Morality After Calvin: Theodore Beza's Christian Censor and Reformed Ethics (Oxford Studies in Historical Theology) [1 ed.] 9780190280079, 0190280077

Citation preview

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Morality After Calvin

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OXFORD STUDIES IN HISTORICAL THEOLOGY Series Editor

Richard A. Muller, Calvin Theological Seminary

Founding Editor

David C. Steinmetz†

Editorial Board

Irena Backus, Université de Genève Robert C. Gregg, Stanford University George M. Marsden, University of Notre Dame Wayne A. Meeks, Yale University Gerhard Sauter, Rheinische Friedrich-​Wilhelms-​Universität Bonn Susan E. Schreiner, University of Chicago John Van Engen, University of Notre Dame Geoffrey Wainwright, Duke University Robert L. Wilken, University of Virginia THE JUDAIZING CALVIN Sixteenth-​Century Debates over the Messianic Psalms

G. Sujin Pak

THE DEATH OF SCRIPTURE AND THE RISE OF BIBLICAL STUDIES

Michael C. Legaspi

THE FILIOQUE History of a Doctrinal Controversy

A. Edward Siecienski

ARE YOU ALONE WISE? Debates about Certainty in the Early Modern Church

Susan E. Schreiner

EMPIRE OF SOULS Robert Bellarmine and the Christian Commonwealth

Stefania Tutino

MARTIN BUCER'S DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION Reformation Theology and Early Modern Irenicism

Brian Lugioyo

CHRISTIAN GRACE AND PAGAN VIRTUE The Theological Foundation of Ambrose's Ethics

J. Warren Smith

KARLSTADT AND THE ORIGINS OF THE EUCHARISTIC CONTROVERSY A Study in the Circulation of Ideas

Amy Nelson Burnett

READING AUGUSTINE IN THE REFORMATION The Flexibility of Intellectual Authority in Europe, 1500–​1620

Arnoud S. Q. Visser

SHAPERS OF ENGLISH CALVINISM, 1660–​1714 Variety, Persistence, and Transformation

Dewey D. Wallace, Jr.

THE BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION OF WILLIAM OF ALTON

THE REFORMATION OF SUFFERING Pastoral Theology and Lay Piety in Late Medieval and Early Modern Germany

Ronald K. Rittgers

CHRIST MEETS ME EVERYWHERE Augustine's Early Figurative Exegesis

Michael Cameron

MYSTERY UNVEILED The Crisis of the Trinity in Early Modern England

Paul C. H. Lim

GOING DUTCH IN THE MODERN AGE Abraham Kuyper's Struggle for a Free Church in the Netherlands

John Halsey Wood Jr.

CALVIN’S COMPANY OF PASTORS Pastoral Care and the Emerging Reformed Church, 1536–​1609

Scott M. Manetsch

THE SOTERIOLOGY OF JAMES USSHER The Act and Object of Saving Faith

Richard Snoddy

HARTFORD PURITANISM Thomas Hooker, Samuel Stone, and Their Terrifying God

Baird Tipson

AUGUSTINE, THE TRINITY, AND THE CHURCH A Reading of the Anti-​Donatist Sermons

Adam Ployd

AUGUSTINE’S EARLY THEOLOGY OF IMAGE A Study in the Development of Pro-​Nicene Theology

Gerald Boersma

PATRON SAINT AND PROPHET Jan Hus in the Bohemian and German Reformations

Phillip N. Haberkern

Timothy Bellamah, OP

JOHN OWEN AND ENGLISH PURITANISM Experiences of Defeat

MIRACLES AND THE PROTESTANT IMAGINATION The Evangelical Wonder Book in Reformation Germany

MORALITY AFTER CALVIN Theodore Beza’s Christian Censor and Reformed Ethics

Philip M. Soergel

Crawford Gribben

Kirk M. Summers

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Morality After Calvin Theodore Beza’s Christian Censor and Reformed Ethics

z KIRK M. SUMMERS

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1 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2017 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. CIP data is on file at the Library of Congress ISBN 978–​0–​19–​028007–​9 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America

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Contents

Preface  Introduction: Contextualizing Beza’s Ethical Thought 

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1. Cato, God, and Natural Law 

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2. An Ethos of Listening 

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3. Living Sincerely 

123

4. The Execution of One’s Calling 

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5. Usury and the Rhetoric of Mutuality 

211

6. Sanctifying Physical Relationships 

258

7. Outliers 

294

8. A Retrospective View of Life’s Journey 

336

9. Conclusion: Beza’s Ethical Thought 

360

Bibliography 

379

Abbreviations 

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Primary Sources 

380

Secondary Sources 

386

Index 

405

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Preface

This book has its genesis in a chance encounter some ten years ago when I picked up Beza’s 1591 Cato Censorius Christianus and marveled over it. What was the purpose of this little moralizing book of Latin poetry? I could see that Beza was admonishing various types of sinners through the voice of a fictional Cato. Still, other questions nagged me. What brings cohesion to this volume? What is the generic tradition behind it, the social and theological context, and the pastoral concern? What is the moral paradigm being advocated? I found it interesting that Beza had chosen a typically humanistic form as his means of expression. The period following the death of Calvin is frequently characterized as a time marked by the employment of scholastic methodologies and the systematization of doctrine. However, here was something more creative and personal. Yet for all of its application of the rhetorical power of art to practical, down-​to earth concerns, it seemed to harbor something larger than itself. A coherent and well-​formulated worldview reverberated quietly through the poems. As I pursued the matter, I was surprised to discover that no scholarship whatsoever exists on the work. In fact, at a time when so much documentary evidence about life in Geneva in the latter half of the sixteenth century is coming to light, many of Beza’s writings are still inadequately studied. To overlook them is to lose a valuable commentary on events. Beza’s New Testament annotations, treatises, sermons, and correspondence often explain the why of ecclesiastical and civic action. In a unique way, so does the poetry. I decided, therefore, to study these works for what they could tell me about Beza’s ethics. I was not looking for and did not find a radical departure from Calvin, but I  did want to know how Beza articulated his view of sanctification. The subject matter of the Cato suggested this line of inquiry and provided a way to frame the argument. Throughout the book I anchor my arguments to the poems from the Cato and then pull in other

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works of Beza to bolster and clarify the argument I am trying to make. I did not want to content myself only with the works of Beza, however. I compare and contrast other writers in the Reformed tradition, some of whom were colleagues of Beza at Geneva, friends from other cities, or directly influenced by him. These include Simon Goulart, Lambert Daneau, Peter Martyr Vermigli, and the English puritan Thomas Beard.1 Naturally, I considered it important to read Beza in the context of Calvin, Luther, Melanchthon, Musculus, and many others. The goal throughout is always to ascertain more clearly Beza’s own ethical thought and to provide the scholar with a key to unlocking much of what he writes. The hope is that this will help to bridge a theological gap between Calvin and the later Reformed tradition. I approach this study as a Classical philologist, one who wrote his dissertation on Cicero and Lucretius and has a deep appreciation for the ancient world. I combine this love of Classical languages with training in Reformed theology and an upbringng in the Calvinist tradition. These two assets would not have seemed so disparate to Beza and I hope they have equipped me to comprehend his thought in a unique way. They manifest themselves in the book by a close attention to detail, the unraveling of sometimes-​compact Latin, and attention to the exact meaning of words. A historian undoubtedly would have a different way of interrogating the same material, but since the problem being investigated is one of ideas primarily, and given that Beza was a master of Latin who wrote with precision and purpose, my own skills also seemed to offer a valid means to the end. Additionally, there is what I would call a “dialectic with antiquity” that runs through Beza’s writing which, properly discerned, allows for a nuanced understanding of what he is saying. Punctuation and orthography always present a challenge to the scholar dealing with Early Modern texts. Some choose to punctuate and spell texts exactly as they find them. I made some choices that I believe will make the Latinity more accessible to a wider audience. Since no consistent rule of punctuation existed in texts of this early period, I preferred to follow modern conventions for the benefit of the reader. For example, often Beza’s sentences employ a colon where today we would place a semicolon. In those cases I made the change. In the case of orthography, I have altered unusual spellings to their Classical counterparts, with only a few easily

1.  Beard draws heavily on the Huguenot writer Jean de Chassanion (1531–​1598) and his work Histoires memorables des grans et merveilleux jugemens et punitions de Dieu (Geneva: Jean le Preux, 1586).

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understood exceptions. Otherwise, I left the French and English texts as I found them, with one notable deviation: I chose to convert citations from the Geneva Bible into modern English diction. I did this because I want the reader to have a clearer sense for how Beza’s Latin version of the New Testament would be understood by his contemporaries without the burden of having to decipher the English itself. Because Thomson’s Geneva Bible is so closely tied to Beza’s own work on the New Testament, I turned to it more often than not for citations. In the case of Thomas Beard and his Theatre of Gods Judgments, however, I left the English as it was so as not to distort Beard’s own voice. Every translation of Beza’s texts is my own unless otherwise noted. For Calvin, I relied on translations in the public domain except when I felt a more precise rendering of the original was needed. All translations of the Old Testament are either standard ones or, when relevant, my own renderings of the Vulgate. I supplied the original text (Latin or French) in most every case in a footnote. I incorporated the Latin of the poems of the Cato into the text of the book itself, because they are central to the overall argument of the book. As is usual in studies of this nature, I have so many people to thank. When I was only just formulating the ideas presented here, Scott Manetsch (Trinity Seminary) offered much needed encouragement and valuable direction. Carl Springer (Southern Illinois) also took the time to read versions of early chapters and lend his support. During the course of my research, Jeffrey Watt (University of Mississippi) supplied me with several unpublished texts from the Consistory minutes that I could not have done without. I am especially grateful to David Steinmetz for showing an interest in the project when it was still in its nascent stages and recommending it to Oxford University Press; I regret deeply that he could not see its fruition before his passing. Several friends and colleagues read drafts of some or all the chapters and thankfully challenged my argumentation in many places, made corrections to grammar and syntax, and pressed me to improve my writing style. Among these are Erin Isbell, Alecia Chatham, and Kelly Shannon. Other colleagues, Metka Zupancic, Molly Robinson Kelly, and Jean-​Luc Robin, graciously offered their expertise to review my translations and interpretations of various difficult passages of sixteenth-​ century French. In all cases, however, I assume full responsibility for any remaining errors and infelicities. Finally, I am indebted to my wife and children for their patience through the three years in which this project consumed my time and thoughts. Their confidence in me and what I was doing along the way has truly been inspirational.

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Introduction Contextualizing Beza’s Ethical Thought

On June 24, 1582, the same year that he published the magisterial third edition of his Annotationes maiores in Novum Testamentum and a series of lectures on Romans 9 titled De praedestinationis doctrina, Beza sat down and, “sated with this life and longing for the next,” penned the following poem to mark his sixty-​third birthday: Hail, birthday, repeated now six times ten years, plus another three, during which, though in sin I strayed from the straight path, even so I did not completely lose my way. Be frank and tell me, is the end goal of my old age far off, or does this mark the beginning of my troubles? But I am a fool for demanding of you these hidden things, since the very day itself does not know! As it is, whether this returning sun is my last, or he will come ‘round again, O God, be gracious and grant this my prayer: Cover what was, and what will be, govern.1 1. From Beza, Poemata 1597, 188; Beza, Poemata 1599, 95r–​v; and subscribed to a letter addressed to Laurent Dürnhoffer in Beza, Corr. XXIII (1582), no 1528. It really marks the completion of his sixty-​second year and the commencement of his sixty-​third. Max Engammare (“Soixante-​trois: La peur de la grande année climactérique à la Renaissance,” Académie des Inscriptiones et Belles-​Lettres:  Comptes rendus des séances de l’annéee 2008, 152 [2010]: 279–​303, esp. 294) notes its appearance in the 1588(?) Carmina (=Gardy no 8) and the importance of the sixty-​third year as a “climacteric” in astrology. The poem itself is titled “Theodorus Beza, annum vitae iniens, huius vitae satur, alterius cupidus; xxiv Iunii, anno

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These words reveal a different side of the reformer than can be gleaned from his celebrated works of exegesis and theology. Here the doctrinal principles of those works meet with the practical realities of everyday life. We find him reminiscing over his life’s journey, how he has struggled with shortcomings and sin—​errans mirrors the NT ἁμαρτάνων—​yet throughout has continued to persevere; he has been wayward and inconstant (devius), but not lost and completely astray (avius).2 Does the sixty-​third year, as tradition holds, really mark the climax of life at which it turns and winds its way down a bitter path to death? With a measure of mortal trepedation, he wonders what remains for him. At the same time, however, he understands that the path ahead belongs to the arcane things of God and that he does not and cannot know what tomorrow brings. Thus he relinquishes all things into the Father’s hands, to his providence, now no finely formulated theological concept suited to academic disputes, but a truth with immediate application in his world: Beza himself cannot correct what has gone by, nor can he control the future. God must graciously cover over (tege) his past mistakes and providentially guide (rege) what will be. This same resignation and inner conviction steadies him still seven years later, in a poem written for his seventieth birthday, where he wrestles with similar concerns. Again he feels burdened by his own sin, and, as he

ultimi temporis MDLXXXII.” The text runs as follows: “Lux natalis ave, senos repetita per annos | decies, tribus superadditis; | quos ego, quantumvis per devia devius errans, | tamen peregi haud avius. | Dic vero, nostrae procul hinc an meta senectae | vel duriora nos manent? | Verum o stultus ego, qui te haec arcana reposcam, | quum seipsa non norit dies. | Sive autem volvendus adhuc, sive annuus iste | sol me revisit ultimus, | o Deus, hoc Bezae facilis concede precanti: | Tege quod fuit, quod erit rege.” Here Beza shows himself to be the consummate Renaissance poet through his masterful execution of the pythiambic verse, the classical allusions (he echoes, for example, Statius, Achill. 1.455: “donec sol annuus omnes conficeret metas”), the poignant deliberative question, the various word plays (“devius/​avius” and “tege/​rege”), the AB/​BA structure between the third and fifth couplets, and the chiasmus of the last line. 2.  The translation of devius here is confirmed by verses that Beza placed at the head of his second edition of his paraphrases of Ecclesiastes, which are transcribed at Beza, Corr. XXXIX (1598), 272 (=Append. VIII), and which will be discussed in ­chapter  9. For the subtle differences in meaning between devius and avius as a personal descriptor, see TLL s.v. devius 2b (e.g., Cic., Phil. 5.37: “in omnibus consiliis praeceps et devius homo”; Aug. Doctr. Christ., 2.13.19:  “a sensu auctoris devius aberrat interpres”) and s.v. avius, ad fin. (e.g., Aug. In evang. Iob 13.11: “Nullus in rebus humanis tam avius a genere humano est, qui quod dico non sentiat”). Beza expresses a similar sentiment in a poem written to Simon Grynaeus on the occasion of his own seventy-​sixth birthday in June of 1595: “But not completely immoral” (At non degeneres prorsus). For the whole poem, see Beza, Corr. XXXVI (1595), 75.

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looks ahead to the future life, he cannot but throw himself helplessly but hopefully upon the work of Christ.3 This portrait of the reformer who is trying to live the Christian life and lead others to do the same has often times been missed. A more accurate picture is coming into view now that new information has become widely accessible that speaks to the more mundane activities at Geneva during this period, including those involving Beza, which allows us to peer behind the curtain, so to speak. The data includes 1) the records of the Consistory, the Church’s moral court; 2) the records of the Company of Pastors, that body of Genevan city and country ministers who met every Friday to deal with Church business;4 and 3) the publication of Beza’s voluminous correspondence, which, as of this writing, extends from a letter written to his friend Alexis Gaudin in 1539 all the way through 1598, the year that the Edict of Nantes was issued.5 Furthermore, in the last two decades, scholars writing in the area of Reformed Orthodoxy have been calling attention to a new set of assumptions that guide their research.6 Few scholars of the Reformation would now accept the old dichotomy between Calvin and the Calvinists, or more specifically, the notion that the Reformed movement immediately after Calvin took a decidedly negative turn from the spirit of the progenitor toward Medieval Scholasticism and rigid systematizing. Beza and Lambert Daneau have borne the brunt of the criticism in the past. But Richard Muller, along with a few others whom he has inspired, have done much to rehabilitate their standing by stripping the discussion of its emotional content and undertaking a more nuanced examination of the historical circumstances in which the works of Calvin’s successors

3. Beza, Poemata 1597, 209 (also transcribed at Beza, Corr. XXX [1589], 334). These two poems, the one written on his sixty-​third birthday, and the one written on his seventieth, will be examined in much greater depth in c­ hapter 9. 4.  Registres de la Compagnie des Pasteurs de Genève, vols. 1–​13, eds. Jean François Bergier, Robert Kingdon, et al. (Geneva: Droz, 1962–​2001). Most important for the present study are volumes 1–​9, which cover the period from shortly before Beza’s arrival at Geneva to his death. The first two volumes, covering 1546–​1564, have been translated by Philip Hughes, The Register of the Company of Pastors of Geneva in the Time of Calvin (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2004). 5.  Correspondance de Théodore de Bèze, vols. I–​XXXIX, eds. Hippolyte Aubert, Henri Meylan, Alain Dufour, et al. (Geneva: Droz, 1960–​present). Indicated by “Corr.” throughout the book, along with the volume number and year covered. 6. In particular, see Scott Manetsch, Calvin’s Company of Pastors:  Pastoral Care and the Emerging Reformed Church, 1536–​ 1609 (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2013), 241–​ 45; Jeffrey Mallinson, Faith, Reason, and Revelation in Theodore Beza (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 14.

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appeared.7 Restored to their context, theological treatises from this period (roughly 1564–​1605) take on a different character. Part of Muller’s contribution has been to define more precisely the nature of the scholastic writing of the late sixteenth century, seeing it more as a methodology that many theologians, even those attracted to the humanists’ agenda, borrowed in order to more precisely define their confessional positions. This is essentially Beza’s point in the preface to his Quaestiones et responsiones where, after dismissing the “empty curiosity” (inanis curiositas) of the Academic Skeptics, he affirms that not only is it permitted to deliberate about things that are necessary and useful, but also it is something that we should do, provided the back-​and-​forth aims at finding the truth, and not merely arguing for the sake of arguing.8 Another part has been to sharpen our understanding of Calvin’s relation to Medieval thought and thus establish some continuity through him to the period of Reformed Orthodoxy. The effect of Muller’s work has been to shift scholarship about Beza from the dominant Calvinist model, which frequently focused on a purely academic Beza who was devoted more to a system than to a way of life, to a more balanced representation of Beza that takes into account his work as a pastor, mentor, and administrator within the Reformed Church.9 7.  The most important statement of Muller’s views can be found in his two-​part article “Calvin and the ‘Calvinists’: Assessing Continuities and Discontinuities between the Reformation and Orthodoxy,” CTJ 30 (1995):  345–​75 (part one) and CTJ 31 (1996):  125–​60 (part two), both of which are updated and revised in his After Calvin:  Studies in the Development of a Theological Tradition (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2003), 63–​102. Various rehearsals and applications of these ideas can be found in some of his other works, including Christ and the Decree (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008 [originally published elsewhere in 1986 and 1988, but this edition stands as a corrected and de facto third edition]), esp. 1–​13; “The Problem of Protestant Scholasticism:  A  Review and Definition,” in Reformation and Scholasticism (Grand Rapids, MI:  Baker Academic, 2001), 45–​64; “The Use and Abuse of a Document:  Beza’s Tabula Praedestinationis, the Bolsec Controversy, and the Origins of Reformed Orthodoxy,” in Protestant Scholasticism: Essays in Reassessment, eds. Carl Trueman and R. Scott Clark (Carlisle, PA:  Paternoster, 1999), 33–​ 61; Post-​Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 1 of 4 (Grand Rapids, MI:  Baker Academic, 20032), 40–​52; “Reassessing the Relation of Reformation and Orthodoxy:  A  Methodological Rejoinder,” American Theological Inquiry 4 (2011): 3–​12. Also valuable in this regard is Ian McPhee, “Conserver or Transformer of Calvin’s Theology? A Study of the Origins and Development of Theodore Beza’s Thought, 1550–​1570,” (PhD diss., University of Cambridge, 1979); and Carl Trueman, “Calvin and Calvinism,” in The Cambridge Companion to John Calvin, ed. Donald McKim (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 225–​44. 8. Beza, Tractationes theologicae, 1, 654. 9.  In addition to the aforementioned Calvin’s Company of Pastors of Scott Manetsch, which treats the practical ministry of Beza and others, and Jeffrey Mallinson’s Faith, Reason, and Revelation in Theodore Beza (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2003), where the author uses the tools and assumptions mentioned here to show that Beza promoted a “balanced

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Introduction

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It is with a combination of these tools and assumptions that the current work carries out its program of investigating Beza’s ethical thought. As much as possible, texts will be read against their historical context. Only then can Beza’s ideas be properly understood. For example, ­chapter  5 of this study examines a poem that Beza wrote about the ills of usury. Taken by itself, one would come away with the impression that Beza ignored the innovations and flexibility of his mentor Calvin on the matter of lending money at interest and instead embraced a somewhat anachronistic Medieval view. In fact, this is not borne out by the reality of Beza’s actions in Geneva at the time. Beza did nothing to overturn the rate of 6.7 to 7 percent that was used during Calvin’s lifetime. And while undeniably he detested high interest rates, turning against the bank established at Geneva due to its excessive 10 percent rate and the corruption that naturally ensued from it, he himself had been involved in its inception in 1568. He had begrudingly approved the rate because of extenuating circumstances, specifically, Geneva’s dire need for money and the possibility that some of Geneva’s merchants could leave for another more favorable city, such as Lyon.10 In trying to say something significant about Beza’s ethical thought, this study has set for itself another goal. There has been a tendency in the scholarship on Beza to return over and over again to the same texts, while some texts of his corpus are being overlooked.11 The reasons for this may have to do with language: some of Beza’s works were translated from

epistemology” of faith and reason and not just a rationalistic, speculative or scholastic approach, some recent notable examples of this scholarship include Théodore de Bèze (1519–​1605): Actes du colloque de Genève (septembre 2005), ed. Irena Backus (Geneva: Droz, 2007), a collection that, as the editor notes, draws the diverse aspects of Beza’s activity into one organic whole (esp.  17–​18); Alain Dufour, Théodore de Bèze:  Poète et théologien (Geneva: Droz, 2006), who accepts Muller’s thesis and does much to contextualize and humanize the literary and theological contributions of this complex reformer; and Shawn Wright, Our Sovereign Refuge:  The Pastoral Theology of Theodore Beza (Carlisle, PA: Paternoster, 2004). 10.  André Biéler, Calvin’s Economic and Social Thought (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 2005; originally published as La pensée économique et sociale de Calvin [Geneva:  Librairie de l’université, 1961], 147; E. William Monter, Studies in Genevan Government, 1536–​1605 (Geneva: Droz, 1964), 28–​56. 11.  R.  Scott Clark, in his otherwise positive response to Thomas Davis’s paper on “signification” in Calvin and Beza, describes it as “a too frequent failure of Beza scholarship” that many people talk about Beza but few are reading (or quoting) him. See his “Hardened Hearts, Hardened Words: Calvin, Beza and the Trajectory of Signification,” in Calvin, Beza, and Later Calvinism, ed. David Foxgrover (Grand Rapids, MI: Calvin Studies Society, 2006), 161–​64.

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Latin into French or English in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and it is those texts that have received the most scrutiny. They are read because they are the most accessible. One may easily retort that those texts were translated and disseminated because they are most representative of Beza’s views and therefore most worthy of study. While they may have been the most important works in a period of emerging confessionalization, as magistrates and pastors cooperated to define themselves and exercise social control along confessional lines, they cannot by themselves tell the whole story. Beza was not just a theologian and polemicist on the world stage. He was a Genevan pastor, a poet, an exegete, and, as noted above, a man running the race of the Christian life. He cared deeply about the spiritual health of those around him. With that in mind, here we take as our starting point or organizational framework for the present study a text that has received no attention at all within the scholarship: the Cato Censorius Christianus (1591).12 The Cato, as we will call it, is a collection of moralizing poems that warn various types of sinners about the folly of their assumptions and actions. The moral suppositions of those poems will in turn be analyzed and interpreted vis-​à-​vis not just the better known works, but also the equally neglected Poemata of 159713 and the underused Annotationes, the last revision of which appeared in 1598.14 This approach, I believe, will allow us to appreciate Beza from a fresh perspective.

12.  Editions and a fuller generic analysis will be given in c­ hapter 1 of this book. 13. Beza, Poemata 1597. This is a deluxe in-​quarto edition. The editors of the correspondence for this year (Beza, Corr. XXXVIII [1597], v–​vi) have detailed the involvement of Venceslas Zastriselius the Younger and his family of Moravian nobility and the financing that they provided for its publication. In fact, the book would have been published in Moravia after Venceslas took the manuscript there in 1596, but at the prompting of friends, Beza asked for it back so that the editing of it could be overseen in Geneva (no 2513). Appendix I  of the volume reprises the preface of the Poemata written by the aforementioned Venceslas to Venceslas Zastriselius the Elder. There is also a letter written to the latter (no 2529), where Beza offers a response to the critics of his poetry. 14.  The larger or “major” annotations appeared in five editions from 1556 to 1598 (for the latter, see “Abbreviations”): 1556 (with the Latin Vulgate and Beza’s own Latin translation), 1563 (adding the Greek text), 1582 (called the “third” edition on the title page), 1589 (a notes-​only version was published in 1594) and 1598. On this see Kenneth Hagen, Hebrews Commenting from Erasmus to Bèze, 1516–​1598 (Tübingen:  Mohr Siebeck, 1981), 90, n.  52. While several scholars have turned to the annotations on specific topics (e.g., Jill Raitt, The Eucharistic Theology of Theodore Beza: Development of Reformed Doctrine [Chambersburg, PA: American Academy of Religion, 1972]), a more systematic approach to them is needed in order to come to grips with their contribution and to fully appreciate Beza as an interpreter of Scripture. Valuable work has been done already by Irena Backus, The Reformed Roots of the English New Testament (Pittsburgh, PA:  Pickwick Press, 1980); Backus, “The Church

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Introduction

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As the title of this book intimates, then, this study aims to identify an underlying theory of ethics in Beza’s thought by looking at the practical application of it in a particular moralizing work, the Cato. The editors of Beza’s correspondence have called Beza’s ethical thought “a delicate and little known subject.”15 The current study aims to remedy that deficiency while at the same time adding to the growing body of work on early Reformed Orthodoxy, the period stretching roughly from the death of Calvin and the appearance of the Heidelberg Catechism to around 1640, when many of the doctrines formulated by Calvin and the early reformers were being applied to complex, real-​world situations and disagreements.16 As we make our way through this study, there are essentially two questions that will occupy our attention: first, how Beza’s ethical thinking connects to his broader theological program, and, second, how it coheres internally, that is, what theoretical principle ties it all together. The pastoral bearing will become apparent as well. In fact, at stake for Beza was the very social organization of the Church and the lives of its members. Far from being an ivory-​tower theologian who, in a detached manner, rationally and systematically expounded upon the true nature of God and the execution of his plan as revealed in Scriptures, Beza also found in that revelation a detailed blueprint for how individuals should conduct themselves on a daily basis. The goal here, therefore, is to shed light on how Beza, as one of the foremost leaders of the Reformed movement after the death of Calvin, was envisioning and constructing a paradigm of Christian life and society.

Fathers and the Canonicity of the Apocalypse in the Sixteenth Century:  Erasmus, Frans Titelmans, and Theodore Beza,” SCJ 29 (1998): 651–​66; Backus, Reformation Readings of the Apocalypse: Geneva, Zurich, and Wittenberg (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); Backus, “Piscator Misconstrued? Some Remarks on Robert Rollock’s Logical Analysis of Hebrews IX,” in “Text, Translation and Exegesis of Hebrews IX: Papers Presented at a Seminar Held at the IHR, Geneva on 14–​15 June 1982,” in Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Spring 1984; Théorie et pratique de l’exégèse:  Actes du troisième colloque international sur l’histoire de l’exégèse biblique au XVIe siècle, eds. Irena Backus and Francis Higman (Geneva: Droz, 1990); Kirk Summers, “Early Criticism of Erasmus’ Latin Translation of the Bible,” Comitatus 22 (1991): 70–​86; Jan Krans, Beyond What is Written: Erasmus and Beza as Conjectural Critics of the New Testament (Leiden:  Brill, 2006); Jean-​Blaise Fellay, “Théodore de Bèze exégète. Texte, traduction et commentaire de l’Epître aux Romains dans les Annotationes in Novum Testamentum,” PhD diss., University of Geneva, 1984. 15. Beza, Corr. XXXVIII (1597), x: “sujet délicat et peu connu.” 16. This dating of “early Orthodoxy” comes from Muller, Post-​Reformation Reformed Dogmatics (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 19871), 1:28–​9. Muller adopts the timeline proposed by Otto Weber.

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Ethical Ideas: Calvin to Reformed Orthodoxy As much as the word “ethics” surfaces when talking about religion, it can still be a somewhat elusive term, especially as it relates to the sixteenth century. What exactly do we mean if we say we are investigating Beza’s ideas on ethics? What precisely do we hope to learn? We can benefit by looking at the existing scholarship on Calvin’s ethical thought. Günther Haas observes that “ethics” in its modern usage as a self-​contained field of enquiry did not occupy the earliest reformers.17 Calvin, in fact, does not even use the term, nor did he ever write a work on ethics per se. Thus, to investigate what we would call the ethical thought of Calvin, Haas looks for specific markers in the Institutes and in his commentaries that lead into discussions of right behavior. These he succinctly identifies as the following: obedience, the life of a Christian, and the moral life. Calvin typically ties his discussions of an obedient and moral Christian life to his doctrine of the union with Christ, which effectively ends believers’ separation from God and allows them to share in the benefits that come from the Father through his Son. Union with Christ means participating in both the savior’s death and resurrection, which manifest themselves in the Christian as the mortification of the flesh and the vivification of the Spirit, that is, a turning away from sin and a walking in the newness of life according to God’s righteousness. The latter can be known through the Law and, to a lesser extent, nature. The ultimate goal is to repair the “image of God” (imago Dei) that was so thoroughly damaged in the Fall (Inst. 1.15.4),18 and 17.  Günther Haas, “Ethics and Church Discipline,” in Herman Selderhuis, The Calvin Handbook (Grand Rapids, MI:  Eerdmans, 2009), 332–​44. One may also consult his article “Calvin’s Ethics” in The Cambridge Companion to John Calvin, ed. McKim, 93–​105. Haas synthesizes his own previous work with that of other scholars, most notably W. Kolfhaus, Vom christlichen Leben nach Johannes Calvin (Neukirchen: Kreis Moers, 1949); Ronald Wallace, Calvin’s Doctrine of the Christian Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1959); John Leith, John Calvin’s Doctrine of the Christian Life, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1989); and James B. Sauer, Faithful Ethics According to John Calvin: The Teachability of the Heart (New York: E. Mellen Press, 1997). Still more can be gleaned from Calvin and Christian Ethics: Papers Presented at the Fifth Colloquium on Calvin and Calvin Studies, ed. Peter de Klerk (Grand Rapids, MI: Calvin Studies Society, 1987). For more bibliography on Calvin’s ethics, consult H. van den Belt, Restoration Through Redemption: John Calvin Revisited (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 74, n. 85. 18.  For Calvin’s Institutes I have used the following edition throughout this study: Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2 vols., trans. Ford Lewis Battles, ed. John T. McNeill (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960). For the Latin text I have used the 1559 edition: Institutio christianae religionis, in libros quattuor nunc prima digesta, certisque distincta capitibus, ad aptissimum methodum; aucta etiam tam magna accessione ut propemodum opus novum haberi possit (Geneva: Robert Étienne, 1559).

