Preface to the Commentary on the Psalms
The preface that John Calvin dated at Geneva on 22 July 1557, in which he tells briefly how he came to the Reformation, why he published the Institutes, how Farel kept him in Geneva, and how he was banished and recalled.
Comparing his trials to David’s, John Calvin gives here a connected account of his own life: his father’s plans for him, what he calls a “sudden conversion”, his withdrawal from France to Basel, the first Institutes, the night in Geneva on which Guillaume Farel threatened him with God’s curse if he left, his expulsion and his unwilling return.
It is first-hand, and it was written some twenty years after the events it describes, by a man explaining his calling to his readers. It gives no dates and few names. The registers of the city of Geneva supply the dates.
Cited in
- 1536 to 1541, firm date