The Letters of John Calvin (4 vols.) contains four volumes of Calvin’s correspondence. This collection includes over 600 letters written between 1528 and 1564. His first letters were written as he studied in Paris; the last letter was written from his deathbed. In between, we find letters to other Reformers such as Martin Luther and John Knox, as well as letters to kings and government authorities. B.B. Warfield rightly called Calvin "the great letter-writer of the Reformation age."
These volumes contain Calvin’s private correspondence throughout thirty years of public life, and offer a revealing look at the context in which Calvin preached in Geneva, studied the Scriptures, and wrote The Institutes. In the Logos edition of The Letters of John Calvin (4 vols.), you’ll find letters on controversies in Geneva, social issues, persecution, ecclesiastical problems, along with personal reflections on his everyday experiences—written to friends, kings, and his fellow Reformers.
Calvin himself identified his correspondence to Theodore Beza shortly before he died, and Beza, along with Charles de Jonvillers, published a Latin edition of his letters in Geneva in 1575. For centuries, Calvin’s letters remained a rarity—most copies were lost or in poor condition—until the French government commissioned a republication project. In 1854, the new French edition of Calvin’s letters appeared in Paris under the editorship of Jules Bonnet. Volumes one and two were translated by D. Constable for publication in 1855 and 1857; volumes three and four were translated by M.R. Gilchrist. All four volumes were published as a complete set by the Presbyterian Board of Publication for an American audience.
What’s more, the Logos edition of The Letters of John Calvin (4 vols.) contains extensive tagging and linking. All Scripture references display the verse on mouseover, and each reference is linked to the original language texts and English Bible translations in your library. With Logos, you can also perform advanced searches—searching Calvin’s letters by passage or topic. That makes the Logos edition of The Letters of John Calvin (4 vols.) ideal for historians, theologians, and Calvin scholars.
