Guillaume Farel
The preacher who, by Calvin’s account, had with Pierre Viret driven “Popery” from Geneva and who pressed Calvin to stay in the city. The two were banished together in 1538.
John Calvin writes that “Popery” had lately been driven from Geneva by the exertions of Farel and of Pierre Viret, and that Farel, burning with zeal for the Gospel, kept him in the city by declaring that God would curse his retirement and his studies if he refused to help (Calvin, Preface to the Psalms preface). The council register for April 1538 records that Farel and Calvin preached after being forbidden and were ordered to leave the city within three days, and it notes that both accepted the order when it was brought to them, Calvin answering that they served a greater master than men (Geneva registers, Council, 21–23 April 1538). See Calvin’s Institutes and the Reform of Geneva.
In the timeline
- 1536 to 1541, firm dateCalvin’s Institutes and the Reform of Geneva
John Calvin, a French exile, publishes the Institutes of the Christian Religion at Basel in 1536 and is kept in Geneva by Guillaume Farel. Banished in 1538, he returns in 1541, and the city adopts the church ordinances he asked for.