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Abraham, David, and the Problem of Exile in Calvin’s Theology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 July 2025

Kenneth J. Woo
Kenneth J. Woo*
Affiliation:
Pittsburgh Theological Seminary; kwoo@pts.edu
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Abstract

Scholars have long noted the prevalence of exile as a theme in John Calvin’s theology, which responded to times unsettled by religious persecution and migration. However, research has only begun to describe with precision how Calvin portrayed exile. This article examines the theme in Calvin’s biblical exegesis, demonstrating how his commentaries and sermons problematize exile by establishing two requirements for faithfulness from the exilic experiences of Abraham and David: 1) open confrontation with idolatry; and 2) the pursuit of sacramental nurture. In both cases, the reformer’s exegesis is notable for reflexively invoking Nicodemism, persistently deploying Abraham and David as counterexamples against this contemporary problem. This intersection of crypto-religion and exile, considered spiritually and politically, displays how context drove Calvin’s exegesis toward readings distinctive in the history of interpretation. It also sharpens exile’s polemical potential as a differentiated category Calvin used to encourage the community of believers while disciplining its behavior.

Keywords

John CalvinexegesisexileNicodemism“Reformation of the Refugees”

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Harvard Theological Review , Volume 118 , Issue 2 , April 2025 , pp. 314 - 336
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© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the President and Fellows of Harvard College

Introduction

On June 24, 1544, Calvin, under the name “Charles d’Espeville,” wrote his friend, Jacques de Bourgogne, lord of Falais, who recently left France due to his evangelical sympathies.Footnote 1 The letter addresses Falais’s request for a reformed chaplain and offers pastoral advice to Falais and his wife who, after much encouragement, departed home and country in pursuit of pure religion. Calvin’s counsel is warm but pointed: flight from idolatry is commendable but only the beginning of what constitutes faithfulness in this case. Lest they find themselves scrambling backwards “like crawfish” at the very point of progress, Monsieur and Madame de Falais must forge ahead in the footsteps of David and Abraham, who model the kind of exile to which God calls believers in their unfettered commitment to preaching and sacraments, outward expressions of God’s provision for spiritual pilgrims.Footnote 2 Beyond its vivid crustacean imagery, the reformer’s exhortation is notable for employing these biblical exemplars to scrutinize an instance of political exile, an increasingly common disruptor of life for millions in an era Nicholas Terpstra has called “the first period in European and possibly global history when the religious refugee became a mass phenomenon.”Footnote 3 Calvin’s advice to Falais illustrates how exegesis could inform his view of exile. Taking up diverse biblical narratives, Calvin’s exegesis nuances a concept—“exile”—that might otherwise appear in his thought to be a generic category of experience. How well did he account for various motives and circumstances when “those on the move might be exiles, religious refugees, or simply migrants caught up in broader movements”?Footnote 4 What of voluntary versus imposed displacement, or exile as something the faithful shared with their foes? The reformer was sensitive to such complexities. For Calvin some forms of exile were superior to others.

It is not surprising that the reformers, like so many readers of scripture before and since the Reformation, reflexively invoke Abraham or David. Nor does connecting these figures to exile deviate in the least from the history of exegesis, including the New Testament’s own accent on Abraham’s foreigner identity to present him as an example for Christian faith (Heb 11).Footnote 5 The Frenchman famously describes David’s exilic circumstances as a guide for his own struggles in life and ministry, seeing David’s journey as a paradigm for the entire course of Calvin’s estrangement from the religion and land of his birth.Footnote 6 Max Engammare has noted how Calvin offered religious refugees the solace of God’s vindicating Abraham’s departure into parts unknown (Gen 12) and the example of David’s concern for faithful worship in exile, suggesting ways that Calvin might have seen himself in these characters.Footnote 7

This study builds upon Engammare’s observations while also showing how the reformer takes the stories of Abraham and David to address another contemporary issue: religious dissimulation or “Nicodemism.” Calvin characterized the problem as evangelicals hiding their convictions in Catholic settings to avoid persecution, deriding so-called “Nicodemites” for concealing faith like Nicodemus, who first sought Jesus at night (John 3).Footnote 8 In his public teaching, Calvin’s consistent position over nearly thirty years was that evangelicals in the midst of Roman worship had only two licit options: 1) flee, like he did, to a place where they could worship as God intends; or 2) resist in place, facing consequences that included persecution or death.Footnote 9 Hiding one’s faith to escape hardship was never acceptable. Relying largely on the reformer’s formal anti-Nicodemite publications and tending to focus on Calvin’s invective against idolatry as the heart and sum of the matter, scholarship on this subject has not adequately appreciated how a more nuanced approach to religious dissimulation appears in Calvin’s biblical exegesis as part of a comprehensive theological vision of exile.Footnote 10 For Calvin, Abraham in exile is the quintessential counter-Nicodemite with his combatively open faith. David’s example includes the same rejection of idolatry, but centers instead on the spiritual malnourishment of those, like Nicodemites, who neglect or misuse sacraments. Both lessons display Calvin’s concern for crypto-religion pressing his exegesis in directions that produce the distinctive account of exile informing his advice to Falais and others.

The present investigation expands our understanding of Calvin’s approach to Nicodemism and exile by considering exegetical sources. It contributes to literature that extends Heiko Oberman’s proposal of a “Reformation of the Refugees” by illustrating how the Frenchman read scripture as a religious refugee with the needs of fellow refugees in mind.Footnote 11 In this way, I build on the insight that Calvin utilized exile as a synthesizing theme to address religious communities in an age of migration by describing Calvin’s approach more precisely.Footnote 12 Specifically, I demonstrate how the reformer’s exegetical corpus problematizes political exile in light of 1) biblical teaching about the present life as spiritual exile and 2) the contemporary reality of crypto-religion in the sixteenth century, equating faithfulness in exile with radical outward displays of confessional purity. Calvin’s analysis of Abraham and David in his sermons and commentaries relates exile and Nicodemism with greater subtlety than one finds in his other writings. Here Nicodemism illumines diverse paths of exile, while exile in turn unveils a broader horizon for Calvin’s anti-Nicodemism beyond its trademark fixation on idolatry, toward a positive case for spiritual edification rooted in his sacramental theology. The resulting account of faithfulness refashions David and Abraham as exemplary figures for a reform agenda deeply attuned to lived experiences of persecution, migration, and exile. It also suggests ways that exile, as a theme, intensifies the polemical potential of Calvin’s teaching by addressing believers’ constant conduct.

To make this case, I first set forth Calvin’s exegetical treatment of Abraham and David as exiles par excellence in Genesis, 2 Samuel, and the Psalms—texts that directly situate these figures in exile—highlighting the distinctive elements of Calvin’s reading vis-à-vis representative examples of pre- and early modern Jewish and Christian exegesis. With this construal of faithful exile in hand, I go on to demonstrate how it imbues Calvin’s well-known rejection of religious dissimulation with underappreciated complexity, elements of which appear across his exegesis of exilic experiences, from the opening chapters of Genesis to prophetical accounts of the Babylonian captivity. A brief conclusion considers how such a portrayal of exile—centered on the ongoing pursuit of both purity and spiritual nourishment—could have been useful to Calvin in an era of ecclesial reform amid many migrations.

Confrontation and Nurture: Clarifying the Parameters of Faithful Exile

Calvin’s exegesis of Abraham and David in exile appears principally in sermons and commentaries from the 1550s and 1560s, a season of significant changes for the reformer and his adopted city. Between Geneva’s surging influx of international refugees, Calvin’s defeat of political opposition that highlighted his status as a foreigner, and the Frenchman’s ongoing efforts to influence his estranged homeland, it is no surprise that exile as a contemporary reality impacts his interpretation of biblical history.Footnote 13 Calvin reflects on the exilic experiences of Abraham (Gen 12) and David (1 Sam 21–24, 2 Sam 15–17, and Psalms) in local preaching as well as printed exegetical works.Footnote 14 This section demonstrates how, in elucidating the spiritual dimensions of political exile for Abraham and David, Calvin relates the stories of both to the problem of crypto-religion in ways that define faithfulness in exile while setting Calvin’s exegesis apart from both traditional and Reformation-era interpretation.Footnote 15

Political exile, the geographical and social separation from home one chooses or simply must accept, was a situation Calvin shared with many amid early modern Europe’s tumultuous changes.Footnote 16 Spiritual exile, the theologically considered location of all humanity resulting from the first couple’s expulsion from the garden (and of believers more narrowly as they await a heavenly home), is a phenomenon distinct but inseparable from political exile.Footnote 17 “If heaven is our homeland,” Calvin writes in 1539 concerning believers, “what else is earth but our place of exile,” and death is being “recalled from exile to dwell in the. . . heavenly fatherland.”Footnote 18 When contrasting the present and future life, Calvin frequently speaks of sin’s effects as expressions of spiritual exile, listing political exile as one such symptom of humanity’s estrangement from God (and creation) alongside other symptoms such as sickness, famine, and war.Footnote 19 The reformer interprets the political exile of Abraham and David through this spiritual lens. In the first instance, Abraham’s journey out of Ur and wanderings in Canaan present Calvin with an opportunity to differentiate motives for political exile and illustrate the posture of brash confrontation with unbelief that spiritual exile demands of believers. With David’s hiding from Saul or escape from Absalom, events Calvin sometimes treats interchangeably in the Psalms, the reformer reflects on the necessity and limits of sacraments as supports during spiritual exile. Of particular interest to the present study is how Calvin explains apparent oddities in these biblical figures’ behavior with reference to crypto-religion. This move is neither necessary nor intuitive from the biblical text, but also not difficult to account for given Calvin’s hatred for Nicodemism. The resulting portraits of David and Abraham exhibit distinctive accents Calvin uses to support a peculiar account of the right kind of exile.

