The wall of the Reformers in Geneva
© Photo Geneva Civil security
Guillaume Farel, Jean Calvin, Theodore de Bère and John Knox (from left to right)
The major motivation of the Reform is the return of Christendom to its primitive purity. The great name which remains to him attached is that of the German Martin Luther (1483-1546). The heart of its doctrines is safety by the faith such as Paul saint states it in the Epistle with the Romans. Works and morals are for him only the products of the faith. They are without any merit because all is a gift of God. The business of indulgences is the occasion for him to publish a proclamation, the 95 theses, in which it develops these evangelic doctrines. Excommunicated and put at the round of applause of the empire, Luther can despite everything continue his action thanks to the protection of Frederic the Wise one, Electeur of Saxony.
Jean Calvin (1509-1564) is the second great name of the Reform. In its Institution of the Christian religion (1536), it is interested, contrary to Luther, the diffusion of the Reform in the secular world. In Geneva, he endeavors to establish politically and socially a true theocracy, full with originality, creative of a certain kind of civilization, but also very legal and very authoritative.