Theodore Beza

Life

Beza was born into a noble family in the French region of Burgundy. As a youth he studied under the Greek scholar Melchior Wolmar, and he later studied law at Orléans. In his early years he gained a reputation as a Latin poet. After a serious illness in 1548, he embraced the Protestant faith and moved to Geneva that same year. From 1549 he taught Greek at the Academy of Lausanne in Switzerland. When the Geneva Academy was founded in 1559, he became its first rector. After the death of John Calvin in 1564, he led the church as moderator of the Company of Pastors of Geneva. He died in Geneva in 1605.

Ministry and Achievements

• Biblical textual scholarship: Beginning in 1565, he published several editions of the Greek New Testament. These included a Latin translation and annotations, and they are reported to have been consulted by the translators of the King James Version. An ancient manuscript he owned was presented to the University of Cambridge in 1581 and is known as Codex Bezae.
• Systematization of theology: He organized and systematized Calvin's teaching, in particular placing predestination at the center of his theological system and setting it out in logical form. For this reason he is regarded as having laid the foundations of Reformed orthodoxy.
• Representing the church: At the Colloquy of Poissy in France in 1561, he represented the French Protestants (Huguenots) in debate with the Roman Catholic side.
• Theory of resistance: After the massacre of the Huguenots in 1572, he wrote On the Right of Magistrates (1574), in which he argued that lesser magistrates may lawfully resist a tyrannical ruler.
• Hymnody and biography: He completed the French metrical Psalter begun by Clément Marot, a collection known as the Genevan Psalter. He also wrote a biography of Calvin.

Influence on the Korean Church

Little record exists of any direct influence by Beza on the Korean church. However, the Reformed theology he systematized was carried into later confessions such as the Westminster Confession of Faith. These confessions became the doctrinal standards of Korean Presbyterianism, and through them Beza exerted an indirect influence. In Korean seminaries and in discussions of Calvinism, he is treated as Calvin's successor. In debates over the text of the New Testament, his Greek editions are cited as part of the lineage of the Textus Receptus (the Greek text in traditional use).

Assessment

Within the Reformed tradition, Beza is highly regarded for preserving Calvin's legacy and for making Geneva a center of Reformed education. He has also drawn criticism. Some twentieth-century scholars argued that by giving undue prominence to predestination, Beza turned Calvin's theology into a rigid system—the so-called "Calvin versus the Calvinists" debate. Other scholars counter that this view underestimates the continuity between the two. Beza also defended the state's punishment of heresy as legitimate in connection with the case of Servetus, who was condemned as a heretic and executed in 1553; for this he has been criticized from the standpoint of religious toleration. It is also frequently noted that Jacobus Arminius, the founder of Arminianism, studied under him in Geneva.