John Calvin

Date of Birth 10 July 1509

Place of Birth Noyon, France
Date of Death 27 May 1564
Place of Death Geneva

Biography
Jean Calvin was born in Noyon in Picardy, north of Paris, in 1509. As a
young man he studied at the Collège de la Marche, in Paris. It is believed
that, after completing his course, he entered the Collège de Montaigu.
His movements during the mid-1520s took him from the University of
Paris to the University of Orléans, University of Bourges and back to the
Collège Royal in Paris. These movements were due, in part, to his chang-
ing his course of studies, at his father’s behest, from theology to law.
At some point around this time, Calvin experienced an alteration of
his views, which he would later refer to as a ‘sudden conversion’. The
enigma surrounding the timing and character of, and influences upon,
this conversion is palpable, but the reality of it would seem to garner
support from the events of All Saints’ Day in 1533. After Nicolas Cop,
the rector of the University of Paris, delivered an address at the com-
mencement of the academic year that roused suspicion because of the
‘Lutheran’ themes it contained, not only Cop, but also numerous others,
including Calvin, fled the city. King Francis I had decided to respond to
Cop’s boldness by attempting to round up everyone in the city associated
with Lutheranism. Having fled, Calvin wandered around various parts of
Europe before deciding to stay in Geneva in 1536.
Apart from a short stint in Strasbourg, Calvin would remain in Geneva
for the rest of his life. He was married, apparently happily, to Idelette de
Bure from 1540 until her death in 1549. Calvin worked for the reforming
of Geneva and also of his French homeland, to which he would never
return, living in exile until his death on 27 May, 1564. By the time of
his death, the ‘Reformed’ faith he taught had spread through much of
Europe and the British Isles, and it would eventually spread through
much of the world.
Calvin’s oeuvre includes theological treatises, letters, sermons, com-
mentaries on biblical and classical works, polemical tracts, lectures and

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various other publications, written in Latin and in the French vernacular.

His Institutio Christianae religionis, for which he is perhaps best known,
has left an indelible mark on Christian thought – primarily that found in
the West and within Protestantism. He was both despised and venerated
in his own day. This being so, Calvin was buried in an unmarked grave,
presumably so as to prevent desecration, and also to avoid the possibility
of it becoming a holy shrine visited by pilgrims.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION

Primary
T. Beza, Commentaires de M. Iean Calvin sur le livre de Josué. Avec une preface de
Theodore de Besze, contenant en brief l’histoire de la vie et mort d’iceluy . . .
Geneva, 1564
N. Colladon, Commentaires de M. Iean Calvin sur le livre de Josué. Avec une pref-
ace de Theodore de Besze . . . Geneva, 1565
J.-H. Bolsec, Histoire de la view, des moeurs . . . de Jean Calvin, Lyons and Paris,
1577
J.-P. Masson, Vita Ioannis Calvini, Lutetiae, 1620
J.-M.-V. Audin, Histoire de la vie, des ouvrages et des doctrines de Calvin, Paris,
1841
Secondary
There are huge numbers of studies on Calvin, including:
J. Balserak, John Calvin as sixteenth-century prophet, Oxford, 2014
B. Gordon, Calvin, New Haven CT, 2009
J.-L. Mouton, Calvin, Paris, 2009
I. Backus, Life writing in Reformation Europe. Lives of Reformers by friends, dis-
ciples and foes, Aldershot, 2008
D. Crouzet, Jean Calvin, Vies parallèles, Paris, 2000
B. Cottret, Calvin. Biographie, Paris, 1995
O. Millet, Calvin et la dynamique de la Parole. Essai de rhétorique réformée, Paris,
1992
W.J. Bouwsma, John Calvin. A sixteenth-century portrait, Oxford, 1988
T.H.L. Parker, John Calvin, Berkhamsted, 1977
J. Cadier, Calvin, se vie, son oeuvre, Paris, 1967
A. Ganoczy, Le Jeune Calvin. Genèse etévolution de sa vocation réformatrice, Wies-
baden, 1966
R. Kingdon, Geneva and the coming of the wars of religion, 1555-1563, Geneva,
1956
M. Weber, Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus, T̈bingen,
1934

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E. Doumergue, Jean Calvin. Jean Calvin, les hommes et les choses de son temps,
7 vols, Lausanne, 1899-1927