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9

that is represented visibly now through Christ. Thus ethics, which is an aspect of sanctification, is a process of becoming more Christlike; that is, of imitating Christ through loving others, patiently obeying the will of the Father, looking with hope to Christ in his glory and coming kingdom, and reclaiming dominion over creation. Haas also discusses the role of natural law in Calvin’s ethics, a subject to which we will return in ­chapter 1, but here let it suffice to say that Calvin believed that natural law assists with reinforcing the mandates of the second table of the Ten Commandments, the ones that have to do with human interactions. The order of creation, or the order in creation, reflects the principles of moral law necessary for social life. Erich Fuchs in his study on Calvin’s ethics agrees with Haas’s assessment in many of its details but derives them not from Christians’ union with Christ, but from God’s providence.19 In this regard he writes: Providence is the foundation of ethics, because it guarantees that there is a promise attached to human existence; ethics are therefore understood as man’s response, whether conscious or unconscious, to this promise.20 Fuchs is suggesting that mankind’s activity within the world is determined first and foremost by God’s providential guidance of creation itself to its appointed and just end, where all things are made new again and brought back into harmony with God. Since human beings have been endowed with reason that helps them to understand the overall plan and their place in it, and which allows them to seek out aid from others and to reciprocate it in order to realize their place, ethical behavior can be seen as an alignment with that plan within a social setting. Simply put, Christians have a responsibility to work with God (through penitence, i.e., personal reform to the image of God through Christ) and others (through the love of neighbor) to restore order in creation.21 This commitment to

19. Erich Fuchs, “Calvin’s Ethics,” in John Calvin’s Impact on Church and Society, 1509–​ 2009, eds. Martin Ernst Hirzel and Martin Sallman (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009), 145–​58. The book was originally published in French in 2008 with the title Calvin et le Calvinisme: Cinq siècles d’influence sur l’Eglise et la Société (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 2008). 20.  Fuchs, “Calvin’s Ethics,” 146. 21.  Fuchs (151) points out that the mention of penitence in the Institutes leads to the long discussion on the Christian life at III, vi–​x.

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responsible behavior displays itself as an ascetic attitude, a hopefulness about the future life with Christ in glory, and an understanding of the right use of earthly benefits. It also shows up as a response to God’s “calling,” which is the Christian’s active employment in work that carries out God’s purpose here on earth. These investigations of Calvin’s thought provide a useful starting point for us in our investigation of Beza’s ethics, which should be understood in the context of the sixteenth century as a shorthand for Christian conduct to the glory of God or, conceived more abstractly, as the rationale for that conduct. Unity, harmony, restoration, and the social nature of human existence, all important to Calvin’s thinking about ethics, do indeed emerge as major themes in Beza’s ethical system, even if the nature of the source in which that thought appears is quite different. While Haas and Fuchs find Calvin’s teaching about what faith must practice almost inextricably integrated into his discussions about what faith must believe,22 whether that be the doctrine of the union with Christ or that of God’s providence, with Beza we have the opportunity to see the practice of faith distinct from and not overshadowed by theoretical or doctrinal exposition. Beza understood the whole of Christian doctrine to be divided between the knowledge of God’s covenental plan for mankind and the demands made in the Scriptures for personal righteousness. This assertion is borne out by a statement in Amandus Polanus’s monumental work of theology titled Syntagma theologiae Christianae.23 In looking for a way to structure his work Polanus follows that very course, with a section on what to believe followed by a section on what to do, and he defends his decision by claiming recent precedent in Beza, Daneau, Ursinus, and Zanchius.24 On Beza specifically he writes:

22.  The point is also made in Donald Sinnema, “The Discipline of Ethics in Early Reformed Orthodoxy,” CTJ 28 (1993): 10–​44, esp. 12: “Calvin did not produce an independent ethics, not even an independent theological ethics, and so, strictly speaking, he is not part of the story of early Reformed ethics as a discipline. Ethics for him is simply an integral dimension of his whole theology.” 23.  Amandus Polanus, Syntagma theologiae Christianae, juxta leges ordinis methodici conformatum, atque in libros decem digestum (Hanau:  Wechel, 1609–​1610). All quotes here come from the 1615 single-​volume edition, also printed at Hanau. 24. On the importance of Beza’s student Polanus and his theology, see Robert Letham, “Amandus Polanus: A Neglected Theologian?” SCJ 21 (1990): 463–​76. A full biographical treatment is available in Ernst Staehelin, Amandus Polanus von Polansdorf (Basel: Helbing and Lichtenhahn, 1955). For a discussion of Polanus’s Syntagma and the ethical thought there, see Luca Baschera, “Ethics in Reformed Orthodoxy,” in Herman Selderhuis, A Companion to Reformed Orthodoxy (Leiden:  Brill, 2013), 519–​52, esp.  521–​27. On Polanus’s influence

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Theodore Beza, the Irenaeus of our time, embraces the same idea [sc. as presented here] when summarizing the contents of Psalm 119. He says the following:  “The term ‘heavenly doctrine’ simply refers to those things that are revealed by God himself and included in the Bible, whether we understand it to be the part that prescribes what we should do and prohibits what we should not do, which we might term “law” in the narrower sense of the word, or the second part, in which is taught what we must believe in order to be saved, which we call “Gospel.”25 The wider passage that Polanus quotes from here, Beza’s argumentum at the beginning of his paraphrases on Psalm 119, is particularly enlightening. Beza maintains that the psalmist’s chief aim is to attract people to the study of “heavenly doctrine,” or more clearly, “divine revelation” (doctrina coelestis).26 This he identifies as both precepts for living and Christ’s saving work. He goes on to say that God revealed this from Heaven not just for us to grasp with our intellect, but so that each individual might follow it with continual and indefatigable zeal as the norm of life. The Holy Spirit enables individuals to follow the Word by dispelling the shadows from their intellect (showing them what to believe) and correcting their “deeply depraved affections” (leading them on the path of right living). God’s Word, he continues, prescribes a way (via) and a journey (iter) and helps those who follow it to navigate and overcome the obstacles and difficulties of life.

on Barth, consult Rinse H.  Reeling Brouwer, “The Conversation Between Karl Barth and Amandus Polanus on the Question of the Reality of Human Speaking of the Simplicity and Multiplicity of God,” in The Reality of Faith in Theology, eds. Bruce McCormack and Gerrit Neven (Bern: Peter Lang, 2007), 51–​110. 25. Polanus, Syntagma 2.1, 130:  “Theodorus Beza nostrae aetatis Irenaeus, eandem complectitur in argumento Psal. 119 his verbis:  ‘Doctrina caelestis nomine (sive partem illam intellegamus quae facienda praecipit et non facienda inhibet legis nomine angustiori significatione accepto; sive alteram partem, in qua quid sit nobis ad salutem credendum docetur, quam Evangelium vocamus) ea demum significantur, quae sunt a Deo ipso patefacta et scriptis comprehensa.’ ” 26.  Francis Turretin (Inst. theol. I.i.5) defines “theology” itself as doctrina coelestis and equates it to λόγια τοῦ θεοῦ in the NT, and finds synonyms at 1 Cor. 2:7 (“wisdom in a mystery”), 2 Tim. 1:13 (“the form of sound words”), Titus 1:1 (“knowledge of truth according to piety”) and Titus 1:9 (“doctrine”). The idea, drawn from Aquinas, is that this sort of doctrine is unknowable by human capacity alone, since it is heavenly, and must be revealed by God himself. Thus the Word of God is given by God about God and leading to God. On this see Richard Muller, Post-​Reformation Dogmatics, vol. 1, (19871), 103–​4.

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Thus we see a heavy emphasis on what path a Christian must follow after obtaining the truth provided by faith. Knowledge cannot stand on its own in the life of a Christian. The other reformers, Polanus notes, have a similar clear division. For Daneau, Christian piety signifies “either teaching about faith, or sanctification and moral improvement.”27 Zanchius sees the sum of the Christian religion as faith and obedience,28 and Ursinus divides catechetical learning into the “doctrine of faith” and the “doctrine of works.” As for Calvin, Polanus says, while he approached the problem of “true wisdom” in a different way in his Institutes, dividing his work into two sections covering the knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves, the difference is basically a matter of semantics: From the knowledge of God the worship of him cannot and should not be separated. The knowledge of ourselves is bound up with the knowledge of God. And so in words only do these distributions differ, but in substance they agree.29 What Polanus recognizes here while simultaneously invoking Calvin as a theological model is that the tendency toward a categorically distinct treatment of ethics in fact finds its fullest expression in those that immediately followed Calvin. Beza with his Cato composed a work dealing separately and prescriptively with matters of behavior. And while Beza’s contribution in no way contradicts Calvin’s essential dogmatic starting points, nor his belief that right living depends on right knowledge, it does allow us to see the question of ethics from a new perspective, with different emphases and a vision for the Christian life that would not otherwise be apparent. At the very least we see a sense of urgency and a recognition that something concrete is being constructed. Beza’s contribution, far from being a purely philosophical

27. Polanus, Syntagma, 2.1, 131: “Christiana pietas tradit, aut doctrinam de fide, aut morum reformationem et sanctitatem.” 28. Polanus, Syntagma, 2.1, 131: “Fide et obedientia constare summatim totam Christianam religionem docet.” 29. Polanus, Syntagma, 2.1, 131: “Et a cognitione Dei non potest nec debet cultus eiusdem separari. Cognitio nostri est destinata ad cognitionem Dei. Ita verbis duntaxat hae distributiones differunt, reipsa consentiunt.”

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treatise on the subject,30 is instead a poetic work with a very practical tenor to it. The “censor” of the Cato, just like the censors of ancient Rome, actively supervises and regulates public morality. He is Christian in the sense that he reproaches the wayward sinner with reminders of the expectations of a righteous God, but Roman in his position of gravitas and in his power to brand offenders (nota censoria) and even strip them of their title of citizenship. We will return to the latter concept below when discussing the Consistory. Before looking in ­chapter 1 at the central ethical ideas of the Cato, which then will be developed in detail in the chapters that follow and correlated with statements by Beza in other works, it will be profitable to consider what attitude prevailed in regard to ethics and morality in the period of Reformed Orthodoxy. The question is a complex one, but recent studies have made great strides in describing the coalescing of Calvin’s lofty theoretical thought into a vision for society and the Christian life.31 These studies are not simply concerned with the practical implementation of discipline in the Christian community, but with the more accessible works that sought to shape how the community was ordered to reflect the righteousness and justice to be expected in God’s kingdom. The most obvious place to start is Lambert Daneau’s Ethices Christianae (1577),32 since it explicitly aims to lay out the rationale and program for moral behavior in a godly society. He does so not merely on the basis of works of Classical philosophy, such as Aristotle’s

30.  Not until the mid-​seventeenth century did philosophical ethics, that is, thinking of ethics in Aristotelian and civic terms, give way to, or at least coexist with, theological ethics as a field of study in academic institutions, where it often was referred to as “practical theology.” On this see Sinnema, “The Discipline of Ethics,” 41–​43. 31. The most important studies on the topic are the following:  Christoph Strohm, Ethik im frühen Calvinismus. Humanistische Einflüsse, philosophische, juristische und theologische Argumentationen sowie mentalitätsgeschichtliche Aspekte am Beispiel des Calvin-​Schülers Lambertus Danaeus (Berlin:  Walter de Gruyter, 1996); Strohm, “Ethics in Early Calvinism,” in Moral Philosophy on the Threshold of Modernity, eds. Jill Kraye and Risto Saarinen (Leiden: Springer, 2005), 255–​82; idem, “Petrus Martyr Vermiglis Loci communes und Calvins Institutio christianae religionis,” in Peter Martyr Vermigli, ed. Emidio Campi (Geneva: Droz, 2002), 77–​104; Christian Grosse, “‘Il y avoit eu trop grande rigueur par cy-​devant.’ La discipline ecclésiastique à Genève à l’époque de Théodore de Bèze,” in Théodore de Bèze (1519–​1605), ed. Irena Backus, 55–​68. 32.  Lambert Daneau, Ethices Christianae libri tres, in quibus de veris humanarum actionum principiis agitur, atque etiam legis divinae, sive decalogi explicatio, illiusque cum scriptis scholasticorum, iure naturali sive philosophico, civili Romanorum, et canonico collatio continetur; praeterea virtutum, et vitiorum, quae passim vel in sacra scriptura, vel alibi occurrunt, quaeque ad singula legis divinae praecepta revocantur, definitiones (Geneva:  Eustache Vignon, 1577). Hereafter referred to as Daneau, Ethices Christianae.

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Nicomachean Ethics and Cicero’s De finibus, as Melanchthon and others had done, but by weighing and synthesizing those ideals with the moral wisdom and prescriptions in the revealed Word. In this regard he was the first in the Reformed tradition to attempt a comprehensive, independent work on ethics.33 Daneau seeks to discern God’s will—​his plan and expectations for the individual pursuing holiness, both internally and externally—​through a new enlightenment made possible through the Renaissance. Christoph Strohm’s study of Daneau’s ethical thought offers insights that are particularly apropos of our study of Beza’s moral thought. Beginning with the conviction of those who followed Calvin that the reform of doctrine (reformatio doctrinae) should be matched by a reform of life (reformatio vitae), Strohm looks to the Zeitgeist of the late sixteenth century to identify four trends that shaped the approach to ethics developing in Reformed Orthodoxy. He notes first that the shifting social structure of the period that marked the transition from Medieval life to the Early Modern period had reached a crisis point during this time. Whereas God had created everything, from the cosmos and nature, to the individual, society, and the church, in a certain hierarchical order, mankind’s sinful tendency has always been to challenge and break down that order. The more mankind drifts away from God, the more moral decline is evident through the changes in social dealings, and, consequently, the more the symmetry and harmony inherent in God’s creation is disrupted. The result is chaos in all levels of creation.34 And since the end of the sixteenth century marked a time of acute political upheaval and change, Daneau’s ethic expresses the longing for a return to order both in social structure and in personal conduct. One should resist any self-​indulgent swings or surges of passion and emotion, including those represented by such happy events as festivals and dances, and instead strive for regimentation in all areas of life. Strohm elsewhere characterizes the Loci communes of Peter Vermigli as “the widespread yearning for clear order in a world undergoing upheaval.”35 The

33.  On this see Sinnema, “Discipline of Ethics,” 21–​22. 34.  The order of the universe was an important pillar of Daneau’s thought, as is summed up in his comment in the introduction to his commentary on Timothy (In D. Pauli priorem epistolam ad Timotheum commentarius, 1577): “The very world itself, God’s work of utmost beauty, takes its name cosmos from the Greek word for order.” (Mundus ipse, pulcherrimum Dei opus, ab ordine κόσμος nominatur.) 35.  Strohm, “Petrus Martyr Vermiglis,” in Campi, Peter Martyr Vermigli, 78: “der verbreiteten Sehnsucht nach klarer Ordnung in einer im Umbruch befindlichen Welt.”

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Introduction

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importance of this kind of thinking for understanding Beza’s Cato cannot be overstated:  Beza is constantly exhorting his representative sinners to reintegrate themselves into an ordered society and creation. Strohm also identifies the emphasis on the active role of the Holy Spirit in the process of regeneration and sanctification in Reformed thought (as opposed to its weaker presentation in Luther’s thought) as another important basis for deciphering the ethics of Calvin’s successors. The determining event that lies behind this process of internalizing obedience—​sanctification—​is the Holy Spirit’s operation to unite believers with Christ, who shows us what it means to be in perfect agreement with the Father. Since the Holy Spirit directs us to a spiritual God, the law of God is a matter for the whole being, heart and body. The Gospel did not abrogate the law, but instead heralds the internalization of it through the work of the Holy Spirit, who changes Christians’ very instincts and inclinations. This tendency in Reformed Orthodoxy was complemented and bolstered by the juristic training that so many of its leaders had received; Daneau, himself a lawyer, Strohm observes, is particularly drawn to passages of Scripture that have to do with the regulation of life. Finally, Strohm sees a certain sympathy in Daneau for Stoic moral philosophy, especially its suppression of the passions and the attention paid to one’s inner being, over and against Aristotle’s espousal of the golden mean.36 At the same time, there was a growing interest in how a Christian society might be constituted, or rather, what sort of ethical theory could restore mankind to its rightful place in creation. The period from the death of Calvin in 1564 to the death of Beza in 1605 saw a power struggle between city councils and Church authorities, particularly as represented by their Consistories, concerning the oversight of morals not just in Geneva, but throughout the Reformed world. Christian Grosse has shown that while the various town councils gradually usurped many of the disciplinary powers of the Consistories, the Consistories themselves tried to protect their power by softening their rigor and by meting out their punishments with

36.  Beza himself shows a great affection for sophrosyne (moderation and balance) as a guiding moral principle, particularly Horace’s formulation of it as the “golden mean” (aurea mediocritas) in Odes 2.10. Beza wrote a poem in praise of moderation (Eleg. 2) that appeared in his first edition (1548) and was retained in several subsequent ones, in which he used not only the Daedalus and Icarus myth as an illustration of the principle, but also numerous historical examples. “The very drugs that help the sick,” he observes there, “when taken in moderation, often hurt them when used excessively.” Then he ends facetiously by refusing to praise moderation immoderately.

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more discrimination so as not to offend the powerful. The aim was to gain the favor of the townsfolk and stave off the erosion of their power. With the lack of concrete disciplinary authority, Grosse observes, came an increase in the moralizing efforts of Church authorities. Now ministers filled their sermons with even sterner directives concerning conduct. More treatises touching on the particulars of moral behavior appeared, as did more sumptuary ordinances.37 It is important to recognize that Beza’s pronouncements about morality, whether presented through the medium of the Cato to be analyzed in this study or in other exegetical and theological works, were born from the incubator of certain historical realities and a prevailing Weltanschauung and Zeitgeist. The contributions of Strohm, Grosse, and others have made that undeniable. Even so, that does not in any way diminish the fact that Beza built his case and derived his principles from a careful reading of Scripture. Beza had a passion for uncovering the exact meaning of every passage, and he was motivated by an unwavering belief that his particular set of skills in language, coupled with a thorough knowledge of history and theology, positioned him to recover God’s Word faithfully.38 He saw himself, in other words, in his presentation of ethics, as a leader in efforts to reestablish the one true Church of God.

37.  Christian Grosse, “Il y avoit eu trop grande rigueur par cy-​devant,” 55–​68. 38.  See Scott Manetsch’s observations about Beza’s “sense of vocation” as a defender of doctrinal truth in Theodore Beza and the Quest for Peace in France, 1572–​1598 (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 137–​38, esp. n.  77. One can observe his appreciation for the minutiae of language while preparing his Annotationes (1598):  his correspondence from 1597 includes several intense philological discussions with Isaac Casaubon, former chair of Greek at the Genevan Academy, about the correct reading and rendering of numerous New Testament passages. See, for example, Beza, Corr. XXXVIII (1597), no 2498 n. 5, and no 2503. Similar cases abound throughout the 1598 edition. For example, at Philippians 1:21 he rejects the Vulgate translation, “Mihi enim vivere Christus est, et mori lucrum,” which almost all modern English translations follow (usually, “for me to live is Christ, and to die is gain”), and, building on the comments of Calvin on the same passage, argues instead that the Greek articular infinitives (τὸ ζῆν and τὸ ἀποθανεῖν) should be taken as accusatives of respect, an Atticism. Thus, Thomson’s Geneva Bible renders it: “For Christ is to me both in life, and in death advantage.” Eph. 1:9 provides another example:  There, following the lead of Lorenzo Valla, he highlights the incorrect rendering of μυστήριον as “sacramentum” in old Latin versions and shows how that one small mistake led to great theological error. The details of the application of philological principles to the Biblical text, including this word, are treated by J. Pelikan in The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrines, 5 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971–​1989), 3:209–​14; 4:257, 295, 308–​09.

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Introduction

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The Consistory as Background Several literary, social, and theological dynamics current in the sixteenth century played a role in shaping the form and content of Beza’s Cato. The literary and generic traditions Beza draws from for creating his collection will be explored in depth in the next chapter. Here we look to an institution, along with the rationale on which it was founded, to better comprehend the intellectual and moral climate surrounding the work. That institution, which was established throughout much of the Reformed world, and which was particularly important in the life of the Genevan church, is known as the Consistory.39 One of the stipulations that Calvin made for answering pleas to come back to Geneva after his abrupt expulsion in 1538 was that the city magistrates agree to set up a tribunal of moral discipline and supervision. This was achieved immediately upon his return in 1541, when the city magistrates adopted a set of Ecclesiastical Ordinances that were drafted for the most part by Calvin himself and included a provision for a body of Church discipline. This body, known as the Consistory, was

39.  The basic bibliography on the Reformed disciplinary institution known as the Consistory includes the following:  Ronald Cammenga, “Calvin’s Struggle for Church Discipline,” Protestant Reformed Theological Journal 43 (2010): 3–​16; Robert M. Kingdon, “Calvin and the Establishment of Consistory Discipline in Geneva: The Institution and the Men Who Directed It,” Dutch Review of Church History 70 (1990): 158–​72; Robert M. Kingdon, Adultery and Divorce in Calvin’s Geneva (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995); Robert M. Kingdon, “The Control of Morals in Calvin’s Geneva,” in The Social History of the Reformation, eds. L. Buck and J. Zophy (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1972), 3–​16; Scott Manetsch, “Pastoral Care East of Eden: The Consistory of Geneva, 1568–​82,” Church History 75 (2006): 274–​313; Raymond Mentzer, “Marking the Taboo: Excommunication in French Reformed Churches,” in Sin and the Calvinists: Morals Control and the Consistory in the Reformed Tradition, ed. Raymond Mentzer (Kirksville, MO:  Truman State University Press, 1994), 97–​128; William Monter, “The Consistory of Geneva, 1559–​1569,” BHR 38 (1976), 467–​84; William Monter, “Crime and Punishment in Calvin’s Geneva,” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 69 (1973): 281–​87; William Monter, “Women in Calvinist Geneva (1550–​1800),” Journal of Women in Culture and Society 6 (1980):  189–​209; Jeffrey Watt, “Women and the Consistory in Calvin’s Geneva,” SCJ 24 (1993): 429–​39; Jeffrey Watt, “Calvinism, Childhood, and Education: The Evidence from the Genevan Consistory,” SCJ 33 (2002):  439–​56; Robert M. Kingdon and Thomas Lambert, Reforming Geneva:  Discipline, Faith and Anger in Calvin’s Geneva (Geneva:  Droz, 2012). Even more research on Reformed consistories outside Geneva is catalogued at Manetsch, Calvin’s Company of Pastors, 361, n. 4. For the editions of the registers, see Registres du Consistoire de Genève au Temps de Calvin, eds. Robert M. Kingdon, Thomas A. Lambert, Wallace McDonald, Isabella M. Watt, Jeffrey R. Watt (Geneva: Droz, 1996–​present). Vol. I (1542–​44); vol. II (1545–​ 46); vol. III 1547–​48); vol. IV (1548); vol. V (Feb. 20, 1550—​Feb 5, 1551); vol. VI (Feb. 19, 1551—​ Feb. 4, 1552); vol. VI (Feb. 25, 1552—​Feb. 2, 1553; vol. VIII (March 25, 1553—​Feb. 1, 1554); vol. IX (Feb. 15, 1554—​Jan. 31, 1555). See also Registers of the Consistory of Geneva in the Time of Calvin, eds. Robert M. Kingdon, Thomas A. Lambert, Isabella M. Watt, trans. M. Wallace McDonald (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996), translating vol. I (1542–​44) of the Registres.

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composed of three parts. On one side sat twelve lay elders, drawn from the higher governing bodies of the city (the Small Council, the Council of Sixty, and the Council of Two Hundred) and representating all quarters of the city. On the other, all the urban pastors were expected to participate, with Calvin, and then Beza after him, sitting in a place of honor and primacy. In the middle, presiding over the entire body and its proceedings, was one of the four, annually elected magistrates known as syndics. The syndic was, in essence, the Consistory chairman. The body was also served by a secretary, whose recordings make up the registers, and a summoner, whose job it was to bring alleged offenders before the ecclesiastical tribunal. It was instituted that the tribunal would meet every Thursday to hear the cases of those who had been charged with some sort of moral lapse and misdeed. Generally speaking, the members would state the charge, question the defendant as to the accusation and reports, elicit information and the defendant’s point of view, and hear out witnesses who would either corroborate the story or not. If they deemed that the defendant was indeed guilty of immorality, they enacted any number of remedies to elicit repentance and true contrition. According to the minutes, most Consistory sessions dealing with one individual ended when one of its members (usually one of the ministers) would stand before the accused and issue a censure or “remonstrance.”40 These scoldings warned the offender that he or she had violated some principle of Scripture and reminded them of the terrible consequences if the behavior continued. Sometimes, in order to ensure that the offenders fully understood the gravity of their error, the Consistory would levy a suspension from one or more communions; that is to say, they would temporarily excommunicate them. In those instances, the person was barred from participating in the next administration of the Supper but was expected to exhibit suitable remorse so as to be restored for future ones. Some cases were of a different nature. At times it was necessary to foster reconciliation between parties or take action to correct doctrinal deviations or deficiencies. Such cases often included remonstrances as well, though when ignorance was the problem these could be delivered gently. When laws had been broken and stronger

40. The typical proceedings of the Consistory are explained succinctly in Robert M. Kingdon, “A New View of Calvin in the Light of the Registers of the Geneva Consistory,” in Calvinus Sincerioris Religionis Vindex, eds. Wilhelm H. Neuser and Brian G. Armstrong (Kirksville, MO:  Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1997), 21–​ 33; and Kingdon and Lambert, Reforming Geneva, 17–​24.

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corrective actions were warranted, such as fines and imprisonment, or even execution, the Consistory would send a recommendation to the city magistrates. Occasionally, when the sin was deemed egregious and/​or the sinner was unrepentant, the Consistory could impose major excommunication, whereby the individual was completely cut off from the Supper and also from any social or business dealings with the townsfolk. It should be noted that the remonstrances that so markedly characterized the duties of the Consistory also appeared in other guises at Geneva. For its part, the Company of Pastors occasionally issued “grand” remonstrances directed at the magistrates and general public in which they warned against a litany of sins observed throughout the populace. From 1570 to 1600 these grand public remonstrances appeared almost every two years, with a notably long one recorded for November 3, 1579 in the minutes of the Company of Pastors.41 Furthermore, before each of the quarterly communions, the ministers and professors of the Academy would engage in private fraternal censuring, sometimes called Ordinary Censures (Censura Morum Pastorum), in an effort to maintain a high moral standard among the ecclesiastical leadership.42 In these sessions clergy and doctors admonish their colleagues for inappropriate contact with female parishoners, lax attention to duties, engaging in usurious practices, and the like. In turn, the ministers would deliver sermons that amounted to remonstrances in the days leading up to the quarterly celebration of the Supper. These were calls for the congregation to repent from sins that the minister himself knew about or suspected and to prepare their hearts for spiritually partaking of the blood and body of Christ. The Genevan presses also issued remonstrances in the form of treatises written by the city’s scholars and ministers. The books of Lambert Daneau on games of chance and François Étienne on dancing are representative of this phenomenon.43

41.  RCP IV, 300–​8. On these grand public remonstrances see esp. Grosse, “ ‘Il y avoit eu trop grande rigueur par cy-​devant,’ 64; E. William Monter, Calvin’s Geneva (Huntington, NY: Robert E. Krieger, 1975), 215. 42.  Scott Manetsch, Calvin’s Company of Pastors:  Pastoral Care and the Emerging Reformed Church, 1536–​1609 (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2013), 127–​28; Herman Speelman, Calvin and the Independence of the Genevan Church (Bristol, CT: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2014), 134, esp. fn. 422). 43.  Lambert Daneau, Briève remonstrance sur les jeux de sort ou de hazard, et principalement de Dez et de Cartes (Geneva:  Jacques Bourgeois, 1574); François Étienne, Traité des danses, auquel est amplement résolve la question, asavoir s’il est permis aux Chrestiens de danser (Geneva: François Étienne, 1579).

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Even outside the Consistory, therefore, remonstrances were a familiar facet of the lives of Genevans. It was only in the Consistory, however, that the threat of excommunication provided additional teeth to the scolding. As several scholars studying the registers have pointed out, while modern Westerners might consider the mission of the Consistory intrusive and restrictive, the tribunal really had a positive, pastoral function in Genevan society, at least when truly controlled by the Church and not the magistrates. It offered spiritual medicine to those who were struggling with worldly passions, attempted to reconcile neighbor to neighbor and spouse to spouse, and protected the weakest in society (wives, servants, children, etc.) who were being abused and bullied by the strongest. There was likewise an educational aspect to the work of the Consistory. Many Genevans were not so much blatantly immoral as ignorant of rudimentary doctrine, so it was up to the Consistory to identify these deficiencies and impose the proper regimen of study. Sometimes parents would be admonished to work harder at teaching their children certain basic Scriptural ideas and passages (e.g., the Lord’s Prayer and the Ten Commandments), along with basic doctrinal statements, such as the Apostles’ Creed. These duties assigned to the Consistory were not created as part of a strategy on the part of the Genevan leadership and pastorate to browbeat, coerce, and punish the members of the congregation, but were seen as an expression of the shepherding and nurturing responsibilities of the Church. Even so, debauchery and sin were rampant enough in Genevan society, or so the sermons preached from the city’s Reformed pulpits would have us believe, and frequently warranted a more powerful medicine, something more concretely disciplinary. 44 Calvin had perceived one indisputable tool at the disposal of the Church for the purpose of discipline, and that was removal from the community. At Institutes 4.12 Calvin argues that if a person persists in wickedness, even after private and public admonitions (remonstrances), or commits some egregious sin, such as breaking one

44.  Mentzer, “Marking the Taboo,” 126, observes that excommunication was used more at Geneva than elsewhere. On sermons, see Thomas Lambert, “Preaching, Praying, and Policing the Reform in Sixteenth-​Century Geneva” (PhD diss., University of Wisconsin, 1998); Manetsch, Calvin’s Company of Pastors, 146–​52 and 352 n. 43 (referring to published sermons of Michel Cop, Pierre Viret, and Jean-​Raymond Merlin). Grosse, “La discipline ecclésiastique à Genève,” 62–​64, as stated earlier in this chapter observes an increase in the “moral discourse” at Geneva, in both sermons and treatises, as the Consistory’s influence weakened. See also Tadataka Maruyama, The Ecclesiology of Theodore Beza: The Reform of the True Church (Geneva: Droz, 1978), 111.

