SEMINAR: Calvin�s Sixteenth-Century Critics: Jerome Bolsec and Sebastian Castellio

In this seminar I’ll present on two of John Calvin’s sixteenth-century critics: Jerome Bolsec and Sebastian Castellio. Both were vehement critics of Calvin’s doctrine of predestination, and Castellio became widely respected among later proponents of religious toleration (e.g., Locke, Bayle, and Voltaire) for his writings against Calvin after the execution of Michael Servetus in Geneva in 1553. I’ll attempt to situate their lives and work in the uncertain atmosphere of mid-sixteenth-century religious reform in Switzerland.