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations

Institutio Christianae religionis; InstitutioInstitution
de la religion chrétienne, ‘The Institutes’
Date 1536-60
Original Language French
Description
The Institutio is a theological treatise. It went through five major Latin
revisions, the first of which appeared in 1536 (the other major Latin edi-
tions appeared in 1539, 1554, 1550 and 1559). There was no French transla-
tion of the 1536 Institutio, but most of the later editions were translated
into French, the definitive translation being the 1560 Institution de la reli-
gion chrétienne. In the Calvini opera edition, the Latin Institutio of 1536
comes to 248 columns. It would expand in each subsequent version, such
that the 1559 edition consists of 1,118 columns.
The work as published in 1536 consisted of six chapters, which discuss
the law (de lege), faith (de fide), prayer (de oratione), the sacraments (de
sacramentis), the five false sacraments (quo sacramenta . . . reliqua), and
Christian freedom (de libertate Christiana). The structure has been linked
with Martin Luther’s Small catechism of 1529. It treats the content of the
Christian faith as set out in the standard creeds of the Church, such as
the Nicene. Calvin includes a prefatory letter addressed to the French
king, Francis I. The work also concludes with a brief examination of the
nature of government and office of the civil magistrate. In this way, the
Institutio, it has been argued, was a work with a political focus to it –
a position that garners some support from a (later) preface to Calvin’s
commentary on the Psalms, in which he claims that he wrote the Insti-
tutio in order to explain to the French king the true character of the
faith of those the king had put to death in 1534 as part of his attempts to
rid France of groups (generally referred by the broad label of ‘Lutheran’)
deemed to pose a threat to the religious and civil order of the realm.
Even though the treatise is not primarily concerned with relations
with the Islam or Muslims, there are nevertheless a few explicit refer-
ences to Islam as well as a general treatment of false religion, with Islam
included in this category. The explicit references find Calvin referring to

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Muslims as the ‘Turks’ as many during this era tended to do. Together
with Jews and the ‘Papists’, the followers of Muḥammad were deemed
by Calvin to be fundamentally ungodly and opposed to the truth, despite
the fact that they professed to worship God. This is brilliantly explained
in the introductory chapters of his Institutio.
By the 1559 edition, the Institutio had been expanded to four books
with a total of 80 chapters. The first nine chapters constitute a case for the
viability of true religious knowledge in a fallen world, which knowledge
can only be found in the sacred scriptures of the Christian faith. In his
exposition, Calvin contends that those who do not follow the Christian
Bible through a living faith inspired by the Spirit of the triune God fall
invariably either into a hypocritical adherence to the Christian religion
(i.e., Roman Catholics) or worship false gods (i.e., Muslims and Jews).
Thus, although Calvin’s explicit references to Islam are extremely rare,
he was most certainly aware of Muslims – they had of course advanced
as far as Vienna by 1529, prompting numerous authorities, among them
Martin Luther, to write scathing accounts condemning them and iden-
tifying them with Gog and Magog (Ezekiel 38-39) and the Last Days –
and constructed within the Institutio a system in which the ‘Turk’ was
regarded as wholly opposed to the true God.
In certain senses, the above account of Calvin’s understanding of false
and true religions is more meaningful than any of the explicit references
Calvin makes to Muslims in the Institutio. That said, some of his explicit
assertions do give a sense of the vehemence of his feelings towards them.
He declares, for instance, in Institutio 2.6.4: ‘So today the Turks, although
they proclaim at the top of their lungs that the Creator of heaven and
earth is God, still, while repudiating Christ, substitute an idol in place of
the true God.’ In addition to vehemence of feeling, this citation nicely
demonstrates one of Calvin’s fundamental concerns with respect to the
nature of true worship and, thus, of idolatry. For this reason as well, Cal-
vin can assert that the Turks know nothing of what it means to pray,
since true prayer can only be made through faith in Christ (Institutio
3.13.5). A total of five explicit references to the Turk can be found in the
1559 Institutio edition, all of which state or imply that Islam is a false
religion, which possesses no hope because it rejects Jesus Christ as God’s
son and the saviour of humankind.
Significance
The perceived threat the Turks presented to Europe is difficult to over-
estimate. The event of the Ottoman army moving north and making it as