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of the Ten Commandments, that person should be excommunicated. This is done to protect the reputation of the Church by disassociation, segregate the saints from the corrupting influence of the wicked, and awaken the sinner to the sin. This latter “end” (finis) of excommunication should not be underestimated. The public shaming that was suspension from communion, when imposed—​and, aside from rebuking or reconciling offenders, it by far was the most common action taken by the Consistory—​always had as its aim the moral rehabilitation and readmittance of the sinner into the fellowship of believers. It is the rod of chastisement that stings the sinner with the realization that sin is separating him or her from the society of good people. At the same time, to other observant Christians it serves as a stark and visible object lesson of the isolating consequences of sin. This type of disciplinary action was held in high regard among many Reformed churches, especially for those that had some significant contact with Geneva. As Kingdon has noted, the Belgic Confession of 1561, a truly Reformed document, states in article twenty-​nine that one of the “marks” of the true Church is the implementation of ecclesiastic discipline as a means for reining in wayward sinners.45 In the Harmonia confessionum fidei of 1581,46 a project to collate and translate into Latin the several Reformed confessions (for which Beza himself served as a compiler and editor along with Jean-​François Salvard,47 Antoine de la Roche Chandieu, Lambert Daneau, and Simon Goulart) it is rendered this way: Therefore, by these marks the true Church is distinguished from the false one: If in it the pure preaching of the Gospel and the legitimate 45.  Kingdon, “Calvin and the Establishment of Consistory Discipline,” 161. 46.  Harmonia confessionum fidei, Orthodoxarum et Reformatarum ecclesiarum, quae in praecipuis quibusque Europae regnis, nationibus, et provinciis, sacram Evangelii doctrinam pure profitentur; quarum catalogum et ordinem sequentes paginae indicabunt (Geneva:  Pierre de St. André, 1581). The first English translation of it was published as An Harmony of the Confessions of the Faith of the Christian and Reformed Churches (Cambridge: T. Thomas, 1586). On the Harmonia, see especially Francis Higman, “L’Harmonia confessionum fidei de 1581,” in Catéchismes et Confessions de foi, eds. M. Fragonard and M. Peronnet (Montpellier: Université Paul Valéry, 1995). 47.  According to Lambert Daneau, Salvard was the primary editor; on this see Girolamo Zanchi, De religione Christiana fides, Confession of Christian Religion, eds. Luca Baschera and Christian Moser (Leiden:  Brill, 2007), 526, n.  6. For all the available evidence on Salvard’s role, see Fritz Büsser, “Freedom in Reformed Confessions of the 16th Century (the Harmonia confessionum fidei of 1581),” in Zwingliana 16 (1984):  281–​ 300; idem, “Reformierte Katholizität:  Zur ‘Harmonia Confessionum Fidei’ von J.  F. Salvard,” in Die Prophezei: Humanismus und Reformation in Zürich (Bern: Peter Lang, 1994), 95–​104.

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administration of the sacraments according to the prescription of Christ are flourishing; likewise, if the correct ecclesiastical discipline is being used to control vices; and, finally (to sum up everything succinctly), if it adheres to the Word of God as its standard and rejects anything that is contrary to it, while acknowledging Christ as its sole head.48 By this account, the central mission of the Church can be narrowed down to just three elements: the preaching of the Gospel, the right administration of the sacraments, and the curbing of vices (ad coercenda vitia) through proper discipline. For the most part, the latter mark manifested itself in the form of the Consistory. Several other confessions within this section of the Harmonia have similar statements about discipline, an indication that it was a widely accepted mission of the Church. The Bohemian Confession of 1535, which appears in section X, p. 13 of the Harmonia, adds some important details about the limits of discipline:  the Church does not exercise discipline through human force (politica potentia), but according to the dictates of Christ at Matthew 18 and by various commands from the apostles. In other words, there must first and foremost be a confrontation with the offending person and a chance for repentance. Those who cannot be brought to repentance through due admonition and warning, or who habitually commit sins and cause scandal among Church members, can be publically disciplined (publice puniantur) by the ecclesiastical punishment commonly called banishment, excommunication, or anathematisation (quae vulgo bannus, aut excommunicatio, seu anathematismus nominantur), that is, they can be cut off from the holy community. This accords with what Calvin taught in the Institutes (4.12.1–​3) and with the actual practice in the Reformed churches in France. Mentzer shows that, generally speaking, the Huguenots adopted a graduated process of disciplinary action that moved from private censure to public censure, then to suspensio (minor or temporary excommunication), an act of partial banishment and a warning of the complete isolation that was major excommunication.49 48.  Harmonia, section X (“De catholica et sancta Dei ecclesiae, et unico capite Ecclesiae”), 18: “His igitur notis vera Ecclesia a falsa discernetur: Si in illa pura Evangelii praedicatio, legitimaque sacramentorum ex Christi praescripto, administratio vigeat; si item recta disciplina Ecclesiastica utatur ad coercenda vitia; si denique (ut uno verbo cuncta complectamur) ad normam verbi Dei omnia exigat, et quaecunque huic adversantur, repudiet; Christumque unicum caput agnoscat.” 49.  Mentzer, “Marking the Taboo,” 97–​128.

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In essence, then, the reformers interpreted their responsibility to “curb vices,” as they found it in Scripture, as a mandate to expel and isolate individuals who refused to submit to God’s will. As Mentzer remarks, “Simply put, excommunication barred an individual from the company of the faithful and participation in the sacraments of the church, especially the Lord’s Supper. It could also isolate her or him from ordinary social and business relationships (sc. in the case of major excommunication).”50 This was possible because of the nature and purpose of the sacral meal of the Eucharist itself, which not only spiritually nourished believers on the substance of Christ’s body and blood through the power of the Holy Spirit, but also served to strengthen the fellowship and unity of believers. Since participation in the meal declared that the participant belonged to the community and all the standards that guide it, exclusion from it, along with being a significant spiritual punishment, signaled that the offender had stepped outside of the community and needed to be restored.51 But how does the Consistory, with its mandate to oversee ecclesiastical discipline and, as a shepherd of sorts, guide the sheep back into the flock, relate to the Cato and the view of morality presented there? At this point in the study we can only answer in a preliminary way: the Cato promotes the same moral vision as that represented by the Consistory. There Beza’s masterful skills as a neo-​Latin poet—​his ability to evoke colorful images in the mind, to create meaning through a series of vivid contrasts and associations, to manipulate sounds, rhythms, and poetic devices—​are on display to underscore one central idea: the isolating consequences of sin. Those who ignore the clear indications of God’s will, as it is expressed either in the Scriptures or in creation itself, will find themselves rejected and banned from the aid and comfort of respectable people. They will find themselves outside the ordered world that God intended for his people. Understood in this way, then, the Cato can be read as containing stylized, poetic versions of remonstrances. By analyzing the Cato poems closely, we can uncover the essential elements of the ethical worldview of Beza and his colleagues. This is what makes the Cato such a valuable work. It should be underscored that in the view of Calvin and his colleagues, God himself has handed over responsibility for the implementation of this

50.  Mentzer, “Marking the Taboo,” 100. 51.  Mentzer, “Marking the Taboo,” 117–​18.

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disciplinary banishment to the Church. Calvin states as much emphatically in his Institutes when discussing the subject of discipline: Now therefore we begin to see better how the spiritual jurisdiction of the church, which punishes sins according to the Lord’s Word, is the best support of health, foundation of order, and bond of unity. Therefore, in excluding from its fellowship manifest adulterers, fornicators, thieves, robbers, seditious persons, perjurers, false witnesses, and the rest of this sort, as well as the insolent (who when duly admonished of their lighter vices mock God and his judgment), the church claims for itself nothing unreasonable but practices the jurisdiction conferred upon it by the Lord. Now, that no one may despise such a judgment of the church or regard condemnation by vote of the believers as a trivial thing, the Lord has testified that this is nothing but the publication of his own sentence, and what they have done on earth is ratified in Heaven. For they have the Word of the Lord to condemn the perverse; they have the Word to receive the repentant into Grace.52 Here are the same categories of adulterers, the whoremongers, the stealers, and the perjurers who, as we shall see, populate Beza’s Cato. God has granted to his Church the authority to “expel from her community (e consortio suo exterminat)” such as these. This can only be carried out, however, in regard to “manifest (manifestos)” sinners. Those who rebel against God and mock his judgment need to understand that the Church’s tool of discipline is but a reflection of the ultimate disciplinary action of God, that is, expulsion from his kingdom forever. So if they escape the Church, they still do not escape excommunication. Similiarly, Beza acknowledges in the Cato that many times sinners do not fully face the consequences for their sins until they reach the

52. Calvin, Institutes, 4.12 (emphasis mine): “Nunc ergo melius incipimus cernere quomodo spiritualis Ecclesiae iurisdictio, quae ex verbo Domini in peccata animadvertit, optimum sit et sanitatis subsidium, et fundamentum ordinis, et vinculum unitatis. Ergo dum Ecclesia manifestos adulteros, scortatores, fures, praedones, seditiosos, periuros, falsos testes, et eius generis reliquos, item contumaces (qui de levioribus etiam vitiis rite admoniti, Deum et eius iudicium ludibrio habent), e consortio suo exterminat; nihil sibi praeter rationem usurpat, sed iurisdictione sibi a Domino delata fungitur. Porro, nequis tale Ecclesiae iudicium spernat, aut parvi aestimet se fidelium suffragiis damnatum, testatus est Dominus, istud ipsum nihil aliud esse quam sententiae suae promulgationem, ratumque haberi in caelis quod illi in terra egerint. Habent enim verbum Domini quo perversos damnent; habent verbum quo resipiscentes in gratiam recipiant.”

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ultimate tribunal, the judgment seat of God himself. Although their sin invariably causes them to suffer in some way, they nonetheless have the potential to fool those around them and conceal the true nature of their character. Here we find a special emphasis of Beza’s work: no sinner fully escapes punishment for sins committed. While good people will always shun the wicked, when they recognize them, and while Nature herself silently points an accusatory finger, sinners should be aware that ultimately the rebellion is against the very being of God. Therefore, sinners can be sure that God waits in judgment for them, and that the punishment that he imposes includes being cast out into the darkness. This is an idea that is developed with some vigor by the Bohemian Confession. In the passage immediately following the discussion of the right and responsibility of the Church to discipline comes the following: And this also must be admitted, that at all times in the Church there have been many who exhibit the appearance of being Christian, but who are vile hypocrites, secret sinners, far removed from repentance, and they will always be with us up until this world ceases to exist. These sorts are neither chastised by this discipline of Christ, nor can they be easily excommunicated or separated completely from the Church, but must be reserved and committed to Christ alone, the chief shepherd, and to his advent. As the Lord himself said concerning these, “the Angels on the last day first will separate such ones as these from the righteous, and will cast them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”53 Beza’s Cato conspicuously does not make even the slightest mention of Church discipline, not as it was specifically employed, even though most of the sins described in the poems are of a very public nature (laziness,

53.  Harmonia confessionum fidei, section X, 13: “Etsi hoc etiam non dissimulandum, omni tempore in Ecclesia multos fuisse qui speciem prae se ferrent Christiani hominis, et hypocritae essent nequam, aut peccatores occulti, a poenitentia alieni, atque futuros deinceps usque dum hic mundus esse desinat. Quales neque per hanc disciplinam Christi castigantur, neque facile excommunicari, aut penitus separari ab Ecclesia possunt, sed soli Christo, pastori principi, et adventui huius, reservandi sunt et committendi. Sicut Dominus de his ipse dicit, quod Angeli in novissimo die primum, tales a iustis separaturi sint, et coniecturi in fornacem igneam, ubi erit ploratus et stridor dentium.”

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drunkenness, pride, etc.) that could scarcely go unnoticed. The list of miscreants dealt with in the Consistory, in fact, corresponds very closely with the parade of sinners described in the Cato. But in contrast, Beza frequently makes reference to the high moral court to which all sinners must give answer. Manetsch observes that in a typical Consistory hearing sinners confessed their sins and begged for forgiveness, while a few, for whom the Consistory was unable to discern the truthfulness of an accusation, were sent away, without suspension (yet trusting in the “the judgment of God” to discipline or correct).54 Given that, should we imagine that Beza addresses the secret conscience and undetected, hidden lives of the flock, especially those who “exhibit the appearance of being Christian,” while living lives in rebellion from God? Here we are assisted by another work of Beza, published only one year before the Cato, and which indicates that Beza was at the time consumed with the issue of excommunication and keen to bolster the theoretical and theological basis for the consistory: Tractatus pius et moderatus de vera excommunicatione, et Christiano Presbyterio.55 The treatise responds, in the kindest words possible (pius et moderatus), to the theses of Thomas Erastus, originally written in 1568 but not published until 1589, in regard to the role of the Church and the State in carrying out a judgment of excommunication.56 In it, Beza introduces some subtleties into the debate over excommunication that are not apparent in the Institutes of Calvin, but which accord closely with the theme of the Cato. To fully appreciate the nuances

54.  Manetsch, “Pastoral Care East of Eden,” 279. 55.  The full title is Tractatus pius et moderatus de ver5a excommunicatione et Christiano presbyterio, impridem pacis conciliandae causa, cl[arissimi] v[iri] Th[omas] Erasti d[octor] medici centum manuscriptis thesibus oppositus, et nunc primum, cogente necessitate, editus (Geneva:  Jean le Preux, 1590). By “presbyterium” is meant the consistory. 56.  The full title is Explicatio gravissimae quaestionis utrum excommunicatio, quatenus religionem intelligentes et amplexantes, a sacramentorum usu, propter admissum facinus arcet, mandato nitatur divino, an excogitata ab hominibus (London: John Wolfe, 1589). It really comprises two works, the Theses of 1568, and the much longer Confirmatio Thesium of 1569. It was edited by Giacomo Castelvetri, who had married the widow of Erastus and who was staying at the house of John Wolfe at the time of publication. The treatise found sympathizers among those who were trying to resist the entrée of reformed discipline and ecclesiology into England, including John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury. Castelvetri’s edition was republished at Amsterdam in 1649. The first part, the theses themselves, appeared in translation many years later as The Nullity of Church-​censures: or, a dispute written by Thomas Erastus wherein is proved by the Holy Scriptures and Sound Reason that excommunication and Church-​senates of Members exercising the same, are not of divine institution, but a meere humane invention (London: G. L., 1659). The same translation was published in London again, in 1682, as A

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of the Cato and of Beza’s ethical vision, therefore, we must understand the issues addressed in this particular treatise.57 Erastus defined excommunication as the exclusion from the use of the sacraments, following an investigation by elders, for the correction and repentance of life. Beza finds this definition to be deficient because it does not sufficiently explain under whose authority and by whom a judgment is issued, nor about what sorts of things it is issued. Therefore, he offers his own definition: Excommunication is the judgment whereby, in the name of the Lord, a gathering of elders, after a legitimate investigation, and with the full knowledge of the Church (if it is necessary), pronounces that someone who has alienated himself from God, and will not hear the Church (that is, the presbytery), also will be seen as cast out from the external fellowship of the Church, until such time as it is apparent from his attested repentance, to the extent that it ought and can be done, either to the whole church, if it is aware, or if it is not, the presbytery, that he is reconciled to God.58 Beza does not claim for the Church the power of excommunication per se; in a real sense, people excommunicate themselves by their own behavior. The Consistory merely pronounces its judgment that the excommunication is apparent. 59 He goes on to say that God himself is the author, both

Treatise of Excommunication. In 1844, the Rev. Robert Lee of London revised the translation of 1659 and published it under the title The Theses of Erastus Touching Excommunication (Edinburgh: Myles McPhail, 1844). For a review of the dispute between Beza and Erastus, see most recently Charles Gunnoe, Thomas Erastus and the Palatinate (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 163–​209 and 387–​93. 57. For a fuller study, see Kirk Summers, “The Theoretical Rationale for the Reformed Consistory:  Two Key Works of Theodore Beza,” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 105 (2014): 228–​48. 58. Beza, De vera excommunicatione, 3:  “Excommunicatio est sententia, qua in nomine Domini congregatum presbyterium, legitima praeunte cognitione, et conscia (si sit opus) Ecclesia, pronuntiat quempiam, qui a Deo sese alienarit, et Ecclesiam (id est presbyterium) non audierit, eiectum quoque videri ab externa Ecclesiae societate, tantisper dum ex ipsius testata resipiscentia, quoad eius fieri debet ac potest, vel toti Ecclesiae consciae, vel Ecclesia non facta conscia, presbyterio constiterit, eum esse Deo reconciliarum.” 59.  Beza insisted that people excommunicate themselves through their actions, and that the Consistory simply recognizes what is already true. On this see Summers, “The Theoretical Rationale for the Reformed Consistory,” 228–​48.

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of the presbytery (by which he means the consistory) and of this judgment, while the presbytery is only his administrator and interpreter. It is not an institution that exercises its power abusively for its own sake and its own advantage, but engages in a due process that includes a thorough investigation beforehand. He then underscores a very important subtlety of his definition: We declare that the excommunication which takes place on earth is something that follows upon that removal which, as is plain from the Word of God and the hard-​heartedness of the sinner, happened beforehand in the heavens. So clearly excommunication on earth is nothing else but the declaration of another, more hidden one made in the heavens. From this we are surely right to gather that someone who is not sanctioned in the heavens at the moment is unworthy to be counted among the faithful on earth. Besides, this latter declaration that is made on earth is ratified in the heavens.60 The excommunication is real whether the Church and the elders charged with discipline and moral oversight recognize it or not. And, conversely, a pronouncement of excommunication on earth is only valid if it follows upon a decision already made in the heavens, as evidenced by the sinner’s rejection of God’s Word and unwillingness to repent. What is unmistakably clear is that in the Cato, read in tandem with the treatise on excommunication, Beza lays down in the broadest of terms the very same theological principles that guide and inform the Consistory. Sinners represent a danger to themselves and society because they are in rebellion from the natural order created by God in his holiness and purity. Adulterers demolish cities, destroy homes, and break the bonds of holy matrimony.61 Since God is truth, deceivers and perjurers will eventually ruin themselves 60. Beza, De vera excommunicatione, 4: “Dicimus praeterea excommunicationem quae in terris fiat, esse quiddam consequens eam abiectionem, quam factam esse antea in coelis ex verbo Dei et peccatoris duritie constet; ut videlicet nihil aliud sit excommunicatio in terris, quam declaratio alterius occultioris factae in coelis, ex qua nimirum merito colligatur eum qui in coelis eo quidem tempore non approbatur, indignum esse qui inter fideles in terris censeatur; quae posterior etiam declaratio in terris facta, rata est in coelis.” The word duritie[s]‌ here for “hard-​heartedness” harks back to Beza’s use of it in his translation of Matt.19.8. Erastus considers this whole argument to be self-​contradictory; see Confirmatio, I, 1, 72. 61.  And so Mentzer, “Marking the Taboo,” 107–​08, notes of adultery and fornication: “They also seemed to threaten primary social institutions such as marriage and the family, which were themselves deemed fitting structures for leading a moral and useful life.”

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and the world. Flatterers, if listened to, will bring eternal shame. Pseudo-​ monks are the devil’s agents for disrupting Christian society. A city is blessed when everyone is working and none are allowed to be idle. Drunkards, the greedy, and the envious all become a Hell-​on-​earth to themselves, while evil profiteers spurn God and thus lack the very success they long for. Some people, because they depend on human wisdom and philosophy and are deaf to the unassailable light of God, mislead others and lead misguided lives. But among people who are reclaiming society and creation according to the will of God, these sinners have no place and therefore should be banished from human intercourse. Thus Beza warns that adulterers must leave the world before they destroy it. The garrulous should be shunned by people, as should flatterers. No one anywhere, in Heaven, earth, or Hell, is willing to welcome the envious, nor can they tolerate the proud. And all these sinners should understand that if a godly society rejects and ostracizes them during their time on earth, that is, it excommunicates them because they stand at odds with godliness, they can all the more expect in the final judgment before the tribunal of God to be excommunicated from his holy presence forever. When seen in the context of the institution of the Consistory and the arguments in the De vera excommunicatione, this persistent motif suggests that one of the keys to understanding the Cato lies in excommunication: excommunication from one’s own inner peace, from social intercourse, from the natural order of things, from fellowship with God. What leads to that excommunication is sins, the most common of which are ennumerated in the Cato. The Cato looks to the broader implications of sin, in the wider scope of one’s life and in the ultimate final judgment. But it is precisely the threat of excommunication that ties the Cato closely to the mission of the Consistory. The Consistory’s most powerful and valuable tool was the imposition of excommunication, the exclusion of people from godly society and the sacral meal, usually on a temporary basis as a way to draw people back to the fellowship in repentance. The Cato gives the theoretical rationale and justification for this sort of pastoral discipline, because it demonstrates that God deals with sinners in exactly this way, by excluding and excommunicating them, even though sins naturally in and of themselves isolate the sinner, and that the Consistory visibly expresses this aspect of God’s plan by executing it here within the Church. And given that the Church is a body that nurtures its members along the path of sanctification, the Consistory, as its disciplinary arm, gently reminds its members of the consequences of sin and offers them second chances in

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the here and now. In the final analysis, then, sinners are well advised to abandon their sins, confess them, and submit to the Church and the Word of God, since awaiting them is a greater and ultimate Consistory, of which the earthly Consistory is a mere shadow.

Union with Christ Since earlier in this introduction the rather complex matter of the Christian’s “union with Christ” was broached, we cannot move forward without clarifying precisely what that phrase meant to Beza himself. The question has been addressed directly by Muller in an essay surveying how various reformers understood the union and how it was handled within the increasingly defined “order of salvation.”62 Relying mostly on Beza’s statements in the Questions and Responses, Muller argues that for Beza union with Christ “should be understood as an apprehending (apprehensio), ingrafting (insitio), and incorporation (incorporatio),” not in the sense that Christians’ spirits or bodies are actually united to Christ, nor that they merely receive Christ’s power and efficacy, but unify with him in a mystical and spiritual way. By this he means “a full ‘apprehension’ in the soul, by faith, with the power of the Spirit conjoining things disparate in place—​just as there is a spiritual union of Christ as head with the church as his body.” The apprehension or “taking hold” of Christ becomes the source of a number of benefits for believers.63 According to 1 Corinthians 1:30, Christ blesses his own with “wisdom, justification, sanctification, redemption.” These are to be understood as the acceptance of the message of salvation, the imputation of Christ’s work on the cross to the elect, progress in holiness, and the final freedom that comes in eternal life.

62.  Richard Muller, “Union with Christ and the Ordo Salutis: Reflections on Developments in Early Modern Reformed Thought,” in Calvin and the Reformed Tradition: On the Work of Christ and the Order of Salvation (Grand Rapids, MI:  Baker Academic, 2012), 202–​43. See especially therein “Theodore Beza and the unio,” 222–​24. Muller provides an extensive bibliography on 202, n. 1. To this can be added J. V. Fesko, Beyond Calvin: Union with Christ and Justification in Early Modern Reformed Theology (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2012), and W. Duncan Rankin, “Peter Martyr Vermigli on Union with Christ,” Haddington House Journal 7 (2005): 101–​24. The latter treats Vermigli’s correspondence with Beza on the matter of the union. 63.  Muller (223) makes the point that in the “order of causes” faith is prior to the union, though, if one takes into account the fact that God elected his own in Christ before the foundation of the world, Christ has, in a sense, reached out and “apprehended” those who will apprehend him.

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Everything pertaining to the Christian life depends upon the union that was initiated by faith. We gain further insight into the mysterious workings of the union by looking at Beza’s observations on Romans 6:5.64 There he highlights the phrase “for if planted with him we grow together,” which he translates “nam si cum eo plantati coaluimus,” to describe what is meant by the believers’ union with Christ.65 First, he observes, Paul elegantly compares Christ to a plant that was buried in the ground and sprouted (germinarit) in its own time. Second, Paul says that Christians are planted so closely with him that they bind with him and derive their life from him: He had said earlier that we who are dead to sin and buried have risen again together with Christ unto righteousness. He did this to indicate that all these things are done in us through that sap, as it were, which we suck from Christ. Now he says that we have united with him into one living thing, like plants that are planted together with a tree entwine with it in such a way that that they live on one and the same sap.66 He goes on to say that this is a very fitting metaphor to describe both the very close union with Christ and the way that his life-​giving power (vivificam illam virtutem) flows into his own. This is why Christ compares himself to the vine and his followers to the branches: they grow in him, and he himself in turn is said to increase (adolescere) in them. It is for this reason, Beza adds, that Isaiah compares Christ to a shoot, and that the Word is sometimes called a seed, or we are said to be trees that bear fruit, and ministers are described as planting and watering, while the faithful are said to take root. This is not the grafting metaphor of Romans 11:24, but a burial/​planting metaphor. This union looks not to the Christian’s imitation of the works of Christ but to the actual infusion of power, wrought by

64. Beza, Annotationes 1598, part 2, 41. 65. For “union with Christ” Beza consistently use the phrase “coniunctio nostra cum Christo.” 66. Beza, Annotationes 1598, part  2, 41:  “Deinde vero quia nos quoque una dixerat cum Christo mortuos peccato ac sepultos, resurrexisse ad iustitiam, ut indicet haec omnia in nobis per eum quasi succum fieri quem ex Christo sugamus, dicit nos cum ipso in unam plantam coaluisse, sicut τὰ σύμφυτα cum arbore ipsa ita coalescunt, ut communi succo vivant.”

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his death and payment for sins, that allows those united to him to die to sin. Christians do not conform to the image of Christ by imitating him, but imitate him because they are conformed to him, “that is, from the fact that we are participants of Christ, dead with him and through him to sin, so that we might live for God; it is he who effects in us to will and do the things of God.”67 Beza again touches on the matter of our union with Christ in his remarks on Ephesians 5:32, where Paul calls Christ’s relationship and union to the Church “a great mystery.”68 He says that Paul calls the union a “mystery” in the sense that “it is brought about by the Holy Spirit working within us by his unseen power. For what,” he asks, “is more removed from man’s common sense than that we lowly creatures who creep upon the earth could be joined in a spiritual marriage to Christ the Son of God, Lord of Heaven and earth, as he sits at the right hand of the Father, so that we can draw righteousness from him and thus eternal life?”69 And it is fundamental to our faith to recognize that this union is not activated by the outward ritual of the Lord’s Supper, which serves as a trope only, but that “the only instrument” for it “while we are here on earth is faith; in the world to come, it will be the very sight of Christ.”70 Of special interest in these remarks is the association made between the union with Christ and the power for righteous living. The mystery of the union must remain just that, a mystery. He has said, in essence, that our human limitations prevent us from comprehending the work of the Holy Spirit in bringing about this marriage, as it were. But what can be said with certainty is that the union with Christ is the source of the power that enables Christians to live not as a slave to the chaos of sin, but in accord with the will of God. It is the beginning of all right living.

67. Beza, Annotationes 1598, part 2, 41: “[Contra vero ista imitatio omnis ex ista conformatione nascitur,] id est, ex eo quod Christi participes simus, cum eo et per eum peccato mortui, ut Deo vivamus. Ipse enim est qui in nobis efficit ut velimus ac faciamus quae Dei sunt.” 68. Beza, Annotationes 1598, part 2, 284. 69. Beza, Annotationes 1598, part 2, 284: “Id est arcanum, quia fit per Spiritum sanctum arcana sua virtute in nobis sese exer[c]‌entem. Quid autem a communi hominum sensu magis remotum quam nos miseros in terris repentes, cum Christo Filio Dei, terrae et caeli Domino, ad dextram Patris sedente, ita spirituali connubio unum fieri, ut ab eo iustitiam omnem ac proinde vitam aeternam hauriamus?” 70. Beza, Annotationes 1598, part 2, 284: “At certe nullum est aliud coniunctionis nostrae cum Christo fratre nostro organum in hoc mundo, quam fides; in altero vero seculo, ipse Dei conspectus.”

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Conclusion In a touching letter written to Johannes Paludius in 1597, Beza recounts how some fifty years before he anxiously mulled over an ethical dilemma that he faced, whether to continue on in France in a life and ritual practice that he was already convinced was false, or to forsake family, friends, and country, as well as a freedom from anxiety, to flee to a foreign place where he could live openly and sincerely.71 He was led to this doubtless unpleasant remembrance by questions that Paludius raised about the Nicodemism problem, namely, how to deal with those Protestants who attend the Catholic mass for their own safety, because of the particular circumstances or region they find themselves in. He answers Paludius by first referring to natural law, of which he says God himself is to be considered the author and champion. That law tells us that only under extreme duress and for the gravest of reasons should anyone consider leaving behind their family and the close-​knit relationships, since it is from them that one finds mutual love and support. Furthermore, wise-​thinking persons should not lightly decide to abandon the confines of their homeland, where they had already obtained a certain station and security, to face uncertain troubles and even dangers in a foreign land: “Therefore, let this principle remain firm: We should never forget what according to God we owe to our country, family, or friends.”72 There are many things that happen in life, Beza continues, that one can consider second to this principle without blame and, in fact, with praise. But there are two principles that surpass even that one: first, to live holy and rightly as God commands; and, second, to have the peace of mind and conscience that comes from living rightly. The first of the two is more important than life itself, as many virtuous and wise people have shown by their examples in the past, and as Jesus himself taught in word and deed; the second, εὐθυμία, or true peace of mind, to which the ancient philosophers rightly aspired as the highest good, is that without which the rest of life is unliveable. The ancient philosophers, however, did not know where this state of mind was situated, says Beza, or whence it comes to us.73

71. Beza, Corr. XXXVIII (1597), 80–​81. 72. Beza, Corr. XXXVIII (1597), 80–​81: “Maneat igitur istud firmum: nunquam esse nobis obliviscendum quid patriae, quid nostris, quid amicis secundum Deum debeamus.” 73. Beza, Corr. XXXVIII (1597), 81.

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This letter attests to the fact that Beza had spent a considerable amount of time contemplating the principles that guide Christian behavior. Those principles are discernible in his various theological, exegetical, and pastoral writings, and in particular can be deduced from the moralizing poems of the Cato. They cannot, however, be divorced from their historical context. The period shortly after Calvin’s death was an especially fruitful time for moral discourse within the Reformed movement, and so to fully appreciate Beza as an ethical thinker, Beza must be situated within that conversation. Beza was certainly one of the luminaries of the period, and many Reformed leaders, especially those around France, looked to him for guidance. He was the one, for example, who encouraged Daneau to publish his Ethices Christianae; and in numerous ways he groomed Simon Goulart for his career, securing for him his first ministerial post and officiating at his marriage to Suzanne Picot in 1570 at Madeleine Church.74 Both of these associates of Beza made major contributions to ethics in the period of Reformed Orthodoxy. With Daneau and Goulart, as well as others in this period, scholars have noted a desire to lay claim to the contributions of gifted philosophers and moralists from the pagan past and to assimilate them, always weighed against the Scriptures, into the Christian life.75 This was to some extent a product of the Renaissance itself, an admiration for past human achievement as a way forward to the fulfillment of mankind’s potential in creation. This would often be expressed in theological terms as fallen mankind’s retainment of the image of God, if only residually, that allows for a measure of insight into the true nature of reality. Many Reformed theologians, including Beza, acknowledged that even pagan writers recognized that there is a proper way of being that can alleviate personal confusion and turmoil and lead to a better life. They could devise laws that promoted justice and equity among their citizens, and they could promote selfless behavior. What made that possible was the fact that they had available to them the law of God as it is reflected in nature and inscribed on their hearts. And in fact, many of the ancient philosophical schools looked primarily to nature for guidance. The Stoics, for one, taught that inasmuch as the divine permeates nature completely and thoroughly, human beings can derive laws for 74. Strohm, Ethik im frühen Calvinismus, 16–​17; Leonard Chester Jones, Simon Goulart, 1543–​ 1628: Étude biographique et bibliographique (Geneva: Georg, 1917), 7–​8. 75.  On this, see the discussion of Ingeborg Jostock, La censure négociée. Le contrôle du livre à Genève (Geneva: Droz, 2007), 200–​03.