Calvin’s reading of Abraham’s departure from Ur in Chaldea, when he was known as Abram, is remarkable for even raising the question of whether Abram’s decision to leave is legitimate, something others simply assume to be a proper response when God calls.Footnote 20 Yet both Calvin’s commentary (1554) and preaching (1559/60) on Genesis introduce Abram’s exile by distinguishing it from inferior reasons for leaving one’s homeland.Footnote 21 With Luther, Calvin rejects as “a fable” a Jewish tradition that Abram’s turn from idolatry preceded God’s call.Footnote 22 However, while Luther and other mainstream reformers focus on God’s unmerited mercy to illustrate doctrines such as divine election and justification by faith alone, Calvin acknowledges this interpretation while taking a distinctive turn to locate the text’s main teaching in the historical circumstances of Abram’s exile.Footnote 23 The preacher instructs his congregation to see in Abram a mirror for sixteenth-century Christians: an example for God’s people in all times and places whose story displays how God is trustworthy and should be their highest treasure.Footnote 24 Calvin takes up prominently an argument not featured in nearly all others’ readings, offering a litany of motives for voluntary and involuntary exile to single out Abram’s as exemplary:

[Moses] now explains that [Abram and his family] had not been impelled by levity, as rash and fickle men are wont to be; nor had been drawn to other regions by disgust with their own country, as morose persons frequently are; nor were fugitives on account of crime; nor were led away by any foolish hope, or by any allurements, as many are hurried here and there by their own desires; but that Abram had been divinely commanded to go forth, and had not moved a foot but as he was guided by the word of God.Footnote 25

Unlike others Abram resisted the natural human inclination (possessed “even by savages”) to remain home—a painful choice Calvin likens to disembowelment.Footnote 26 With this comparison, the Frenchman surely had in mind diverse reasons for migration in the early modern era, juxtaposing exile according to God’s command to flight for improper reasons. Calvin, of course, places himself among faithful émigrés, narrating elsewhere his leaving France as obedience to God’s summons into exile.Footnote 27

Calvin’s exegesis takes another idiosyncratic turn with Abram’s extended wandering in Canaan (Gen 12:5b–9). While echoing others in taking this as a time of testing for Abram’s faith, Calvin further explains the patriarch’s decision to build altars at Shechem and near Bethel as deliberate provocations to spite idolatrous neighbors.Footnote 28 Calvin embellishes traditional interpretations by assigning a sharp confrontational motive to Abram’s actions. Where others simply observe the obvious—that the altars express Abram’s piety—Calvin recapitulates his case against Nicodemism in detail, beginning with the necessity of visible faith: “Piety has its appropriate seat in the heart, but from this root confession emerges afterwards as fruit.”Footnote 29 Discomfort among idolaters appears in Musculus’s reading of Abram’s decision to leave Ur, while Luther and Brenz reflect on the possibility that Abram’s religion likely invited the scorn of his neighbors in Canaan, though none relate his altars to crypto-religion.Footnote 30 John Thompson has noted Calvin’s demurral from Luther’s positive portrayal of Ishmael and Hagar (Gen 21) as exiles banished by Sarah and Abraham.Footnote 31 Regarding Abram’s own departure from Chaldea and subsequent wandering, however, Calvin reflects a consensus of praise, arguably even amplifying it.

Yet, despite this agreement, Calvin diverges from others by making Abram’s combativeness a central trait, going so far as to take refusal to dissimulate—inciting persecution wherever he went—as the reason for Abram’s restless wandering in the first place.Footnote 32 In both his sermons and commentary, Calvin seamlessly incorporates his standard argument against Nicodemism. The reformer lifts up Abram’s concern to preserve the connection between genuine piety and outward confession, rejecting the error characteristic of alleged Nicodemites in his day.Footnote 33 Then follows a list of typical excuses for dissimulation—from the possibility of invisible faith, to the burden of persecution—none of which withstand the rebuke of Abram’s altars.Footnote 34 Abram’s provocations had a goal: to “edify those in need and prick those who are sluggish, using not only verbal exhortation but showing with actions the duty of all and their responsibility toward God. In sum, this is Abram’s altar.”Footnote 35 Calvin is quick to apply Abram’s pedagogy to his own day, prodding the faithful to abandon cowardice and lukewarm commitment. Conflating faithful exile with the bellicose posture he sees in Abram’s altars explains Calvin’s insistence that Falais’s conformity “to our father Abraham” requires both escaping idolatry and the ongoing, conspicuous exercise of proper worship.Footnote 36 Answering God’s call to leave Ur was only the first step. Obedience in exile carried over into Abram’s deportment in Canaan. Far from hiding his faith, Abraham, the quintessential anti-Nicodemite, flaunted it. To honor God demanded offending others.

In his treatment of David, Calvin accents another feature of exile and its relationship to Nicodemism, namely the necessity of spiritual nurture obtained only through the church’s ministry of preaching and sacraments.Footnote 37 Nicodemism, with its threat of complacency amid corrupt worship, does not simply offend God by promoting idolatry. It also impedes access to the very means God intends as sustenance in exile. Faithfulness, according to Calvin, involves attending to one’s spiritual hunger in the practices of public worship. The essential characteristic that sets Calvin’s exilic David apart from other interpreters’ is a twofold “sacramental sensibility” encompassing a keen sense that the deprivation one experiences in exile consists principally in loss of spiritual nourishment received via liturgical modes, coupled with a strong awareness that such provision nevertheless has limitations. Calvin finds David’s spiritual hunger on display most clearly in the Psalms. Yet David’s actions in 2 Samuel require Calvin to qualify David’s longing for sacraments. The remainder of this section examines this dual aspect of David in exile, which appears consistently throughout Calvin’s exegesis of exilic psalms, where he repeatedly sets David’s example against religious dissimulation.

David’s spiritual hunger comes pointedly into view in Calvin’s 1557 Psalms commentary and 1552 Quatre sermons, the latter expressly addressing Nicodemism with the only sermons Calvin revised for publication.Footnote 38 When interpreting psalms that reflect David’s exile from Jerusalem, Calvin frequently urges readers to note David’s desperate pining for the tabernacle’s divinely ordained structures for manifesting the Lord’s presence. In his commentary and sermons on Ps 27, for example, the reformer speaks of how removal from the sanctuary was “more bitter for [David]. . . than to be barred from his own house,” because David understood that there God “takes on a face” and provides “a ladder” to ascend to God’s presence.Footnote 39 Psalm 61 finds David equating “the ends of the earth” with being “deprived of hearing the word and the administration of the sacraments.”Footnote 40 The key takeaway from David’s exile for Calvin’s contemporaries is that those lacking such blessings should learn “from the example of David to persevere in crying to God” for access to this ministry of word and sacrament.Footnote 41 The reformer acknowledges that these realities in David’s day differed from sixteenth-century Christian worship. At the same time, utilizing “temple” and “church” interchangeably, Calvin highlights the universality of David’s example: “the need to be taught by sermons, confirmed by the sacraments, and brought up in public prayers and confession of faith, we share with the patriarchs.”Footnote 42

More than other genres, the Psalms offer Calvin the immediacy of embedding this teaching on spiritual nurture within first-person accounts of David’s existential crises.Footnote 43 Nicodemism appears prominently as a failure to value, with appropriate intensity, God’s sustaining presence during believers’ spiritual exile. David’s counter-example in political exile throws this deficiency into sharp relief, as Calvin calls on would-be Nicodemites to choose flight and seek nurture in a rightly ordered church rather than remain deprived.Footnote 44 The reformer’s use of the Psalms to support practices and polity structures of Christian ministry more clearly articulated in the New Testament attests to what Sujin Pak has described as Calvin’s portrayal of David as spokesperson for “Protestant Piety.”Footnote 45 Yet the integration of exile and anti-Nicodemism, which Pak does not discuss, is vital to what makes Calvin’s David distinct from that of other exegetes who also note David’s concern for worship. Reflecting the reformers’ affinity for the literal exegesis of Nicholas of Lyra, Calvin reconstructs the historical David’s longing for a physical sanctuary where generations of interpreters had found only allegories of Christ and the church.Footnote 46 Though some of Calvin’s contemporaries, such as Zwingli and Melanchthon, continued to read exilic psalms mostly as doctrinal allegory with minimal reference to historical events, others acknowledge David’s diligence toward the temple cult.Footnote 47 Cajetan, for example, praises David for holding worship in higher esteem than his entire kingdom, noting how David sought spiritual benefit in the temple without appending Calvin’s warning against idolatry.Footnote 48 Among Protestants, Bugenhagen and Bucer similarly highlight the temple generically as a place of safety and blessing for David.Footnote 49 Musculus, who, like Calvin, published against Nicodemism, and Beza, Calvin’s theological successor in Geneva, come closest to the Frenchman’s argument for preaching and sacraments, in particular, as channels of nurture, chiding those who presume to do without them.Footnote 50 Ultimately, Calvin’s emphasis on David’s preoccupation in exile with how only preaching and sacraments practiced God’s way convey God’s presence—along with the reformer’s reflexive critique of crypto-religion on this point—departs from earlier readings, and is largely absent from Reformation-era historical exegesis.

