Beza, Theodore

Beza, Theodore (1519–1605), Calvinist theologian. De Bèze (the original form of his name) came of an old Catholic family in Burgundy. He renounced Catholicism in 1548 and went to Geneva. He was professor of Greek at Lausanne from 1549 to 1558, when J. Calvin offered him a professorship at the newly-founded academy at Geneva, a post he held until 1595. In 1561 he took part in the Colloquy of Poissy. On Calvin's death in 1564 he succeeded him as head of the Geneva Church and leader of the Calvinist movement in Europe. In 1571 he presided over the National Synod of La Rochelle which marked the consolidation of the French Huguenot Church.

In 1559 Beza published his Confession de la foi chrétienne, an exposition of Calvinist beliefs, translated into Latin in 1560. In the 1550s and 1560s he disputed with S. Castellio about free will and defended the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity against L. Socinus and others. In defence of his view that Christ's Divine (but not His human) nature is present to the faithful in the Eucharist, he produced a series of works against the Lutheran Ubiquitarians. He is usually thought to have hardened Calvin's doctrine of predestination by arguing that even the Fall was part of God's eternal plan; it followed the election of some to salvation and others to damnation, the atoning death of Christ being offered only for the former. His annotated Latin translation of the NT (1556), to which he added the Greek text in 1565, was widely influential; it was used by the translators of the AV. See also CODEX BEZAE.