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themselves based on the careful observation of nature.76 This was an idea that many reformers found attractive, and at least some, Beza included, considered the harmonization with God’s creation to be a major aspect of ethics. But pagan authors, while helpful in the systematization of ethics and in the creation of memorable axioms, can only guide one so far. In their fallen state, they could never fully comprehend the truth. Thus, the reformers insisted, one must first and foremost be changed by the grace of God and restored to fellowship with him through Christ in order to lead a truly moral life. If a certain behavior puts one at peace in creation, then it is also true that sin has an isolating effect, in that it cuts off a person from the proper way of being, putting him or her out of sync with God’s order. This is a major theme of the Cato to which we will turn repeatedly in this study: the notion that sin causes one to be shunned from the community and leaves one ostracized and “cast out,” just as obstinate and unrepentant sinners will be cast out into the outer darkness at the Last Judgment. The institution known as the Consistory, of which Beza was an ardent proponent, reflects this philosophy of morality. A  body of church and community leaders identified those who willfully chose through their actions to exist outside of God’s intended scheme of things and pronounced them excommunicated. But the Cato need not be understood simply as a work with a negative message. It should be seen as a kind of didactic and hortatory work of the Christian life. Calvin had seen in the Decalogue not just prohibitions against certain acts, but prescriptions for right living (Institutes 2.7.12–​13). Jesus himself had summed up the law in a positive way as loving God and loving neighbor (Matthew 22:37–​9). Thus, just as the ultimate goal of the Consistory was integration of individuals into the corporate plan of God, so the Cato looks not to failure, but to success. This is the message of the poem on old age that rounds off the collection in most of the editions of the Cato: a life lived according to God’s righteous standards is a rewarding life. With these observations, we can begin to identify some of the building blocks of Beza’s ethical theory. First, words such as “renewal” and “restoration,” and even “excommunication” and “banishment,” cause us to think of an ordered whole with which God’s people are being brought back into harmony, or from which the individual can be separated. That 76. See, e.g., Cleanthes’s Hymn to Zeus in A. A. Long and D. N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), I, 53–​54.

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ordered whole is in part the order of nature (naturae ordo), which speaks to the way that God arranged his creation and the place he established for mankind in it. Even after the Fall, this natural order remains subject to God and a pure expression of his will. From the beginning, mankind has had a specific role in that order as lord over creation, but through sin the entire relation and submission to God’s ordered will as communicated in creation is badly damaged, along with the perception of the very existence of the order itself.77 One primary goal of morality from this perspective, therefore, is a process of rediscovering one’s place within the created order as God originally intended. There is also a community aspect to this restoration. Christians must do more than find peace for themselves in creation; they must function peacefully among others as well. Morality lies at the heart of the success and viability of anyone’s social or political self. Second, the belief in a residual imago Dei in fallen mankind points to the potential for knowing through nature how it is that God intends for his people to live. The created order can be said to represent a kind of moral guide, a law, since it reflects God’s righteous principles. This natural law is written on the heart and is available to everyone equally, though it is codified even more clearly in the Decalogue. The point is, however, that morality does not demand a newly devised discipline or stand on a novel set of standards that God demands of mankind; it derives from a law that pervades creation itself from the beginning, and to which mankind was in accord before the Fall. Third, the union with Christ provides the dynamis of ethics. One cannot hope to be restored to the natural order and have the power to return to a proper relation with God the Father without first being united to his righteous Son by faith. In Christ and only in Christ, the believer can properly begin to pursue the moral life. Even then the pursuit relies on the operation of the Holy Spirit, which is why, in his Confessio fidei, Beza discusses the Christian’s moral life under the heading of the Holy Spirit.78 The term “sanctification” refers to the process by which the Spirit makes believers more Christlike; that is, more and more obedient to that original law or principles of divine order built into creation, which in turn brings them back into an intimate relationship with God and one another.

77.  Cf. the statements in Augustine in his Confessions 7.13.19, where apparent evil in creation is viewed as mankind’s perception of creation and not something inherent in creation itself. 78. Beza, Tractationes theologicae, 1:11–​13 (Confessio Christianae fidei).

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It is the argument of this study, therefore, that for Beza the Christian life does not end with grace and salvation, but begins there. The Cato, the work that we will analyze in depth, has in view the journey. As we shall see, the goal that it sets for Christians is a restoration to the original state of order that God established when he created the world, in which they enjoy a loving fellowship with him and experience a sense of harmony that brings peace. The means to that end, simply put, is ethical living. This entails a behavior and attitude that aligns itself in humility and obedience to God’s Word. It requires a community that is grounded in mutual love and support, committed to sincerity in all its interactions, established on the foundation of its promises, with each individual hard at work in his or her calling and looking first and foremost to the common good. This is God’s formula for a happy world. But in the end, Christians alone long to be right with God’s plan and not to be rebellious, and they alone have the potential for success by virtue of the work of the Holy Spirit in conforming them to the image of God.

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Cato, God, and Natural Law

Bringing the Cato to Life The octavo-​sized Cato censorius christianus first made its appearance in a self-​ contained volume in 1591.1 It was published at the press of Jean de Tournes “The Younger,” who had been in Geneva since November 1585, after departing Lyon and the press of his father due to his Protestant leanings. From what can be gathered from scant evidence, Beza had circulated an earlier version of the Cato sometime in the spring or summer 1591. This is inferred from a letter sent to Basel clergyman Jean-Jacques Grynaeus dated October 9 of that year.2 Beza concludes the letter with a somewhat cryptic comment: “Again I am sending to you my nugae, in which I have corrected several errors that I just now noticed.”3 The editors of the correspondence believe that this is almost certainly a reference to the Cato, given the poetic associations of the term nugae.4 But in a letter sent by Grynaeus to Beza earlier that same year, in April, mention is made of a copy of a text of Beza that the printers were to share with his friends at Basel—​ Amandus Polanus and Pierre Pithou are mentioned as being eager to see it—​ on their return from the Frankfurt Book Fair.5 Since Beza in the autumn of that 1.  Theodore Beza, Cato Censorius Christianus (Geneva: Jean de Tournes, 1591) [= Gardy 382]. 2.  Or October 19 by the Gregorian Calendar (established in 1582), which the Protestants had not yet adopted because of suspicions about all things Catholic. 3. Beza, Corr. XXXII (1591), 177: “Mitto rursum ad meas nugas, in quibus aliquot errata nunc demum animadverti, a me nunc emendata.” 4.  They are nugae in the sense that the meter and poetic devices, coupled with the shortness of the pieces, add a pleasurable, even histrionic aspect to what is otherwise serious subject matter. On this see Kirk Summers, “Theodore Beza’s Reading of Catullus,” Classical and Modern Literature 15 (1995): 233–​45; idem, “Catullus’ Program in the Imagination of Later Epigrammatists,” Classical Bulletin 77 (2001): 1–​13. 5. Beza, Corr. XXXII (1591), 78.

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year tells Grynaeus that he is sending a copy of the text again, the presumption is that the remark in the April letter is a reference to a first sending of the Cato.6 The problem is, as the editors of the correspondence note, that the Cato is only mentioned in an autumn appendix of the catalogue of the 1591 Frankfurt Book Fair (Messkataloge). This suggests that whatever was intended in April never came about. So what happened to the book during the intervening months? Philippe Canaye, writing to Beza from the Frankfurt Book Fair itself in late September of the same year, expresses his gratitude to Beza for the Cato, naming it specifically, while adding his positive assessment of it: I thank you very humbly, Sir, for your Cato. You have never produced anything more worthy of yourself.7 Since Canaye is responding to two now lost letters of Beza, one dated late July, the other late August, some version of the Cato, we have to presume, was sent along with one of those. The April presentation at the fair was delayed because of errors or other infelicities in the text needing correction. Beza then made additional emendations on his work about the time he received Canaye’s response (“I have corrected several errors that I just now noticed”) and sent a finalized copy to Grynaeus in the October letter mentioned above. Although still more revisions do appear in editions of the Cato after its initial publication, it seems safe to assume that the official print run of the Cato did not occur until late in 1591, after the October letter to Grynaeus. The 1591 edition of the Cato was the only instance in which the poems comprised a self-​contained volume.8 After this initial publication it appears five more times, but always as a part of a larger collection of poetry. The first was in Beza’s 1597 deluxe in-​quarto (in-​4) editions of his poems that issued forth in two press runs, one begun by Henri Étienne in 1597 (but lacking in some important elements), and another revised and completed in 1598 by Jacob Stoer after

6.  Since in the April letter Grynaeus is clearly indicating that the Cato has not yet arrived at Basel, it is possible that it never arrived, and that Beza’s rursum in the September letter refers to some other occasion to which we are not privy, or is only a reference to the attempt to send it at an earlier time. 7. Beza, Corr. XXXII (1591), 169: ““Je vous remercie [bien humblement], Monsieur, de vostre Cato. Vous n’avez jamais rien fait de plus digne de vous.” 8.  There was a reprint of the edition produced by Joseph Barnes at the press of Oxford University in 1592 (=STC 2003 and ESTC S90468, but not mentioned in Gardy). The only extant copy appears to be that in the collection of the Winchester College Fellows’ Library, as noted by Carly Emma Watson, “The Legacy of an Eighteenth-​Century Gentleman: Alexander

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Étienne’s death.9 Both versions include essentially the text of the 1591 edition of the Cato with a few variant readings and three additional short poems;10 in Étienne’s version the book is labeled “Libellus inscriptus Cato Censorius christianus,” while in Stoer’s it receives the simpler inscription “Cato Censorius Christianus.” Stoer moved the poem titled “Ad senectam” into the last position, while all other poems remain in the same order. An unauthorized version, essentially a hastily executed reproduction of the versions of Étienne and Stoer, came out of the press of Wilhelm Antonius at Hanau, Germany, in the same year. It adds nothing of value. By far the most reliable edition, or, as Gardy describes it, “la plus complète,” is the in-​sextodecimo (in-​16) volume that Stoer issued in 1599 at Geneva.11 Random poems that had stood in an appendix are now integrated into the main body of the collection. The Cato itself appears on 135r–​141r with no alterations from the 1597 edition. Beza died in 1605, and it is not clear exactly what sort of impact the Cato was having at the time of his death. It was not forgotten, however. Fellow Genevan pastor Simon Goulart (1543–​1628), who had been in France in a temporary post when the Saint Bartholomew’s Day massacres occurred, was sympathetic with the strict moral ideals expressed in the Cato.12 In 1574,

Thistlethwayte’s Books in Winchester College Fellows’ Library,” PhD diss. (University of Birmingham, 2013), 332. 9.  Theodore Beza, Poemata varia: sylvae, elegiae, epitaphia, epigrammata, icones, emblemata, Cato Censorius; omnia ab ipso auctore in unum nunc corpus collecta et reocgnita (Geneva, 1597) (= Gardy 9 and 11). Although Stoer’s edition came out in 1598, it still bears the date of 1597, since Stoer used Étienne’s printer’s gatherings up to p. 224. After p. 224, Stoer added new material, including the woodcuts of the emblems that had just been obtained and a Latin translation of the Abraham sacrificans made by Jean Jaquemot (some editions include a band on the title page adding Abraham sacrificans beneath Cato Censorius). See the “Admonitio de hoc opere and hac appendice” on 368–​69 for Stoer’s explanation of the changes. For the story of the involvement of Venceslas Zastriselius the Younger and his family of Moravian nobility as well as the financing that they provided for its publication, see Beza, Corr. XXXVIII (1597), vii–​viii and no 2513 and 2529. Appendix I of the same volume contains the preface of the Poemata written by the aforementioned Venceslas to Venceslas Zastriselius the Elder. All references to Poemata 1597 in the present work denote Stoer’s version. 10.  The poems “In eosdem [sc. otiosos],” In eos qui ex malo lucrum sperant,” and “In philosophos ultra modum theologizantes” appear only after the 1591 edition. 11.  Theodore Beza, Poemata varia: Sylvae, Elegiae, Epitaphia, Epigramm., Icones, Emblemata, Cato Censorius, Abrahamus Sacrificans, Canticum Canticorum, omnia ab ipso auctore in unum nunc corpus collecta et recognita; acessii Iac. Lectii V. Cl. Ionah, seu poetica paraphrasis ad eum vatem (Geneva, 1599) (= Gardy 12). This same volume was reprinted in 1614. 12.  On Goulart see esp. Leonard Chester Jones, Simon Goulart, 1543–​1628: Étude biographique et bibliographique (Geneva: Georg & Co., 1917); Simon Goulart un Pasteur aux Intérêts Vastes Comme Le Monde, ed. Olivier Pot (Geneva: Droz, 2013).

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for example, he wrote a pamphlet strongly condemning Protestant brethren in France who apostasized and reconverted to Catholicism in the face of persecution. He warned them that they were now in the den of the anti-​ Christ, from which they should repent and return in humility to the true Church.13 The staunch moralism of Goulart is also indicated by his French translation of Beza’s Icones, a work that was meant to highlight the courage and virtuousness of the first-​generation reformers to those in the current generation who were faltering.14 Goulart’s own imprisonment in 1595 is also noteworthy. The Genevan Council held him for eight days and the Consistory censured him for harshly rebuking Henri IV for his adulterous affair with his “courtisane” Gabrielle d’Estrées in a sermon delivered from the pulpit of the church of Saint Gervais. These tendencies in Goulart’s character are reflected in a series of works that he produced in the same decades after the Cato came out, in which he collected maxims and stories, both secular and sacred, that addressed or exemplified good moral behavior. Most are arranged according to an alphabetical listing of topics. These include the Apophthegmata (1592),15 the Morum philosophia historica,16 and Anthologie chrestienne et morale.17 In accordance with this program of arranging and publishing moral commonplaces, not surprisingly Goulart was also drawn to reissue the Cato after Beza’s death. In a volume published at Geneva in 1608, in which he collected excerpts and translations from the ethical works of Seneca, including sententiae from Seneca’s epistles along 13.  The treatise was attached to Goulart’s translation of M. Pierre Martyr Florentin à Quelques Fidèles touchant leur abjuration et renoncement de la vérité. Briefve et Christienne remonstrance à ceux qui pour eviter la persecution esmeüe en France … ont abjuré la vraye Religion ([Geneva]:  n.  p., 1574). See especially Manetsch, Theodore Beza and the Quest for Peace in France, 1572–​1598 (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 43, and Jones, Simon Goulart, 556. 14. Beza, Les vrais pourtraits des hommes illustres en piété et doctrine, du travail desquels Dieu s’est servi en ces derniers temps, pour remettre sus la vraye Religion en divers pays de la Chrestienté. Avec les descriptions de leur vie et de leurs faits les plus memorables (Geneva: Jean de Laon, 1581). For information on this edition see Christophe Chazalon, “Théodore de Bèze et les ateliers de Laon,” in Backus, Théodore de Bèze, 1519–​1605, 69–​87; and Myriam Yardeni, “Eruditio Ancilla Reformationis: Theodore Beza and the Uses of History in the Icones,” in Knowledge and Religion in Early Modern Europe: Studies in Honor of Michael Heyd, eds. Asaph Ben-​Tov, Yaacov Deutsch, and Tamar Herzig (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 11–​23. 15.  Simon Goulart, Apophthegmatum sacrorum loci communes ex sacris ecclesiasticis et secularibus collecti (Geneva: Jacob Stoer, 1592). 16.  Simon Goulart, Morum philosophia historica ex probatis scriptoribus collecta (Geneva: Jacob Stoer, 1594). 17. Simon Goulart, Anthologie chrestienne et morale, contenant divers opuscules, discours ou traitès recueillis de divers auteurs anciens et modernes, pour l’instruction et consolation des âmes

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with some lyrical versions of them by Jean Jacquemont, Goulart attached the Latin text of the Cato.18 The poems of the Cato fall on pages 49–​68 of the volume, and are accompanied by poetic “imitations,” or, to be more precise, French paraphrases of the poems by Goulart himself. Goulart’s overall plan in collecting and arranging such gnomic literature is best gleaned from the introduction of the 1594 Morum philosophia. There, quoting Cicero, who spoke of history as the “teacher of life,” Goulart defends the usefulness of “profane” history, when so much sacred history is available, in that it “exhibits words and examples that pertain to the declaration of the second table of the Decalogue.”19 This speaks to the role of natural law in Reformed Orthodoxy, which will be addressed in detail later in this chapter. The last appearance of the entire Cato (aside from a 1614 reprint of the 1599 edition of the Poemata) comes in 1609 with the publication of Jan Gruter’s three-​volume Delitiae C poetarum Galorum, huius superioris aevi illustrium, from the press of Jonas Rosa in Frankfurt. As the title indicates, this is a fairly comprehensive collection of poems of some one hundred French neo-​Latin poets from the previous two centuries. Gruter, who was at the time librarian for the University of Heidelberg, made similar collections drawn from writers of other nationalities. The French volumes contain poetic productions of such notables as Guillaume du Bellay, Nicholas Borbon, Étienne Dolet, Michel de l’Hôpital, Marc-​Antoine Muret, Joseph Scaliger, and Sammarthanus Scaevola. For Beza, he employed the pseudonym “Adeodatus Seba Veseliensis,” and included the Cato on pages 736–​743 of volume three. This is particularly significant because most of

fidèles (Geneva: Samuel Crespin, 1618); reissued in 1626 at Geneva under the title 5 décades de traites et discours pour l’instruction des enfans de Dieu. 18.  The translations of the sententiae belong to Jean Jacquemot, but Goulart was the general editor; see Jones, Simon Goulart, 640 and Pot, Simon Goulart, 485 (no 112). The full title is Sententiae quaedam ex Senecae epistolis excerptae, et singulis Tetrastichis expressae a Ioanne Iacomoto Barrensi. Quatrains tirez des epistres de Senecque traduits du latin de Iean Iaquemot de Bar-​le-​Duc, par S.G.S [=Simon Goulart, Senlisien]; Ausquels a esté adiousté le Censeur Chrestien imité du latin de M.Th.D.B. par ledit S.G.S. (Geneva: for Franc. Le Fevre, 1608), 96 pages, (=Gardy 383, though to be corrected with singulis in the title in place of singularis); the Cato appears beginning on p.  49 and is accompanied by a French verse imitation of the Cato by Goulart himself. Goulart also added three discourses in French verse against profanity, atheism, and disbelief. I have used the copy provided to me by the Biblothèque de Genève. 19.  Goulart presents this as an idea inspired in him through a conversation with Joannes Henricus Heinzellius, who had published an opera omnia of Seneca in 1590, in the dedicatory epistle to the same, p.  3:  “Secularem, quam vulgo prophanum apellant, sua utilitate non carere addebas, ut quae dicta et exempla ad secundi decalogi tabulae declarationem pertinentia passim exhibeat.”

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the poems in Gruter’s collection belong to the 1548 octavo (in-​8) edition (often called the Iuvenilia), which, obviously, did not include the Cato.20 After this, the Cato surfaces in snippets within other works, typically in support of some moral argument within a sermon or theological treatise. An attempt is made to note each of these as they are relevant. In general, though, there is no obvious Nachleben of which to speak.

Cato in the Sixteenth Century It is unfortunate that the Cato contains no preface or introduction that could explain its intent and target audience. We are also left with very little useful information that can be gleaned from Beza’s correspondence or from contemporary sources. Instead, we must deduce those matters not only from the contents of the work itself, but from a myriad of other literary sources and institutions that relate to it in some way. Beza’s own personal situation at the time of publication provides some additional clues. In the end, however, the only people whom we know read the Cato are those who refer to it, and all of those are ministers, theologians, and scholars (not all of them Calvinists). Access to the work could have been gained through any of the sources just discussed. The title itself is remarkable. It gives homage to the unyielding Roman moralist M. Porcius Cato the Censor (234–​149 b.c.),21 but with the additional epithet Christianus. It suggests that Beza intends to employ the rhetorical technique of prosopopeia (speech delivered in character), following the example of Cicero who in a speech famously censured Clodia for her immorality through the persona of her ancestor, Appius Claudius Caecus.22 To similar effect Beza assumes the persona of the Elder Cato, and through it rebukes a variety of sinners. This was a strategy that had been entertained before in the Reformed movement;23 the name Cato

20. Beza, Poemata (Paris, 1548) (= Gardy 1). It was printed at the press of Conrad Badius. For a modern edition with translation and commentary, see Kirk Summers, A View from the Palatine: The Iuvenilia of Théodore de Bèze (Tempe, AZ: Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2001). 21. Also known as “Cato the Elder”; for a biography, see A. E. Astin, Cato the Censor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978). 22. Cicero, Pro Caelio 34. 23.  On this see Ford Lewis Battles, “Against Luxury and License in Geneva:  A  Forgotten Fragment of Calvin,” Interpretation 19 (1963): 182–​202, esp. 190.

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certainly carried with it moral weight.24 Furthermore, Beza’s entire career and even his educational philosophy betray a melding of Classical learning with Biblical wisdom.25 Although Beza, after his conversion in 1548, was quick to repudiate the ancient writers after whom he modeled his own poems, along with the misguided ideas of Classical philosophers, he continued to appreciate their eloquence and humanistic contributions. In fact, Beza turned to pagan learning throughout his lifetime for supplementary and supporting material for his own writings. He also promoted its study in the “schola privata” of the Genevan Academy where he was the first rector.26 But the title for the work at hand is not without precedent. At least three other publications of the period bore a similar title (though none of them include the Censorius moniker), written by Étienne Dolet, Antoine Meyer, and Richard Mulcaster.27 As mentioned, the name Cato in their titles allowed them to take advantage of its inherent authoritativeness

24.  There was some conflation between the authoritativeness of the figures of Cato the Elder and Cato the Younger (or “Uticensis”), the latter of whom committed suicide in the waning days of the Roman Republic. Martial, Epig. 1 praef., exhorts “Cato” (here “Uticensis,” as a stock exemplum, referring to a story at Val. Max. 2.10.8) not to enter into the theater of his epigrams, which he compares to the risqué Floralia, unless he is prepared to stay and watch. In another epigram (11.2.1–​2), Martial alludes to the “stern brow of hard Cato.” Seneca is certainly referring to Cato Uticensis when he tells Lucilius (Moral Epistles 11.10) to “choose a Cato (elige itaque Catonem)” as a “tough (ridigus)” guide through life’s moral challenges. Since Cato was long dead in Seneca’s day, he is suggesting that Lucilius adopt him as an exemplum of thought and action, a kind of inner voice internalized through reading. For this and other appeals to Cato as a moral guide in Seneca, see Christine Richardson-​Hay, First Lessons: Book 1 of Seneca’s Epistulae Morales—​A Commentary (Bern: Peter Lang, 2006). 25.  For arguments in this regard, see Kirk Summers, “The Classical Foundations of Beza’s Thought,” in Backus, Théodore de Bèze, 1519–​1605, 369–​79. Backus elsewhere pushes back against these arguments in her essay “Reformed Orthodoxy and Patristic Tradition,” in A Companion to Reformed Orthodoxy, ed. Herman Selderhuis, 102–​06. But the key to understanding Beza’s Classical roots lies not in a conscious usurpation of ancient philosophy as the grounds for theology, but in the subconscious effect of his Classical learning on his way of thinking. For example, although Beza understood clearly Paul’s distinction between spiritual λατρεία and the carnal mindset, he at times used the language of the interior–​exterior or material–​spiritual dichotomy so prevelant in Classical literature from Plato onward to criticize the ceremonialism of the Catholic Church. See also the points made by Scott Manetsch, “Psalms before Sonnets:  Theodore Beza and the Studia Humanitatis,” in Continuity and Change, ed. Robert Bast and Andrew Gow (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 400–​16. 26.  Karin Maag, University or Seminary: The Genevan Academy and Reformed Higher Education 1560–​1620 (Aldershot:  Scolar Press, 1995); Charles Borgeaud, Histoire de l’Université de Genève, 1559–​1798 (Geneva: Georg & Co., 1900), 43–​44. 27. Relevant to the tradition but less important are the following:  Alexandro Marcoleo, Cato Iunior, hoc est veterum poetarum sententiae illustriores collectae ad usum pueritiae (Stuttgart:  Marcus Fursterus 1599); and Antoine Loisel, Disticha catoniana ad Ant. Ois.

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in the moral sphere. More importantly, all of these works borrow from the immense success that the so-​called Disticha Catonis (hereafter Disticha) was enjoying as a pedagogical tool in the schools.28 This collection of two-​ line hexameters was omnipresent in Renaissance Europe and cast its shadow everywhere. The dialogue of Dolet, Meyer, and Mulcaster with it and their efforts either to replace it or mold it to a Christian purpose suggests a way for us to understand the the thinking behind Beza’s Cato. Richard Mulcaster, headmaster of St. Paul’s school in London (1596–​ 1608) and before that the headmaster at Merchant Taylors’ School (1561–​ 1586), had devoted his life to the instruction of young boys at those academies. In fact, he was so keenly interested in pedagogy in general that he wrote several books whose aim was the broad reform and overhaul of elementary education in England. In the preface to his Elementarie (1582), he lays out a program for a boy’s early education, the overriding goal of which is to introduce the child to Christian piety while also equipping him with the tools needed to be well-​rounded and refined, with a thorough grounding in Latin deemed essential. The presentation of the material, he believes, should be so constructed as to facilitate memorization while at the same time being a pleasure to read (“delight”). The material should be suited to the boy’s youthful station and level of competency (“capacity”) and should promote the development of good character (“forwarding”). He put these ideals into practice with the publication of the Cato Christianus (c. 1600), the only extant copy of which can be found in the library of Magdalene College at Cambridge.29 Mulcaster’s work was meant to replace the Disticha Catonis as the primary educational tool in the early forms.30 The primacy of place accorded to the Disticha cannot be overstated. With its series of two-​line poems spanning four books and promoting good behavior, it had become a mainstay of education since the early part of the fifteenth century, both in Nepotem (Paris: S.l., 1604). The latter published an edition of the Disticha Catonis in 1577, but the 1604 work is a 12-​page Tumuli familiares. 28.  In English, they are usually referred to as the Distichs of Cato. The standard text is now Disticha Catonis, ed. Marcus Boas (Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing, 1952). Although they are attributed to Cato, they most likely represent a third-​century compilation and are given the name to add gravitas. 29.  The seminal study is William Barker and Jean Chadwick, “Richard Mulcaster’s Preface to Cato Christianus (1600):  A  Translation and Commentary,” Humanistica Lovaniensia 42 (1993): 323–​67. 30.  Barker and Chadwick, “Richard Mulcaster’s Preface,” 341.

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England31 and on the continent. The convenient shortness of the poems lent themselves to close grammatical parsing and analysis. Students could construe a small piece of Latin, dissect it completely such that it reinforced the paradigms and rules that they had learned from Lily’s Latin Grammar (in England)32 or other introductory texts (one can see the influence of this model on “Wheelock’s Latin” in the modern era).33 The magisterial reformers embraced the Disticha from the very beginning. Luther commented in one of his sermons that there was better morality to be gained from reading the Disticha than could be had in the monastic tradition.34

31.  On the fortunes and importance of the Disticha in England from 1500 on, see Ian M. Green, Humanism and Protestantism in Early Modern English Education (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 156–​62. Green’s statements on p. 157 about Beza’s enthusiasm for the Cato in the schools should be doubted, however, at least without further corroboration. He characterizes Beza’s Cato as a “youthful effort” (Beza would have been 72 in 1591) in which he collects original Latin verses covering the same vices as found in the Disticha. Beza’s work is something more complex, with more emphasis on the consequences and punishments for sins committed. For the universal employment of the Disticha in English schools, see T. W. Baldwin, Shakespere’s Small Latine and Lesse Greeke (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1944), vol. I, 595–​96; and Mary Thomas Crane, “Intret Cato: Authority and the Epigram in Sixteenth-​ Century England,” in Renaissance Genres:  Essays on Theory, History, and Interpretation, ed. Barbara K. Lewalski (Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press, 1986), 158–​86. Crane believes that the moral potential of the epigram was held in doubt because of examples such as Martial, but Martial’s invitation to Cato to stay in the theater (praef. to Book 1) is at the same time an appeal to him to assume more flexible attitude with which he can appreciate the mirror of human mores on display; cf. Epig. 9.28 [where Cato is specifically mentioned] and 13.2 [where the right attitude is required]). Also of note is Demmy Verbeke, “Cato in England:  Translating Latin Sayings for Moral and Linguistic Instruction,” in Renaissance Cultural Crossroads: Translation, Print and Culture in Britain, 1473–​1640, eds. S. K. Barker and Brenda M. Hosington (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 139–​55 For a broader overview of the popularity of works of apothegms and sententiae in the Renaissance, see Jean Vignes, “Pour une gnomologie: Enquête sur le succès de la littérature gnomique à la Renaissance,” Seizième Siècle (2005): 175–​211; on the “succès extraordinaire” of the Disticha, see 190–​92. 32.  The first edition of this elementary Latin grammar by William Lily and John Colet, no longer extant, would have appeared somewhere around 1510. Countless editions followed. By 1540, by proclamation of Henry VIII, it became the official grammar of England. See Lily’s Grammar of Latin in English, ed. Hedwig Gwosdek (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), esp. 1–​27; Foster Watson, The English Grammar Schools to 1660 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1908), esp. chap. 15, “The Authorized Latin Grammar”; and, Mary Beth Stewart, “William Lily’s Contribution to Classical Study,” The Classical Journal 33 (1938): 217–​25. Stewart remarks, “Like all grammarians of his day, Lily attempted to accomplish a threefold purpose—​the teaching of manners, exercise in verb forms, and an introduction to classical authors. As a result we find manners and morals mingled with parts of speech on every page” (219). 33.  Now in a seventh edition, it was first printed as F. M. Wheelock, Latin: An Introductory Course Based on Ancient Authors (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1956). 34. Carl Springer, “Martin’s Martial:  Reconsidering Luther’s Relationship with the Classics,” International Journal of the Classical Tradition 14 (2007): 23–​50, esp. 30, fn. 13. One may adduce the

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Philipp Melanchthon recommended that “first-​formers” work through a verse or two of it every day.35 Two main problems became apparent, however, with using the old Disticha in a combined approach of grammar and moral instruction. First, the subject matter, which at times touches on adult matters such as servants, prostitutes, wives, and death, does not always relate to the life of the young boy in elementary school. Second, teachers and scholars had long complained about the unorthodox syntax of the Disticha. A beginning Latin student does not need exceptions and deviations to confuse him. Mulcaster’s Cato Christianus, in contrast, contains more than two thousand newly composed elegiac couplets divided into roughly one hundred poems that retell Biblical stories, both of the Old and New Testaments, and conclude with the moral to be drawn. The language itself is Ciceronian. Both the preface and the prose envoi, “Why the Instruction of Children Should Be Founded on Christian Piety and Poetry” (Cur a pietate Christiana, et carmine inchoanda puerorum disciplina), indicate that Mulcaster’s plan was to keep the focus on Latin while revamping the content. In the preface (12) he writes, I call this book Cato for its human wisdom and Christian for its divine truth; in addition, because for my associates I  intend it as the successor to the Cato who has for a long time been familiar in our schools. I decided it should be called Cato lest the earlier Cato should be missed when his descendant was being read. Presumably the boys would take up Cicero and others once they learned the language and grounded themselves in Christian morals. The morals in Mulcaster’s work were not as pithy as those in the original Disticha, but instead reflect a rich tradition of scholia and commentary that often accompanied the published text.36 The best known of these

comment of Quintilian (1.1.36) as well, that boys must be given lines to copy that are memorable, that convey some sound moral lesson, and are in verse, since poetry is more attractive to children. 35. See J. W. Richard, Philip Melanchthon:  The Protestant Preceptor of Germany, 1497–​ 1560 (New  York:  G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1898), 134. On the use of the Disticha in general, see L. W. Brockliss, French Higher Education in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987), 136; Paul F. Grendler, Schooling in Renaissance Italy: Literacy and Learning, 1300–​1600 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press 1989), 378. 36. Barker and Chadwick, “Richard Mulcaster’s Preface,” 336:  “Mulcaster’s new Cato embeds the interpretation within the verses (in a sense moving the older commentary from the margin into the poem itself).”

