A Little Catechism - Theodore Beza
A Little Catechism - Theodore Beza
Theodore Beza (or Theodore de Beza) (1519–1605) was a French Protestant theologian and scholar who played an important role in the early Reformation. As the successor of John Calvin, he was closely associated with Calvinism. He lived most of his adult life in Switzerland.
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Early years
Beza was born in Vezelay on June 24, 1519 to Pierre de Besze and Marie Bourdelot. Theodore's mother died when he was only three years old and so he went off to Paris to be raised by a wealthy uncle.
But he fell ill and his distress of body, it is reported, revealed to him his spiritual needs. Gradually he came to the knowledge of salvation in Christ, which he apprehended with a joyous faith. He then resolved to sever his connections of the time, and went to Geneva, the French city of refuge for Evangelicals (adherents of the Reformation movement), where he arrived with Claudine on October 23, 1548.
Calvin's successor
Beza was a model of a pastor and theologian who had a deep love and affection for his parishioners — he had a big picture of the sovereignty of God, but he also saw the pastoral implications of such a theology. A great example is in his response to the massacre on St. Bartholomew's day on August 24, 1572. Beginning in Paris, and then spreading throughout France, countless Protestants were murdered or wounded and within a week refugees began showing up in Geneva seeking asylum. Beza urged his parishioners to care for their wounded French brethren and to observe a day of prayer and fasting.
Theological works
Although Beza produced numerous secular and historical studies, inluding a biography of Calvin, they were all surpassed by his theological productions (contained in Tractationes theologicae). In these Beza appears the perfect pupil or the alter ego of Calvin. His view of life is deterministic and the basis of his religious thinking is the predestinate recognition of the necessity of all temporal existence as an effect of the