Calvin’s exegesis develops a second aspect of faithful exile, that of properly accounting for sacraments as essential for nurture, to be sought as more precious than the whole of one’s possessions, while never absolutizing their value apart from God. Second Samuel offers a narrative account of periods the Psalms recreate and attribute to David in exile. One such instance involves David’s curious decision to return the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem despite having fled with it in his possession (2 Sam 15:25–29). By depriving himself of the highest expression of God’s presence in his day, David arguably creates the internal conflict portrayed in the Psalms. The biblical text demands an explanation for why David would thus induce or intensify his heartsickness in exile from Israel’s gathered worship. Calvin offers his interpretation of this section over two sermons in September 1562, negotiating the tension between David’s profound attachment to the Ark as an expression of divine accompaniment, on the one hand, and the king’s willingness, on the other hand, to dispense with this prized artifact so readily.Footnote 51 None of the emotional yearning of the Psalms appears here. The key, for Calvin, is properly accounting for the necessity of sacraments while recognizing their limits, a lesson that David’s status as both spiritual and political exile illumines. David took seriously that God attaches himself to external means, like the Ark, to meet humanity in spiritual exile, wanting nothing more than “to gaze upon the Ark of God to worship him there.”Footnote 52 Calvin contends that David’s express hope on parting with the Ark—namely, that God would restore him to it (v. 25)—teaches believers that “we who have access to the sacraments should prize this more than anything.”Footnote 53 The reformer likely had in mind the teaching of Coornhert, whose rejection of external religion prompted Calvin’s response that same year.Footnote 54

Yet, as much as David rightly treasured the Ark, he also comprehended that God cannot be reduced to material artifacts such that God’s promise and presence are inaccessible without them.Footnote 55 This assurance, which other reformers also note, is the only reason Calvin can imagine for why David would voluntarily part with the Ark.Footnote 56 This was a careful, deliberate decision.Footnote 57 In determining that the Ark belongs properly within the temple cult and that his exile from Jerusalem is a fitting consequence for past sins, David respected divinely-ordained limits ignored, in Calvin’s day, by Rome’s approach to sacraments. Calvin accuses the latter of idolatry that confuses created things for the creator, failing to maintain the symbolic nature of sacraments.Footnote 58 Vermigli agrees that David was “content with the thing signified,” reproving the “great Augustine” for preoccupation with symbols that have no final bearing on salvation.Footnote 59 Calvin urges his congregation to reject Rome’s over-estimation of sacraments. He also warns against the opposite mistake of complacency, wherein sacraments are ignored or neglected.Footnote 60

Although other Protestant exegetes similarly note David’s esteem for sacraments alongside their limits, Calvin’s reading of 2 Samuel and the Psalms stands out in several ways. First is a difference of emphasis. Calvin connects David’s sacramental awareness to the theme of exile with greater frequency than one finds in others. For example, of the many psalms Calvin attributes to David in, or recounting, political exile, at least ten highlight David’s exceptional sacramental discernment: Pss 4, 18, 27, 42, 52, 61, 63, 84, 118, and 119.Footnote 61 The through line in Calvin’s exegesis of these psalms consists of three elements: 1) David’s acute sense of spiritual deprivation when absent from the earthly sanctuary; 2) the distinction between true and false ceremonies, only the former of which mediate God’s presence; and 3) the need to cherish such provision without binding God to external means.Footnote 62 In a handful of places, Bucer and Beza similarly balance David’s esteem for ceremonies with his awareness of their limits.Footnote 63 Yet, just as often, they do not take exilic psalms to focus on sacraments nor linger as Calvin does on David’s exile per se, turning instead to Christological lessons or other aspects of the historical David.Footnote 64

Frequency aside, Calvin’s exegesis also stands out for the detail with which it describes David’s sacramental insight and how the reformer is especially concerned to leverage David on this issue against Nicodemism. With Ps 4, for example, Calvin expounds upon David’s view that, in the hands of those lacking faith, even God’s appointed methods—Ark and tabernacle—are but empty ceremonies, accessories to counterfeit worship.Footnote 65 Calvin’s exegesis of Ps 118 tempers the tradition’s easy Christological reading of this messianic psalm, invoking the historical David’s gratitude for his return to the temple (v. 19) alongside his awareness that its ceremonies are but helps for rendering “spiritual service to God” (v. 27).Footnote 66 This regard for spiritual nurture through external means, but with appropriate restraint lest sacraments themselves become idols, punctuates Calvin’s sense of what exile taught David.Footnote 67

This is also the lesson David crystalizes for both would-be Nicodemites and principled political exiles like Falais: do not neglect the gift of preaching and sacraments, which David regarded with longing second only to his desire for God himself. Taken together, the David of 2 Sam 15 and the one we find in the Psalms portray the posture Calvin expects of every believer, whether or not they actually experience political exile. All ought to treasure God’s means of nurture without placing undue hope in symbols rather than God. This tension constitutes faithfulness for the church that understands its exilic spiritual condition. Like Abraham, David emerges in Calvin’s exegesis as the counter-Nicodemite but in a different register: one sounding forth the urgent need to pursue spiritual edification at any cost.

The Function of Exile in Calvin’s Anti-Nicodemite Theology

Having demonstrated the influence of Nicodemism on Calvin’s exegesis of Abraham and David, I will now show how the resulting account of faithful exile, in turn, affects the reformer’s polemic against religious dissimulation. The confrontational faith and sacramental sensibility Calvin attaches to spiritual exile broadens his anti-Nicodemism conceptually beyond bare rejection of idolatry. This has the further effect of extending the argument temporally and geographically, so that it applies not simply to situations of religious oppression, but to believers’ vocation regardless of circumstances. The lines along which exile as a spiritual reality expands Calvin’s critique of crypto-religion are evident throughout his exegesis, including his treatment of exile in the primeval history of Genesis and the prophetical books. Drawn similarly from commentaries, sermons, and lectures spanning the 1550s and 1560s, these examples demonstrate that the connection between exile and Nicodemism in Calvin’s portrayal of David and Abraham is no anomaly, but rather a durable feature of his thinking about these topics and their universal relevance. The present section takes up specific texts after a brief comment on the significance of Calvin’s liturgical account of exile for augmenting his case against dissimulation.

Studies of Calvin’s approach to Nicodemism have generally treated his position as a monolith, citing his writings against dissimulation interchangeably as repeating a single case over three decades.Footnote 68 Indeed, Calvin was remarkably consistent.Footnote 69 However, the analysis above of Abraham and David in Calvin’s exegesis suggests that prior treatments of the reformer’s anti-Nicodemite rhetoric do not adequately account for how exile modifies his argument. In 1543 Calvin concedes, without elaboration, that most people faced with the choice between departing an idolatrous situation and resistance should choose flight if possible.Footnote 70 A decided shift toward exile as the preferred strategy for Nicodemites, with positive accent on nurture rather than simply escaping idolatry, occurs with Calvin’s use of David in Quatre sermons (1552). However, even scholarship noting this change has remained fixed on exile as a solution, rather than appreciating how crypto-religion was, for Calvin, a symptom of exile as a spiritual condition that is never fully resolved by exile as a political phenomenon.Footnote 71

Calvin’s exegesis of Abraham and David teaches that liturgical purity is an unceasing concern for spiritual exiles. This explains Abram’s boldness and David’s distress during their seasons of political exile, which for Calvin does not occasion but merely amplifies the proper attitude believers should always have toward preaching and sacraments. In his 1552 commentary on Acts, for example, Calvin relates Abraham’s exile to the spiritual calling of all “God’s children,” something Calvin insists David understood in recognizing that political exile does not diminish God’s constant care for believers as spiritual exiles.Footnote 72 This effectively subordinates questions of migration status to the Christian community’s shared spiritual concerns. The church’s exilic identity and pilgrim status are indifferent to where its members were born. On the one hand, the stories of Abraham and David in exile certainly militate against the temptation to Nicodemism that Calvin believed to afflict countless individuals in his native France. He relentlessly calls upon Nicodemites to come out from the spiritual famine of Roman idolatry. On the other hand, those who have already migrated for pure worship, or never lacked access to it, remain under no less obligation to press on toward ever greater faithfulness in the outwardly zealous approach to liturgical purity and nurture one learns from Abraham and David.

This liturgical dimension of spiritual exile finds further elaboration in Calvin’s treatments of Adam and Cain, which define the human condition as exile within a sacramental framework while distinguishing the exilic experience of believers as objects of God’s special concern. Much has been written about Calvin’s understanding of sacraments as divine accommodation to human capacity through material signs that confirm God’s promises and convey Christ to believers.Footnote 73 Calvin’s writings on the sacraments explicitly accent their role as nurture for spiritual pilgrims.Footnote 74 A less appreciated locus for Calvin’s integration of sacraments and exile is his exegesis of Gen 3, which takes up a form of exile the faithful share with all humanity. Along with others, Calvin follows Augustine in likening Adam’s banishment from the garden to ecclesiastical discipline.Footnote 75 Adam’s excommunication, on this reading, carries universal consequences. Exile, as perpetual spiritual deprivation, is now the human condition:

The excommunication of our father Adam is also ours. . . God has deprived us of his blessings and declares that while we yet live in this world as the inheritance he gave us, we are strangers and pilgrims here and need to hold out for more. . . like people banished from earth, who were formerly blessed.Footnote 76

Expulsion from paradise became necessary when mortality and hardship proved insufficient to teach Adam the seriousness of sin.Footnote 77 In particular, Calvin characterizes Adam’s taking for granted familiar access to God, symbolized by the tree of life, as improper reliance on sacraments.Footnote 78 Life outside Eden involves humanity’s reeducation on this point, as they learn to encounter God indirectly, by faith, through new sacraments that embody the tension of a postlapsarian “double lesson”: the abiding reality of divine judgment alongside the possibility of mercy.Footnote 79 Adam grasped this through animal sacrifices, the precursor to Israel’s and the church’s sacraments.Footnote 80 Calvin identifies sermons and sacraments as means by which Christ “has descended here below” to edify and console believers.Footnote 81 Where Augustine had been content simply to name sacraments—even if imperfect—as a post-Edenic necessity, one hears Reformation-era polemics in Calvin’s admonishment against both false sacraments and the improper use of true sacraments.Footnote 82 Calvin’s exegesis of exile in Gen 3 grounds his treatment of Abraham and David in a prior sacred history that establishes the liturgical dimension of the human condition along two vectors, which also are central to his refutation of Nicodemism: 1) sacraments as indispensable means of divine encounter; and 2) the possibility of error regarding sacraments as a constant danger.