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extended and expanded versions of the Disticha was produced by Erasmus in 1514,37 which itself saw numerous editions and permutations, and which was well-​known, even in Reformed circles. The noted 1646 edition, for example, exemplifies how far these editions evolved: it contained the text and notes of Erasmus, along with a Greek rendering of the distichs by Joseph Scaliger—​it was his father who, in the mid-​sixteenth century, had suggested that the Disticha were a product of the third or fourth centuries a.d., possibly by a Dionysius Cato—​and also the sententiae from the mimes of Publilius Syrus and a dissertation written by the Dutch linguist Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn.38 The volume begins with a commendation by Isaac Casaubon for Scaliger’s Greek translation that had appeared in an earlier Paris edition. Casaubon himself was professor of Greek at the Academy of Geneva from 1581–​1596, and it was Casaubon who rendered one of Beza’s Cato poems into Greek for the 1591 edition. Furthermore, Mathurin Cordier, who was a teacher of Calvin at Paris, and who taught at both Lausanne and Geneva, where he knew Beza, published a French translation and commentary of the Disticha that ultimately was meant to serve as a grammar for young schoolchildren.39 The editors of Mulcaster’s preface have shown that the author intended a readership not only of young boys, but of fathers as well. Some of the poems are addressed with the well-​being of children in mind, and there is at least one outright apostrophe to the parent toward the end: “Tuque, pater.” These elements, while by no means prevalent (Mulcaster had already criticized the Disticha for being too adult in content), do suggest an expectation that fathers would read the text along with their sons.

37.  D. Erasmus, Opuscula aliquot Erasmo Roterodamo castigatore et interprete (Louvain: Thierry Martens, 1514). There were other editions printed at Cologne (at the press of Mart. Werdensis) and London (at the press of Peter Treveris) in the same year. For this first edition, see Marie-​ José Desmet-​Goethals, “De Catonis disticha moralia uitgegeven door D.  Erasmus en door L. Crucius,” Onze Alma Mater 23 (1969): 168–​84, esp. 168–​69. 38. The full title is as follows:  Disticha de moribus ad filium:  cum D.  Erasmi Roterodami brevi expositione. eadem Graece reddita per Jos. Scaligerum lui. Caes. f. cum eiusdem notis: in quibus ratio mutationis redditur. Syri item Mimiabi ab eodem Graece redditi accedit Marci Zuerii Boxhornii de distichis Catonis dissertatio (Amsterdam:  J. Janssonium, 1646). Green, Humanism and Protestantism, 558, mentions other collections that also included Ausonius’s Ludus septem sapientum, Isocrates’s Paraenesis ad Demonicum, and Erasmus’s Christiani hominis institutum, which was itself based on a work of precepts by John Colet. 39.  Mathurin Cordier, Disticha de moribus nomine Catonis inscripta, Latina et Gallica interpretatione epitome in singula fere disticha; dicta sapientum cum duplici sua quoque interpretatiuncula (Paris, 1533, at the press of Robert Étienne, with numerous republications there and

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Mulcaster’s work came at the end of a century that saw several attempts to replace the Disticha with material of a more Christian bent. In Catholic circles we find the work of the Flemish educator and poet Antoine de Meyer (1527–​1597). After first teaching at Tirelemont (three years) and then Cambrai (seven years), he subsequently took over the post as principal of the College of Arras in 1560, which he held for thirty-​seven years. While there, he also took on the responsibility for the early literary and philosophical education of Ferdinand de Cardevacque (1572–​1614), who would later become a jurisconsult and magistrate of some note. Gruter includes a handful of his poems in his collection of “Belgic” poets.40 For our purposes, the work of interest is his Cato Christianus, sive institutio paraenetica ad pietatem, tetrastichis tanquam aphorismis digesta. The first edition of this work came out in 1583 at Mons in Flanders, but a better, corrected version (there was even a misprint in the title of the original edition) appeared posthumously in 1598 at Arras at the press of Guillaume de la Rivière. The work collects together the familiar texts suitable for the instruction of the youth: sententiae from Scriptures and other Christian literature, a section titled “The Education of a Christian Person,” Isocrates’s Paraenesis ad Demonicum, and “Paraphrases on Old Cato.” A poetic preface to the work, addressed to the beginner-​level students (tirunculi) of the school of Arras, contains a detailed programmatic statement that provides interesting information on the thinking behind the title of the central text (the Christianized version of Cato). Meyer begins by acknowledging that the ancients made significant contributions to gnomic literature in an effort to mold their citizens for civic glory. On the Greek side one finds Hesiod, Theognis, Phocylides, Pythagoras, and Isocrates. For the Romans, he grants, the Disticha exhibits Roman gravitas. But Solomon’s maxims and those of any people who teach God through faith and revelation surpass the wisdom of the ancients in holiness. Where there is no talk of Christ, who is the wisdom of the Father on high, nor of the Spirit, authors teach mostly empty things. Meyer explains that it is not within the plan and scope of his book to “leave Cato in his ancient state” (antiquare Catonem), since students and grammar teachers already have plenty of texts of Cato.

in Lyon). More information can be found in Jules Le Coultre, Maturin Cordier et les origines de la pédagogie protestante dans les pays de langue française (1530–​1564) (Neuchatel: Secréteriat de l’Université, 1926), 75–​ 89, and Elizabeth Hudson, “The Colloquies of Maturin Cordier: Images of Calvinist School Life and Thought,” SCJ 9 (1978): 57–​78. 40.  J. Gruter, Delitiae poetarum Belgicorum, 3 vols. (Frankfurt: Jonas Rosa, 1614), 3, 559–​60.

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What he wishes to do with his own Cato Christianus instead is to put tetrastichs in their hands with a different view of piety than can be found in the old author. His contain not the piety “devised by Numa or flowing down the slopes of Mount Olympus,” but piety taught by God himself. This piety stands as the foundation of all education and is the queen of virtues, since it is closest to God himself. It leads one along a fixed path “to the stars” (ad astra), to borrow a phrase from Vergil. In other words, the God-​centered virtues are required for admittance into the heavenly kingdom. But Meyer develops another point that dovetails with one of Beza’s major themes: God-​ centered virtues have a civic function too, and can, for those who are so inclined, confer earthly rewards. For example, Joseph by his piety rose from a slave in chains to a rank second only to the Pharoah. David, who celebrated God on the lyre as a mere shepherd, was anointed king. These and others, by piety and the fear of God, found success in life; in contrast, without piety and the fear of God, all the value of teaching goes to ruin. Inspired by the recognition that virtues established in piety lead to both heavenly and earthly rewards, Meyer announces that he has rewritten the original Cato accordingly. He has also doubled the length of the verses, presumably to make sufficiently clear God’s role in sanctioning and rewarding the moral involved. But these new versions are not limited to showing how to earn civic honor and gain earthly advantages, as the former did, but actually teach how one should spurn these things and seek peace and tranquility in any lot of life. Although the ancients themselves tried to promote such a mental state, which they called εὐθυμία,41 their attempts scarely amounted to a shadowy treatment. Only Christians can learn about peace of mind, because only Christians use their faith to listen to the revelation of God. He concludes by exhorting students to take up this new Cato, this Christian Cato, read it often and be restored by it from the cares of life. He further exhorts them to pass this down to their own children, read it with them, and let it become a family heirloom of piety. The tetrastichs themselves fall into five books, and while they are not even close to what one might call a paraphrase, they do seem to be inspired loosely by topics in the original Disticha. In the first book Meyer touches on basic doctrine about the nature of God, Jesus, and Mary, while the second book looks more to the saints and angels. The third book has some affinity with Beza’s Cato in that it deals with morality, sin, and punishment. The 41.  Beza mentions the same word and makes the same point in his letter to Paludius, as noted in the conclusion of the introduction.

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first poem, for example, addresses blasphemy (“Crimen laesae Maiestatis”), others have to do with boasting and pride (the familiar “Noli altum sapere”), lying and false oaths, and so on. A passage from the Scriptures or, seldomly, a notable Church Father is assigned to every tetrastich. Some ideas that work their way into Beza’s poems in a peripheral way (e.g., the idea that God is slow to anger) take up an entire tetrastich to themselves in Meyer’s work (“Quia non cito profertur sententia”). In book four, key ideas and liturgical passages of the Scriptures are put into verse, such as the precepts of the Decalogue, the beatitudes, promises of Jesus, and the like, obviously for the sake of ease of memorization. The last book contains more on sanctification and punishment. In short, then, Meyer created a mnemonic and familiar tool aimed at inculcating Christian values. What is especially noteworthy is how much overlap there is with Beza’s Cato. Both the pedagogical work of Meyer and Mulcaster suggest ways of reading Beza’s Cato even though they do not have any direct connection to it. Beza likely never saw Meyer’s work since it was Catholic in its content, while Mulcaster’s book appeared nearly ten years after that of Beza. Malcolm Smith raised the possibility Beza may have found inspiration for the title of his Cato Censorius Christianus from Étienne Dolet’s Cato Christianus, published at his own press in Lyon in 1538.42 Smith does not try to investigate the matter beyond the passing conjecture, since it was only tangential to his thesis. His article does, however, highlight the relationship between Beza and Dolet, who crossed paths at Orleans. Smith argues that the “Philaenus” character in Beza’s Iuvenilia and in the Orleans manuscript43 is a veiled reference to Dolet. If so, Beza is being highly critical of Dolet’s Carmina, also published in 1538, along with his arrogance, sour personality, and aping of Cicero. Yet Beza does write a touching epitaph for Dolet in the same volume (epitaph 18). He seems to have been moved by the horrific burning of Dolet at the stake, and imagines that an ensuing rainstorm signaled the tears of the Muses and Zeus’s welcoming of Dolet to Mt. Olympus. Regardless, he pulls the epitaph from later

42. Malcolm C. Smith, “Théodore de Bèze and ‘Philaenus,’” BHR 52 (1990):  345–​ 53, esp. 352, fn. 23. 43. For a discussion of the poems and the judgment of other neo-​Latin poets (George Buchanan and Jean Visagier, in particular), see K. Summers, A View from the Palatine: The Iuvenilia of Théodore de Bèze, 345–​47; also, on the epitaph, see the comments at 164–​67. The Orleans manuscript of some of Beza’s early poetry has been edited by F. Aubert, J. Boussard, H. Meylan, “Un premier recueil de poésies latines de Théodore de Bèze,” BHR 15 (1953): 164–​91; 257–​94.

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editions, starting in 1569, probably because of Dolet’s apparent heterodoxy and Calvin’s sharp denunciation of him as “Satan.”44 Dolet’s Cato Christianus was one of the first books that came out from his press. Based on assertions made in the preface and commendatory poems, Christie believes that Dolet intended this small catechetical work as an answer to his critics who said that he was avoiding the topic of religion.45 At the same time, the couching of a pagan author, even a moral one, in Christian terms made a statement on behalf of Christian humanism. The work contained an exposition of the Lord’s Prayer, the Decalogue, the Apostle’s Creed, and poems to the Virgin Mary. Unfortunately for Dolet, however, it did not free him from suspicions of heresy. The magistrates of Lyon censured the work as soon as it appeared, but, more importantly, the Sorbonne got wind of it in 1542 and issued their own censure. Critics charged that Dolet’s handling of “graven images” in the Decalogue exhibited (ironically) Reformed leanings. They also criticized him for omitting several parts of the Apostles’ Creed, in particular the articles on the communion of the saints, the forgiveness of sins, and the resurrection of the body.46 Both Longeon and Higman have demonstrated that Dolet’s Cato Christianus is derived in large part from the catechetical work of a Reformed (Zwinglian) pastor of Berne by the name Gaspard (Kaspar) Megander.47 His Ein kurtze aber Christenliche ußlegung für die jugend appeared in 1536, 44.  Smith, “Théodore de Bèze and ‘Philaenus,’ ” 350–​53, references a 1541 letter from Calvin and Viret to Farel in which they praise Dolet for publishing an edition of the Psalms along with Olivétan’s Latin translation of the Bible, adding, “Let them come forward now who deny that Satan is an agent of God.” Francis Higman (“Étienne Dolet et Gaspard Megander: Le problème du Cato Christianus,” Lire et découvrir [Geneva:  Droz,  1993]:  627–​36) quotes the following from Des scandales (1550) on 628: “Sans parler de Calvin, qui dira plus tard qu’Agrippa, Villeneuve et Dolet, Villeneuve et Dolet ‘ont tousjours orgueilleusement contemné l’Evangile; … non seulement ils ont desgorgé leurs blasphemes execrables contre Jesus Christ et sa doctrine, mais ont estimé quant à leurs ames, qu’ils ne differoyent en rien des chiens et des pourceaux,’ notons les pages éloquentes de Lucien Febvre qui ont trait précisément à l’année 1538, date de la publication du Cato Christianus.” He then goes on to examine the criticisms of Visagier. 45.  Richard Copely Christie, Étienne Dolet; Higman, “Étienne Dolet et Gaspard Megander,” 628–​29, cites the introductory poem of Guillaume Durand in this regard. 46.  Francis Higman, Censorship and the Sorbonne: A Bibliographical Study of Books in French Censored by the Faculty of Theology of the University of Paris, 1520–​1551 (Geneva: Droz, 1993), 97. For more of the Sorbonne’s problems with Dolet’s Cato, see Charles du Plessis D’Argentre, Collectio Judicorum (Paris: Andrea Cailleau, 1728–​36), 2:219. 47.  Francis Higman, “Étienne Dolet et Gaspard Megander,” 627–​36; Higman, “Theology for the Layman in the French Reformation, 1520–​1550,” in Library 7 (1987): 105–​27; C. Longeon, “Le ‘Cato Christianus’ d’Étienne Dolet (1509–​1546),” in Étienne Dolet 1509–​1546. Actes du

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but it was a 1537 Latin edition, now lost, that Dolet apparently saw and used for his own book. Megander followed an old tradition, stretching back through Luther to earlier Catholic models, whereby the standard liturgical texts were recorded and commented upon (Meyer obviously drew inspiration from this tradition as well). The Catholic examples tended more toward moral instruction, while Lutheran and Reformed writers showed their concern for doctrinal purity. Megander keeps his comments simple and brief in order to make the book more useful for the instruction of children. Additionally, for mnemonic purposes, he arranges them according to questions and responses, as later Beza himself would do for his own catechetical handbook. Higman notes how Dolet did not satisfy his critics with the handbook due to his handling of Megander’s text as his model: he reveals some sympathy for the Zwinglian doctrines, while at the same time passing over in silence some important Catholic and Reformed doctrines, and furthermore mixing in humanistic ideas that appear antireligious, even atheistic.48

Picturing Morals: Beza’s Emblems The popular collections of sententiae, moral distichs, and catechetical texts, which, in part, provide a context for Beza’s Cato, also draw our attention to two other, related traditions: the emblematic and gnomological. Emblem studies is a vast field unto itself, the intricacies of which will not detain us here. The insights, however, that can be garnered from Beza’s own contribution to the genre are of particular interest. In 1580 Beza published his collection of biographical sketches and images of notable reformers

colloque de Paris, 14 mars 1985, centre V.L. Saulnier 3 (Paris:  Collection de l’Ecole Normale Supérieure de Juenes Filles, 1986), 105–​12; idem, “Dolet et les Zwingliens,” Prose et prosateurs de la Renaissance (Paris:  Sedes, 1988), 57–​64. See Ian Morrison’s comments in The Year’s Work in Modern Language Studies, “Sixteenth Century,” vol. 50 (1988): 84–​109. 48.  “Atheism” was more of a charge in the sixteenth century than a reality per se; for example, Jean de Neufville’s work, De pulchritudine animi (Paris:  Galliot du Pré, 1556), includes the subtitle, In Epicureos et atheos homines huius seculi, that is, “against Epicureans and the atheists of this age,” by whom he means those who entertain heretical views about God and draw ideas from pagan philosophers instead of Sciptures. He also labels people as atheists who are given over to immoral pleasures. That atheism in this period really denotes heterodoxy, immorality, and irreligion was the contention of Lucien Febvre in his work, Le Problème de l’incroyance au xvie siècle:  La religion de Rabelais (Paris:  Editions Albin Michel, 1942; rev., Paris:  Editions Albin Michel, 1947); trans. B. Gottlieb, The Problem of Unbelief in the 16th Century: The Religion of Rabelais (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982). He is supported in this view (and updated) by Alan Charles Kors, Atheism in France, 1650–​1729, vol. 1

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in a work titled Icones.49 To it he attached a series of emblems (poems and pictures together) that have affinity with the icons not only in that they are images, but also because they speak to Christians who are struggling to remain faithful in the face of all kinds of adversity. The volume’s prefatory epistle, which Beza addresses to King James of Scotland, mainly concerns itself with the icons themselves in an effort to preempt complaints that the portrayal of Christian heroes, even reformers, comes dangerously close to the veneration of saints and idolatry. One small passage, nevertheless, does touch on the nature of the emblems: In addition, I  attached forty-​four emblems which, because they concisely express important and pious maxims, I felt certain would bring some degree of pleasure to erudite readers. In my opinion they are called this because moralizing images of the same sort used to be inserted in mosaic on walls and containers.50

(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), 7–​13; idem, “Theology and Atheism in Early Modern France,” in The Transmission of Culture in Early Modern Europe, eds. Anthony Grafton and Ann Blair (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990), 238–​75, esp. 265, fn. 2. Kors is countering the views put forward by François Berriot, Athéismes et athéistes au XVIe siècle en France, 2 vols. (Lille: Ed. du Cerf, 1977). Berriot evaluates various examples of rebellion against God in the literature of the period and assesses them to be indications of atheism. There were also those in the sixteenth century who were being drawn more toward rationalist explanations for the natural world in lieu of divine ones. On the latter group’s identification as “atheists,” see Atheism from the Reformation to the Enlightenment, ed. Michael Hunter and David Wootton (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 1992), especially the articles by Nicholas Davidson and David Wootton, 55–​85 and 13–​53 respectively. See also Jennifer M. Hecht, Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation (New York: HarperCollins 2003), 325; Max Gauna, Upwellings: First Expressions of Unbelief in the Printed Literature of the French Renaissance (Rutherford, NJ:  Associated University Presses, 1992), 23ff.; Denis J.-​J. Robichaud, “Renaissance and Reformation,” in The Oxford Handbook of Atheism, eds. Stephen Bullivant and Michael Ruse (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 179–​94. The whole problem of “atheism” as a label during this period is a matter of semantics. If one attributes to God qualities that do not belong to him, which in turn affects how one lives, then that may be judged to be tantamount to atheism by some, but not necessarily by the adherents themselves. 49.  The full title is as follows: Icones, id est, verae imagines virorum doctrina simul et pietate illustrium, quorum praecipue ministerio partim bonarum literarum studia sunt restituta, partim vera Religio in variis orbis Christiani regionibus, nostra patrumque memoria fuit instaurata; additis eorundem vitae et operae descriptionibus, quibus adiectae sunt nonnullae picturae quas Emblemata vocant (Geneva: Jean de Laon, 1580). The French translation by Goulart is cited in fn. 14. 50. Beza, Icones, 1580, iiir: “Subiunxi praeterea Emblemata quadraginta et quatuor, quae, quod graves et pias sententias complectantur, eruditis lectoribus non ingrata fore mihi persuasi. Sunt autem, opinor, sic appellata, quod imagines eiusmodi sententiosae opere tesselato parietibus aut vasis inseri consueverint.” Beza is connect the fact that these images were “inserted” (inseri) on walls with the word emblemata, which he seems to derive from ἐμβάλλειν (“to insert”).

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There are three points of interest in this passage. First, Beza twice uses the term sententiae to describe the emblems, and in essence is designating them as Christian sententiae when he qualifies them as important (graves) and pious (pias). He then compares them to mosaic images that are sententious, that is, making a moralizing point, which in itself indicates that Beza finds the roots of the emblematic tradition in ecphrasis, most likely as it appears in the Greek Anthology. Second, Beza intends the poems for educated readers (eruditis) specifically, and, by implication, recognizes that some will not be able to fully appreciate the rhetorical relationship between image and poem, either because they simply cannot read Latin, or, even if it is explained to them, they cannot intellectually grasp the subtleties. The Latin and the rhetorical nature of the poetry, then, have a way of both limiting and expanding the readership:  uneducated people cannot read them, but they can be read internationally by anyone who knows Latin. More importantly, they can be read by the leadership at Geneva, on whose support the ministers depended for ecclesiastical discipline to be effectual. This leads to the third point, which is encompassed by the phrase non ingrata. The litotes only highlights the fact that word and poem are combined in such a way as to hold the interest of the reader—​Lucretius once described his poetic language as honey on the rim of the cup of medicine (De rerum natura 1.934–​50)—​and to make the point of the emblem more memorable. An educated reader will be delighted by Beza’s skill in handling the poetic devices, rhythms, and sounds, and so will more likely return to the poems again and again for the pleasure they give, and in the process imprint their minds with the morals they convey. Beza’s emblems can be viewed from a number of different persepectives.51 Unquestionably they are full of a violent imagery that reflects the turmoil and conflict of the late sixteenth century. In Emblem XXXIX, Beza describes a demented captain who drills holes in his own ship, unconcerned that he is sinking himself along with his shipmates. Beza calls this a

51.  Although it is my contention here that the Emblemata should be associated closely with the scope of the Cato, Beza’s 1590 treatise on excommunication, and the work of the consistory, and consitute a theme to Beza’s ministry in the period after the death of Calvin, it is worth noting that other interesting studies on the Emblemata have been done that highlight the rhetorical relationship between the image and text, and that tie them with the Icones of 1580, with which they were originally published. See in particular Ruth Stawarz-​Luginbühl, “Les Emblemata/​Emblemes Chrestiens (1580/​ 1581) de Théodore de Bèze:  Un Recueil d’Emblèmes Humaniste et Protestant,” BHR 67 (2005): 597–​624; and Alison Adams, Webs of Allusion:  French Protestant Emblem Books of the Sixteenth Century (Geneva:  Droz, 2003), esp. 119–​53.

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“vivid image of the times (viva est imago temporum).”52 [Figure 1] An array of jarring metaphors wend their way through the emblems, from the firing of canons and collapsing of houses, to winds howling, and so on. The plight of the Huguenots always lies just below the surface of the poems. Emblem II, for example, alludes to the French refugees wherever they might be, whom “the love of piety has driven from their homeland.”53 The image of the anvil that breaks the blacksmith’s hammer is revived in Emblem V from Beza’s memorable statement before Catherine de Médicis and her court after the Vassy massacre, where he likened the true Church to an “anvil that has worn out many hammers.”54 [Figure 2] In Emblem XX, those who “bark” at the ministers of Christ are compared to a dog who barks in vain at the moon.55 [Figure  3] Beza also does not hesitate to direct dire warnings to the Catholic hierarchy and the civic leaders who oppose the true Church. Emblem XXII, for example, shows the image of a sea stirred up by the winds, and a king with a Roman Catholic priest on his right and a cardinal on his left.56 Beza remarks how the Roman prostitute agitates the world and 52. Beza, Icones, 1580, Pp.ivv; Beza, Poemata 1597, 262; Beza, Poemata 1599, 131v. All the numbering of emblems in this section relates to the arrangement of the 1597 and 1599 editions of the Poemata. 53. Beza, Icones, 1580, Kk.ivr; Beza, Poemata 1597, 225; Beza, Poemata 1599, 113r: “patria pepulit quem pietatis amor.” Cf. the similar sentiment expressed in the letter to Paludius as discussed in the conclusion of the introduction of this book. 54. Beza, Icones, 1580, Ll.iv; Beza, Poemata 1597, 228; Beza, Poemata 1599, 114v. Beza made the trope popular among the Protestants after the brutal massacre of Huguenots at Vassy in an audience with Catherine de Médicis and her court at the castle at Monceaux. There, in response to the accusation by Antoine of Bourbon, King of Navarre, that Protestants had cast stones at the Duke of Guise and thus had incited their own slaughter, Beza made his memorable and forceful statement: “Sire, it is for the church of God, in the name of which I address you, to suffer blows, not to strike them. But at the same time may it please you to remember that the Church is an anvil that has worn out many a hammer” (une enclume qui a usé beaucoup de marteaux). In the years that followed this incident, French Protestants latched on to the phrase as a motto of encouragement amid their struggles, even producing a heraldic device with anvil and hammers, subscribed with the phrase, “Tant plus à frapper on s’amuse, tant plus de marteaux on y use.” A  version of the device appears on the title page of the two-​volume Histoire ecclésiastique des églises réformées au royaume de France (1580), edited most likely by Beza himself, showing three soldiers hammering away at an anvil with only frustrating results. See Alain Dufour, Théeodore de Bèze: Poète et théologien (Geneva: Droz, 2006): 91–​92. See also Manetsch, Theodore Beza and the Quest for Peace in France, 115. Dufour and Manetsch note the use of the device on the title page of Histoire ecclésiastique (1580), but also on Beza’s Sermons sur l’histoire de la résurrection de nostre Seigneur Iésus Christ (Geneva: Jean le Preux, 1593). 55. Beza, Icones, 1580, Nn.iir; Beza, Poemata 1597, 243; Beza, Poemata 1599, 122r. 56. Beza, Icones, 1580, Nn.iiir; Beza Poemata 1597, 243; Beza, Poemata 1599, 123r.

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that tranquility will come only when her kings are removed. [Figure 4] In Emblem XXVI, Christ has drawn his sword on them.57 Neither the general upheaval of the times nor even the oppression of Protestants per se stands as the predominate theme of the emblems. The emblems function on a more personal and pastoral level aligned closely with the objectives of the Cato: Beza uses the emblems to underscore for his readers that rewards await them in Heaven if they persevere in piety, even in the face of persecution, and that awful consequences befall those who choose the way of wickedness. In short, Beza’s emblems for the most part exhort the reader along the arduous path of sanctification. In Emblem XL, a person who rebels against God and “abandon(s) the path of an upright life” is compared to a criminal who escapes his executioner’s blows by jumping into a river. After his flight, this same individual is later caught for even more crimes and burned at the stake. Beza concludes: Come, take note of these things, you who abandon the path of an upright life, and gradually make your way to your death. For, the slower the wrath of God is, the heavier it is.58 [Figure 5] The reference in the last line to slowness of God’s wrath ties this poem with the first poem of the Cato, where God is said to be slow to punish the proud. In the case of this emblem, those who imagine they have escaped the punishments for their sins will eventually experience an even heavier blow from God. The fear of this alone should exhort the reader to return to the narrow path of a godly life. Similarly, in Emblem XLII, a man walks on the notoriously unstable ice of a frozen river and, when it breaks apart, perishes.59 [Figure 8] The lesson is apparent: there is a slippery path in life that is fraught with peril. This is the path of Satan, whom Beza compares to a crocodile in Emblem XXXII: “Resist him, and you will find that he will back down.”60 [Figure 6] 57. Beza, Icones, 1580, Oo.ir; Beza, Poemata 1597, 249; Beza, Poemata 1599, 125r. 58. Beza, Icones, 1580, Qq.ir; Beza, Poemata 1597, 263; Beza, Poemata 1599,132r: “Haec age dispicito rectae qui tramite vitae | Deserto, magis atque magis periturus oberras; | Nam quo tardior est, gravior fit numinis ira.” 59. Beza, Icones, 1580, Mm.ivv; Beza, Poemata 1597, 265; Beza, Poemata 1599, 133r. 60. Beza, Icones, Pp.ir; Beza, Poemata 1597, 255; Beza, Poemata 1599, 128r: “te reprimente fugit.”

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Some of the emblems are devoted to specific types of sinners and the consequences they face. These are examples of people who have not stayed on the path of righteousness. The correspondence that these emblems have with specific poems in the Cato collection sufficiently establishes the similar scope of the two works. For example, the woodcut of Emblem XV shows a man with dropsy taking a drink.61 The associated poem demonstrates that the greedy (avari), for all their efforts, can never know happiness. [Figure 7] A poem of the Cato describes such sinners as self-​ tormenters whom everyone hates.62 The man who spits against Heaven in Emblem XXVI is very similar to the blasphemer of Cato, poem 10.63 Emblem XXXIV addresses drunkards who destroy their bodies, like the leaky pots of the Danaid sisters, the fifty daughters of the mythic ruler of ancient Argos who killed their husbands on their wedding nights.64 [Figure 9] This is akin, in turn, to the drunkards of Cato, poem 13. Both the Emblemata and the Cato underscore the relationship between the way people conduct their lives on earth with their fate in the hereafter. Just as boys in their games build unstable houses out of straw, it says in Emblem XXV, so many wretched people concern themselves too much with the things of this world.65 [Figure 10] The exhortation is to keep one’s focus on the afterlife and to build toward it. Unlike the Cato, however, the Emblemata look more to the heavenly prizes of those who remain faithful. The engraving for Emblem IV, for example, depicts the ram with the golden fleece; on the wool one can make out small, Crusader-​like shields with images of crosses and crowns, which call to mind the sacrifice and heavenly reward that Christ bears as his rich gifts to mankind.66 In the Cato, the positive side of this theme of heavenly reward is touched on only in the poem about old age. Otherwise, the Cato concentrates on the eternal torments resulting from sin. The more encouraging Emblemata view the faithful as being on a path or a journey that is leading all the way up to paradise. We recall the use of trames in Emblem XL. In the best known of Beza’s emblems (XXXV), a personified Religio is said to wear wings 61. Beza, Icones, Mm.iiv; Beza, Poemata 1597, 237; Beza, Poemata 1599, 119r. 62. Beza, Cato 1591, 11–​12; Beza, Poemata 1597, 277; Beza, Poemata 1599, 139r. 63. Beza, Icones, Nn.ivr; Beza, Poemata 1597, 247; Beza, Poemata 1599, 124r. 64. Beza, Icones, Pp.iir; Beza, Poemata 1597, 257; Beza, Poemata 1599, 129r. 65. Beza, Icones, 1580, Nn.ivv; Beza, Poemata 1597, 248; Beza, Poemata 1599, 124v. 66. Beza, Icones, 1580, Ll.ir; Beza, Poemata 1597, 243; Beza, Poemata 1599, 114r.

