Theodore Beza Quotes on Politics
Theodore Beza was a French Reformed theologian, biblical scholar, and the principal successor of John Calvin as the leader of the Genevan Reformation. This page collects quotes attributed to Theodore Beza on the topic of politics, drawn from across the philosopher's works.
Quotes
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Attributed to Theodore Beza:
“The visible Church is to be ordered according to the rule of Scripture.”
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Attributed to Theodore Beza:
“Tyrants are not God's ministers when they trample God's law.”
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“Letter to Heinrich Bullinger (29 March 1554), quoted in J. W. Allen, A History of Political Thought in the Sixteenth Century (1928), p. 95”
If we must put up with what this impious man [ Sebastian Castellio ] has vomited forth in his preface, what remains to us intact of the Christian religion? ... We must wait for another revelation. -
“De haereticis a civile magistratu puniendis libellus, adversus Martini Belli farraginem et novorum Academicorum sectam, Theodora Beza Vezelio auctore (1554), p. 186, quoted in J. W. Allen, A History of Political Thought in the Sixteenth Century (1928), p. 96”
The main end of human society is that God be honoured as He should be. Now the Magistrate is set as guard and governor of this society... And though it be his duty, so far as in him lies, to take order that no discord arise among his subjects, yet, since the chief and ultimate end of human society is not that men should live together in peace, but that, living in peace, they should serve God, it i -
“I have always impugned the Roman hierarchy, but I have never had the intention of opposing the ecclesiastical polity of your Anglican Church. I wish and hope that the sacred and holy society of your bishops may continue and maintain forever the right and title to the government of the Church with all Christian equity and moderation.”
Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, John Whitgift (March 1591), quoted in John T. McNeill, The History and Character of Calvinism (1957), p. 315