Calvin’s exegesis of Gen 4 further defines believers’ spiritual exile as a place to receive God’s special provision, something Nicodemites neglect. The story of Cain gives Calvin an occasion to reflect on divine election and the condition of the reprobate as twice-exiled—from both paradise and the “face of God,” with no possibility of return.Footnote 83 By contrast, the elect—also Adam’s children—experience a different kind of second exile: heightened conflict with the world as those who belong to God and remain under his care.Footnote 84 Cain’s example clarifies Calvin’s sacramental account of humanity’s post-Edenic situation by illustrating the decisive role faith (and election behind it) plays in determining who actually benefits from the liturgical means of nurture. Calvin the pastor comforts listeners with the promise that God will not abandon his own. Reflecting a tradition that takes Abel as an allegory for Christian martyrdom, Calvin readily casts contemporary actors in the role of Cain.Footnote 85 The apparent prospering of evangelicals’ Catholic persecutors—whom Calvin derides as “many Cains,” including monarchs serving as the “Pope’s executioners”—belies their inner turmoil and God’s rejection of them.Footnote 86

The examples of Adam and Cain in the Bible’s opening chapters supply theological support for the same liturgical dimensions of spiritual exile Calvin illustrates vividly with Abraham and David. It is important to get sacraments right, since they are a primary locus of God’s manifest presence with us after Adam’s expulsion, a blessing denied to the reprobate and not to be despised. Abraham and David knew that this requires not only eschewing false sacraments but also holding true sacraments with propriety and adequate esteem. Nicodemism is defective on both counts. Yet, even in places like Geneva, with word and sacrament restored to biblical teaching, the second problem—carelessness or neglect—remains a threat. Calvin’s exegetical account of spiritual exile, centered on sacraments as nurture, surfaces important criteria for evaluating political exile in his day. One could choose flight for all the right reasons yet continue in exile disobediently, possessing the entirely wrong disposition.

The characteristics framing Calvin’s portrayal of Abraham and David as faithful exiles also appear in his exegesis of examples beyond Genesis, where he similarly leverages these traits against crypto-religion. A locus classicus of conspicuous faith in exile is Dan 6–7, where Calvin praises Daniel in Babylon for exemplifying the outward profession that must accompany inward devotion.Footnote 87 Calvin’s interpretation pointedly juxtaposes contemporary Nicodemism to Daniel’s pugnacious posture. Daniel deliberately provoked idolaters before open windows to assert that true piety demands express rejection of all false gods—the very same position Calvin attributes to Abram in Canaan.Footnote 88 While not strictly about worship, Moses’ naming his son Gershom (“a stranger there”) in Midian indicates “cherishing and holding forth his faith” in a foreign land.Footnote 89 Likewise, in the context of national exile Calvin takes Jer 10:11—the only portion of Jeremiah’s prophecy written in Aramaic—to teach conspicuous faith meant to censure Nicodemism.Footnote 90 The people were to worship in the language of their captors as an unmistakable act of defiance toward Babylonian religion.Footnote 91 Decrying “Nicodemites of this day,” Calvin denies that “true religion in the heart” exists where there is no “agreement between heart and tongue,” stating further that the Israelites’ unfeigned religion simultaneously rebuked idolatry and united them with “the constant keeper of our safety.”Footnote 92 Once again, liturgical purity combines conflict and nurture.

What of direct reference to David and Abraham beyond those passages surveyed above? While these individuals appear frequently in words of comfort to those experiencing exile, especially in the prophetical books, they rarely come into view as exiles themselves. Rather, they serve more often as markers of Israel’s identity by way of God’s covenant promises regarding the seed of Abraham (Gen 15) or throne of David (2 Sam 7).Footnote 93 A notable exception to this pattern is Calvin’s commentary on Gen 3:23, where the reformer invokes David’s sacramental sensibility in exile outside its usual location in the Psalms or Samuel. Discussing how God deploys sacraments outside of Eden, Calvin calls on David to support his argument. As one “truly endowed with spiritual understanding,” David neither shared the “crass fictions” of those who “confine God to a place” nor “hesitated to call on God” via the material elements of tabernacle worship.Footnote 94 Calvin thus inserts the David of the Psalms into the story of Adam’s exile to illustrate the importance both of sacraments in general and of approaching them correctly.

The reformer highlights similar concerns with the exilic Abraham’s appearance in Isaiah. Barbara Pitkin has argued that Calvin’s Isaiah commentary addresses contemporary refugee realities by depicting exile as punishment for sin as well as a pattern for the church throughout history.Footnote 95 As noted above, Calvin’s depictions of Adam, Cain, and Abraham in exile likewise serve as mirrors of, respectively, all humanity, the reprobate, and believers. Regarding this last category, Pitkin highlights Calvin’s portrayal of Abraham in Is 41:2 as an exile in whose hardships “Abraham’s true children,” ancient and modern, find solidarity.Footnote 96 Beyond this observation, Calvin’s elaboration of Abraham’s exilic struggles also contains an express reference to challenging the idolatry of Abraham’s neighbors: “After having come into the land of Canaan, he had to do with wicked and cruel men, with whom he could not be agreed, because he was entirely opposed to their superstitions.”Footnote 97 Hence, “Abraham was never at rest,” the same disquiet Calvin prescribes for Monsieur and Madame de Falais in exile.Footnote 98 These examples of David’s sacramental discernment and Abraham’s confrontational faith occur in places where invoking these figures as exiles, in particular, is neither required nor obvious. This illustrates the significance of their exilic experiences for Calvin, as well as the sturdiness of such liturgical themes for defining Calvin’s sense of precisely how Abraham and David serve as exemplars for the life of faith.

Building on the previous section’s argument that Calvin’s concern for Nicodemism informs his presentation of Abraham and David as model exiles, this section has demonstrated the ways in which Calvin’s exegesis nuances his case against Nicodemism by highlighting both his argument’s critical and constructive dimensions as these relate to liturgical purity. Rejecting false religion is simultaneously a concern for spiritual nurture, the oft-overlooked Davidic contribution to Calvin’s anti-Nicodemism. Moreover, Abraham and David illustrate the need for diligence in these matters across the whole of life as spiritual exile. They supply preferred motives for political exile while pushing Calvin’s polemic against crypto-religion past the question of literal migration. Getting oneself to a context of proper worship is only a partial answer to the problems these biblical forebearers address for all believers, not just would-be Nicodemites.

In an age of constant resettlement, when claims separating true and false Christianity could literally mean life or death, Calvin’s teaching imbues every instance of political exile with an unfinished, dynamic quality that he equates with genuine faith. Calvin’s comments on Ps 105:44 suggest his belief in a divine plan—encompassing first Israel’s, then the church’s, geographical diaspora—that God’s people everywhere exhibit the faith of David and Abraham in exile:

Certainly, this is the goal of our election: that God wants to have a people on earth by whom he would be called upon and served.. . . The plural number—“countries” and “nations”—magnifies God’s goodness even more. Now [the psalm] briefly defines the manner of glorifying God: that they might keep the law. It would not be enough to celebrate God’s grace with the tongue unless there is also serious experiential piety. And because God rejects all counterfeit worship [fictitios omnes cultus], the only way left of worshiping rightly consists in keeping his commandments.Footnote 99

Yes, true piety requires outward expression—but of the right kind. Such an argument for “constant confession” appeared among Calvin’s theological successors in distant contexts, such as Elizabethan England, where Puritans employed anti-Nicodemite rhetoric to criticize fellow Calvinists for insufficient (or insufficiently bold) commitment.Footnote 100 Calvin’s own account of faithful exile in his exegesis arguably anticipated such a turn, furnishing his theology with the means of casting political exile as a half-measure and situating all believers in a position of unrealized potential in relation to preaching and sacraments. Restlessness, it turns out, is intrinsic to spiritual exile. It is the difference between obedience after Abraham’s example, with David’s insight and longing, and the crawfish’s backpedaling dance.Footnote 101

Faithful Exile and the “Reformation of the Refugees”

We conclude with several observations about how Calvin’s exegesis of Abraham and David in exile reflects wider currents in his theology, flowing into the exilic mindset he sought to cultivate in a pan-European diaspora comprising both refugees and the diverse communities that received them. Embedded within Geneva’s program of biblical teaching, offered both locally and abroad in a steady diet of preaching, lectures, and exegetical publications, Calvin’s treatment of exile in scripture maps a theological imagination according to the definite coordinates of his reform agenda.Footnote 102 The present study has shed light on how biblical interpretation could serve the purposes of transnational confessional consolidation around the shared experience of political exile, such as has been attributed to Calvin and his successors in what Oberman has coined the “Reformation of the Refugees.”Footnote 103 By building on his exegesis of Adam and other biblical examples to fashion Abraham and David into patterns for a more faithful form of exile in Reformation Europe, Calvin addresses the needs of an international church navigating increasing diversity and other complex realities brought on by migration and refugeeism.Footnote 104 With both Abraham and David in Calvin’s exegesis we witness contemporary problems such as crypto-religion driving his reading of scripture toward emphases distinctive in the history of interpretation.

In the end, problematizing exile could accomplish several strategic objectives for the reformer. First, it narrows the scope of political exile as a laudable option, calibrating this assessment directly to the stated concerns of Calvin’s anti-Nicodemite polemic. There were many reasons why someone might leave home in the sixteenth century, but none more commendable than pursuing liturgical purity. In fact, Calvin and others, like his close associates Viret and Farel, envisioned no faithful way even to be present in Catholic worship.Footnote 105 Second, Calvin’s approach imposes the shared religious milieu of spiritual exile to unify a diverse community regardless of status. As he explains to Falais, migration away from idolatry is insufficient apart from persistent attention to God’s means of nurture in exile. The newly arrived religious refugee has no intrinsic claim to moral superiority in a community defined more basically by its shared theological identity as spiritual pilgrims in need of ongoing sustenance.

