Theodore Beza

Theodore Beza (Theodore de Beze or de Besze) (June 24, 1519 - October 13, 1605) was a French Protestant Christian theologian and scholar who played an important role in the early Reformation. He was closely associated with Calvinism. He lived most of his adult life in Switzerland.

Humanistic and Historical Writings

In Beza's literary activity as well as in his life,

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distinction must be made between the period of the

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humanist (which ended with the publication of his

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Juvenilia) and that of the ecclesiastic. But later

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productions like the humanistic, biting,

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satirical Passavantius and his

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Complainte de Messire Pierre Lizet . . .

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prove that in later years he occasionally

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went back to his first love. In

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his old age he published his Cato

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censorius (1591), and revised his Poemata, from

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which he purged juvenile eccentricities.

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Of his

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historiographical works, aside from his Icones (1580),

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which have only an iconographical value, mention

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may be made of the famous Histoire ecclesiastique

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des Eglises reformes au Royaume de France (1580),

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and his biography of Calvin, with which must be

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named his edition of Calvin's Epistolae et responsa

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(1575).

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