John Calvin-Life,Legacy and Theology

JOHN CALVIN : LIFE, LEGACY AND THEOLOGY -
PROF. M. M. NINAN
Then, in the spring of 1540, Jean Stordeur, stricken with the plague, suddenly died. Idelette grieved
for the loss of her husband; John sorrowed for the loss of a friend.
It was at this time, as John Calvin had almost given up thoughts of marriage because of the string of
fiascoes, that his pastor-friend Martin Bucer said to him “Why not consider Idelette?” John did. Idelette
was attractive and intelligent, a woman with culture, apparently from an upper middle-class
background. She was also a woman of character and quiet strength.
It didn’t take much time for the Reformer to pen another letter to William Farel, asking him to come
and perform a wedding ceremony. This time it was no false alarm, and in August, John and Idelette
were married. Idelette was perhaps more concerned that her children have a good father, and John
was relieved to have finally discovered a good wife.
Her first major adjustment was to move into Calvin’s student boarding house and learn how to cope
with a sharp-tongued housekeeper.
There were also health problems. Both of them became ill shortly after the wedding and were confined
to bed. Calvin’s thank-you note to Farel said, “As if it had been so ordered, that our wedlock might not
be overjoyous, the Lord thus thwarted our joy by moderating it.”
In his writings, John Calvin did not say much about his personal circumstances and even less about
his wife—certainly not as Martin Luther did—but nevertheless you get from his letters a glimpse of
Idelette as a wife who deeply cared for her husband as well as for her children. His biographers speak
of her as “a woman of some force and individuality,” and John himself described her as “the faithful
helper of my ministry” and “the best companion of my life.” He certainly was not disappointed in
marriage.
Though he delighted in her company, during the first year of their marriage he didn’t have much of it.
After their stint in their sickbeds, John had to travel, leaving his bride to cope with the boarding house
problems as well as her two children. He was not eager to leave, but Emperor Charles, the ruler of the
Holy Roman Empire, had called the leading Roman Catholic and Protestant scholars together to
discuss how they might stop their bickering and form a united front against the Turks, who were
menacing his empire.
Three months later he arrived back home for a month before going to another conference called by
the Emperor. “I am dragged most unwillingly,” he wrote, but he went.
While attending the conference, he received news that a plague was ravaging Strasbourg. He was
concerned. “Day and night my wife has been constantly in my thoughts,” he wrote. He realized that
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