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far as Vienna was interpreted by many throughout European Christen-

dom as a portent of the end of the age. The siege by the Ottomans did
not directly threaten Geneva. However, news of the war spread through-
out the Continent and to Geneva.
The threat of Islam notwithstanding, scholars at the time manifested
an academic interest in Islam and in the Muslim religious text, the Qur’an.
One of the more significant ways in which this can be seen is in the work
of Theodor Bibliander, whose publication of a kind of encyclopaedia of
Islam along with the first Latin translation of the Qur’an was of enor-
mous importance (see his Machumetis Saracenorum principis eiusque
successorum vitae, doctrina ac ipse Alcoran, Basel, 1543). Renaissance
humanism had renewed thought on the relationship between Christian-
ity and other religions, intellectual movements and philosophies. Some
Christian humanists, such as Pico della Mirandola and especially Mar-
silio Ficino, developed profoundly influential interests in esoteric ideals,
magic and the notion of the prisca theologia. Interestingly, concerning
classical authors such as Cicero, Seneca and Virgil, important Christian
writers such as Desiderius Erasmus and Ulrich Zwingli could declare
openly that some of these virtuous ‘pagans’ would be in heaven. Indeed,
Bibliander seems to have adhered to the idea that elements of all reli-
gions might serve as a kind of preparation for the Gospel (preparatio
Evangelii), reviving a notion generally found among some of the church
fathers. This relatively positive appraisal was not granted to all non-
Christian religions. The early modern attitude towards the Jews offers an
excellent example demonstrating the point. Nevertheless, some thinkers
during the early modern era exhibited a more benign attitude towards
non-Christian religions, and particularly towards Islam, than the attitude
found in the writings of Calvin. Bibliander is a case in point.
Calvin’s attitude towards Islam, as manifest in his Institutio, could
never be called benign. To be fair, his interests in writing the Institu-
tio lay elsewhere. Nonetheless, his sharp tone towards the Turks and his
strong characterisation of Islam as an idolatrous religion leave no linger-
ing doubt as to his position towards Muslims. This certainly does not set
Calvin at odds with the general tradition of Western Christianity towards
Islam – far from it. Rather, in condemning Muslims for their denial of
Christ, Calvin would not have seen himself as doing anything unusual.
Calvin’s interpretation of Christianity as so profoundly built upon
the sacred scriptures would be propagated with the spread of Calvinism
throughout Europe, the British Isles, the New World and, eventually to
the East (Korea has a large Presbyterian – Calvinist – church) and to

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Africa (in the form of Dutch Calvinism, found especially in South Africa).
Accordingly, a similarly firm and uncompromising view of Islam spread
along with the Reformed faith, which was spearheaded in no small way
by the popularity of the Institutio.
Manuscripts —
Editions & Translations
The editions and translations of the Institutio and Institution are too
numerous to list. The following are the most recent and complete:
R. Peter and J.-F. Gilmont, Bibliotheca Calviniana. Les oeuvres de Jean
Calvin publiées au XVIe siècle, 3 vols, Geneva, 1991-2000
W. de Greef, The writings of John Calvin. Expanded edition, trans.
L. Bierma, Louisville KY, 2008
Electronic editions:
Many of Calvin’s works, in English translation, are available at www
.ccel.org/ccel/calvin
Many of Calvin’s French and Latin writings can be found at www
.prdl.org
Calvin’s French and Latin writings are also available at www.e-rara.ch
AGES Software produced a CD-ROM entitled, The comprehensive John
Calvin collection, which includes the Library of Christian Classics
edition (Battles) of Calvin’s 1559 Institutes of the Christian religion.
The complete works of Calvin from the Calvini Opera (Corpus Reforma-
torum) edition are available in DVD format from Instituut voor Refor-
matieonderzoek, Apeldoorn, the Netherlands.
Westminster John Knox Press has produced the Library of Christian
Classics edition (Battles) of Calvin’s 1559 Institutes of the Christian
religion on CD-ROM.
Important Latin editions:
P. Barth and G. Niesel (eds), Joannis Calvini opera selecta, Munich,
1926-36, i, pp. 11-283, and iii-v
G. Baum et al., Corpus Reformatorum. Ioannis Calvini opera quae
supersunt omnia, Brunswick, 1863-1900, i-ii
Important French editions:
O. Millet (ed.), Institution de la religion chrétienne (1541), Geneva, 2008,
(annotated critical edition)
J.-D. Benoit, Institution de la religion chrétienne de Jean Calvin, Paris,
1957-63 (critical edition with introduction, notes and variants)

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J. Pannier (ed.), Institution de la religion chrestienne, Paris, 1936-9

G. Baum et al., Corpus Reformatorum. Ioannis Calvini Opera quae
supersunt omnia, Brunswick, 1863-1900, iii-iv
F. Baumgartner (ed.), Institution de la religion chrétienne, Paris, 1888
There are plans to produce a new edition of the Institutio and Institu-
tion to include in the Calvini opera. Denuo recognita, but at this
point nothing has been produced.