Finally, Calvin’s depiction of exile clarifies the church’s boundaries and disciplines its priorities toward confessional radicalization. Defining faithful exile by the presence of confrontation and longing, after the respective examples of Abraham and David, encourages separation of the faithful along two axes. Against Roman apostasy and other varieties of unbelief, God’s people in exile should be known by distinctive doctrine as well as contentious adherence to a rival institutional form. The community’s legitimacy demands visibility in a sea of conflicting claims to be the genuine church.Footnote 106 Christians in the early modern period must draw a clear line between true and false worship just as sharply as Abram did in Canaan. Yet the polemical edge of Calvin’s exegesis cuts not only against those he places outside true Christianity. Within the church, his teaching on spiritual exile calls into question those who lack perpetual, demonstrable hunger for sermons and sacraments. Zeal, not migration, becomes a criterion for obedience as difficult to measure as its perceived lack is easy to critique. For a refugee whose ministerial vocation was illegitimate to Rome and who faced opposition within his own community, depicting faithfulness as commitment to the ministry could bolster Calvin’s pastoral standing.Footnote 107 Whether Calvin intended this association is hard to determine, though his ministry embodied the very means of blessing he insists that God has given to nurture and guide the church in exile. Not all were persuaded by this. Calvin’s treatment of David and Abraham addresses impatience among those dissatisfied after coming to Geneva, suggesting that this was a significant issue for him.Footnote 108 The reformer may also have had in mind the views of Sebastian Castellio, whose learned opposition to Calvin on doctrinal conformity, sacraments, and the visible church offers what is essentially the inverse of Calvin’s depiction of faithfulness in exile. Did Calvin fear that this Castellionist dissent, which would soon include Falais, could foster invisible resistance hidden in the ranks of Calvin’s movement?Footnote 109

This article has demonstrated how Calvin’s exegetical account of faithful exile introduces a framework for differentiating exile (and exiles) within his theology in ways that had pastoral implications for sixteenth-century refugee realities. By casting Abraham and David as epitomes of counter-Nicodemism, Calvin polemicizes their experience of exile for the present day, giving the Reformed church in its various local manifestations a mirror for clearly beholding its identity as the faithful in exile vis-à-vis both those outside the community and church members failing to live up to this ideal. It is beyond the scope of the present work to examine reception of Calvin’s teaching on exile, though future studies may take up the question of how Calvin’s exegesis offers an account of exile that produced, in its inherently polemical orientation, confessional radicalization in communities impacted by political refugees.Footnote 110 For example, while taking forms different from those encountered in Calvin’s immediate context, religious controversies within English Protestantism certainly expressed the various shapes Calvin’s emphasis on greater intensity of commitment could take within an ecclesial body that looked to him as a theological authority, fomenting internal divisions despite unified confessional expressions.Footnote 111 In this way, the problem of exile that Calvin’s exegesis heightens in his theology could have contributed to conflicts that surfaced in the experience of societies adapting to the effects of migration. Another possibility for future research is to place Calvin’s exegetical treatment of exile as a pastoral concern into conversation with current research on pastoral care in contexts of immigration and forced displacement to better understand the various social and psychological dimensions of “exile” and “home” Calvin’s theology might have addressed within different early modern contexts.Footnote 112

Footnotes

*

Elements of my research for this article were presented at the 13th quadrennial International Congress on Calvin Research in July 2023. I am grateful to the Calvin Congress praesidium for the invitation to speak, as well as to conference participants for insightful questions and discussion. I also wish to thank Jon Balserak, Tucker Ferda and, especially, the two anonymous readers for their helpful comments and suggestions. Any errors remain mine.

References

1 Calvin to Falais, 1544, in Ioannis Calvini opera quae supersunt omnia (ed. G. Baum, E. Cunitz, and E. Reuss; Corpus Reformatorum 29–87; Brunswick and Berlin: Schwetschke, 1863–1900) (hereafter CO) 11:733–37. For Calvin’s relationship with the Flemish nobleman, which soured by the 1550s, see Jean Calvin, Lettres à Monsieur et Madame de Falais (ed. Françoise Bonali-Fiquet; Geneva: Droz, 1991) 7–30; Uwe Plath, Calvin und Basel in den Jahren 1552-1556 (Basler Studien zur Historischen und Systematischen Theologie 22; Basel: Helbing & Lichtenhahn, 1974) 87; and Michael W. Bruening, Refusing to Kiss the Slipper: Opposition to Calvinism in the Francophone Reformation (Oxford Studies in Historical Theology; New York: Oxford University Press, 2021) 126–27.

2 Calvin to Falais, 1544 (CO 11:735–36).

3 Nicholas Terpstra, Religious Refugees in the Early Modern World: An Alternative History of the Reformation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015) 4.

4 Ibid., 112.

5 Calvin, Institutio Christianae Religionis, 1559, in Ioannis Calvini opera selecta (ed. Peter Barth, Wilhelm Niesel, and Dora Scheuner; 5 vols.; Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1926–1952) (hereafter OS) III:411–12; English translation: idem, Institutes of the Christian Religion (ed. J. T. McNeill; trans. F. L. Battles; 2 vols.; Library of Christian Classics; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960) (hereafter Inst.) II.10.11. Also David C. Steinmetz, “Calvin and Abraham: The Interpretation of Romans 4 in the Sixteenth Century,” CH 57 (1988) 443–555.

6 Calvin, “Author’s Preface” to Commentary on Psalms, 1557 (CO 31:28). English translation: idem, Calvin’s Commentaries (trans. John King et al; Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1844–1856), hereafter Comm. followed by biblical book, chapter, verse, and date of Calvin’s original publication; translation modified in places for clarity. For Calvin’s identification with David, see Alexandre Ganoczy, The Young Calvin (trans. David Foxgrover and Wade Provo; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1966) 302–7; R. A. Hasler, “The Influence of David and the Psalms upon Calvin’s Life and Thought,” Hartford Quarterly 5 (1965) 7–18; J. R. Walchenbach, “The Influence of David and the Psalms on the Life and Thought of John Calvin” (ThM thesis, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, 1969).

7 Max Engammare, “Une certaine idée de la France chez Jean Calvin l’exilé,” Bulletin de la Société de l’Histoire du Protestantisme Français (1903–2015) 155 (2009) 15–27, at 19–21; idem, “ ‘Dass ich im Hause des Herrn bleiben könne, mein Leben lang’: Das Exil in den Predigten Calvins,” in Calvin und Calvinismus (ed. Irene Dingel and Herman Selderhuis; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011) 229–42, at 231–37.

8 For Calvin and Nicodemism, see Carlos M. N. Eire, War Against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship From Erasmus to Calvin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986) 234–75; Perez Zagorin, Ways of Lying: Dissimulation, Persecution, and Conformity in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990) 63–82; David F. Wright, “Why Was Calvin So Severe a Critic of Nicodemism?,” in Calvinus Evangelii Propugnator: Calvin, Champion of the Gospel: Papers from the International Congress on Calvin Research, Seoul, 1998 (ed. David F. Wright, A. N. S. Lane, and Jon Balserak; Grand Rapids: Calvin Studies Society, 2006) 66–90; Kenneth J. Woo, “Nicodemism and Libertinism,” in John Calvin in Context (ed. R. Ward Holder; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020) 287–95, at 287–91.

9 Calvin published five full-length works addressing Nicodemism: Epistolae duae de rebus hoc saeculo cognitu apprime necessariis (Basel: Lasius and Platter, 1537); Petit traicté, monstrant que c’est que doit faire un homme fidèle congnoissant la vérité de l’évangile quand il est entre les papistes. Avec une épistre du mesme argument (Geneva: Jean Girard, 1543); Excuse de Iehan Calvin, à Messieurs les Nicodémites, sur la complaincte qu’ilz font de sa trop grand’ rigeur (Geneva: Jean Girard, 1544); Quatre sermons de M. Iehan Calvin traictans des matières fort utiles pour nostre temps, avec briefve exposition du Pseaume lxxxvii (Geneva: Robert Estienne, 1552); Response à un certain Holandois, lequel sous ombre de faire les chrestiens tout spirituels, leur permet de polluer leurs corps en toutes idolatries (Geneva: Jean Crespin, 1562). For Calvin’s tolerance of deception as a reasonable survival tactic and strategy in his dealings with French Reformed churches and private counsel, see Jon Balserak, Geneva’s Use of Lies, Deceit, and Subterfuge, 1536–1563 (Oxford Studies in Historical Theology; New York: Oxford University Press, 2024) 10–12, 122–65.

10 See n. 8 above. Also Albert Autin, Un épisode de la vie de Calvin: La crise du Nicodémisme, 1535–1545 (Toulon: P. Tissot, 1917); Francis M. Higman, “The Question of Nicodemism,” in Calvinus Ecclesiae Genevensis Custos (ed. Wilhelm H. Neuser; Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1984) 165–70; Eugénie Droz, “Calvin et les Nicodemites,” in Chemins de l’hérésie: Textes et documents (ed. E. Droz; vol. 1; Geneva: Slatkine, 1970) 131–71; Mirjam van Veen, “Verschooninghe van de roomsche afgoderye”: De polemiek van Calvijn met nicodemieten, in het bijzonder met Coornhert (Bibliotheca Humanistica & Reformatorica 60; Utrecht: Hes and De Graaf, 2001); Kenneth J. Woo, Nicodemism and the English Calvin, 1544–1584 (Brill’s Series in Church History 78; Leiden: Brill, 2019).