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with which she teaches people to “fly above the stars.”67 That last phrase is echoed by Emblem XV, where Christ is said to provide wings to believers so they can escape from the cave of death and fly free up to the stars.68 [Figure 11] In Emblem XVI, which plays on two poems by Palladas in the Greek Anthology (10.65 and 10.73), the favorable winds (sc. “of fortune”) that blow ships with sails unfurled toward the “hoped-​for shore” can also sink them before the final goal is reached.69 [Figure  12] The readers are told to apply the lesson to their lives, taking heed lest they too should be overwhelmed in their journey. The difficulty of the journey, the pitfalls that it has, and the discipline that is required to persist in it, is the emphasis of Emblem XVIII, addressed to those who “aim their journey toward Heaven.”70 A Blacksmith Smoothing Iron with a File, a Peasant Threshing Out the Harvest That which a file is to hard iron, a threshing flail to the harvest, what fire is to unrefined gold, so to you, if you are wise, is the cross, although it is rough, when you aim your journey toward Heaven under God’s guidance. [Figure 13] Harsh instruments are used to polish, hone, and refine items to make them useful or valuable to us. In a similar way, the cross, a crude instrument of violence, works to perfect and prepare followers of Christ for Heaven. Given the context of filing, flailing, and refining, Beza is not so much thinking of the Gospel message about the cross as the self-​sacrificing demands of the cross, which through the work of the Holy Spirit in the faithful effects sanctification. The cross is aspera (rough), as often salvation and the sanctification that follows are worked out under the greatest of

67. Beza, Icones, 1580, Pp.iiv; Beza, Poemata 1597, 258; Beza, Poemata 1599, 129v: “super astra volare.” 68. Beza, Icones, 1580, Mm.iiir; Beza, Poemata 1597, 238; Beza, Poemata 1599, 119v. 69. Beza, Icones, 1580, Mm.iiiv; Beza, Poemata 1597, 239; Beza, Poemata 1599, 120r: “optata litore.” 70. Beza, Icones, Nn.ir; Beza, Poemata 1597, 241; Beza, Poemata 1599, 121r:  “Faber ferrum lima terens, et rusticus messem flagellans | Quod duro lima est ferro, messique flagellum, | Auro quod ignis est rudi. | Hoc tibi, si sapias, crux est, licet aspera, quisquis | Caelum Deo petis duce.”

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hardships. In his Confessio (4.52), Beza describes the process in the starkest terms as something Christians both need and can expect: It is by him [sc. the Holy Spirit] alone that our consciences are so calmed that we glory in afflictions themselves, since we realize that they do not happen by chance. We know that he sends those scourges partly to chasten benevolently us who are reconciled to him, and partly to conform us to the image of his Son, and in this way little by little he teaches us to hate sin, to spurn the world, to invoke the Heavenly Father with unerring groans, to make confession,71 and to more and more strengthen ourselves. The Holy Spirit chastens Christians to conform themselves to the image of Christ. The implication is that Christians stray from the path of righteousness and the Holy Spirit disciplines them in various ways to keep them on it. This too is a point of major emphasis of the Emblemata. The winged figure Religio of Emblem XXXV holds a rein (frenum) to restrain excessive passions (mentis cohibere furores).72 In Emblem X, a rider is shaken from his horse on his swift journey through the trackless groves (nemorosa per avia) because his horse is unbridled. The same will happen to Christians on their strenuous journey of piety unless God’s reins control them (Talis es, ipsius te nisi frena regant).73 [Figure 14] A barrel is said to fall apart because it is not constricted by strong hoops (Emblem XII); so also a citizenry must collapse that is not fortified by penalties of laws (legum poenis).74 [Figure 15] The picture that emerges from this brief look at the Emblemata mirrors the concern of Beza’s entire ministry in the later years. Beza considered it a major function of the Church to foster the sanctification of believers whose journey was a constant battle against the temptations of the world. The Church sometimes nudges and corrects, but many times it

71.  Here Beza writes somewhat truncatedly nos ipsos agnoscere, but he means it in the sense of confessing our true nature, as Calvin at Homily 89 on 1 Sam. (CO 30, col. 583): “ut nos ipsos agnoscere, et quales simus fateri discamus, ut licet pro viribus perfectioni studeamus” (so that we might learn to recognize our true selves and confess what sort we are, in order to pursue perfection to the best of our abilities). 72. Beza, Icones, 1580, Pp.iiv; Beza, Poemata 1597, 258; Beza, Poemata 1599, 129v. 73. Beza, Icones, 1580, Ll.ivr; Beza, Poemata 1597, 233; Beza, Poemata 1599, 116v. 74. Beza, Icones, 1580, Mm.iv; Beza, Poemata 1597, 235; Beza, Poemata 1599, 118r.

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chastizes and coerces, as a rider might handle a horse. This theme binds the Emblemata together with the Cato as different sides of the same coin. There can be no question, then, that even among the Reformed, a work carrying the title Cato Censorius Christianus must evoke thoughts of the elementary education of young (mostly) boys in Latin in conjunction with an introduction to good morals. That was the basic program throughout Europe and the continent. At times in the sixteenth century the didactic vogue spawned by the Disticha are merged with the catechetical, emblematic, and gnomological traditions in various configurations to create simple and memorable ways of instilling central concepts. This is not to say that Beza’s Cato itself found its way into the classroom. It does not appear to be meant for that. The Latinity is much too advanced for the beginning forms, while the content touched on topics that far exceeded the maturity of elementary-​age students. Mulcaster could level the same criticism at Beza’s Cato as he did at the original Disticha in that regard. Talk of moneylenders and whoremongers and philosophizing theologians could hardly pique the imagination of children in the way that Biblical stories could, or even the talking animals of Aesop’s Fables. Still, we can conclude that Beza drew inspiration from the Disticha and their role within the schools, and that he intended his more sophisticated text to carry on the work in the same way for an older audience. Most readers of Beza’s Cato would have learned their Latin paradigms and conjugations through what moderns might consider a tedious analysis of the Disticha. If they had not already learned Latin, it must be remembered, they would not be reading the Cato of Beza in the first place. These would include students studying for the ministry, as well as scholars, lawyers, magistrates, and middle-​class merchants. Many went through the same kind of Latin instruction. In Beza’s text, however, they would have found something reminiscent of the Disticha well beyond just the Latin. Here is the poetic form, meant to add delight to the reading and aid the memory. Here too is the didactic nature of the material with its heavy emphasis on decent behavior and the dire consequences of immorality. In essence, what we have is an advanced version of the Disticha meant for a higher level of student, that is, anyone wanting to continue in leisure to do what he was trained to do in school. It is no coincidence that what the author of the Disticha says in the preface to his work could also stand as the preface to Beza’s work: Since I  noticed a great number of people going far astray on the path of morals, I  thought that I  would offer help and give them

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advice on the right point of view, especially so that they might live with renown and attain to honor. Now I will teach you, dear child, how to order your behavior.75 To this Beza could only add reference to the holiness of God and a threatening, “or else.” Even so, many of his readers would no doubt have this preface ringing in their ears as they worked their way through the text.

Sinners in the Cato The Cato in its final version is comprised of twenty-​one original Latin poems and one Greek poem contributed by Isaac Casaubon, which is itself simply a translation of poem 8, “In adulteros.” The bulk of the collection treats moral deficiencies of various kinds, but not abstractly, as one might expect. Rather than aim the attention of his pen against disembodied concepts such as pride or blasphemy, Beza censures the sinners themselves, or at least generic stereotypes of them, such as the proud, the blasphemous, and so on. In all there are sixteen distinct sinner stereotypes addressed in sixteen of the poems. Two poems deal with the same subject, the idle, while one poem touches on two separate kinds of sinners (perjurers and blasphemers). Several other subjects overlap in some way (e.g., adulterers and whoremongers, the proud and the ambitious), but are nonetheless distinguishable. In three other poems Beza admonishes theologians, philosophers, and monks, classes of individuals who are not sinners per se, but who can potentially stray into areas of excess and hypocrisy. Beza also rebukes another favorite target of Reformation writers, the Epicureans, an appellation which, given that no one identified themselves as such during this period, served as shorthand for a particular brand of atheism. One last poem breaks from the pattern of the rest and was fittingly moved to the final position of the collection after the publication of the first edition. In it Beza looks not to a type of sinner, but to old age (Beza himself was seventy-​two years old in 1591). Old age is the vantage point from which one can survey one’s life, take stock of the sins committed and their effects, and thereby come to grips with the nature of God. Old age also marks the

75.  Disticha de moribus ad filium (1646) 5: “Quum animadverterem quam plurimos homines errare graviter in via morum, succurrendum et consulendum opinioni eorum fore existimavi, maxime ut gloriose viverent, et honorem contingerent. Nunc te, fili charissime, docebo, quo pacto morem animi tui componas.”

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end of the race of life when one is drawing close to the gates of Heaven and the rewards reaped from life’s moral successes and fortitude. It is, in short, the time of reckoning alluded to in the other poems. There is very little friendly advice and gentle admonishment in the Cato. Sinners are warned that they face dire consequences for their misdeeds, because God in his holiness will not tolerate the impurity of the wicked in his presence. The greedy (invidiosi), for example, are said to be the enemies of God, since they make money out to be their master, and the whoremongers (scortatores) are plagues who are headed for an encounter with the righteous anger of God. The ultimate vengeance of God takes place before his heavenly tribunal at the final judgment. Thus the proud (superbi) should know that God on high is slow to anger, but eventually, in the next life, he will punish haughtiness. The frivolous (nugaces) are warned that the tribunal of God is a serious place, to which their frivolity is driving them. There, as we learn from other poems, God metes out destruction, deprivation, and darkness, or, in the case of the blasphemers, a punishment unfathomable to the human mind. Moneylenders will pay for their sins with interest. In most of the poems, though, we see a more immediate, earthly consequence awaiting sinners. This is because Nature herself, whose governing principles God established in the creation process, also recoils from and rejects their rebellious acts of disorder. Several poems make this point unmistakably clear. In poem 2, Beza rebukes those who refuse to work (otiosi) and calls their attention to the relentless industriousness of Nature. The heavens turn in their spheres, the winds rush to and fro, the waters flow down in streams, the seas rise and fall, and the features of the earth constantly rearrange themselves. And just as God did not make his creation stagnant, so he made humankind for work as well. Thus, he draws the conclusion, “All creation refutes your laziness.” To the Epicureans who doubt God’s providential care, he advises that they should look around themselves and heed the clear message of creation with all of its wonders. These testify to the presence of a numen, a divine will, which set nature in order and keeps it in an otherwise inexplicable but predictable motion—​ again, the stars turn, the seas ebb and flow. And while Epicureans may surmise that creation is not governed according to the principles of God’s holiness because of the success of evil in the world, in fact, in their shortsightedness, they do not understand that ultimately Nature works to provide the best for good people, while it works to bring down those who are evil. Moneylenders (foeneratores, poem 17) also fail to live in harmony with

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God’s creation, since, by their very trade, they are trying to make money by breeding it, so to speak, when instead it should be earned. And in regard to whoremongers (poem 14), Nature exhibits a special disdain. She complains (fremens) and drives them away as pests unwelcome in the world. They have rejected the natural purpose and foedus of intercourse between a man and a woman, that is, the propagation of the human race, and instead carry on as shameless, indiscriminate animals. By their behavior they threaten to destroy the race of men. Adulterers, too, according to poem 8, must leave the world else they will bring it to ruin. The same is said of deceivers in poem 5. In fact, in most of the poems, readers are advised to shun and ostracize the sinners described because they subvert and disrupt the natural peace and orderliness of human society and represent a danger to the world as a whole. Since Nature herself finds the sinner repulsive, it is not surprising to learn that there are natural consequences and punishments for sinners while still here on earth. As we have noted, the human race will shun various kinds of sinners as a matter of course: the proud, the garrulous, flatterers, and so on. But beyond that, many sinners create a Hell for themselves in this life because they attempt to ignore the boundaries and principles that God in his wisdom and holiness has established for creation. The drunkard is the perfect example of what can happen. Not only do drunkards disgrace themselves by obsessing over their wine and vomiting up their excess, they disfigure themselves as well, so horribly, in fact, that they have to be considered subhumans, even something less than wild beasts. Likewise the greedy are unlovable, both by others and themselves, because they themselves cannot love anything but money. Their longing for this one beloved thing is so great that throughout their lives they torment themselves, suffering from the constant worry of their own machinations, drawing the ire of their associates through their shady dealings, and, in short, by enslaving themselves to an unkind master. The ultimate punishments that sinners face are not meted out randomly or haphazardly. Each sinner whose future fate is described (i.e., they are not simply admonished) receives a punishment uniquely fitted to the specific sinful act. These punishments follow a pattern analogous to those described by the ancient mythographers for the worst offenders in the dungeon of Tartarus. The tortures in that mythic prison mimic in a way the circumstances that led to the sin, so that the sinner is forever stuck in the status of wanting or working toward what was abused in life while never attaining it. The gods offered Tantalus the opportunity to dine

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at the heavenly banquets, for example, but he abused that opportunity, and so is left in Tartarus to thirst and hunger while the food and water are kept just out of his reach. The Danaid sisters mishandled their wedding night and so are condemned to forever and unsuccessfully conduct the loutrophoria, the ritual filling of the bathtub, that leads up to a wedding night. After committing murder, Ixion disdained Zeus’s offer for purification, and so is affixed to a wooden wheel that is set ablaze (purification) and made to spin (eternity), while a torturer with a whip forces him to confess, “I should be grateful to my benefactor.” The same correspondence of sin and punishment can be observed in the Apocalypse of Peter as well, where liars are made to hang from their tongues, and so on.76 Similarly, in Beza’s scheme, sinners are deprived of the very thing that they idolized in life. The ambitious (poem 4), whose thirst for possessions was never sated in life, in death will have to be content to possess only their graves. The frivolous (poem 7) spend their days on earth in childish amusement and silliness, but in the end they will find themselves before the serious tribunal of God. The reader is warned to avoid flatterers and sycophants, because succumbing to their high praise will lead to eternal shame. Drunkards can look forward to the thirstiness of dust in their eternal tomb. And lending money on interest in life leads to paying interest before the throne of God. The Cato, therefore, provides us with a rough summation of Beza’s fundamental theories on morality. Sinners are rebelling not simply against abstract and arbitrarily devised laws, but against both the pure and holy essence of God and its manifestation in creation (cf. Calvin, Institutes 2.3–5). Given this, sinners can expect to be tormented on earth, since nature herself, the result of his creative energy and under his providential care, recoils from the rebellion. In other words, the sinner is out of sync with the natural order of things that God established, outside of God’s plan, not living, to use the Stoic catchphrase, secundum naturam, in accord with nature. Other well-​thinking human beings instinctively shun them as well, because their actions are antisocial and destructive, that is, not in accord with the mutual care and love that God has established as the basis of human society. And then, after death, sinners are brought face to face with the essential character of God, and since they are not in harmony with his standard of holiness as represented in his very person, they experience his wrath and rejection. There is simply no chance for peace and

76.  See Bart D. Ehrman, Lost Scriptures (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 283–​85.

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happiness in the chaos of rebellion. Sins have natural consequences vis-​à-​ vis the character of God and the nature of his creation. The concluding poem on old age rounds off the collection nicely. It stands apart in that it is not directed against any particular species of sinner, but is a reflection on a life lived. The pains of old age, it has to be admitted, both physical and spiritual, are the result of sins from our earlier days. The way we treated our bodies, the temples of God, the way we conducted ourselves with others, the devotion we gave to the study of the Word, all these things and more have left scars on the body, the mind, and the reputation. Regardless, old age should be viewed as a gift of God, because in it we have a better understanding of God’s holiness (having seen the results of different lifestyles and the effects of sin) and because it is one step from Heaven and our rewards.

Beza and Natural Law We have noted already the important role that Nature plays in the moral guidance and correction of the individuals covered in the Cato. Nature complains about the choices of the sinners and chastises them for their wrongdoing; she recoils in horror at their acts of rebellion against God’s righteous order. Although most of the transgressors assailed in the Cato can be seen as acting against the directives of the Decalogue in one way or the other, the Ten Commandments are not even alluded to in the Cato. It is Nature who carries God’s standard of morality. Many of the sins in the Cato, such as drunkenness, can only be brought under the umbrella of the Ten Commandments through the application of the larger principles (theses) to specific cases (hypotheses).77 This leaves us to ask, first, what underlies Beza’s dependency on the power of nature as a moral guide in the Cato, a question which requires that we examine his ideas about natural law; and, second, why Beza chooses to appeal to Nature in this particular work at all. What function does it play here that the written Law could not? Beza’s colorful handling of the concept of natural law within his Cato, while original on some levels, does not constitute a theological innovation for the Reformed tradition. Calvin had already shown it to be an important part of God’s overall plan for humanity at Institutes 2.2.22–​23, 2.8.1, and in

77.  For example, in the Cato, Beza portrays drunkards as breaking the prohibition against placing anything above God (Exod. 20.3), because they are devoted more to their belly than to their creator.

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his commentary on Romans at 1:21–​22, and the classic passage, 2:14–​15.78 Günther Haas has summed up Calvin’s position succinctly as follows: Calvin equates the moral law with the creation order. The “order of nature” (naturae ordo) refers to that creation order by which God governs all his creatures, including human beings (Institutes 1.14.20). While the fall into sin led to a loss of understanding of and obedience to this order, it remains in force for all humans. Calvin appeals to Romans 2:14–​15 to insist that even the Gentiles, who have no knowledge of God via the Scriptures, are subject to this order of nature (Institutes 2.2.22; cf. Comm. on Romans 2:14–​15). “There is a conformity between the Law of God and the order of nature which is engraven in all men” (Comm. on 1 Timothy 4:4–​5). The Decalogue asserts the very same things as the law of God written on all human hearts (Institutes 2.8.1).79 For Calvin, then, natural law is the order that God built into nature, which is witnessed to in all people (because God engraved that order into every person’s heart) through conscience, the basic perception that some things are right and some wrong.80 In addition, natural law, though highly obfuscated by sin, can have a positive influence even among the heathen, as shown by their just laws. Yet that is true only insofar as the second table is concerned. Following Augustine, Calvin asserts that sinners can never have a right ethic in regard to God and his redemptive plan without the Holy Spirit, because without that divine aid their supernatural or 78. For Calvin’s views on the Natural Law, see Charles Raith, “Calvin’s Theological Appropriation of His Philosophical Sources: A Note on Natural Law and Institutes 2.2.22–​ 23,” CTJ 47 (2012):  32–​49 (with more bibliography given at fn. 2); Stephen J. Grabill, Rediscovering the Natural Law in Reformed Theological Ethics (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006); David Van Drunen, “Medieval Natural Law and the Reformation: A Comparison of Aquinas and Calvin,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 80 (2006): 77–​98; David Van Drunen, A Biblical Case for Natural Law (Grand Rapids: Acton Institute, 2006); David Van Drunen, “The Use of Natural Law in Early Calvinist Resistance Theory,” Journal of Law and Religion 21 (2005/​06): 143–​67; William Klempa, “John Calvin on Natural Law,” in John Calvin and the Church: A Prism of Reform, ed. Timothy George (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1990), 73–​76; John T. McNeill, “Natural Law in the Teaching of the Reformers,” Journal of Religion 26 (1946): 168–​82. Kempla reviews much of the earlier scholarship (pre-​ 1990) and details the Brunner-​Barth debate. 79.  Haas, “Ethics and Church Discipline,” 336. 80.  Kempla, “John Calvin on Natural Law,” 82–​83, underscores that the conscience is not the law itself, but the faculty in us that knows what the law is.

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“heavenly” reason (as opposed to their common or “earthly” reason) is corrupted beyond repair.81 Yet sinners can have an ethical sense through their earthly reason.82 In this regard, Charles Raith has demonstrated that Calvin, in a dialectic with the ideas in the Nicomachean Ethics, modified Aristotle’s notion of intemperance, which suggests that some people commit evil based on faulty premises in their reason, to say that the intemperate person does not have a faulty premise, but instead knows the good and acts against it anyway. Even the heathen nations, as just noted, can write laws that coincide to some degree with the rectitude that God built into creation (Institutes 2.2.13). This, however, leaves open the questions whether unbelievers, by the grace of God, can act ethically, at least on the sociopolitical plane, by abiding by those laws that coincide with the natural order. Calvin stops short of developing such an argument, opting instead to emphasize that human beings are without excuse for their immorality. Even so, at Institutes 2.3.3 he gives a hint as to his view: In every age there have been persons who, guided by nature, have striven toward virtue throughout life. I have nothing to say against them even if many lapses can be noted in their moral conduct. For they have by the very zeal of their honesty given proof that there was some purity in their nature. This statement seems to suggest that nonbelievers can carry out ethical acts, though Calvin goes on to say that such people act virtuously only through God’s grace in providing for the human race; they are still depraved throughout because their will is wholly corrupted and they do not act to the glory of God, something that only those renewed by the Holy

81. See Raith, “Calvin’s Theological Appropriation of His Philosophical Sources,” 40, and Kempla, “John Calvin on Natural Law,” 84–​85. In the Confessio Christianae fidei 4.23 (=Tractationes Theologicae I, 19–​20), Beza has, “The Gospel is a teaching transcending nature itself; human beings were not even able to surmise anything of it” (Evangelium vero doctrina est naturam ipsam transcendens, de qua ne suspicari quidem unquam potuerunt homines). 82. Grabill, Rediscovering the Natural Law, 71, attributes this distinction to ideas found in Augustine:  “Following Augustine’s logic, Calvin distinguishes between ‘heavenly’ and ‘earthly’ sorts of intelligence, each of which is able to function competently within its proper sphere. The pure knowledge of God, the nature of true righteousness, and the mysteries of the heavenly kingdom are associated with the former sort, while governance, household management, mechanical skills, and the liberal arts, including the discipline of ethics, are associated with the latter sort.”

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Spirit can have the will to do. Or, to follow the arguments of Todd Billings in regard to “participation and the Law,” of the three uses of the Law as delineated by Calvin (as accuser, as restrainer, and as uniter), the Holy Spirit alone enables the third for those who have been restored in Christ.83 Human beings in and of themselves cannot know God as he really is, as a Father, nor can they understand the piety involved in the first table of the Decalogue. But the first table, which “simply commands us to worship God with pure faith and piety” (Institutes 4.20.15), is the “beginning and foundation of righteousness,” and since fallen human beings cannot follow it, their exercise of equity and morality according to the second table is “empty in God’s sight and worthless” (Institutes 2.8.11). To achieve true righteousness, individuals must love God and neighbor, or, to put it another way, the love of neighbor fails in God’s eyes if it is not preceded by piety toward God. Thus, Calvin has little interest in extolling the ethical behavior of those who have not been reborn; although their laws and actions reflect the natural law to a degree, they lack the fundamental ingredient of piety toward God. There is no question that Calvin sees much more benefit for the individual in the revealed Law of God as opposed to the rationally apprehensible Law, even if the two are essentially the same (Institutes 2.8). Human beings “suppress, distort and abuse the knowledge God has placed at their disposal” through natural revelation.84 Therefore, as was stated earlier, for Calvin ethics qua the Christian life can be analyzed in terms of believers’ union with Christ, since therein lies the work of the Holy Spirit in conjunction with the revealed Word of God. God revealed clearly and unequivocally his code of righteousness so as to leave no room for confusion for the Christian. The question remains: Does the “engraven law,” which reflects the created order distinct from the mystical union, still have a positive role to play in the lives of Christians? Here it may be more to the point to ask whether the natural law has any role to play in the Church as a whole. This appears to be the function of nature that Beza looks to in the Cato. But before drawing any conclusions, it will be necessary to examine precisely what Beza himself says about the relevance of natural law in his various works, in 83.  J. Todd Billings, Calvin, Participation, and the Gift: The Activity of Believers in Union with Christ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), esp. c­ hapter 5, “Participation and the Law,” 144–​85. 84. Grabill, Rediscovering the Natural Law, 81.

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particular, in his annotations on Romans 2:14–​15; the Confessio Christianae fidei, especially book four (on the Holy Spirit), sections 22–​24; a few statements in the Lex Dei moralis, ceremonialis, et politica; and Quaestiones et responsiones, especially questions 142–​46.85 Beza’s Latin translation of Romans 2:14–​15 runs as follows: 14) Nam quum Gentes quae Legem non habent, natura quae Legis sunt faciant, isti Legem non habentes, sibi ipsis sunt lex, 15) ut qui ostendant opus Legis scriptum in cordibus suis, una testimonium reddente ipsorum conscientia, et cogitationibus sese mutuo accusantibus, aut etiam excusantibus.86 For the initial phrase, “quum Gentes quae Legem non habent,” Beza explains that this is not to be understood in straightforward terms, as “Gentiles who do not have the Law,” but as referring to the Jews, to whom God gave each and every part of the Law.87 But for the next phrase, “quae Legis sunt faciant,” we can observe Beza’s alterations over time between the editions. In the 1598, his last edition of the annotations, Beza writes the following: Paul now turns the second part of this condemnation against the Gentiles, indeed, not to suggest that they fulfill the Law which is

85. All the quotations from Beza’s text and commentary of the New Testament come from Annotationes 1598 unless otherwise noted. For the Confessio I have used Tractationes Theologicae I, 1–​79; for the Lex Dei, Beza, Lex Dei moralis, ceremonialis, et politica, ex libris Mosis excerpta et in certas classes distributa (Geneva:  Pierre St. Andre, 1577); and for the Quaestiones et responsiones I have used the version in Tractationes Theologicae I, 654–​88, bearing the title, Quaestionum et responsionum Christianarum libellus, in quo praecipua Christianae religionis capita κατ᾽ ἐπιτομὴν proponuntur. 86.  Thomson’s Geneva Bible, which purports to follow the Greek text established by Beza (see the title below in this note), renders the passage thus: “14) For when the Gentiles which have not the Law, do by nature, the things contained in the Law, they having not a Law, are a Law unto themselves, 15) which show the effect of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts accusing one another, or excusing.” I have used the 1599 edition published at London at the press of Robert Barker with the title The New Testament of our Lord Jesus Christ, translated out of Greeke by Theod. Beza; with briefe summaries and expositions upon the hard places by the said authour, Ioac. Camer., and P. Loseler Villerius. 87.  This note is absent from the fifth edition of 1598, but his intent to comment on this phrase is clearly marked in the text and the note appears in the fourth (1588–​1589) and third (1582) editions.

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violated by the Jews, nor because they give due attention to “what can be known about God,”88 but because the Gentiles, from the reasonableness that they observe both in fashioning public laws and in ordering the conduct of their private life (that is to say, they bid good things, but prohibit bad things) show themselves to have some sense of religion and some discernment of right and wrong. On the basis of their violation of both of these things they too are condemned as impious and unjust, as is right. Therefore, those who relate the phrase “to do what things are of the Law” to the keeping of those things that are contained in the Law, whether the natural law, or that restored through Moses, completely go against Paul’s intent here.89 Beza’s argument is that just as the Jews are to be condemned in the eyes of God for sinning against the Mosaic Law which they had been given, so the Gentiles are to be condemened in the eyes of God for sinning against the natural law, which is engraved on the hearts of every person. Like Calvin, he is hesitant to give nonbelievers too much credit for moral virtue or to see that as Paul’s aim here:  their laws demonstrate that to some extent they know the moral standard to which they should adhere, but they themselves are not what one might call observers of that standard. This is evident from Beza’s note on the phrase from verse 15, “the work of the Law written on their hearts” (opus Legis scriptum in cordibus suis) that appears

88.  With this phrase Beza is introducing a second possibility, that in addition to having the moral law engraven on their hearts, Gentiles should know God’s most basic attributes through creation. The phrase in quotes is an allusion to Rom. 1:19, διότι τὸ γνωστὸν τοῦ θεου φανερόν ἐστιν ἐν αὐτοῖς, which Beza translates as, “Quoniam id quod de Deo cognosci potest manifestum est intra ipsos.” Beza sees Rom. 1:20 as epexegetical to “what is knowable,” so that the Gentiles who do not have the revelation of the old covenant are presented with the undeniable proof from creation that God’s power (potentia, as seen in his ability to create) and divinity (divinitas, as seen in his ability to administer what he created) are eternal. Beza develops the point even more fully in his note on scimus at Rom. 2:2. 89.  Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 2, 15–​16: “Alteram nunc Paulus huius condemnationis partem aversus Gentes torquet, non sane, quasi Legem praestent quae a Iudaeis violetur; nec etiam quod illi τῷ τοῦ θεοῦ γνωστῷ satisfaciant, sed quod Gentes, ex ea ratione quam, et in condendis Legibus publicis, et in privatae vitae ratione constituenda observant (honesta videlicet praecipientes, turpia vero prohibentes) testentur se et aliquem religionis sensum, et aliquod turpis et honesti discrimen habere ex cuius utriusque violatione merito et ipsi ut impii et iniusti condemnentur. Prorsus igitur a Pauli scopo in contrariam partem aberrant, qui istud “facere quae Legis sunt” ad eorum quae Lege, sive naturali, sive per Mosen renovata continentur, observationem referunt.”