Important English translations are:

E.A. McKee (trans.), Institutes of the Christian religion. The first English
version of the 1541 French edition, Grand Rapids MI, 2009
F.L. Battles (trans.), Institution of the Christian religion (1536 ed), trans.
F.L. Battles, Grand Rapids MI, 1986
F.L. Battles (trans.), Institution of the Christian religion (1536 ed), trans.
F.L. Battles, Atlanta GA, 1975
F.L. Battles (trans.), Institutes of the Christian religion (Library of Chris-
tian Classic), 2 vols, Philadelphia PA, 1960
H. Beveridge (trans.), Institutes of the Christian religion, 2 vols, Edin-
burgh, 1845
J. Allen (trans.), Institutes of the Christian religion, 2 vols, Philadelphia
PA, 1813
(Ford Lewis Battles’s translation is now generally considered the
standard English edition, though it has been criticised by some;
for questions and disputes about Battles’s Latin, see: http://calvin
battlescorrections.blogspot.com/
studies
There are thousands of scholarly works on the Institutes. None deals
with Islam per se, but they discuss the character of the Institutes in a
general way:
W. van’t Spijker, Bij Calvijn in de leer. Een handleiding bij de Institutie,
Houten, 2004
R. Muller, The unaccommodated Calvin. Studies in the foundation of a
theological tradition, Oxford, 2000
R. Zachman, ‘What kind of book is Calvin’s Institutes?’ Calvin Theologi-
cal Journal 35 (2000) 238-61
P.C. Böttger, Calvins Institutio als Erbauungshuch. Versuch einer liter-
arischen Analyse, Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1990
J.-D. Benoit, ‘The history and development of the Institutio. How Cal-
vin worked’, in G.E. Duffield (ed.), John Calvin, Grand Rapids MI,
1966, 102-17

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B.B. Warfield, ‘On the literary history of Calvin’s Institutes’, Presbyte-

rian and Reformed Review 10 (1899) 193-219
J. Köstlin, ‘Calvins Institution ach Form und Inhalt in ihrer geschicht-
lichen Entwicklung, Theologische Studien und Kritiken 41 (1868),
7-62, 410-86

Praelectiones in librum prophetiarum Danielis,

‘Lectures on the Book of the prophecies of Daniel’
Date 1561
Original Language Latin
Description
Calvin’s lectures on Daniel were part of a longer series of lectures he
presented on the prophetic books. He also lectured in this series on Isa-
iah, Psalms, Minor Prophets, Jeremiah, Lamentations and Ezekiel (dying
before he completed this book). These lectures were different from the
commentaries he produced. He wrote commentaries on all the Pauline
epistles as well as the Gospels and Acts and on Old Testament books,
such as the last four books of the Pentateuch and Joshua. The lectures,
however, were presented to the Genevan public as discourses in which
Calvin went verse by verse through a biblical book, expounding, covering
issues of interpretation of the Hebrew, treating the historical background,
and so forth. From late 1555 (or early 1556) onwards, these lectures began
to focus on preparing ministers to be sent into France in order to assist
the growing French Reformed congregations.
Calvin divided his treatment of Daniel into 66 individual lectures.
His handling of the book, like his handling of all the prophetic books,
is characterised by a careful treatment of the history and context in
which the prophet Daniel and his friends found themselves. As one
enters the latter half of the Book of Daniel, with its prophecies about
the Son of Man and visions of rams and other images, Calvin attempts
to continue his historically-oriented treatment while also being attuned
to the rhetorical devices and literary tropes employed in the text. He
strongly eschews apocalyptic readings, despite their popularity through-
out exegetical history. For Calvin, the most important thing the Book of
Daniel could do is to provide guidance and comfort to his French trainee-
ministers, who were about to enter the stronghold of Catholicism that
was 16th-century France. Accordingly, his analysis of the book tends to

