Theodore Beza 1519 – 1605

Theodore Beza was a French Reformed theologian, biblical scholar, and the principal successor of John Calvin as the leader of the Genevan Reformation. After early humanist studies and a celebrated youthful collection of Latin poems, he fled to Switzerland, embraced the Reformed cause, and from 1559 led the new Geneva Academy. His Tractatus Theologicus, his Confessio Christianae Fidei, and his treatise Concerning the Right of Magistrates over Their Subjects developed the classical Reformed doctrine of supralapsarian predestination and the early Calvinist defense of lawful resistance to tyrannical rulers. His Greek New Testament shaped a generation of biblical scholarship.