Theodore Beza (; or de Besze; 24 June 1519 – 13 October 1605) was a French Calvinist Protestant theologian, reformer and scholar who played an important role in the Protestant Reformation. He was a disciple of John Calvin and lived most of his life in Geneva. Beza succeeded Calvin as the spiritual leader of the Republic of Geneva.
Biography
Early life
thumb|left|Theodore Beza's birthplace in Vézelay
Theodore Beza was born on 24 June 1519 in Vézelay, in the province of Burgundy, France. His father, Pierre de Bèze, bailiff of Vézelay, Shortly after the publication of his book, Beza fell ill with plague and his illness, it is reported, revealed to him his spiritual needs. in which he contrasted Catholicism with Protestantism. The work was well-received. The text of some verses includes directions for musical performance, but no music survives.
In 1551, Beza was asked by Calvin to complete the French metrical translations of the Psalms begun by Clément Marot. Thirty-four of his translations were published in the 1551 edition of the Genevan Psalter, and six more were added to later editions. a satire directed against Pierre Lizet, the former president of the Parlement of Paris, and principal originator of the "fiery chamber" (), who, at the time (1551), was abbot of St. Victor near Paris and publishing a number of polemical writings.
Of a more serious character were two controversies in which Beza was involved at this time: The first concerned the doctrine of predestination and the controversy of Calvin with Jerome Hermes Bolsec and the second referred to the execution of Michael Servetus at Geneva on 27 October 1553. In defense of Calvin and the Genevan magistrates, Beza published, in 1554, the work (translated into French in 1560).
Journeys on behalf of the Protestants
thumb|left|Portrait of Theodore Beza, by English School, 17th century
In 1557, Beza took a special interest in the Waldensians of Piedmont, Italy, who were being harassed by the French government. On their behalf, he went with William Farel to Bern, Zürich, Basel, and Schaffhausen, then to Strasburg, Mömpelgard, Baden, and Göppingen. In Baden and Göppingen, Beza and Farel made a declaration concerning the Waldensians' views on the sacrament on 14 May 1557. The written declaration clearly stated their position and was well received by the Lutheran theologians, but was strongly disapproved of in Bern and Zurich.
In the autumn of 1558, Beza undertook a second journey with Farel to Worms by way of Strasburg in the hopes of bringing about an intercession by the Evangelical princes of the empire in favor of the persecuted brethren at Paris. With Melanchthon and other theologians then assembled at the Colloquy of Worms, Beza proposed a union of all Protestant Christians, but the proposal was decidedly denied by Zurich and Bern.
False reports reached the German princes that the hostilities against the Huguenots in France had ceased and no embassy was sent to the court of France. As a result, Beza undertook another journey with Farel, Johannes Buddaeus, and Gaspard Carmel to Strasburg and Frankfurt, where the sending of an embassy to Paris was resolved upon.
Settling in Geneva
Upon his return to Lausanne, Beza was greatly disturbed. In union with many ministers and professors in city and country, Viret at last thought of establishing a consistory and of introducing a church discipline which should apply excommunication especially at the celebration of the communion. But the Bernese, then in control of Lausanne, would have no Calvinistic church government. This caused many difficulties, and Beza thought it best in 1558 to settle at Geneva.
Until 1580, Beza was not only moderator of the Company of Pastors, but also the real soul of the Academy of Geneva which Calvin had founded in 1559. As long as he lived, Beza was interested in higher education. The Protestant youth for nearly forty years thronged his lecture-room to hear his theological lectures, in which he expounded the purest Calvinistic orthodoxy. As a counselor he was listened to by both magistrates and pastors. He founded the Academy's law faculty in which notable jurists such as François Hotman, Giulio Pace, Lambert Daneau, and Denis Godefroy, lectured in turn.
Course of events after 1564
right|thumb|[[Woodcut of Theodore Beza]]
Beza successfully continued Calvin’s work within the Genevan church, helped by the city authorities having largely adopted Calvin’s ideas by this time with no major doctrinal disputes, though there were debates on more practical issues such as the authority of magistrates over pastors, freedom in preaching, and the balance between ministerial freedom and the authority of the Company of Pastors. Beza on his part was less protective of the independence of the church from the city authorities than Calvin had been.