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be historically-focused and to see God as the one who cares for his peo-
ple who were dwelling in a strange land.
Calvin’s handling of Islam within these lectures is scattered and
fairly brief. He mentions the Turks in several places in his exposition of
Daniel 2. His consistent concern is to argue against Jewish commenta-
tors, particularly Rabbi Barbinel, who he contends are wrong to identify
the fourth kingdom mentioned by Daniel (in Daniel 2, 7, 8 and 11) as the
Turkish Empire, because he thinks it should be understood as the Roman
Empire.
His comments here are calmer and more academic in tone than those
that in either the Institutio or in his sermons on Deuteronomy. They are
primarily historical in character. Accordingly, he is content to acknowl-
edge that the Ottoman Empire has enormous amounts of wealth and
power, and has managed to conquer great portions of the globe, toppling
several kingdoms in the process. Calvin’s aim in all these comments is to
argue for the correct interpretation of the identity of the fourth kingdom
mentioned by Daniel.
Significance
The history of the interpretation of Old Testament prophecy, such as the
kind found in the book of Daniel, is replete with instances of interpreters
locating the dangers of their own age in the biblical text. This was true in
Antiquity, in the Middle Ages and also during the early modern era. Mar-
tin Luther, for instance, identified Gog and Magog (Ezekiel 38-39) as the
Turks. Similarly, numerous exegetes found the fears and dangers asso-
ciated with their own age in the Book of Daniel, particularly Daniel 7.
As the Turks were a potent threat to the Europe of the 1500s, they were
commonly identified within readings of these books.
That being the case, Calvin’s handling of the Book of Daniel sets out
a revisionist reading of the book. However, his unwillingness to identify
the Turks with the fourth monarchy has nothing to do with the question
of his attitude towards Islam. On the contrary, his concerns are focused
on lecturing on the prophetic books, including Daniel, in such a way that
he can use the richness of the text to prepare his ministerial trainees for
the French situation into which they would soon be entering.
His observations on Islam and the ‘Turks’ found in these lectures on
Daniel exhibit the same general views that one finds elsewhere in his
works, but without the vitriol, intensity and hatred. Thus, his reading of
Daniel was quite distinct from many readings of it that had been pro-
duced during the Middle Ages and were still being produced in Calvin’s

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own day. But the real significance of these lectures on Daniel is in their
historical orientation, which served to lay the groundwork for future bib-
lical exposition, particularly among Reformed Christians.
Manuscripts —
Editions & Translations
T.H.L. Parker (trans.), Daniel, Grand Rapids MI, 1993
T. Myers (trans.), Commentaries on the Book of the Prophet Daniel,
3 vols, Edinburgh, 1852-53 (reissued in 2 vols, Grand Rapids MI,
1948)
Prælectiones in librum prophetiarum Danielis. Joannis Budæi et Caroli
Jonvillæi labore et industria exceptæ. Additus est e regione versionis
Latinæ Hebraicus et Chaldaicus textus, Genève, 1591
Praelectiones Joannis Calvini in librum Prophetiarum Danielis, Vincen-
tius, 1571
Lecons de M. Jean Calvin sur le livre des propheties de Daniel. Recueil-
lies fidelement par Jean Budé, et Charles de Jonviller, ses auditeurs: et
translatées de latin en françois. Avec une table ample des principales
matieres contenues en ce livre, Geneva, 1569
Joannis Calvini praelectiones in librum prophetiarum Danielis, Joannis
Budaei et Caroli Jonvillaei labore et industria exceptae. Additus est
e regione versionis latinae hebraicus et chaldaicus textus, Genève,
1561
studies
J. Balserak, ‘The authority of tradition in Calvin’s lectures on the
prophets against the backdrop of early modern European change’,
in P. Webster, E. Fulton and H. Parish (eds), The search for author-
ity in the European Reformation, Aldershot, 2014, 29-48
B. Pitkin, ‘Prophecy and history in Calvin’s lectures on Daniel (1561)’
in Die Geschichte der Daniel-Auslegung in Judentum, Christentum
und Islam. Studien zur Kommentierung des Danielbuches in Litera-
tur und Kunst, Berlin, 2007, 323-47
I. Backus, ‘The Beast. Interpretations of Daniel 7.2-9 and Apocalypse
13.1-4 in Lutheran, Zwinglian and Calvinist circles in the late six-
teenth century’, Reformation and Renaissance Review 3 (2000)
59-77
A. Seifert, ‘Calvin und die “romanistische” Fruhform der prateritischen
Daniel-Auslegung’ in Der Ruckzug der biblischen Prophetie von der
neueren Geschichte: Studieren zur Geschichte der Reichstheologie des
fruhneuzeitlichen deutschen Protestantismus, Cologne, 1990, 49-64

