This paper discusses the doctrinal foundations of criminal law in Calvin’s ecclesiology, namely his theology of the original sin, and its practical implementation in Geneva’s consistory. On these grounds, I analyse the distinction between civil and ecclesiastical criminal law. Both State and Church were granted by Calvin a ius gladii, but only the former can claim a right to impose physical punishment, whereas the latter should just punish spiritually. Here lays, in my view, the difference between law and discipline.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• García-Alonso, M., (2025), "Le pouvoir disciplinaire chez Calvin", HSSCommons: (DOI: )

  Copy Citation | Export metadata as... | JSON | CSV | RO-Crate | BibTex | EndNote

1. Renaissance and Reformation

Original publication: García-Alonso, Marta. "Le pouvoir disciplinaire chez Calvin." Renaissance and Reformation 33 (4): 2011. 29-49. DOI: 10.33137/rr.v33i4.15970. This material has been re-published in an unmodified form on the Canadian HSS Commons with the permission of Iter Canada / Renaissance and Reformation. Copyright © the author(s). Their work is distributed by Renaissance and Reformation under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. For details, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/.