Calvin, The Body & Sexuality

How did John Calvin think about the body? Alida Sewell first asked that question when she came across Calvin's assertion that the body is the prison of the soul. That sounded Platonic rather than Christian. She investigated and found that although Calvin used the prison metaphor numerous times, he did imbue it with Christian concepts related to his eschatology. Nevertheless, in some aspects he comes across as unnecessarily negative about the body. Sewell has shown that many of his views were shared by his contemporaries and were considered to reflect "the natural order" but some arose out of his personal experience and prudery.