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T.H.L. Parker, Calvin’s Old Testament commentaries, Edinburgh, 1986,

pp. 176-224
C.-G. Dubois, ‘Les leçons de Jean Calvin sur le Livre des Prophéties de
Daniel’, in La conception de l’histoire en France au XVIe siècle (1560-
1610), Paris, 1977, 466-84
H. Volz, ‘Beitrage zu Melanchthons und Calvins Auslegungen des
Propheten Daniel’, Zeitschrift fur Kirchengeschichte 67 (1955-6)
93-118

Sermons sur le V. livre de Moyse, nommé

Deutéronome, The sermons of M. Iohn Calvin upon
the fifth booke of Moses called Deuteronomie,
‘Sermons on Deuteronomy’
Date 1567
Original Language French
Description
Calvin’s sermons on Deuteronomy are indicative of the preaching that
occupied much of his day to day work in Geneva. They are also charac-
teristic of many of the qualities that came to exemplify his handling of
the biblical text, whether in sermons, lectures or commentaries.
Calvin preached on nearly the entire Bible during his years in Geneva
and Strasbourg. He took up the book of Deuteronomy on 20 March, 1555.
Preaching 200 sermons on the fifth book of Moses, Calvin tended to treat
between five and eight verses in each sermon and sometimes as many
as 10 or 11. Not infrequently he would overlap his coverage, mentioning a
verse or two at the end of one sermon only to take them up again at the
beginning of the next. Likewise, on rare occasions, he preached only on
one or two verses at a time, if the topic addressed there was deemed by
him to be worthy of special attention. He preached on each of the Ten
Commandments individually, for example (thus, he expounded the last
five commandments in individual sermons: Deuteronomy 5:17; 5:18; 5:19;
5:20; 5:21). He preached two sermons on the commandment to keep the
Sabbath (first expounding Deuteronomy 5:12-14 and then 5:13-15).
A series of sermons on an Old Testament biblical book that records
the history of Israel coming out of Egypt and sets out legal instruction
and its application is plainly not going to produce an extended and

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organised coverage of Islam. That said, Calvin does mention Islam on

several occasions in these sermons.
His handling of Islam exhibits the same qualities that are found in
his Institutio Christianae religionis. Yet Calvin does extrapolate here in a
more fulsome manner on a small handful of themes related to the ‘Turk’,
through which we glean a slightly better understanding of his conception
of the Islamic religion. It will come as little surprise, for instance, that he
mentions the Muslims in a sermon on Deuteronomy 13:1-3, in which God
warns his people, through Moses, not to hearken to false prophets who
prophecy and dream dreams and so forth. His remarks are not surprising,
as Calvin takes the opportunity provided by the biblical passage to warn
against listening to Turks, pagans, Jews and Roman Catholics, who blas-
pheme God and indeed would like to rid the world of Christianity. Calvin
also comments in this sermon that Muslims profess that God created the
heavens and the earth, but hate Jesus Christ and refuse to worship him.
A number passages in these sermons set out similar observations.
Calvin adds breadth to this coverage in several places. For instance,
he identifies the Turks’ adherence to the same belief that Calvin finds
among the Roman Catholics, namely, that they believe themselves to be
acting in a right and godly manner when they uncritically rely on what
was passed down from their fathers. This characteristic, which Calvin
identifies as a damning fault, means that both the ‘Turks’ and the ‘Papists’
consider it sufficient to hold on to what they are doing at present, which
they claim was passed down to them and therefore authoritative, rather
than listening to God’s voice (sermon on Deuteronomy 29:22-9).
In another example, Calvin mentions the Qur’an. This reference is in
comments on Deuteronomy 18:9-15. In so doing, he again equates Catho-
lics and Muslims, this time adding the Jews to the mix. He contends that
all of them claim to worship the Creator of heaven and earth, but (he
adds this time) they, in fact, make a mockery of the majesty of God and
in actual fact do not worship the true God but a ‘puppet’ (sermon on
Deuteronomy 18:14-15). In this context, he identifies Muḥammad and the
pope as the two horns of the Antichrist, a reference to Daniel 8. This,
then, is one of the more censorious remarks about Islam found in these
sermons.
Despite such condemning assessments, Calvin acknowledges that
Muslims exhibit a kind of reverence for their religion, which he declares
in a sermon on Deuteronomy 4:6-10. And yet despite this, Calvin asserts –
in a portion of the sermon where he is clearly attempting to rouse his
hearers to godliness and a wholehearted embracing of Christian doctrine –

