We cannot enter here into a detailed examination of everything that Calvin, a man of the second generation, derived from the Reformers and from the humanists who preceded him. It will be enough to mention that he owed much to Martin Luther, that he derived much of his ecclesiology from Martin Bucer, that he was on the best of terms with Philip Melanchthon, and that, even after his conversion, he did not break with the methods and objectives of a Bude or an Erasmus. He had been won over to the Reformation, but he remained a humanist. Indebted as he was to the theologians and scholars who had blazed the trail for the Reformation, Calvin was equally familiar with certain medieval authors, such as St Anselm of Canterbury, St Bernard of Clairvaux (whom he was fond of citing), Peter Lombard, St Thomas Aquinas, and Duns Scotus, who, whatever has been said to the contrary, certainly influenced his conception of God. Beyond the doctors of the Middle Ages, moreover, he assiduously studied the Fathers of the Church. The two he preferred were St John Chrysostom, whom he appreciated as an interpreter of the Bible, and above all, St Augustine, with whom he felt a a deep affinity. To sum up, while Calvin was nurtured on the Bible, his reading of it was enriched by his astonishing knowledge of the great authors of the Christian tradition (“Calvin” by Richard Stauffer in International Calvinism 1541-1715, edited by Menna Prestwich, 29).