Friends of Calvin

Friends of Calvin Machiel A. van den BergWm. B. Eerdmans, 2009ISBN 9780802862273 In two dozen short biographies of John Calvin's friends -- including some who turned into enemies -- Machiel A. van den Berg paints an intimate portrait of the great Reformer's life and circle that most of us have never seen. In these pages we accompany Calvin from his early boyhood in Noyon to his student days in Paris and Orleans, to his pastorate in and exile from Geneva, all the way to his deathbed. We meet his famous Reformer friends, such as Martin Bucer, William Farel, Heinrich Bullinger, Theodore Beza, and John Knox, but also friends whose names are more obscure: his cousin Pierre Robert OlivTtan, the first translator of the Bible into French; Rent de France of French royalty; Laurent de Normandie, the mayor of Noyon who later escaped to Geneva; Pierre Viret, his "best friend of all"; and Idelette van Buren, his beloved wife during their brief but "blissful" marriage. Calvin may be known as a schol