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that ‘Turks’ are cut off from the Church due to their failure to adhere to
God’s truth about his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
So then, Calvin does occasionally mention Islam in these sermons,
although almost always with derision. He usually compares Islam with
Judaism and even more with Roman Catholicism, with the aim of con-
demning all three, and commending the ‘true’ Christian religion.
Significance
The Ottoman threat was a common thread linking the whole of Europe
together. Naturally, this was as true of Geneva as it was of Zurich or Paris,
though of course the imminent threat was felt more profoundly in par-
ticular parts of the Continent as the Turks pushed further west.
Given this threat, it would have come as no surprise to the hearers
of these sermons (preached in St Pierre) to find Calvin condemning the
Turks in the strongest possible terms. Large swathes of the city of Geneva
would have heard Calvin preach, not to mention travellers and even
curious Catholics visiting from neighbouring villages and towns, who
occasionally came to hear his sermons. His audience was not a gather-
ing of fellow humanists, theologians or scholars who might be interested
in learning about the Muslims or the Qur’an for (what could be legiti-
mately identified as) academic reasons. Thus, whereas some scholars,
such as Theodor Bibliander, were studying Islam as an intellectual pur-
suit, those who sat under Calvin’s preaching, though a diverse group of
people, consisted primarily of those who were supposed to be learning
how to be pious believers and, therefore, as Calvin would have seen it,
required to be taught to love the truth and hate evil. This was not the
time, Calvin seems to have felt, to engage in anything except the clear,
unambiguous articulation and application of the Gospel to the people
of God. Calvin’s declarations are often concerned to classify the Turks
together with Roman Catholics and Jews as idolatrous religious groups
who were cut off from God’s Church and had no hope of eternal life.
The legacy of such a reading of Islam would be felt in later centuries
throughout the world.
Manuscripts —
Editions & Translations
A. Golding (trans.), Sermons on Deuteronomy, Edinburgh, 1987 (16th-
17th-century facsimile editions)
Baum et al., Corpus Reformatorum, xxv, p. 573-xxix, p. 232

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The sermons of M. Iohn Calvin upon the fifth booke of Moses called
Deuteronomie: faithfully gathered word for word as preached them
in open pulpit; together with a preface of the ministers of the Church
of Geneva . . ., London, 1583
Sermons de M. Iean Caluin sur le v. liure de Moyse nommé Deutero-
nome: recueillis fidelement de mot à mot, selon qu’il les preschoit
publiquement. Auec une preface des ministres de l’Eglise de Geneue,
& vn aduertissement fait par les Diacres. Il y a aussi deux tables: l’vne
des matieres principales, l’autre des passages de la Bible alleguez par
l’autheur en ces sermons, Genève, 1567
studies
J.-M. Berthoud, ‘Pierre Viret, éthicien’, La Revue Réformée 62 (2011)
29-54
J. Balserak, ‘ “There will always be prophets”; Deuteronomy 18:14-22
and Calvin’s prophetic awareness’, in Herman Selderhuis (ed.),
Saint or sinner? Papers from the International Conference on the
Anniversary of John Calvin’s 500th birthday, T̈bingen, 2010, 85-112
R. Blacketer, School of God. Pedagogy and rhetoric in Calvin’s interpre-
tation of Deuteronomy, Dordrecht, 2006
R. Blacketer, ‘Smooth stones, teachable hearts. Calvin’s allegorical
interpretation of Deuteronomy 10:1-2’, Calvin Theological Journal
34 (1999) 36-63
M. Plant, ‘Calvin’s preaching on Deuteronomy’, Evangel 12 (1994)
40-50

Jon Balserak

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