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not in the fifth edition of the annotations (1598), but in the earlier editions (including the fourth of 1589 and the third of 1582): Elsewhere, such as at Jeremiah 31:33, those people, whose hearts the Lord has circumcised with his Holy Spirit, are said to have the Law inscribed in their hearts, just as Moses says at Deuteronomy 30:6. But in this passage, Paul, speaking about people as they naturally are in general, understands it to be about natural knowledge, and not about the faculty to fulfill the Law, as a very learned commentator rightly notes. Therefore, having the “work of the Law inscribed on their heart” here means making a distinction between what is base and good, just and unjust, which is the norm of all fairness and correct laws, and inscribed in the mind of a person.90 Beza may have omitted this note in his last edition because he felt he had consolidated the information into the previous note, but for our purposes it underscores the fact that Beza is not willing to assert on the basis of this passage that natural law is able to lead anyone to real ethical behavior, but only that it has the power to render everyone without excuse. This is reflected in the Cato, where Nature plays an accusatory role, but not a nurturing, positive one. Beza makes the comment that the natural law was “restored” by Moses. This indicates an equivalency between the Mosaic Law, especially as it is codified in the Decalogue, and the law written into the order of nature. The latter had to be restored given that sin greatly diminishes the ability of Adam’s descendants to read the will of God in creation, leaving fallen humanity in need of the elementary help of written instruction to ascertain it more accurately. God chose the Jewish people to receive the revelation of his will so that they could understand explicitly what it takes to live in harmony with God and also so that they would be better prepared for the coming of the Messiah. Human beings can never hope to satisfy the demands of the Law, except in Jesus Christ, who is the embodiment of the

90. Beza, Annotationes 1582, pt. 2, 14: “Alibi, ut Jerem. 31. v. 33, dicuntur habere Legem cordibus inscriptam, quorum corda Dominus sancto suo Spiritu circumcidit, ut loquitur Moses Deuter. 30. versic. 6, sed hoc loco Paulus de hominibus loquens in genere quales nascuntur, de naturali notitia hoc intelligit, non autem de implendae Legis facultate, ut recte doctissimus interpres notat. Itaque opus Legis habere cordi inscriptum significat hoc loco, habere turpis et honesti, iusti et iniusti discrimen, quod est aequitatis omnis, rectarumque legum norma, hominis menti insculpta.”

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Law and one whose perfect righteousness is imputed to those who trust in him. Through the Spirit the Law takes on a new role, now no longer an accuser, but something that orients believers within the created order. This idea lies behind Beza’s brief definition of moral law in his Lex Dei. He writes, The moral law shows how each one ought to be disposed, toward God especially, but also toward one’s neighbor. And so, just as it assigns us in ourselves to damnation, because of the threats directed at those who transgress it in the slightest aspect, so it does not harm those of us in Christ, who was made righteousness for us by fulfilling that Law fully and completely on our behalf and paid the penalty for us. This is so much the case that, to the contrary, after having accepted Christ by faith and being freed from the law’s condemnation, we are ones who are going to obtain the crown which he promises to his followers. The Law itself points out to us, who have been sanctified through the Spirit of the Gospel, the course of the good and right path.91 The law here is accomplishing two things for believers:  through Christ’s fulfillment imputed to them it is offering heavenly inheritance (“the crown”), while in the here and now it puts them on the right journey. The phrase “the course of the good and right path” (iter bonae rectaeque viae) at the end of Beza’s definition reflects a metaphor long established in the Church. It is particularly reminiscent of a passage in Lactantius’s Institutes 6.8, where he likens the misguided wanderings of the philosophers to those who try to steer their ship without looking to the heavens: such a journey is invariably off course and uncertain. In contrast, he says, those who strive to keep the right course of life (quisquis autem rectum iter viae tenere nititur), will look for their guide (gubernator) in the heavenly light, which is none other than the law itself (suspicienda igitur Dei lex est, quae nos ad hoc iter dirigat). He goes on to quote at length Cicero’s well-​known passage from the De re publica about natural law, a passage for which he

91. Beza, Lex Dei, 1: “Ἠθικὴ, quomodo unumquenque tum erga Deum in primis, tum erga proximum affectum esse oporteat, ostendit. Ideoque ut nos in nobis ipsis damnationi adiudicat, propter adiunctas adversus eos comminationes, qui vel in minime apice eam fuerunt transgressi; ita nos in Christo, qui factus nobis iustitia, plenissime pro nobis eam implendo, simul quoque poenas luit nobis debitas, adeo non laedit, ut contra Christo fide apprehenso, ab eius condemnatione absoluti, coronam simus adepturi, quam sui observatoribus promittit, et ipsa nobis per Spiritum Evangelii sanctificatis, iter bonae rectaeque viae praemonstret.”

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credits Cicero with an almost divine inspiration. Lactantius’s argument focuses on the failure of the philosophers, even Cicero, to properly find their place in the vast sea of life because, even though the best among them can to an extent comprehend the law as it is written in nature, all that they do is superfluous and vain since they do not first acknowledge God (6.9). The latter sentiment is echoed in Calvin’s assertion that the good deeds of sinners are “worthless” since they do not begin with the proper piety toward God as expounded in the first table, precepts which they are not able in any way to ascertain from nature. Here what is important is the “right path” of life, the fact that there is one and that it is the work of the Law through the power of the Holy Spirit to put believers on it. In the Confessio Christianae fidei, Beza begins his discussion of Law and morality under the heading of the Holy Spirit (book 4), beginning at section 22.92 The definition of the moral Law parallels that found in the Lex Dei already discussed: the Law is a doctrina whose seed is engrafted naturally in our hearts, but more lucidly expressed in the two tables of the Decalogue. The natural law is not suspended or replaced by the written Law; to the contrary, the old understanding of the natural law, which sin gradually abolished, is revived and restored through the Decalogue (ut instauraretur vetus illa legis cognitio). The Law describes perfect righteousness and obedience, or, in short, what we owe to the majesty of God and our neighbor. After reviewing over several pages the differences between Law and Gospel, and highlighting the work of the Law in driving sinners to see their sin and seek the help of Jesus Christ, Beza turns in section 29 to the value of preaching the moral Law after the preaching of the Gospel has begun to do its work. We have shown that this is not the least effect of Jesus Christ dwelling in us, that in us He creates a clean heart, that we might know, will, and do the things of God, that is, that willingly we might be eager to please God, instead of being slaves to sin, as we were before, enemies of God, and completely unable to engage in any good thought. But this is the reason why, once our situation has changed, the preaching of the Law also has a different kind of operation in us, to the extent that, as before it was terrifying us, now it begins to console us; and though it used to show us the condemnation awaiting us, now it guides us so that we might enter upon the journey of good works, to which we are prepared, to walk in them; and lastly, while before we found it a hard and intolerable yoke, now it is sweet and pleasing to us. To these benefits 92. Beza, Tractationes Theologicae, I, 18.

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there is but one exception, that a great sadness remains in us, that, because of the remains of the flesh that struggles against the Spirit, we are not able fully to accomplish what we want and desire. Even so, since faith, which is the sure testimony of the Spirit of God shouting in our hearts, affirms for us that the curse of the Law is wiped out by the blood of Jesus Christ, with whom we are conjoined through faith, and also gives us confidence that the Spirit will triumph in the end, to the point that death itself opens our way to sure victory, thus all that sadness engenders no despair in us. Instead, it causes us to all the more ardently to call upon the heavenly Father, from whom every day, more and more, we are made strong. So it comes about that by certain steps, as it were, true conversion or penitence is accomplished, or rather repentance, seeing that it begins, as we said elsewhere, from a grave sense of sin (which is commonly called contrition), and ends with the true correction of the interior and exterior person.93 Again Beza shows no interest in defining ethics outside a union with Christ. Nonbelievers are imprisoned in their rebellion and hostile to God, and completely inept in regard to anything that is good. Furthermore, the Law that God engraved in their hearts hangs over them like a curse and constantly reminds them of the inadequacy of their good works. But Jesus Christ changes the will of believers, so that they no longer view the Law as a standard that they can never attain, hard and intolerable, but as something sweet that they want to pursue because it restores them to God’s created order—​they are “eager to please God” and “enter the journey of

93. Beza, Tractationes Theologicae I, 23 (Confessio 4.29): “Ostendimus hoc esse non minimum effectum Iesu Christi in nobis habitantis, quod in nobis creet cor mundum, ut sciamus, velimus, et faciamus quae Dei sunt, id est, ut Deo placere libenter studeamus, pro eo quod antea eramus mancipia peccati, hostes Dei, et ad omnem bonam cogitationem prorsus inepti. Haec vero causa est, cur nostra mutata conditione, praedicatio Legis aliter etiam in nobis operetur, adeo ut cum antea nos terreret, incipiat nos consolari; quumque paratam nobis condemnationem ostenderet, praeeat nobis ut bonorum operum iter ingrediamur, ad quae videlicet praeparati sumus, ut in eis ambulemus. Denique ut, quum ante nobis esset durum et intolerabile iugum, grata et iucunda nobis existat; si hoc unum excipias, quod magna in nobis tristitia relinquitur ex eo quod propter reliquias carnis contra Spiritum certantes, non possumus omni ex parte praestare quod volumus. Nihilominus tamen quoniam fides, quae certum est testimonium Spiritus Dei clamantis in cordibus nostris, certo nobis affirmat maledictionem Legis deletam esse sanguine Iesu Christi quicum per fidem coniuncti sumus; et eadem fides certiores nos facit fore ut tandem aliquando Spiritus superior evadat, atque adeo ut mors ipsa nobis ad certam victoriam aditum patefaciat; idcirco omnis illa tristia nullam in nobis desperationem gignit, sed efficit potius ut eo ardentius patrem illum caelestem invocemus, a quo indies magis ac magis confirmamur. Ita fit ut quibusdam velut gradibus vera in nobis conversio sive poenitentia, vel resipiscentia potius perficiatur, ut pote quae incipiat, sicut suo loco diximus, a serio peccati sensu (quem vulgo “contritionem” appellant) et desinat in veram emendationem hominis interioris et exterioris.”

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good works” for which they were prepared. In fact, they no longer stand in a hostile relationship with God, but actually can call him “Father,” because they are conjoined (coniuncti) to his Son and, by means of his Spirit, are daily correcting themselves in a true way (veram emendationem) and coming closer to the victory crown.94 That triumph is realized in death when any and all warfare against the will of the Father ceases. Two key concepts in this passage are the union with Christ, the necessary prerequisite to any moral act, and accord with the will of the Father, the goal of every moral act. The Father’s will is revealed through Law, which the broader context here indicates is both the natural order of creation and, more expressly, but no differently, the written Law given to Moses. This calls to mind the Stoic appeal to a life lived “in accord with nature” (secundum naturam), with nature being a reflection of the will of a providential, all-​ encompassing divinity, but now with the added intervention of the Law given through grace to the Jews in preparation for the coming of Jesus Christ, its embodiment. The correlation with the Stoic framing of morality is not original to Beza, as we have seen, nor does it have to be intentional for it to be instructive. For Beza, there is a fixed order of things to which one must align oneself, and that order is built into nature itself and, to borrow Beza’s own word in the Cato, is “barking” at those who do not agree with it.95 But that agreement is not possible without faith and the Holy Spirit, since the ultimate end of harmony with nature is fellowship or “friendship” with God.96 Some of these same ideas about morality, natural law, and fellowship with God are developed in the first volume of the Quaestionum et responsionum Christianarum libellus, which was first published in 94.  From Calvin, we can understand that what stands behind the “true correction of the interior and exterior person” is that no virtue is true virtue unless it involves the first table, that is, it comes out of a desire first and foremost to please God. 95.  One can find the sentiment in Lucretius that Nature “barks out” that the body wants to avoid what causes pain and seek what delights or gives pleasure (DRN 2.17). Additionally, often in the sixteenth century, heretics who rail against long established truths are also said to bark (e.g., Geffrey Whitney, Choice of Emblemes [Leiden: Christopher Plantyn, 1586], 213, “Inanis impetus,” against Justus Lipsius). Thus Beza has an emblem titled “Canis lunam allatrans” (A Dog Barking at the Moon), directed against those who assail Christ and his ministers. And Calvin employs “barking” in a derogatory sense again in his Institutes, where it is reserved for all sorts of heretics: those who doubt divine revelation (1.8.11), Anabaptists who attack the doctrine of the Trinity (1.13.22), those who deny divine providence, and so on (on this see Peter Huff, “Calvin and the Beasts: Animals in John Calvin’s Discourse,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 42 [1999]: 67–​75). In either case, when a fundamental truth is at issue, “barking” is an apt description for the discourse involved. 96. Billings, Calvin, Participation, and the Gift, 148, puts it this way: “Paradoxically, the law is fulfilled in such a way that one is not simply subservient to a master, but ‘friends’ in intimate communion.”

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1570.97 In a section where the topic under consideration is the corruption of the soul, the inquirer asks what Beza makes of the “philosophical virtues.”98 He reminds his interlocuter that non-​Christian philosophers did not even think of many of the virtues, and those that they did think of they inadequately described. He adds the even stronger assertion that no person has ever been found in any age who possesses even the philosophical virtues apart from regeneration. The startled inquirer retorts that surely Beza does not consider philosophical virtues sins. But, for Beza, they are sins if sin is to be defined as ἀνομία, that is, any slight deviation from the Law of God. Then, after a review of the corruption of reason in human beings after the Fall, the discussion turns to the extent of morality present in the regenerate and unregenerate.99 The imaginary inquirer challenges Beza by asserting that the unregenerate sometimes are able to resist their irrational mind by means of their rational capacity, and that therein lies virtue. To this Beza responds that, although he stands by what he said about the philosophical virtues, he grants that there remains a “preservation” (συντήρησις) or “awareness” (συνείδησις) in all people that serves to reprove them (Calvin’s first use of the Law) and to restrain the undisciplined nature of their affections (Calvin’s second use of the Law). Significantly, for “undisciplined nature,” Beza employs the Greek word ἀταξία, which etymologically suggests “a disorderly state of being.” In Plato (Cri. 53b), the concept is linked to ἀκολασία (intemperance or unbridled behavior) as opposed to sophrosyne (moderation). This indicates that unregenerate reason is out of sync with something, and thus incapable of moral behavior. Beza next explains in what sense unregenerate reason is out of sync when the inquirer asks whether he has undermined the very definition of reason. Beza responds that, while reason in the unregenerate can discern the good, there is always a truth that is lacking or resisted. That truth is the knowledge of God as he revealed himself, as creator and sovereign, and of God’s salvific plan at work through Christ, who is the remedy against the disorder of the affections to which nonbelieving lawgivers are blind.100 The 97. Beza, Tracationes Theologicae I, 654–​88; also, A Little Book of Christian Questions and Responses, trans. Kirk Summers (Allison Park, PA: Pickwick Press 1986). 98. Beza, Tractationes Theologicae I, 665. 99. Beza, Tractationes Theologicae I, 672–​74. 100. Beza, Tractationes Theologicae I, 673:  “veri adversus affectuum ἀταξίαν remedii, quis tandem istorum meminit?”

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unregenerate reason can never be moral because it scorns the resurrection and wants to trample heavenly wisdom underfoot. Beza goes on to say that the regenerate, in contrast, have the ability to produce works of righteousness and to conform themselves to the demands of the Decalogue, though there is always some taint of imperfection even in the best of works when compared to the degree of goodness that the law requires. “Thus we must rest ourselves in the one obedience of Christ, imputed to us through faith, as that which alone is perfect and absolute at all points.”101 When the inquirer raises the objection that the very account of goodness should please God, since God is pleased with righteousness wherever it appears, Beza responds strongly that any goodness people have within them is approved of by God, but only from his infinite goodness, since this righteousness is feigned and inadequate. He gives the example of the Ninevites, whose repentance God approved, even though it was not a true repentance, but an outward one stemming from their humility under the powerful hand of God. Then he adds the following about believers: Therefore, God much more delights in the works of the regenerate, although they are imperfect; but first I  say that these works of the regenerate are pleasing, not because of any worthiness of them, but from the mere grace of the Father, who overlooks the deficiencies of righteousness, and who approves what proceeds from the Holy Spirit. He concludes by saying that the only righteousness worthy of the name is righteousness that corresponds to the law exactly in every way.

Conclusion In this chapter we have occupied ourselves with the Cato Censorius Christianus itself, since it frames our study. First we reviewed the various editions of the work along with its fortunes. Then we looked at its literary and generic contexts, associating it with the several attempts to Christianize the collection of pagan wisdom known as Disticha Catonis. While the latter suggested a way to instill morals through poetry, the Christian imitations did not always have in view the young student just coming to Latin. The poems of the Cato in particular are too long and reliant on poetic devices to be thought of as an introductory school text and must have been written for an older, well-​educated 101. Beza, Tractationes Theologicae I, 674.

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audience. Given Beza’s preoccupation with challenges to ecclesiastical authority in overseeing and moderating morals within the community, he may have hoped that the work with influence the civic leadership especially by setting out his ethical vision in a vivid and memorable way. Comparison with another of Beza’s works, the Emblemata, reveals an internal cohesion of thought: both the Cato and the Emblemata are grounded on certain assumptions about morality and truth that are communicated consistently throughout poems. That message has to do with fitting in or not fitting in, concord or isolation, whether we are talking about society in general, the Church specifically, the future kingdom, or even the order of nature. This last category or community, so to speak, led into a more detailed discussion of what is meant by natural order or law in Reformed thought, especially as set forth by Calvin and Beza himself. In their view, in the beginning God created the perfect environment for human beings to live in and enjoy his blessings, but sin broke mankind from that harmonious, peaceful state and introduced chaos. For Beza, ethics refers to our journey back to what God intended. Although we should be able to make that journey by reading in creation itself how God intends for human beings to achieve peace of mind, our corrupted natures make that knowledge impossible. Therefore, God made his demands known explicitly through the Law of Moses. In ourselves we are unable to abide by the Law, but through faith the Holy Spirit unites God’s own to Christ, who embodies the Law, and conforms them gradually to his image. The overview offered in ­chapters 1 and 2 paves the way for the more detailed analysis of the Cato that follows in the remaining chapters. It was important first to situate the work within its theological, social, and literary contexts. Concepts such as the believers’ union with Christ, the need for Church discipline, and the function of the Law shape the Cato, as do factors such as the role of the Consistory in the supervision of morals and the use of poetic apophthegms in the education of the youth. The connections of all these factors to the Cato have only been addressed so far superficially. Even so, already we can recognize that the Cato is far from being a haphazard work, but in a sense carries on a dialogue with contemporary discourse about the nature of the Christian life. In essence, it represents an attempt to explain the Reformed vision of ethics as understood by Beza. Our close study of the work, therefore, will aim at fleshing out the ethical vision more fully. It will also draw comparisons with the same concepts found in Beza’s other writings and with the practical application of them to everyday life in Geneva. In this way a comprehensive picture of Beza’s ethical thought will begin to emerge.

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The Lesson of the Mulberry Tree Under the heading of “Pride” (Superbia) in his Apophthegmata, Simon Goulart relates a prosopographical detail about the remarkable humility of Bernard of Clairvaux as described in his anonymous Vita.1 He says that Bernard was extremely inimical to haughtiness and, although his words and deeds were constantly being substantiated by miracles, he never used miracles as a way to advance himself personally.2 Instead, he always humbly recognized that he himself was not the author of his revered works, but only the minister of them, and despite how others estimated him, to his own mind he occupied the lowest rank of all. Thus, says Goulart, everything that he accomplished he attributed to God, and he did not imagine that he had the will or power to do anything unless God inspired it or worked through him to make it happen. All things were through him and for him. Goulart’s inclusion of this sketch of Bernard’s bearing and demeanor, emphasizing the fact that he remained humble in all circumstances, was by no means haphazard. For the reformers, this “last Father of the Church,” as he came to be known, grasped better than most the first step of the truly ethical life. Goulart in particular wants his readers to see that Bernard never placed his confidence in his own abilities and inclinations,

1.  Simon Goulart, Apophthegmatum sacrorum loci communes, ex sacris ecclesasticis et secularibus scriptoribus collecti (Geneva: Jacob Stoer, 1592), 540. Bernard was a favorite among the reformers, both for several doctrinal stances and for his piety. 2. Goulart, Apophthegmata, 540: “Superbiae fuit infensissimus hostis, quum enim facta eius et verba confirmarentur miraculis, nunquam excessit, nunquam supra se in mirabilibus ambulavit.”

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but looked to God alone for direction. He submitted gratefully to God’s commands and dutifully and selflessly attended to the office that God had assigned to him. No doubt Goulart found Bernard’s singlemindedness for his post of service appealing. In c­ hapter  4 we will see how Luther and Calvin strongly counseled that each person should remain in their calling, but in fact this notion already figured prominently in the thought of Bernard. An example of this appears in the very next entry under “Pride,” where Goulart relates Bernard’s exhortation to his spiritual brothers to stay humble and maintain peace in the Church: “Continue doing what you are doing and keep standing on the step [gradus] where you are standing.”3 The intent of these words is to encourage his brothers in Christ to accept their estate and not vie with one another for rank for the sake of pride. Bernard then admonishes them to measure themselves by God’s standard and not against one another or according to their own estimation. What Goulart found particularly laudable in Bernard’s mindset was his unwavering desire to conform himself to God’s plan rather than follow his own. Protestant reformers shared Bernard’s commitment to humility and among their congregations urged an ethos of submission and listening as a way to combat the onset of pride. In his essay “The Mirror of God’s Goodness,” Brian Gerrish analyzes Calvin’s interpretation of the root cause of Adam’s original sin described in Genesis 3.4 Calvin, Gerrish says, wished to modify and improve on Augustine’s opinion which held that pride was the source of all evils and was what drove mankind from its original state. For Calvin, pride was instead an outcome of a more fundamental mistake on the part of Adam and Eve: they had not listened to and trusted in the word of God. This weakness in their character explains why the serpent chose to open his ruse with Eve by asking, “Did God say …?” and why he contradicted God a few moments later with the assertion, “You will not die.” He was suggesting that the first man and woman could chart their own path for living. Gerrish cites Calvin’s summation of the matter as follows: Unfaithfulness, then, was the root of the Fall. But thereafter ambition and pride, together with ungratefulness, arose, because Adam by seeking more than was granted him shamefully spurned God’s 3. Goulart, Apophthegmata, 540: “Agite quae agistis, et state in gradu quo statis.” 4.  Brian Gerrish, “The Mirror of God’s Goodness: A Key Metaphor in Calvin’s View of Man,” in Donald McKim, Readings in Calvin’s Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1984), 107–​22, esp. 118 (originally published in Concordia Theological Quarterly 45).

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great bounty, which had been lavished upon him. To have been made in the likeness of God seemed a small matter to a son of earth unless he also attained equality with God—​a monstrous wickedness!5 The unfaithfulness of which Calvin speaks here is precisely the questioning of what God told him. Adam did not trust the plan that God had laid out for him and lost sight of the fact that he was the creature and not the creator. Furthermore, he believed that he was responsible for his own good fortune, rather than God. Of course, it is possible to conceive that this decision was itself motivated by pride, but in Calvin’s view the decision not to conform obediently in turn led to pride along with ambition and ungratefulness, the natural outcomes of a refusal to assume one’s proper place in the order of things. Peter Martyr Vermigli explains it more axiomatically in his discussion of David’s sin with Bathsheba: “The root of the sin is his devaluing of the Word of God.”6 It is the Devil’s primary aim when enticing us to sin, he goes on to say, to make us have contempt for God and make him out to be a liar; this was the original sin of mankind in the Garden. Beza’s placement of his poem “Against the Proud” at the beginning of his Cato collection undoubtedly reflects an appreciation for the immediate consequence of Adam’s choice. The first indicator of a disobedient person is the presence of pride. It precedes all other vices in alienating us both from God and from one another. The poem reads as follows: In Superbos Heus fronte torva, naribus sonantibus, Sublimibus oculis, repando corpore, Ipsoque gressu pavo qualis inambulat, Testans inanem totus arrogantiam: Quinam omne se esse somniat qui sit nihil?  5 Et deerit huius scilicet superbiae Vindex, ab alto contuens te vertice? Cunctator iram qui suam si differat, Quis te hic ferat, ferre impotentem caeteros?

5. Calvin, Institutes 2.1.4. 6. Vermigli, In duos libros Samuelis prophetae qui vulgo priores libri regum appellantur … commentarii doctissimi, cum rerum et locorum plurimorum tractatione perutili (Zurich: Christoph Froschauer, 1564; I have used the 1575 edition issued from the same press), 239r: “Radix peccati est quod verbum Dei paruipedentur.”

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Against the Proud Hey, you there! strutting about like a peacock, with your stern brow and snorting nostrils, with that look of contempt and protruding chest, showing off your vain arrogance from head to toe —​ How in the world could a nobody like you imagine that he is everything? Will God watch you from his lofty peak and fail to punish this haughtiness? If he should delay his wrath (for God is slow to anger), tell me, who in this present life will endure you who cannot endure others? Here Beza builds his caricature of a prideful person through a number of familiar stereotypes drawn from classical and Biblical literature. For one, the stern brow (fronte torva) in the idiom of Roman authors evokes the disdainfully supercilious who try to register their superiority through their grim and disapproving expression.7 Similarly, we learn from Quintilian that rhetoricians will snort through their nostrils (naribus sonantibus) as a technique, albeit somewhat indecorous, for expressing derision, contempt, and disdain during public speaking.8 Beza himself had warned those who contemptuously snort to stay away from his book of poetry.9 The look of contempt, or, more literally, eyes upraised (sublimibus oculis), points to several Scriptural antecedants. In the Vulgate version of Isaiah 2:11, the prophet proclaims that on the day of judgment the contemptuous raising up of the eyes (oculi sublimes) will be humbled, while the arrogance of men (altitudo virorum) will be turned back, and

7.  Cf. Martial 4.14.11 (addressed to Silius Italicus) of a disapproving and judgmental brow, the opposite of the relaxed and accomodating expression: “Do not read our books judgmentally [torva fronte] just because they are soaked through with lascivious jokes; let go and relax [remissa]!” At Seneca, Troades 467, Andromache sees in her son Astynax a resemblance to the commanding presence and self-​confident, grim, and scowling expression of her husband Hector: “So high in the shoulders and menacing with that scowl [ fronte sic torva minax].” For the more menacing element of scowling or glowering, cf. Vergil’s description of the monstrous Cyclops Polyphemus at Aen. 3.636. Suetonius (Calig. 50) uses the fronte lata to portray Caligula’s naturally uninviting and disapproving expression. See also J. J. Hughes, “Piso’s Eyebrows,” Mnemosyne 45 (1992): 234–​27. 8. Quint. Inst. 11.3.80. Martial makes much of the nose as an instrument of haughtiness, e.g., at 1.3, where fastidious Romans are said to have snorting noses (rhonchi) upturned like that of a rhinocerous; and at 13.2, where the disdainful critic’s enormous nose rivals the mime Latinus in its ability to deride. 9. Beza, Poemata (Paris: Conrad Badius, 1548), 58r. The poem was retained in later editions.

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the Lord alone exalted. Psalms 18:27 (=Vulgate 17:27) speaks of the eyes of the proud (oculos superborum) being humbled, and at Proverbs 6.17, haughty eyes top the list of the seven things hated by God.10 The protruding chest (repando corpore) echoes Pliny’s portrayal of pretentious drunks, whom he describes as bending back their neck to make an ostentatious display of the chest.11 Indeed, the proud feel exalted in themselves—​they “imagine [they are] everything,” asserts Beza in the poem, taking his cue from Proverbs 16:5. But in truth it is God who sits in the exalted position (vertice) and looks down on them in their lowliness, and he will not allow their unwarranted arrogance to go unpunished. But though God is one who avenges (vindex) and can be counted on to right this wrong, it is evident too that in his infinite wisdom he has seen fit to be patient and delay the execution of his wrath. This latter phrase, “delay his wrath” (iram … si differat), ties the lines directly to Luke 18:7, where Beza uses the exact same words for his translation (ital. mine): “Etiam si iram differat super ipsis?” God also receives the epithet delayer (cunctator, line 8),12 an attribute that Beza elucidates in his notes on the same passage of Luke: All of Scripture and the countless stories of the saints testify that the Lord decreed his punishment against the impious and adversaries of the Church sometimes be delayed for a time; this is the source of the complaints of David and the prophets, and that voice of the martyrs mentioned at Revelation 6:10. Thus it pleases the Lord to discipline his own, and “to commend his patience also toward the vessels fitted for destruction,” as the apostle says at Romans 9:22.13

10.  See also Psalm 10:4, 101:5, and Prov. 21:4. Sublimes Oculi, taken as a single individual, is one of the prideful characters described by Giordano Bruno in his work of the Hermetic tradition, De imaginum, signorum, et idearum compositione (Frankfurt: J. Wechel and P. Fischer, 1591), 2.3. In Bruno’s vision, she rides in a chariot poisitoned on the left side of Olympian Jupiter (and thus disassociated from him) along with the likes of Towering Pride (turrita Superbia), Lofty Eminence (ardua Celsitudo), Immoderate Disdain (intemperans Fastus), Ambitious Self-​Exaltation (ambitiosa Elatio), Insolent Superciliousness (erecta Supercilia), Self-​Admiration (Admiratio sui), Contempt for Others (Contemptus aliorum), Arrogance (Arrogantia), and so on. For a detailed analysis of the text, see the edition of Charles Doria and Dick Higgins (New  York, 1991). The appearance of Bruno’s text in the same year as Beza’s Cato demonstrates well enough the currency of these ideas and images. 11. Pliny, NH 14.140: “pectorosa cervicis repandae ostentatio.” 12.  The harsh displacement or hyperbaton of the qui in the line highlights the delay. 13. Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 1, 312: “quum et universa Scriptura et sanctorum innumerabiles historiae testentur, a Domino interdum diu differri supplicium in impios et Ecclesiae

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The wrath (iram) that is being delayed is in fact God’s judgment, as Beza makes clear in a note on 1 Thessalonians 2:16, where the “wrath” of the passage is explained as the judgment of an angry God against the persecutors of the Church.14 Although this judgment may not be realized until the afterlife when sinners stand before the tribunal of God to receive their just punishment and are cast out, the reality of the here and now serves as a foretaste:  Christians will be loathe to tolerate the haughty in their company. The juxtaposition of ferat and ferre in the middle of the last line underscores the mutual repulsion between the two sides, those in good society and those without, and ominously recalls the deferring (differat) of God’s wrath in the previous line. Essentially, the first poem of the collection ends with the threat of excommunication! As noted already, Beza’s decision to commence his collection with a censoring of pride reflects the general view that it occupies an extraordinary position among vices. The prideful represent a unique affront to God in that they insult him directly, not just straying from his commandments, but holding them in contempt and believing that they can command themselves. Their presumptuousness in imagining (somniat, line 5) that their lowliness is on equal footing with the high God earns them special rebuke and punishment. The notion that pride held a special place among vices was an assumption already deeply rooted in the thinking of the Church. One can cite in the Catholic tradition of roughly the same period, for example, Thomas Cajetan’s denunciation of the stubbornness of pride in his comments on the phrase you have rebuked the proud at Psalm 119.21: Because when other vices flee from God, pride alone stands in opposition; and therefore “God resists the proud,” and they are singled out in particular as being rebuked.15

adversarios constitutum: unde illae Davidis et Prophetarum querelae, et vox illa martyrum quae commemoratur Apoc. 6. c. 10. Sic enim placet Domino suos exercere, et patientiam etiam erga vasa ad interitum compacta commendare:  ut loquitur Apostolus Rom. 9.22.” Numerous passages in Psalms and Exodus and elsewhere in the OT refer to God as being “slow to anger.” He is, in fact, slow to anger, slow to judge, and slow to punish. 14. Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 2, 327: “Ira videlicet Dei, i.e., irati Dei iudicium adversum illos, ut Rom. 4.25.” 15. Thomas Cajetan, Psalmi Davidici … castigati, (Paris:  Poncet le Preux, 1540), 233v: “Increpasti superbos: quia cum caetera vitia fugiant a Deo, sola superbia se opponit. Et propterea superbis Deus resistit: et specialiter increpari describuntur.”