11 Heiko A. Oberman, “Europa afflicta: The Reformation of the Refugees,” ARH 83 (1992) 91–111; idem, The Two Reformations: The Journey from the Last Days to the New World (ed. Donald Weinstein; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003) 111–15, 145–50. For reception of Oberman’s proposal see Jane Dempsey Douglass, “Pastor and Teacher of the Refugees: Calvin in the Work of Heiko A. Oberman,” in The Work of Heiko A. Oberman: Papers from the Symposium on His Seventieth Birthday (ed. Thomas A. Brady, Katherine G. Brady, Susan Karant-Nunn, and James D. Tracy; Leiden: Brill, 2003) 51–65; Michael W. Bruening, Calvinism’s First Battleground: Conflict and Reform in the Pays de Vaud, 1528–1559 (Studies in Early Modern Religious Reforms 4; Dordrecht: Springer, 2005) 167–255. Also Heinz Schilling, “Peregrini und Schiffchen Gottes. Flüchtlingserfahrung und Exulantentheologie des frühneuzeitlichen Calvinismus,” in Calvinismus. Die Reformierten in Deutschland und Europa (ed. Ansgar Riess and Sabine Witt; Berlin: Sandstein Verlag, 2009) 160–68.

12 Studies of exile in Calvin’s exegesis include Engammare, “Das Exil,” 229–42; Barbara Pitkin, Calvin, the Bible, and History: Exegesis and Historical Reflection in the Era of Reform (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020) 122–40; Peter Wilcox, “The Lectures of John Calvin and the Nature of His Audience, 1555-1564,” ARH 87 (1996) 136–48.

13 Terpstra, Refugees, 171–72; William G. Naphy, Calvin and the Consolidation of the Genevan Reformation (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994); Balserak, Lies, 122–65. For exile in Calvin’s experience and theology, see Heiko A. Oberman, John Calvin and the Reformation of the Refugees (Travaux d’Humanisme et Renaissance 464; Geneva: Droz, 2009); Engammare, “Une certaine idée”; Herman J. Selderhuis, Calvijn als asielzoeker (Apeldoorn: Theologische Universiteit Apeldoorn, 1997); Robert Vosloo, “The Displaced Calvin: ‘Refugee Reality’ as Lens to Re-Examine Calvin’s Life, Theology, and Legacy,” Religion and Theology 16 (2009) 35–52.

14 Calvin’s commentary on Genesis was published in 1554 from material originating as lectures beginning in 1550; he preached on Genesis in 1559–1560. Critical text of the commentary: CO 23:5–622; and the sermons: Calvin, Sermons sur la Genèse 1,1 à 20,7 (ed. Max Engammare; 2 vols.; Supplementa Calviniana XI/1–2; Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 2000), hereafter Serm. Gen followed by sermon number, volume (e.g., “SC XI/1”), and page numbers. A critical text of 87 stenographers’ manuscripts of Calvin’s preaching on 2 Sam 1–24, between May 1562 and Feb 1563, appears in Calvin, Predigten über das 2. Buch Samuelis (ed. Hanns Rückert; SC I; Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 1961), hereafter Serm. 2 Sam followed by sermon number, volume, and page numbers. Calvin’s commentary on the Psalms appeared in 1557; critical text: CO 31:14–842, 32:1–442. Quatre sermons (1552; see n. 9 above) includes three sermons on the Psalms.

15 Rather than claiming influence, our historical comparison simply highlights where Calvin’s readings deviate from established exegetical commonplaces, with which Calvin was conversant even if he was not directly familiar with every source. The authors examined represent examples of early, medieval, and cross-confessional Reformation-era Christian exegesis, along with a sample of Jewish interpretive traditions. These include Origen, Ambrose, Chrysostom, Augustine, Jerome, the authors and compilers of Genesis Rabbah, Bede, Rashi, Hugh of Saint-Cher, Nicholas of Lyra, Denis the Carthusian, Agostinus Steuchus, Cajetan (Thomas de Vio), Ulrich Zwingli, Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon, Johannes Bugenhagen, Wolfgang Musculus, Peter Martyr Vermigli, Theodore Beza, Johannes Brenz, and Dirck Coornhert.

16 For exile in early modern Europe beyond historiography focusing on international Calvinism and the Jewish diaspora see, for example, Terpstra, Refugees; also Religious Diaspora in Early Modern Europe: Strategies of Exile (ed. Timothy G. Fehler et al.; Religious Cultures in the Early Modern World 12; London: Pickering and Chatto, 2014); and Exile and Religious Identity, 1500–1800 (ed. Jesse Spohnholz and Gary K. Waite; Religious Cultures in the Early Modern World 18; London: Pickering and Chatto, 2014).

17 For banishment from the garden as a form of spiritual exile, see Calvin, Comm. Gen 3:23–24, 1554 (CO 23:79–81).

18 Calvin, Inst. III.9.4–5 (OS IV:174–75). Also idem, Comm. 2 Cor 5:3–4, 1548 (CO 50:61–62).

19 Calvin, Inst. III.8.7, 9.1 (OS IV:166, 171); idem, La forme des prières et chantz ecclésiastiques, 1542 (CO 6:177); see also examples from Calvin’s letters counseling individuals contemplating exile (CO 13:155–57; CO 14:739–42).

20 Rashi, Pentateuch with Targum Onkelos, Haptaroth and Rashi’s Commentary (trans. M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermannm; 5 vols.; 1929; repr. Jerusalem: Silbermann Family, 1973) 1:47–49; Genesis Rabbah: The Judaic Commentary to the Book of Genesis: A New American Translation (ed. Jacob Neusner; 3 vols.; Brown Judaic Studies 104–106; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985) 2:55–61; Bede, Libri quatuor in principium Genesis usque ad nativitatem Isaac et eiectionem Ismahelis adnotationum (ed. Charles W. Jones; CCSL 118A; Turnout: Brepols, 1967) 118A:167–68; Nicholas of Lyra, Biblia sacra cvm glossis, interlineari & ordinaria: Nicolai Lyrani Postilla & Mortalitatibus, Burgensis Additionibus & Thoringi Replicis (5 vols.; Lyons, 1545) I:60r–62r; Cajetan, Commentarii illustres planeque insignes in quinque Mosaicos libros (Paris: G. de Bossozel, 1539) lxvii; Martin Luther, Enarrationes in Genesin (D. Martin Luthers Werke, kritische Gesamtausgabe 42–44; Weimar: Herman Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1911) (hereafter WA) 42:436–37; Wolfgang Musculus, In Mosis Genesim plenissimi commentarii, in quibus veterum & recentiorum sententiae diligenter expenduntur (Basel: J. Herwagen, 1554) 295–96; Peter Martyr Vermigli, In primum librum Mosis, qui vulgo Genesis dicitur commentarii doctissimi (Zurich: C. Froschauer, 1579) 47v.

21 For the relationship between Calvin’s commentary and sermons on Genesis, see Max Engammare, “D’une forme de l’autre: Commentaires et sermons de Calvin sur la Genèse,” in Calvinus Praeceptor Ecclesiae (ed. Herman J. Selderhuis; Travaux d’Humanisme et Renaissance 388; Geneva: Droz, 2004) 107–37.

22 Calvin, Comm. Gen 12:1, 1554 (CO 23:170); idem, Comm. Josh 24:2, 1564 (CO 25:563–64); idem, Lectures on Ezekiel, 1565 (CO 40:334–36); Luther, Genesin (WA 42:438); also Rashi, Pentateuch, 1:47; Genesis Rabbah (ed. Neusner), 2:55–57, 60–61, Lyra, Postilla, I:59v.

23 Luther, Genesin (WA 42:436–37); Musculus, Genesim, 295–96; Vermigli, Mosis, 47v.

24 Calvin, Serm. Gen, Sermon 53 (SC XI/2:591).

25 Calvin, Comm. Gen 12:1, 1554 (CO 23:173). Another exception to the general silence on this issue is Calvin’s polemical adversary, Dirck Coornhert, whose play Abrahams uytgang (1575) contrasts obedience to other motives for flight. Critical text: D. V. Coornhert, “Abrahams uytgang,” in Het Roerspel en de comedies van Coornhert (ed. Paulus van der Meulen; Leiden: Brill, 1955) 266–316.

26 Calvin, Serm. Gen, Sermon 52 (SC XI/2:584); idem, Comm. Gen 12:1, 1554 (CO 23:173).

27 Calvin, “Author’s Preface,” Comm. Psalms, 1557 (CO 31:22); idem, “Reply to Sadoleto,” 1539 (CO 5:389); idem, Excuse. . . Nicodémites, 1544 (CO 6:607).

28 Calvin, Comm. Gen 12:6–7, 1554 (CO 23:180); idem, Serm. Gen, Sermon 54 (SC XI/2:602–9). Others lift up God’s presence with sufferers (Origen, In Genesim Homilae XV [ed. J.-P. Migne, PG 12; Paris: Vives, 1844] 12:240–41); Abram’s piety (Ambrose, De Abraham, I.1.5 [ed. J.-P. Migne, PL 14; Paris: Vives, 1845] 14:422); parallels to Israel’s exile (Genesis Rabbah (ed. Neusner), 2:65–67, 78); spiritual warfare (Bede, Genesis [CCSL 118A:173–74]; Hugh of Saint-Cher, Opera omnia in universum Vetus, & Novum Testamentum [8 vols; Venice: Niccolò Pezzana, 1703] I:17r); and God’s sovereign prerogative (Musculus, Genesim, 302; Luther, Genesin [WA 42:467]).

29 Calvin, Comm. Gen 12:7, 1554 (CO 23:181).

30 Musculus, Genesim, 295–96; Luther, Genesin (WA 42:462–67); Brenz, “Explicatio Geneseos, inchoata primo die septembris, anno salvatis 1553. Stutgardiae,” in Opervm reverendi et clarrissimi theologi, D. Ioannis Brentii, Praepositi Stutgardiani Tomus Primus (Tübingen: G. Gruppenbach, 1576) 132–33.

31 John L. Thompson, “Hagar, Victim or Villain? Three Sixteenth-Century Views,” CBQ 59 (1997) 213–33, at 220–30.

32 “Quia tamen sanctus vir hoc a se merito requiri cognoscit, ut testetur se peculiarem habere Deum, nec fallaci simulatione eum abneget, Dei gloriam praeferre vitae suae non dubitat” (Calvin, Comm. Gen 12:8 [CO 23:182]).

