Theodore Beza, widely considered one of the…

October 1548 CE

Theodore Beza, widely considered one of the best writers of Latin poetry of his time, becomes famous at twenty-nine when he publishes a collection of Latin poetry, Juvenilia, in 1548.

His father Pierre de Beze, the royal governor of Vezelay, has two brothers; Nicholas, who is a member of Parliament at Paris; and Claude, who is abbot of the Cistercian monastery Froimont in the diocese of Beauvais,

The unmarried Nicholas was so pleased with Theodore during a visit to Vezelay that, with the permission of his parents, he took him to Paris to educate him there.

From Paris, the nine-year-old Theodore had been sent to Orléans in December 1528 to receive instruction from the famous German teacher Melchior Wolmar.

He was received into Wolmar's house, and the day on which this took place was afterward celebrated as a second birthday.

Beza soon followed his teacher to Bourges, where the latter was called by the duchess Margaret of Angoulême, sister of Francis I. Bourges had been the focus of the Reformation movement in France until 1534, when Francis I issued his edict against ecclesiastical innovations.

Wolmar had returned to Germany; Beza, in accordance with the wish of his father, had returned to Orléans to study law, and spent four years there (1535–39).

The pursuit of law has little attraction for him; he enjoys more the reading of the ancient classics, especially Ovid, Catullus, and Tibullus.

After receiving the degree of licentiate in law August 11, 1539, he goes to Paris, as his father desired, where he had begun to practice.

To support him, his relatives had obtained for him two benefices, the proceeds of which amounted to seven hundred golden crowns a year; and his uncle had promised to make him his successor.

Beza had spent two years in Paris, gaining a prominent position in literary circles.

To escape the many temptations to which he was exposed, Beza had in 1544 become engaged, with the knowledge of two friends, to a young girl of humble descent, Claudine Denoese, promising to publicly marry her as soon as his circumstances would allow it.

Shortly after the publication of his book, he had fallen ill and his illness, it is reported, had revealed to him his spiritual needs.

Gradually he had come to accept salvation in Christ, which had lifted his spirits.

After resolving to sever his connections of the time, he goes to Geneva, the French city of refuge for Evangelicals (adherents of the Reformation movement), where he arrives with Claudine on October 23, 1548.

He is received by John Calvin, who had met him already in Wolmar's house, and is married in the church.