section_path: New waves/Calvin and the Institutes of the Christian Religion
section_name: Calvin and the Institutes of the Christian Religion
paragraph_text: Calvin and the Institutes of the Christian Religion
  
  The future reformer John Calvin (d. 1564) was destined to a church career by his father, a lay administrator of the Bishopric of Noyon in France. He studied theology at the Sorbonne, and law at Orléans and Bourges. He read treatises by Lefèvre and Lefèvre's disciples at the newly established Collège Royal, and abandoned Catholicism under the influence of his Protestant friends, particularly the physician Nicolas Cop (d. 1540). The persecution of French Protestants intensified after the so-called Affair of the Placards. In October 1534, placards (or posters) attacking the Mass were placed at many places, including the door to the royal bedchamber in Château d'Amboise. In retaliation, twenty-four Protestants were executed, and many intellectuals had to leave France.
  
  Calvin was one of the religious refugees. He settled in Basel and completed the first version of his principal theological treatise, the Institutes of the Christian Religion in 1536. He would be rewriting and expanding it several times until 1559. As the historian Carlos Eire writes, "Calvin's text was blessed with a lawyer's penchant for precision, a humanist's love for poetic expression and rhetorical flourishes, and a theologian's respect for paradox". With Eire's words, Calvin "revived the jealous God of the Old Testament". He warned King Francis that the persecution of the faithful would incur the wrath of God upon him but sharply distanced moderate Protestants from Anabaptists. Already the first edition of the Institutes contained references to two distinguishing elements of Calvin's theology, both traceable back to Augustine: his conviction that the original sin had completely corrupted human nature, and his strong belief in " double predestination ". In his view, only strict social and ecclesiastic control could prevent sins and crimes, and God did not only decide who were saved but also those who were destined to damnation.
  
  In 1536, Farel convinced Calvin to settle in Geneva. Their attempts to implement radical reforms in discipline brought them into conflicts with those who feared that the new measures would lead to clerical despotism. After they refused to acknowledge the urban magistrates' claim to intervene in the process of excommunication, they were banished from the town. Calvin moved to Strasbourg where Bucer made a profound impact on him. Under Bucer's influence, Calvin adopted an intermediate position on the Eucharist between Luther and Zwingli, denying Christ's presence in it but acknowledging that the rite included a real spiritual communion with Christ.
  
  No one who wishes to be thought religious dares simply deny predestination, by which God adopts some to hope of life, and sentences others to eternal death...For all are not created in an equal condition; rather eternal life is fore-ordained for some, eternal damnation for others.
  
  John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (1559)
  
  After Calvin and Farel left Geneva, no pastors were able to assume the leadership of the local Protestant community. Fearing of a Catholic restoration, the urban magistrates convinced Calvin to come back to Geneva in 1541. Months after his return, the town council enacted The Ecclesiastical Ordinances, a detailed regulation summarizing Calvin's proposals for church administration. The Ordinances established four church offices. The pastors were responsible for pastoral care and discipline; the doctors instructed believers in the faith; the elders (or presbyters) were authorized to "watch over the life of each person" and to report those who lived a "disorderly" life to the pastors; and deacons were appointed to administer the town's charity. All townspeople were obliged to regularly attend church services. Calvin established a special court called the consistory to hear cases of moral lapse such as blasphemy, adultery, disrespect to authorities, gossiping, witchcraft and participation in rites considered superstitious by church authorities. The consistory was composed of the pastors, the elders, and an urban magistrate, and the townspeople were encouraged to report sinful acts to it. First-time offenders mainly received lenient sentences such as fines, but repeat offenders were banished from the town or executed. Resistance against the Ordinances was significant. Many continued visit shrines and pray to saints, while many patricians insisted on liberal traditional customs for which Calvin called them " Libertines ".