CHAPTER XIX.

THEODORE BEZA.

Sources: Beza’s Correspondence, mostly unprinted, but many letters are given in the Beilagen zu Baum’s Theodor Beza (see below), and in Herminjard’s Correspondance des réformateurs dans les pays de langue française (vols. VI. sqq.); and his published works (the list to the number of ninety is given in the article "Bèze, Théodore de," in Haag, La France Protestante, 2d ed. by Bordier, vol. II., cols. 620–540). By far the most important of them are, his Vita J. Calvini, best ed. in Calvin’s Opera, XXI., and his Tractationes theologicae (1582). He also had much to do with the Histoire ecclesiastique des églises reformées au royaume de France, best ed. by Baum, Cunitz, and Rodolphe Reuss (the son of Edward Reuss, the editor of Calvin), Paris, 1883–1889. 3 vols. small quarto.

Antoine de La Faye: De vita et obitu Th. Bezae, Geneva, 1606.—Friedrich Christoph Schlosser: Leben des Theodor de Beza und des Peter Martyr Vermili, Heidelberg, 1809.—*Johann Wilhelm Baum: Theodor Beza nach handschriftlichen Quellen dargestellt, Leipzig, I. Theil, 1848, with Beilagen to bks. I. and II. II. Theil, 1861, with Anhang die Beilagen enthaltend, 1862 (unfortunately this masterly book only extends to 1663).—*Heinrich Heppe: Theodor Beza. Leben und ausgewählte Schriften, Elberfeld, 1861 (contains the whole life, but is inferior in style to Baum).—Art. Beza by Bordier in La France Protestante.

Jerome Bolsec: Histoire de la vie, moeurs, doctrine, et déportements de Theodore de Bèze, Paris, 1682; republished by an unnamed Roman Catholic in Geneva, 1836, along with Bolsec’s "Life of Calvin," to counteract the effect of the celebration of the third centennial of the Reformation. It has no historical value, but is a malignant libel, like his so-called "Life of Calvin," as this specimen shows: "Bèze, toute so jeunesse, a été un trèsdébauché et dissolu, sodomite, adultère et suborneur de femmes mariées [Bolsec elsewhere asserts that Claudine Denosse was married when Beza seduced her], larron, trompeur, homicide de so propre géniture, traître, vanteur, cause et instigateur d’infinis meurtres, guerres, invasions, brûlemens de villes, palais et maisons, de saccagemens de temples, et infinies autres ruines et malheurs (ed. 1835, p. 188).

Much use has been made of the allusions to Beza in Henry M. Baird’s Rise of the Huguenots (New York, 1879), and Huguenots and Henry of Navarre (1886), also of the article on "Bèze, Theodore de," in Haag, La France Protestante, mentioned above. See also Principal Cunningham: The Reformers, Edinburgh, 1862; "Calvin and Beza," pp. 345–413 (theological and controversial).