The following is fourth in a series of editorials.

If Martin Luther was the pioneer of the Reformation, his younger contemporary, John Calvin (1509-1563), should be regarded as the Reformantion’s systematic theologian. For nearly all of his ministry, from 1536 till his death in 1564, Calvin was in exile in Francophone Geneva. These years in Geneva were interrupted, though, by a period spent in Strasbourg from 1538 to 1541, and it was during that period that Calvin was married.

At the urging of a number of friends, including his close colleague Guillaume Farel (1489-1565), Calvin had drawn up a list of the attributes he sought in a wife. He was not really concerned with physical beauty, he told Farel on one occasion. Instead, he was looking for a woman who was chaste, sober-minded, prudent, patient, and able “to take care of my health.”[1]

Farel told him that he knew just the woman, but it didn’t work out. Then a woman from the upper class was proposed. But she couldn’t speak French, about which Calvin was not at all happy. Calvin was also afraid that her social status might be an inducement to pride. Calvin’s brother Antoine (d. 1573), though, was keen about the marriage. So Calvin agreed to consider marriage as long as the woman promised to learn French. This was at the beginning of 1540.[2] But by late March of that year, Calvin was saying that he would never think of marrying her “unless the Lord had entirely bereft me of my wits.”[3]

By August, however, he had met and married another woman, a widow by the name of Idelette de Bure (ca. 1499-1549) who had two children. Her first husband, Jean Stordeur (d.1540), had been an Anabaptist leader, who, through discussing theology with Calvin, had become convinced of the Reformed position.

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