John Calvin

John Calvin was a French humanist and lawyer who converted to the Reformation around 1533, fled to Basel, and published the Institutes of the Christian Religion at twenty-six as a summary of the new faith for the persecuted, expanding it through four editions into the systematic theology of Protestantism. Called to Geneva, expelled, and called back, he governed the city’s church for a quarter century, making it the model and refuge of Reformed Europe and burning Servetus for heresy. Predestination, the sovereignty of God and the discipline of the elect are his; Weber found the spirit of capitalism in their anxieties.