33 Calvin, Comm. Gen 12:7, 1554 (CO 23:180–81). Calvin makes this case consistently in his anti-Nicodemite publications, beginning with Epistolae duae, 1537: “vera enim pietas, veram confessionem parit” (CO 5:244).

34 Calvin, Serm. Gen, Sermon 55 (SC XI/2:612); see the similar list in 1544’s Excuse. . . Nicodémites (Calvin, CO 6:597–602, 608–10).

35 Calvin, Serm. Gen, Sermon 55 (SC XI/2:612).

36 Calvin to Falais, 1544 (CO 11:736). Other letters connecting Abraham’s exile to anti-Nicodemite rhetoric include: Calvin to Falais, 1543 (CO 11:628–31); Calvin to an unnamed recipient, 1548 (CO 13:61–64).

37 For the centering of such liturgical forms of “biblical commentary” as the replacement of Catholic ritual forms of devotion with another ritual system in Calvin’s Geneva, see Christian Grosse, “ ‘Docere et movere.’ Preaching, Sacrament, and Prayer in the Reformed Liturgical System of 16th-Century Geneva,” in A Companion to the Reformation in Geneva (ed. Jon Balserak; Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition 96; Leiden: Brill, 2021) 165–89.

38 For Quatre sermons, see T. H. L. Parker, Calvin’s Preaching (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1992) 61; Woo, Nicodemism, 1–68.

39 Calvin, Comm. Ps 27:4, 1557 (CO 31:273–74); idem, Quatre sermons, 1552 (CO 8:411–13, 418, 426–27).

40 Calvin, Comm. Ps 61:1–4, 1557 (CO 31:580–81).

41 Ibid.

42 Calvin, Quatre sermons, 1552 (CO 8:413, 418). For Calvin’s sensitivity to the relationship between Israel’s worship and the church’s, see Wulfert de Greef, “Calvin as Commentator on the Psalms,” in Calvin and the Bible (ed. Donald McKim; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006) 85–106, at 105–6.

43 For this account of nurture in other places, see for example, Inst. IV.1.1, 5; IV.3.1–3 (OS V:1–2, 7–10, 42–45); Comm. Eph 4:11–14, 1548 (CO 51:196–202).

44 Woo, Nicodemism, 30–57. Nevada Levi DeLapp notes Calvin’s use of David in his anti-Nicodemite writings without highlighting its connection to exile (The Reformed David(s) and the Question of Resistance to Tyranny: Reading the Bible in the 16th and 17th Centuries [Scriptural Traces 3; London: Bloomsbury, 2014] 49–52).

45 G. Sujin Pak, The Judaizing Calvin (Oxford Studies in Historical Theology; New York: Oxford University Press, 2010) 87–91.

46 See, for example, Chrysostom, “Commentary on Psalm 11,” in Commentary on the Psalms (trans. Robert Charles Hill; vol. 1; Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1998) 213–14; Augustine, “Exposition of Psalm 27,” in Exposition of the Psalms (ed. John E. Rotelle; trans. Maria Boulding; WSA III/15–19; New York: New City Press, 2000–2003) III/15:291; idem, “Exposition of Psalm 42” (WSA III/16:256); idem, “Exposition of Psalm 61” (WSA III/17:202); idem “Exposition of Psalm 84” (WSA III/18:204–5); and Jerome, “Tractatus de Psalmo LXXXIII (84),” in S. Hieronymi Presbyteri Opera, II (ed. D. Germanus Morin; CCSL 78; Turnout: Brepols, 1953) 78:95–100. On traditional Christological interpretation of David, see Henri de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis: The Four Senses of Scripture (trans. E. M. Macierowski; 3 vols.; Ressourcement: Retrieval & Renewal in Catholic Thought; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000) 2:1–9, 2:83–107. By contrast, Bede correlates spiritual teaching to the literal earthly sanctuary in a gloss on Ps 27:4 (“In Lucam I,” in Bedae Venerabilis Opera, II/3 [ed. D. Hurst; CCSL 120; Turnout: Brepols, 1960] 120:65–66); Lyra situates the same psalm historically just prior to David’s royal anointing (Postilla, III:121r-v).

47 Ulrich Zwingli, Enchiridion Psalmorum, 1532 (ed. Emil Egli et al.; Huldreich Zwinglis sämtliche Werke, vol. 13; Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 1982) (hereafter ZSW) 611–13; Philip Melanchthon, Commentarii in Psalmos, 1555 (ed. C. G. Bretschneider; Philippi Melanthonis Opera quae supersunt omnia, vol. 13; Halle: Schwetschke, 1846) (hereafter MO) 1058–59.

48 Cajetan, In Psalmos, Parabolas Salomonis & Ecclesiasten, nec non in tria priora Isaiae Capita commentarii: tomus tertius. . . (Lyon: Jacobi et Petri Prost, 1639) 95–96, 289–90.

49 Johannes Bugenhagen, In Librum Psalmorum interpretatio (Strasbourg, 1524) 64r–66v, 196v–197r; Martin Bucer, Sacrorum Psalmorum libri quinque (Strasbourg, 1529) 148v–49v, 204v–5v; also Wolfgang Musculus, In sacrosanctum Davidis Psalterium comentarii (Basel, 1551) 436–38.

50 Musculus, Davidis, 436–38, 926, 930; Beza, Psalmorum Davidis et aliorum prophetarum libri quinque (Geneva, 1579) 166, 172, 395. Musculus’ critique of Nicodemism appears in Proscaerus. Liceát ne homini Christiano, evangelicae doctrinae gnaro, papisticis superstitionibus ac falsis cultibus externa societate communicare, dialogi quatuor (Basel: Jakob Kündig, 1549).

51 Calvin, Serm. 2 Sam, Sermons 50 and 51 (SC I:439–50).

52 Calvin, Serm. 2 Sam, Sermon 50 (SC I:439).

53 Ibid. (SC I:441).

54 Calvin, Response. . . Holandois. For Coornhert, see van Veen, “Verschooninghe”; also n. 25 above.

55 Calvin, Serm. 2 Sam, Sermon 50 (SC I:439); idem, Serm. 2 Sam, Sermon 51 (SC I:442–43). Also Comm. Ps 3:4–5, 1557 (CO 31:54–55).

56 Calvin, Serm. 2 Sam, Sermon 50 (SC I:439). See Bucer, Psalmorum, 148v; Vermigli, In duos Libros Samuelis Prophetae qui vulgo priores Libri Regum appellantur. . . (Zurich, 1564) 267r.

57 Calvin, Serm. 2 Sam, Sermon 51 (SC I:442).

58 Calvin, Serm. 2 Sam, Sermon 50 (SC I:439–40). See also Comm. Ps 4:5–6, 1557 (CO 31:61–63) where Calvin describes how David in exile distinguishes the Ark’s proper place from its proper use. Even in Jerusalem, the Ark could be an idol.

59 Vermigli, Samuelis, 267r.

60 Calvin, Serm. 2 Sam, Sermon 51 (SC I:442).

61 Other psalms Calvin connects to David’s exile include Pss 3, 7, 11, 22, 25, 35, 37, 54, 55, 56, 72, 109, 116, and 120. Calvin also frequently refers to David’s struggles generically, which may indirectly suggest political exile.

62 See, for example, Calvin, Comm. Pss 4:5; 18:6, 10, 49; 27:6–8; 42:1, 4; 52:8; 61:1, 3–4; 63:2–3; 84:6; 118:19, 27; 119:54 (1557; CO 31:61–62, 172–73, 175, 192–93, 274–76, 425, 427, 527–28, 580–82, 594–95, 779–82; CO 32:207–8, 213–14, 237–38).

63 See, for example, Bucer, Psalmorum, 148v, 291v (on Pss 27 and 84); and Beza, Davidis, 93, 172, 395 (on Pss 27, 42, and 84). See also Bucer’s comments on the non-exilic Ps 24 (Psalmorum, 137r–v).

64 Bucer, Psalmorum, 245r (on Ps 61); Beza, Davidis, 266, 557–558 (on Pss 61 and 118); also Bugenhagen, Psalmorum, 64v–66r, 142v–143r, 266r; Musculus, Davidis, 646–48, 1470–72; Melanchthon, Psalmos (MO 13:1058–59, 1087, 1185); Zwingli, Enchiridion (ZSW 13:490, 531, 572, 611–12, 673, 758). See R. Gerald Hobbs, “Bucer’s Use of King David as Mirror of the Christian Prince,” RRR 5 (2003) 102–28.

65 Calvin, Comm. Ps 4:5, 1557 (CO 31:61–62).

66 Calvin, Comm. Ps 118:19, 27, 1557 (CO 32: 207–8, 213–14).

67 Calvin, Comm. Pss 11:1; 27:4–6, 42:4, 61:1–4, 84:6, 120:5, 1557 (CO 31:120–21, 273–76, 427, 580–82, 781–82; CO 32:297–98). See his exegesis of Pss 16 and 27 in Quatre sermons, 1552 (CO 8:377–92, 409–40). The reformer also finds this lesson in psalms not directly attributed to David; see Comm. Pss 105:44, 137:2, 1557 (CO 32:114–15, 368–69).

68 See nn. 8 and 10 above.

69 Wright, “Severe,” 66–90. See n. 9 above.

70 Calvin, Petit traicté, 1543 (CO 6:572).

71 See, for example, my argument in Woo, Nicodemism, 30–57.

72 Calvin, Comm. Acts 7:3, 1552 (CO 48:131); idem, Comm. Ps 11:1, 1557 (CO 31:120–21).

73 Inst. IV.14.1, 3 (OS V:258–59, 260–61). See, among others, B. A. Gerrish, Grace and Gratitude: The Eucharistic Theology of John Calvin (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993); Thomas J. Davis, The Clearest Promises of God: The Development of Calvin’s Eucharistic Teaching (New York: AMS Press, 1995); Lee Palmer Wandel, The Eucharist in the Reformation: Incarnation and Liturgy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005) 139–75.

