[Tractationes theologicae; (Geneva, 1570)]
Theodore Beza, born on June 24, 1519, in Vézelay, France, was a distinguished theologian, scholar, and reformer of the Protestant Reformation. Educated under the humanist Melchior Wolmar, Beza initially pursued law but later embraced the Reformed faith, leading to his exile from France. In 1548, he settled in Geneva, where he became a close associate of John Calvin. Beza's contributions were manifold. He served as a professor of Greek at the Academy of Lausanne and later at the Geneva Academy, where he succeeded Calvin as the chair of theology. His leadership extended to the Company of Pastors in Geneva, where he played a pivotal role in shaping Reformed theology and church governance. A prolific writer, Beza authored several significant works. His De jure magistratuum (1574) defended the rights of magistrates against tyranny, and his editions of the Greek New Testament were instrumental in biblical scholarship. Beza also penned a biography of Calvin and contributed to the Genevan Psalter, enhancing the liturgical life of the Reformed churches. Throughout his life, Beza was actively involved in theological debates, notably defending the doctrine of predestination and engaging in dialogues with Lutheran theologians. His efforts were crucial in consolidating the Reformed tradition during a period of religious upheaval. Beza passed away on October 13, 1605, in Geneva, leaving behind a legacy as a steadfast guardian of Reformed orthodoxy and a key figure in the Protestant Reformation.
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From the Lectures of Theodore Beza
I. The chief part of the true invocation of God is the true knowledge of God: because we cannot rightly adore that which we know not.
II. The true knowledge of God must be sought from His own Word, because He hath fully revealed Himself to us therein for salvation, and nowhere else, insomuch that he who understandeth of God outside His Word, understandeth nothing for salvation.
III. Seeing that God in the writings of the Prophets and Apostles hath made Himself known to the world not only most truly, but also most properly with most fitting words and sentences: we must endeavour not only to remain within the bounds of Scripture in what pertaineth to the matter itself, but also tenaciously to retain the forms of speech used in Scripture.
IV. Yet the importunity of heretics hath caused that for avoiding their cavils certain words have sometimes been devised: which notwithstanding was not done rashly by the holy Fathers, but rather with the greatest reverence, so that nothing at all might be diminished from the meaning of the Scriptures, nor anything innovated in the word of God.
V. This was the cause why of old against Sabellius the African, who confounded the persons with the essence, and Samosatenus of Antioch, who took away the divine nature of the Son, the Greek names of ousia and hypostasis were used; of which notwithstanding the latter was also used by the author of the epistle to the Hebrews, in the first chapter: upon the explanation of which words almost the whole controversy concerning these matters dependeth.
VI. It must therefore be known that the Fathers speaking of divine mysteries, borrowed these words from natural things, not because they thought things so diverse could properly be expressed by the same words: but that by some comparison of unequal things, they might in some manner present divine things to our eyes, and slay with their own weapons those who transformed Theology into philosophical subtleties.
VII. We will therefore say, what ousia is, and what hypostasis is in natural things, as far indeed as the present argument will bear, and afterwards in what respect these same words are transferred to divine mysteries.
VIII. Some names are of a universal and indeterminate signification, which in equal manner are applied to many things differing in number, in which we behold a certain common thing, which indeed is in those many things of which it is spoken in equal manner, but yet subsisteth not outside them, even as they subsist only in that common thing: as when I say man, I properly conceive nothing subsisting by itself, but comprehend in mind a certain common nature without any peculiar determination, in which in equal manner Peter, Paul, Timothy, and all other similar particulars subsist. Man therefore is a word signifying ousia, which is declared by the name of man.
IX. But because thought afterward descendeth from that universality to certain singulars and properties, by which those things are distinguished, in which that common notion was before conceived, and which circumscribed by those properties do subsist: therefore names also are invented accommodated to signify these, as, Peter, Paul, Timothy, which are called names of hypostases, or of things subsisting, that is, of things defined by their properties, and subsisting in that common ousia of theirs.