Beza did not believe it wise for the Company of Pastors to have a permanent head. He convinced the Company to petition the Small Council to have limited terms for the position of moderator. In 1580 the Council agreed to a weekly rotating presidency. He mediated between the and the magistracy; the latter continually asked his advice even in political questions. He corresponded with all the leaders of the Reformed party in Europe. After the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre (1572), he used his influence to give to the refugees a hospitable reception at Geneva.
In 1574, he wrote his (Right of Magistrates), in which he emphatically protested against tyranny in religious matters, and affirmed that it is legitimate for a people to oppose an unworthy magistracy in a practical manner and if necessary to use weapons and depose them.
Without being a great dogmatician like his master, nor a creative genius in the ecclesiastical realm, Beza had qualities which made him famous as humanist, exegete, orator, and leader in religious and political affairs, and qualified him to be the guide of the Calvinists in all Europe. In the various controversies into which he was drawn, Beza often showed an excess of irritation and intolerance, from which Bernardino Ochino, pastor of the Italian congregation at Zurich (on account of a treatise which contained some objectionable points on polygamy), and Sebastian Castellio at Basel (on account of his Latin and French translations of the Bible) had especially to suffer.
Beza continued to maintain the closest relations with Reformed France. He was the moderator of the general synod which met in April 1571 at La Rochelle and decided not to abolish church discipline or to acknowledge the civil government as head of the Church, as the Paris minister Jean Morel and the philosopher Pierre Ramus demanded; it also decided to confirm anew the Calvinistic doctrine of the Lord's Supper (by the expression: "substance of the body of Christ") against Zwinglianism, which caused a dispute between Beza and Ramus and Heinrich Bullinger.
In May 1572 he took an important part in the national synod at Nîmes. He was also interested in the controversies which concerned the Augsburg Confession in Germany, especially after 1564, on the doctrine of the Person of Christ and the sacrament, and published several works against Joachim Westphal, Tilemann Heshusius, Nikolaus Selnecker, Johannes Brenz, and Jakob Andrea. This caused him to be hated by all those who adhered to Lutheranism in opposition to Melanchthon, especially after 1571.
The Colloquy of Montbéliard
The last polemical conflict of importance Beza encountered from the Lutherans was at the Colloquy of Montbéliard, 14–27 March 1586, (which is also called the Mompelgard Colloquium) to which he had been invited by the Lutheran Count Frederick of Württemberg at the wish of the French-speaking and Reformed residents as well as by French noblemen who had fled to Montbéliard. As a matter of course the intended union which was the purpose of the colloquy was not brought about; nevertheless it called forth serious developments within the Reformed Church.
When the edition of the acts of the colloquy, as prepared by Jakob Andrea, was published, Samuel Huber, of Burg near Bern, who belonged to the Lutheranizing faction of the Swiss clergy, took so great offense at the supralapsarian doctrine of predestination propounded at Montbéliard by Beza and Musculus that he felt it to be his duty to denounce Musculus to the magistrates of Bern as an innovator in doctrine. To adjust the matter, the magistrates arranged a colloquy between Huber and Musculus (2 September 1587), in which the former represented the universalism, the latter the particularism, of grace.
As the colloquy was resultless, a debate was arranged at Bern on 15–18 April 1588, at which the defense of the accepted system of doctrine was at the start put into Beza's hands. The three delegates of the Swiss cantons who presided at the debate declared in the end that Beza had substantiated the teaching propounded at Montbéliard as the orthodox one, and Huber was dismissed from his office.
Later years
thumb|right|Théodore De Beza by an unknown artist, inscribed in 1605
After that time Beza's activity was confined more and more to the affairs of his home. His wife Claudine had died childless in 1588 after forty years of marriage, a few days before he went to the Bern Disputation. He contracted, on the advice of his friends, a second marriage with the widow Caterina del Piano, a Protestant refugee from Asti, Piedmont,