightening.
The low point of the volume is the opening chapter but the remainder of the work lives up to the lofty expectations of persons who find historical studies and especially historical theological studies meaningful and important. And, in case you were wondering, the volume does make significant reference to Zwingli when mention is relevant. The index lists the following occurrences:
Zwingli, Huldrych 9, 116, 129, 130n18, 131, 181–183, 185, 187–189, 191–195, 216
- Amicable Exegesis 189
- Clear Instruction of Christ’s Supper 193Commentary on True and False Religion 182–186, 189
- Exposition of the 67 Conclusions 186, 189
- Subsidiary Essay on the Lord’s Supper 189
Enjoy the whole. I suspect you will, very much.
Zwinglius Redivivus 
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