74 See, for example, Petit traicté de la saincte cène de nostre Seigneur Iesus Christ, 1541 (CO 5:434, 443), where Calvin writes that the sacrament’s mode of nurture ameliorates unbelief, a constant companion in the present life, using language he applies elsewhere to spiritual exile: “Car c’est une maladie tant enracinée en nostre nature, que iamais nous n’en sommes plainement guaris, que nous ne soyons delivrez de ceste prison de nostre corps” (444; see Inst. III.9.4–5 [OS IV:174–75]).

75 Calvin, Serm. Gen, Sermon 20 (SC XI/1:231); Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram, XI.39.54 (PL 34:451). Also Hugh of Saint-Cher, Opera omnia, I:6v; Denis the Carthusian, Enarrationes piae ac eruditae in quinque Mosaicae legis libros. . . (Cologne: P. Quentel, 1534) F4v–F5r; Vermigli, Mosis, 18v.

76 Calvin, Serm. Gen, Sermon 20 (SC XI/1:235). On life’s “penal” quality, see Augustine, De civitate Dei, XXI.15 (CCSL 48:780–81); Vermigli, Mosis, 18v.

77 Calvin, Comm. Gen 3:16–20, 1554 (CO 23:72–77); idem, Serm. Gen, Sermon 16 (SC XI/1:216), Sermon 19 (SC XI/1:218–21) and Sermon 20 (SC XI/1:231). Also Augustine, De civitate Dei, XIII.23 (CCSL 48:405–8).

78 Calvin, Serm. Gen, Sermon 20 (SC XI/1:231).

79 Calvin, Serm. Gen, Sermon 20 (SC XI/1:236). Also Ulrich Zwingli, Farrago annotationum in Genesin, 1527 (ZSW 13:31); Philip Melanchthon, In obscuriora aliquot capita Geneseos Phil. Melanch. annotationes, 1523 (MO 13:782).

80 Calvin, Comm. Gen 3:23, 1554 (CO 23:79–80); also idem, Serm. Gen, Sermon 20 (SC XI/1:232).

81 Calvin, Serm. Gen, Sermon 20 (SC XI/1:236).

82 Augustine, De Genesi contra Manichaeos, II.22.34 (PL 34:213–14); idem, Genesi ad litteram, XI.40.55 (PL 34:451–52); Calvin, Serm. Gen, Sermon 20 (SC XI/1:232–39).

83 Calvin, Comm. Gen 4:12–15, 1554 (CO 23:95–97); idem, Serm. Gen, Sermons 23–26 (SC XI/1:264–311). Also Ambrose, De Cain et Abel, II.9.32, 37 (PL 14:357–60); Augustine, De civitate Dei, XV:1 (CCSL 48:453–54); Lyra, Postilla, I:45v; Cajetan, Mosaicos, xxxix; Zwingli, Genesin (ZSW 13:35); Brenz, “Explicatio,” 76–77; Luther, Genesin (WA 42:224–26).

84 Calvin, Comm. Gen 4:12, 1554 (CO 23:95). The “faithful” are “tenants on earth” yet “enjoy tranquil lodging” and an “untroubled mind,” being “in all places upheld by the supporting hand of God.”

85 Calvin, Serm. Gen, Sermon 24 (SC XI/1:279, 284); also Bede, Genesis (CCSL 118A:77–78); Melanchthon, Geneseos (MO 13:785).

86 Calvin, Serm. Gen, Sermon 24 (SC XI/1:283–84).

87 Calvin dedicates the 1561 volume of his lectures on Daniel to evangelicals in France, commending Daniel and his friends for their willingness to die rather than “prostitute God’s sacred name” by “dissembling” their faith (Calvin, CO 18:616).

88 Calvin, Lectures on Daniel, 1561 (CO 41:1–36, 65–68). Darius’ failure to put away idols falsifies his conversion in Calvin’s eyes (21–22).

89 Calvin, Comm. Exod 2:22, 1563 (CO 24:32); cited in Engammare, “Das Exil,” 237.

90 “Thus shall you say to them: The gods who did not make the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from under the heavens” (NRSV).

91 Calvin, Lecture on Jer 10:11, 1563 (CO 38:73–75).

92 Ibid. For Calvin’s view that religious dissimulation is a form of conscience violation, see Timothy R. Scheuers, Consciences and the Reformation: Scruples over Oaths and Confessions in the Era of Calvin and His Contemporaries (Oxford Studies in Historical Theology; New York: Oxford University Press, 2023) 73–135.

93 See, for example, Calvin, Comm. Is 8:18, 19:24, 37:35, 44:23, 55:3, 1559 (CO 36:180–82, 349, 639–41; CO 37:122–23, 284–85); idem, Lectures on Jer 8:18, 9:13–15, 17:12, 19:1–3, 22:24, 23:5–6, 33:15, 22, 1563 (CO 38:19–22, 39–43, 274, 318–23, 396–97, 406–13; CO 39:64–67, 73–74); idem, Lecture on Ezek 4:4–8, 1565 (CO 40:106–12); idem, Lectures on Hos 1:7, Amos 9:8–9, Mic 7:14, Zech 10:3, Mal 1:6–8, 1557–1559 (CO 42:212–14; CO 43:164–67, 422–24; 44:288–90, 409–15).

94 Calvin, Comm. Gen 3:23, 1554 (CO 23:80).

95 Pitkin, Calvin, 122–40. In 1559 Calvin revised the 1551 edition compiled originally by Nicholas des Gallars.

96 Ibid., 137. Calvin distinguishes the elect, Abraham’s true children who experience exile as a severe mercy that refines faith, from the reprobate for whom the same trial is judgment en route to final destruction. See also idem, Lectures on Jer 23:1–3, 31:18, 32:37–38, 1563 (CO 38:401–5, 669–72, CO 39:37); Lectures on Ezek 11:14–16, 20:37–43, 1565 (CO 40:236–40, 505–14); Lectures on Hos 11:8–9, 1557 (CO 42:441–46); Lectures on Mic 7:14, 1559 (CO 43:422–24).

97 Calvin, Comm. Is 41:2, 1559 (CO 37:35).

98 See n. 2 above.

99 Calvin, Comm. Ps 105:44, 1557 (CO 32:115).

100 Karl Gunther, Reformation Unbound: Protestant Visions of Reform in England, 1525–1590 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) 116–30.

101 Calvin to Falais, 1544 (CO 11:735–36).

102 For Calvin’s teaching in his Genevan context, see Erwin Mülhaupt, Die Predigt Calvins, ihre Geschichte, ihre Form und ihre religiösen Grundgedanken (Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte 18; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1931); Parker, Preaching; idem, Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1971); idem, Calvin’s Old Testament Commentaries (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1986); Jean-François Gilmont, Jean Calvin et le livre imprimé (Études de philologie et d’histoire [Cahier d’Humanisme et Renaissance] 50; Geneva: Droz, 1997); Wilcox, “Lectures”; Erik de Boer, The Genevan School of the Prophets: The Congrégations of the Company of Pastors and Their Influence in 16th Century Europe (Travaux d’Humanisme et Renaissance 512; Geneva: Droz, 2012); Elsie Anne McKee, The Pastoral Ministry and Worship in Calvin’s Geneva (Travaux d’Humanisme et Renaissance 556; Geneva: Droz, 2016).

103 See n. 11 above. For exegesis and confessional identity, see G. Sujin Pak, “Contributions of Commentaries on the Minor Prophets to the Formation of Distinctive Lutheran and Reformed Confessional Identities,” CHRC 92 (2012) 237–60.

104 For refugees and Calvin’s standing in Geneva see Naphy, Consolidation. For the international Reformed diaspora, see Philip Benedict, Christ’s Churches Purely Reformed: A Social History of Calvinism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002); Ole Peter Grell, Brethren in Christ: A Calvinist Network in Reformation Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).

105 Peter Matheson, “Martyrdom or Mission? A Protestant Debate,” ARH 80 (1989) 154–72.

106 For how Calvin’s rejection of Rome in his exegesis was directed toward ecclesial and political regime change in France, see Jon Balserak, John Calvin as Sixteenth-Century Prophet (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014) 84–85, 146–52.

107 Gary W. Jenkins, Calvin’s Tormentors: Understanding the Conflicts That Shaped the Reformer (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018).

108 Calvin, Serm. Gen, Sermon 56 (SC XI/2:623–24); idem, Quatre sermons, 1552 (CO 8:440).

109 Bruening, Refusing to Kiss, 139–79. Bruening raises this possibility of a “strange new type of Nicodemite within Calvin’s own church” (156).

110 Studies disputing the unique relationship between exile and confessional radicalization include Johannes M. Müller, “ ‘Exile Theology’ beyond Confessional Boundaries: The Example of Dirck Volckertsz. Coornhert,” in Transregional Reformations: Crossing Borders in Early Modern Europe (ed. Violet Soen et al.; Refo500 Academic Studies 61; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2019) 315–31; Mirjam G. K. van Veen and Jesse Spohnholz, “Calvinists vs. Libertines: A New Look at Religious Exile and the Origins of ‘Dutch’ Tolerance,” in Calvinism and the Making of the European Mind (ed. Gijsbert van den Brink and Harro M. Höpfl; Studies in Reformed Theology 27; Leiden: Brill, 2014) 76–99.

111 Peter Lake, “Calvinism and the English Church 1570–1635,” Past & Present 114 (1987) 32–76. Also n. 100 above.

112 See, for example, M. Jan Holton, Longing for Home: Forced Displacement and Postures of Hospitality (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016); Ting-Yin Lee, “The Loss and Grief in Immigration: Pastoral Care for Immigrants,” Pastoral Psychology 59 (2010) 159–69.