John Calvin on Canon of the Old Testament
66 books — Apocrypha useful but not Scripture
I will not deign to reply, lest I should seem to include that work among the canonical books.
THE POSITION
Calvin excludes the deuterocanonical books from Scripture, but he never publishes an enumerated canon in the Institutes. What he does is refuse to answer an argument drawn from Maccabees rather than appear to treat it as canonical, and press the book's own closing apology for anything 'less properly expressed' as proof that its author did not take himself to be writing oracles. Against Rome's claim that a church council fixed the canon he asks which council, and invokes Jerome's judgment that Maccabees, Tobit and Ecclesiasticus belong among the Apocrypha (Institutes IV.ix.14).
44 Jesus said to them, “These are the words I spoke to you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about Me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms.”
13 OTHERS HOLD THIS
ABOUT THIS FIGURE
Reformer of Geneva and the most systematic of the first-generation Reformers. This entry rests on the 1559 Institutes of the Christian Religion in Henry Beveridge's translation, checked section by section, with Calvin's own commentaries on 1 John, John, the Harmony of the Evangelists, the Psalms and the Harmony of the Law used where the Institutes are thin.
Cite this page
"John Calvin on Canon of the Old Testament", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/calvin/ot-canon (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/calvin/ot-canon).