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Cajetan draws upon a long tradition of moralizing that included pride among the eight principal vices of early monastic thought and placed it at the head of the Seven Deadly Sins since Pope Gregory I. Aquinas gave special attention to explaining in what sense it is the “beginning of all sin,” as his version of Ecclesiasticus 10:15 put it, and cites Augustine’s belief that pride is different from other vices, and thus a special sin.16 But the axiom that Cajetan cites in passing, “God resists the proud,” receives a more nuanced treatment among Beza and his colleagues. The phrase itself comes from Psalm 138:6 and is alluded to twice in the New Testament. In one, Peter (I Peter 5:5–​7) is speaking to converts when he appeals for a modest and subservient attitude among the young and the old, reminding them in verse 5 that “God resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble.” In the other, the apostle James (4:6) employs the phrase to urge his readers to abandon the lusts of the world to receive God’s grace in humility. In his early editions, we see Beza preferring to employ forms of the word demittere to express the concept of humility, and rejecting the Vulgate’s choice of humiliare as a word not found in good authors. But in later editions, there is an evolution in Beza’s thinking. He is not satisfied simply to translate the concept of humility; he wants to convey what he sees as its essence. Therefore he replaces the forms of demittere with forms of submittere, so that to be humble means more than to be low or to be modest—​it means to submit.17 The same pattern holds true for his handling of Jesus’s command that we be humble as a child at Matthew 18:4.18 Similarly, Beza applies Jesus’s familiar phrase poor in spirit (Matthew 5:3) to those who are so overwhelmed by their own sin and lack of autonomy that “removed from all pride, they submit themselves to God.”19 Thus, it is apparent, Beza came to understand humility to be expressed in its essence

16.  See Aquinas, Summa theologica 2, 1, q. 84 and 2, 2, q 162. 17. Compare Beza, Annotationes 1582, pt. 2, 393 (James) and 412 (1 Peter) with Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 2, 452 (James) and 476–​47 (1 Peter). In the latter, note especially his translation, “summisione animi estote intus orti” (deck yourselves inwardly in submissiveness of mind) where summissione (submissiveness) replaces modestia (modesty) of the 1582 version. The germ of this idea was already in Aquinas, Summa, 2, 1, q. 84. 18.  Beza changes the Vulgate reading of humuliaverit to demiserit in his early editions (see Annotationes 1582, pt. 1, 82) and explains that, with one exception, the former verb is not used in good authors, while the latter is equated with the idea of humbling. But in later editions (see Annotationes 1598, pt. 1, 87), he changes it to submiserit. 19. Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 1, 19: “et ab omni superbia remoti, sese Deo subiiciunt.”

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through surrender and obedience:  God rejects the proud and gives his grace to those who submit to him. This second part of the axiom’s formulation, namely, that submission opens the way to receiving God’s grace, permitted the reformers to integrate discussions of pride more fully into their prescriptions for ethical living and to contend that this sin lies at the heart of the breakdown of the order and structure that God originally provided. Pride not only makes a proper vertical relationship with God impossible, since he is not viewed as the source of all good things, but also causes chaos in the horizontal interactions between people, as everyone seeks to be their own master. This understanding of the danger posed by pride to social structure likely moved Beza’s friend and colleague Lambert Daneau to associate it with the fifth commandment, which bids us to honor our parents. Daneau understands the commandment to have broad application to all interactions in which authority is involved, parental ones first and foremost, but also any relationship in which one person takes on a fatherly or motherly role.20 This commandment requires that we understand that God has set all things in order according to his will, and that we each have a place in his scheme of things. A prideful person, says Daneau, believes that he has obtained his own blessings in and of himself and created his own success, and so does not need to acknowledge God.21 In his interactions with his fellow man, he does not conduct himself magnanimously, fulfilling his duty kindly and selflessly, but boasts in his distinctions and uses his position as an opportunity to abuse others. A fracturing of the communal spirit ensues: “It seems reasonable that we term this vice ὑπερηφάνεια [contempt] and ὑπεροψία [disdain],” he concludes, “because those who are this way are quick to spurn others, even colleagues, and almost despise them.”22 Along these lines, Beza remarks in his comments on I Corinthians 12:1 how arrogance over gifts in the Church community causes some to “haughtily spurn those with lesser gifts” (alios inferiores superbe aspernantibus), an attitude that he says negates the effectiveness of the Church’s ministry. For Beza, the reality of God’s election and reprobation plays a key role in eliminating haughtiness in Christians and fostering humility in

20.  Lambert Daneau, Ethices Christianae (Geneva: Eustache Vignon, 1577), 332v. 21. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 341r. 22. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 342v: “Haec etiam videtur nominari posse et ὑπερηφάνεια et ὑπεροψία, quod qui tales sunt, caeteros facile etiam collegas spernunt et fere despiciunt.”

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its stead, because through those doctrines believers come to understand how completely and undeservedly they have received his gift of faith. This is a line of thought that he develops especially in his Summa totius Christianismi under the heading, “From an examination of the doctrine of reprobation humility is learned.”23 In the previous section he had argued that this somewhat controversial doctrine (i.e., reprobation), when rightly understood, provides real benefits in the Christian life. In section four, he then stresses how an awareness of it alters believers’ spiritual attitudes and inner impulses, leading them “to submit their neck gladly to the majesty of God” (maiestati Dei collum libenter summittere), so that, compelled by an awe and reverence for him, they will strive to confirm the testimony of their election in Christ through their actions. Furthermore, when believers carefully consider the distinctions dictated by his mercy among people who are all worthy of punishment, and recognize that human beings in no way influence this “inequality of grace” (inequalitatis gratiae causa[m]), believers cannot do otherwise but embrace the singular goodness of God while at the same time forsaking any arrogant posture of self-​satisfaction. In this Beza is following the lead of Calvin, who already in his work on predestination had described an intense humility that comes from seeing so disparate a condition among those who share the same nature.24 Believers, says Calvin, are horrified that others wander around blindly in the darkness and therefore give glory to God “the source of why they are different.”25 He then draws a direct link between humility and a willingness to listen to God’s word: “But no one doubts that humility is the root of piety and the mother of virtues. But how will someone be humble who cannot even bear to hear of the primal misery from which he was freed?”26 The art of listening, one might say, is essential to the attitude of humility.

23. Beza, Brevis explicatio totius Christianismi 8.4 (in Tractationes theologicae [Geneva: Eustache Vignon, 15822], I, 204. The Brevis (also known as Tabula praedestinationis, was originally circulated in 1555 (see Gardy, Bibliographie des oeuvres théologiques, 47). 24.  John Calvin, De aeterna Dei praedestinatione … item de providentia qua res humanas gubernat (Geneva: Jean Crespin, 1552), 16 (=CO VIII, 261): “Iam vero non vulgaris in eo humilitatis materia, dum tam dispar eorum conditio cernitur, quibus communis est natura.” For a modern edition of this work, see vol. 1 of the Scripta ecclesiastica series: Calvin, De aeterna Dei praedestinatio, eds. Olivier Fatio and Wilhem Neuser (Geneva: Droz, 1998). 25. Calvin, De aeterna Dei praedestinatione, 17: “unde ab aliis different.” 26. Calvin, De aeterna Dei praedestinatione, 17: “Quin radix sit pietatis materque virtutum omnium, humilitas, nemo ambigit. Quomodo autem humilis erit, qui nec pristinam miseriam, e qua liberatus est audire sustinet?”

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The Puritan Thomas Beard echoes these sentiments in his Theater of God’s Judgments (chapter XXII), and along the way adds additional color to our understanding of pride’s inception. For Beard, pride occurs when people fail to show gratitude for the blessings that God bestows and instead imagine that they have sufficient power in their own hands to effect any outcome. He agrees with Calvin that this started in the Garden when Adam ignored God’s word, but maintains that the first great manifestation of pride occurred in the effort to build a tower at Babel. People forgot that the same God they now had designs upon had mercifully delivered their forefathers from the flood. Throughout history, he continues, one can find the most flagrant examples of this stain of pride in the stories of great potentates, who, even though they initially may acknowledge that their power comes from God, soon show themselves to be completely ungrateful by stealing God’s honor and glory and attributing it to themselves. Such was the case of Nebuchadnezzar, whose story Beard calls a “most excellent looking glass” for all the powerful, since it teaches them that when it pleases God to humble them and strip away their power, no force on earth can hinder his almighty hand. Beard’s stress on ingratitude as a basis of pride in these examples, the same that we noted in Calvin, Daneau, Goulart, and Beza above, stands at the heart of the matter. For Beard, Nebuchadnezzar was struck down because he did not appreciate that it was God who endowed him with his kingship, and not himself. Likewise, according to Calvin, Adam was not content with the abundant blessings that God bestowed upon him but imagined that he should be a god as well. Daneau says more broadly that the prideful believe that they, instead of God, have blessed themselves. And Beza recommends that we combat pride by contemplating the fate of the reprobates, the same fate that we all deserve but for the grace of God. Behind this linking of pride and gratitude lies, undoubtedly, a latent criticism of the Catholic doctrine that holds that to some degree we participate in our own salvation, as well as the belief that we can square ourselves with God’s righteousness through penance. In contrast, the reformers tended to emphasize the lowliness of our estate, our enslavement to sin, and our total lack of effectiveness for accomplishing anything on our own. This, consequently, leads to a modified attitude about life. Indeed, the reformers thought it was important that believers constantly internalize a sense of their inadequacy and weakness as a way of finding their proper place before God and in the world. Humility teaches us to conform. This

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explains why we find Beza’s censor frustrated that the arrogant person does not comprehend his own nothingness (nihil). The same emphasis on human frailty constitutes the theme of another poem of Beza against the proud, one which appears not in the Cato itself, but among the epigrams in later editions of his poetry: Against the proud, with the theme suggested by a mulberry-​tree on my property, which amazingly became full-​grown within the span of five years27 You, recently a tender shoot, planted by the master’s hand   hoping for a tree, Already now a tree raising high its green leaves,   providing shade for our little garden, How different is our lot in life!   For you are flourishing, I am withering; You, with your bare top, ignore the heat of the sun   and the numbing cold; But the heat burns me, as does the cold, though I am   supported with remedies on all sides. You put forth leaves, but I have grown white hairs; you seek the stars,   while I am headed for the pit of a tomb. Be gone, o proud, be gone o frail and perishing little men,   the very trees reprove you! The tone of this poem is less harsh and accusatory throughout than its parallel in the Cato collection. Even so, the message is consistently framed across the two. We human beings should understand our impotence and be humbled by it. Pride is not just an overreach on our part, it is a complete blindness to certain basic truths about our own mortality. As often in Beza’s poetry, it is Nature herself teaching the lesson: when compared to this mighty tree, which needed only five years to grow and flourish from a tiny shoot, human beings are exposed as exceedingly fragile and short-​ lived. While the tree spreads its green leaves and stretches upward to the

27. Beza, Poemata 1597, 186 and Poemata 1599, 94r–​v:  “ ‘In Superbos, argumento ex moro domestica sumpto, quae | intra quinquennium mirabiliter excrevit’ | Tenelle nuper surcule, domini manu | in arboris spem consite, |iam nunc virentes arbor attollens comas, | nostrumque inumbrans hortulum. | Quam nostra sorte vita fertur dispari! | Nam tu vires, ego marceo; | tu solis aestus et rigorem frigorum | nudo cacumine despicis; | at me urit aestus, urit et frigus, licet | fultum remediis undique. | Frondeficis, at ego canui; tu sydera, | ego tumuli specum peto. | Ite o superbi, ite o caduci homunculi, | ipsae arguunt vos arbores.”

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sky, we live ever in the throes of death, headed for the grave. The poem concludes with a variation on a familiar refrain of the Cato (“Be gone!”), tersely reiterating Beza’s ardent conviction that unrepentent sinners must be excommunicated from godly society.

Scaling Mountains: The Ambitious Humility is a virtue that stands in opposition not only to the vice of pride, but also to that of ambition. The close association of these two sins is made frequently among the reformers. We recall that Calvin saw pride and ambition as the immediate result of disobedience. In a sermon on Acts 16:19ff., Lutheran theologian Johannes Brenz warned his congregation that there are many Satans at work in the world, and numerous unclean spirits, including one of “ambition or pride,” as if a single demon is tasked with inciting both.28 Beard, in the passage cited above, states that the prideful builders of the Tower of Babel were “puffed up with the blast of ambition.”29 Beza himself connects the two in his notes on Romans 1:30, where Paul includes the proud and the boastful among the many lawless whom God abandoned to their own reprobate minds. He writes, Gloriosi, ἀλαζόνας [boastful]. Or, vain show-​offs, mostly wanderers and vagabonds, because (to their mind) in this way they cannot easily be caught in a lie—​like the one who was told, “Behold Rhodes; behold your jump.”30 Thus it differs from the previous vice [sc. pride], because ἀλαζονεία [boasting] has its converse in murky mendacity, but ὑπερηφανία [pride] in ambitious φιλοτιμία [love of honor].31

28. See, e.g., Brenz, In Apostolica Acta homiliae centum viginti duae (Hagenau:  Peter Braubach, 1536), Homily LXXV, 148: “For the Satan of lies, who was in the girl, is not the only Satan, just as the Satan of madness is not the only Satan, for there is a Satan of avarice, of envy, of ambition or pride and wantonness, yes indeed, there are numerous kinds of unclean spirits” (Mendacii enim Satan qui erat in puella, non solus Satan est, sicut nec insaniae Satan solus Satan est, nam et avaritiae Satan est et invidiae, et ambitionis seu superbiae et libidinis, adeoque innumera sunt genera spirituum immundorum). 29. Beard, Theatre of God’s Judgements, 79. 30.  Quoted by Erasmus, Adagia 3.3.28, from a fable of Aesop about a braggart who claimed he made a stupendous jump in Rhodes and can produce witnesses. “No need for that,” a bystander quips, “consider this your Rhodes and do the jump here.” 31. Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 2, 11:  “Gloriosi, ἀλαζόνας. Vel, vani ostentatores; ut fere sunt errones et circulatores, quod non possint ita facile in mendacio deprehendi; ut is cui

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Here the prideful and ambitious share a desire to be exalted. Beza further indicates why the two tend to go hand in hand when he equates them in his note on Romans 12:16; there, after making the point that the word humble should be understood as humble things, he concludes, “Nothing tears asunder concord quite like ambition, since anyone who disdains humble things, ambitiously pursues lofty things.”32 Words such as “disdains” and “lofty” belong to the vocabulary of pride; thus the point is being made that the two vices are different sides of the same coin. The ambitious are not content where God has put them, but assume that external goods such as birth or talent create distinctions of rank and merit among people. This sows discontent and “tears asunder concord,” because it creates a hierarchy in society rather than mutual support. Beza finds Scriptural backing for this view in Matthew 18:1–​5, in the story about the disciples who come to Jesus asking him who would be the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven. In his notes on the passage Beza points out that the disciples were basing their question on the model they had before them, the Roman empire, and that they could not imagine a different way of establishing hierarchy. Jesus calls over a little boy and enlightens the disciples that distinction and office in the kingdom of Heaven are contrary to the personal ambition that they have become familiar with through earthly institutions; people are to be recognized for their service and humility. It is not the boy’s age that illustrates Jesus’s point, Beza remarks, but his stature: he is “ignorant of the human habits of ambition and pride.”33 Despite the almost inextricable connection between pride and ambition, Beza saw fit to address the ambitious in a separate poem in his Cato. Instead of looking down in contempt, as the prideful do, we find the ambitious directing their attention upward and thirsting for more than was given to them. And as the case was with the prideful, they too find themselves excluded from Heaven and hardly tolerated on earth:

obiectum est, ‘En Rhodus, en saltus.’ Differt igitur hoc vitium a superiore, quod ἀλαζονεία versetur in fucato mendacio, ὑπερηφανία vero in ambitiosa φιλοτιμία.” 32. Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 2, 86: “Nihil autem aeque scindit concordiam atque ambitio, quum quispiam humilia fastidit, sublimia ambitiose sectatur.” 33. Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 1, 87: “moribus ambitionis et fastus nesciis.” The analogy of the humble with children is also made at Luke 18.17.

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In Ambitiosos34 Obsecro qui, montis conscenso vertice, captas Alterius versum culmina montis iter: Nec cessas montes adiungere montibus unquam, Quo tibi sic fuerit tempore parta quies? Scilicet, ut possis ipsos transcendere caelos,  5 Caeli etiam cedet regia tota tibi, Augebitve tibi terras qui condidit orbem, Hanc expleturo non tamen orbe sitim. Immo vel nunquam vivus potiere cupitis, Vel miser ascendens, Ambitiose, rues:  10 Exstinctoque tibi, cui vivo haud sufficit orbis, Seni sufficient, Ambitiose, pedes. Against the Ambitious Those of you who climb a mountain, then immediately turn your attention to scaling the peak of another one, adding mountain to mountain without end—​ please, tell me, when will you take a break? No doubt, in order for you to ascend the heavens themselves, the skies above will make way for you, or on your behalf the Creator will increase the size of the earth, but but not even the universe will sate your thirst. No, either you will never possess your heart’s desire in your lifetime, or sadly, in mid-​ascent, ambitious one, you will come crashing down. For you at your death, for whom nothing in this world sufficed while living, ambitious one, six feet, will now be enough. The scaling of lofty mountains or the ascent to the heavens (the transcendere caelos of line 5) is common imagery for expressing vain ambition in moralizing contexts. The story of the giants in Greek mythology, who piled up rocks in attempt to assail Heaven, and the Tower of Babel story in Genesis have that in common. The hero Bellerophon, driven by an insatiable ambition, attempted to fly up Mount Olympus on Pegasus after defeating the Chimaera, but Zeus sent a gadfly to sting the horse, which in turn bucked the rider. He thereafter wandered the earth, lame (or blind), and

34. Beza, Poemata 1597, 271–​72; Poemata 1599, 136r.

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despised by all.35 Horace combines the same story with that of Phaëthon, the boy who tried to drive the sun’s chariot across the sky, to illustrate to a certain woman named Phyllis what will happen if she continues to seek something not suited to her (non tuae sortis):36 Scorched Phaëthon puts fear in ambitious hopes, as does winged Pegasus, who found too heavy, his earth-​bound rider, Bellerophon. At the end of Beza’s poem the ambitious are brought low and thus receive their just rewards. While they were alive (vivo), nothing seemed to suffice, but at their death (extincto), they will have no choice but to be content with very little.37 What is left for them is cleverly described as six feet, which at once alludes to their small burial plot—​they wanted the whole world (orbis) but now they end up with the minimalistic six feet of dirt—​while suggesting that they have been excluded from Heaven.38 Ambition and the pursuit of honors have a direct relation to the vice of flattery, which will be discussed in c­ hapter 3. The ambitious person is also seeking to be recognized and praised by his peers. These two ideas are brought together by Beza in an emblem that employs the imagery of a shadow:39

35. Homer, Il. 6.201 and Ovid, Ib. 259. 36. Horace, Od. 4.11.15–​18; cf. Pindar, Isth. 7. 44ff. 37.  The chiasmus, exstinctoque tibi, cui vivo, stresses the contrast between what was sufficient in life and what will be sufficient in death. 38.  The reference to the feet could be an adaptation of a pun of Ovid on metrical feet (Am. 1.1.30), but since Ovid mentions eleven (the number of feet in an elegiac couplet) and Beza only six in regard to the same meter, the connection is not clear. Goulart paraphrases the line with “ayant cinq ou six pieds de terre,” and thus associates it with the plot of land reserved for burial. If this is an early occurrence of the proverbial “six feet under,” then perhaps we have an allusion to burial practices associated with the bubonic plague. On this see Max Engammare, “L’inhumation de Calvin et des pasteurs genevois de 1540 à 1620. Un dépouillement très prophétique et une pompe funèbre protestante qui se met en place,” in Les Funérailles à la Renaissance, Actes du 12e colloque international de la Société française d’études du seizième siècle, Bar-​le-​duc, 2–​5 décembre 1999, édités par Jean Balsamo (Geneva: Droz, 2002), 271–​93. 39. Beza, Icones, id est, verae imagines (Geneva:  Joannes Laonius, 1580), mm.iir, Emblem XIV; Poemata 1597, 236, Emblem XIII: “ ‘Homines duo adverso itinere incedentes, unus antecedentem, altera tergo umbram habens:’ | Sectantes velut umbra fugit, fugientibus

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Two People Traveling in the Opposite Direction, One with His Shadow Preceding Him, the Other with His Shadow Behind His Back The shadow, attached to bodies as a companion, seems to flee those who pursue it, to chase those who flee. In a similar way, glory flees those hunting the rewards of unmerited praise, but is joined as a companion to the humble. And yet once accurately weighed out on a scale, what will all this praise amount to? But a pale shadow, of course. [Figure 16] The person who pursues self-​recognition and distinction for their own sake will find his prey exasperatingly elusive, because praise follows the deed, not the person. The comparison of glory with a shadow was already known from Cicero (TD 1.110): “Glory follows virtue as if it were its shadow” (Gloria virtutem tamquam umbra sequitur). Even before Beza, the analogy had some currency in the Renaissance. In his piece on glory, Montaigne remarks that the first person who thought of the resemblance between a shadow and glory understood more than he realized; both, he says, are preeminently empty.40 Marc-​Antoine Muret had written a four-​line epigram contrasting the solidity of virtue to the shadowy nature of glory.41 And the Jesuit Jacques de Billy wrote an elaborate octastich in which he reworks Livy’s maxim that “the person who spurns empty glory possesses the true” to urge his readers to move away from earthly glory and draw close to God.42 The impossibility of obtaining glory when that is the main object does not figure prominently as a theme in the Bible, though one

instat, | Addita corporibus scilicet umbra comes, | Sic fugit immeritae captantes praemia laudis, | Demissis contra gloria iuncta comes. | Et tamen haud falso trutinata examine, quidnam | Laus haec omnis erit? scilicet umbra levis.” For examen and trutina used in this way, cf. Pers. 1.5–​7. 40.  Michel de Montaigne, Les Essais (Paris: Abel l’Angelier, 15953), 2.16: “Celuy qui premier s’advisa de la ressemblance de l’ombre à la gloire, fit mieux qu’il ne vouloit.” For more variations on the theme, see Alison Adams, Webs of Allusion: French Protestant Emblem Books of the Sixteenth Century (Geneva: Droz, 2003), 131–​32. 41.  Muret, epig. 65.2 (in Kirk Summers, The Iuvenilia of Marc-​Antoine Muret [Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2006], 108–​09): “Aequa sed est umbrae gloria fluxa levi.” 42.  Jacques de Billy, Sacra anthologia (Paris: Nicolaus Chesneau, 1575), 1r–​v; here the imagery revolves around the moon (Diana) and the sun (Phoebus Apollo). For the thought, he is drawing on Livy 22.39.19 and August., Epist. 55.

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Proverb alludes to it (25.27, “Nor is it glory to search out one’s own glory”) and Paul instructs the Roman Christians that eternal life awaits those who “by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality” (Rom. 2.7). Beza adds his own twist to the commonplace at the end of the poem by playing off the shadow analogy to devalue glory in either case, whether undeservedly pursued or obtained through merit: Glory, just as a shadow, is an insubstantial reward. The Church had long treated ambition as a kind of mental delusion akin to the ancient concept of hubris. Daneau, for example, draws on scholastic tradition to define ambition as “an inordinate and unrestrained appetite for prestige.”43 He qualifies his definition by limiting it to the desire for fame and reputation and differentiating it from greed, which seeks gain from that distinction. He then cites Bernard’s opinion that we should “fear no poison, no sword more than the lust for power, which is the companion of ambition.”44 The words appetite and lust signal the mental disorder that characterizes this vice. Under the heading “On Ambition and the Ambitious” in his Apophthegmata, Goulart relates a story told by Alexander Alexandrinus and recorded in Theodoret’s Ecclesiastical History (1.4) about certain wicked men whose minds were filled with the desire for money and “insatiable desire for prestige” (inexplebilis honoris … cupiditas). Here we learn that they were “driven to madness by an impulse of the Devil, who exercises his power in their minds, and carried headlong into all sorts of pleasures.”45 The Catholic humanist Marc-​Antoine Muret, though no friend of the reformers, shares this characterization of pride in his poem “On Pleasure and Reason.” There Pleasure is portrayed as driving the mind like a ship into reefs and hidden shallows, where Ambition and Deceit spring up. The mind is only brought to safety if Reason takes the helm.46 Similarly, in this poem Beza draws a connection with pleasure and self-​gratification,

43. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 341v: “Ambitio igitur est immoderata et immodica honoris appetitio, quatenus honor est quaedam nominis nostri popularis fama” 44. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 341v–​342r:  “Nullum ibi venenum, nullum gladium plus formida, quam dominandi libidenem, quae huius ambitionis comes est.” The text is from Bernard, De considerat. 3. 45. Goulart, Apophthegmata, 8: “Nam impulsu diaboli, qui vim suam in eorum animis exercet, in furorem acti, ad voluptates, quae forte se offerunt, feruntur praecipites.” 46. Marc-​Antoine Muret, epig. 76 (=Summers, The Iuvenilia, 112–​15), “De voluptate, et ratione.”

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as signified by the yearning and craving inherent in the line-​ending words of 9 and 10, sitim (thirst) and cupitis (desire), immediately before launching into a description of the fate that awaits the ambitious. What stands behind these associations between ambition and pleasure is the New Testament teaching on the Christian life, characterized as it is by humility, self-​sacrifice and self-​demotion coupled with service to others. In commenting on the Matthew 5 passage referenced above, specifically on verse 1, Beza makes the point plainly: “But in response Christ reminds his disciples of a virtue that is contrary to ambition.”47 Beza understands that virtue to be humility (humilitas). For him, no passage of the New Testament reinforces this point better than Philippians 2:3–​8, where Paul encourages each Philippian reader humbly to “regard one another as more important than himself,” modeling his life after that of Christ Jesus, who, although equal with God, “emptied himself, taking the form of a bond-​servant.” On the phrase “in forma Dei” (in the form of God) in verse 6 Beza writes:48 In short, this is what Paul means to say: Christ himself, although he is God, and accordingly shares in that glory and majesty which accords to God alone, and although in him he was not thinking that he would take anything alien to himself, nevertheless, with that glory as it were set aside, lowered himself to be like the servants of God, that is, to assume man, yes, even to submit himself willingly to the Father, not as his equal, but as his Lord, to undergo even a most ignominious death. And will not we mortal and lowest of servants be ashamed of our arrogance, as if we were superior to our brothers? This is, I say, the argument of Paul, and there is no one who does not see that nothing more serious or powerful can be said than this.

47. Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 1, 87: “Contra vero Christus ad virtutem ambitioni contrariam suos discipulos revocat.” 48. Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 2, 294: “Atqui longe aliud est Pauli argumentum: nempe huiusmodi, Christus ipse, quum Deus esset, ac proinde in ea gloria et maiestate quae Deo uni convenit, nec in eo putaret se alienum quicquam usurpare, tamen veluti deposita hac gloria, hucusque se demisit ut talis fieret quales sunt Dei servi, id est ut hominem assumeret, imo vero etiam ut Patri non tanquam aequali, sed tanquam Domino, ad ignominiosissimam usque mortem subeundam sese ultro summitteret; et nos mortales et infimos servos non pudebit arrogantiae, quasi fratribus nostris praecellamus? Hoc est, inquam, Pauli argumentum, quo nemo non videt nihil gravius aut vehementius dici potuisse.”

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For Beza, the sum of the Christian life and sanctification is, first, the love of God, and, second, the modest exercise of service to others in the Church community. External acts carry no weight in and of themselves if they are performed just for the show of it. Thus at Confessio 4.16, in discussing “indifferent works” of sanctification such as fasting and chastity, he remarks that generally speaking these exercises are to be lauded, but on the condition that “the mind is not puffed up with any ambition, nor imbued with superstition, but endowed with the fear of God and love of neighbor.”49 In other words, the Christian life does not keep tally of accomplishments for its own glory, but acts on the basis of the love of God to which the Christian has been reconciled through Christ.

Controlling Pride and Ambition in Genevans The practical task of policing pride and ambition in sixteenth-​century reformed Geneva closely mirrored the theological principles just described. In the Consistory minutes for the years 1542–​1609, the ones analyzed by Manetsch, pride (typically orgueil, arrogance, fierté) or ambition do not figure among the vices leading directly to suspension from the Supper.50 Even so, the minutes reveal some instances in which the court recognized that these vices were concomitant with other faults meriting suspension, or functioned as a joist for obstinacy and defiance. The celebrated case of Philibert Berthelier provides an extended example of this kind of symbiosis between vices, but more importantly, demonstrates how pride and ambition were handled concretely in the Geneva of Calvin and Beza.51 Berthelier was the son and namesake of a Genevan patriot who in 1519 had given his life for his city in its struggles against the ambitions of Charles III, Duke of Savoy and the prince-​bishop. The son used the father’s notoriety to gain status for himself and move more easily up the ladder of city government. Throughout the decade of 1540, while still fairly young, he

49. Beza, Tractationes Theologicae, I, 13: “animus nulla ambitione tumens, nec superstitione imbutus, sed Dei timore praeditus et proximi charitate.” 50. Manetsch, Calvin’s Company of Pastors, 201. 51.  The bibliography includes, most notably, Christian Grosse, L’excommunication de Philibert Berthelier: Histoire d’un conflit d’identité aux premiers temps de la Réforme genevoise (1547–​1555) (Geneva: Droz, 1995); Robert M. Kingdon, “Social Control and Political Control in Calvin’s Geneva,” in Die Reformation in Deutschland und Europa: Interpretationen und Debatten, ed. Hans R. Guggisberg (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1993), 521–​32; William G. Naphy,

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served various terms on the Council of the Two Hundred and held the office of Secretary of the Tribunal of First Appeals for a time. In 1546 he took the position of mintmaster and, in 1550, worked in the court of the Lieutenant, the officer in charge of civil cases and punishment of minor crimes.52 In that same year, he was also elected to the Council of Sixty. But his troubles before the Consistory and friction with Calvin himself were constant through this same span of years, on the one hand because of his dithering treatment of women, but on the other, and on a more ideological level, because he aligned himself with Ami Perrin and the Libertine party. This group famously took the position that the city magistrates, not the Consistory, had the right of excommunication. On August 23, 1548, we find Berthelier before the Consistory because of a dispute over a marriage contract with a woman named Jeanne Pinon, a case that the Small Council had remitted to the Consistory seeking advice.53 Berthelier had broken off his promise of marriage to Jeanne Pinon because he had discovered that her father did not have sufficient money for a dowry (thus offering no benefit to him as he climbed the social ladder). Both parties also added that the father of Jeanne had not consented to the contract, and thus it should be invalidated. As the ministers and elders could not find a legitimate reason to grant an annulment of the promise to marry, it sent the matter back to the Council with their opinion that the two must in fact marry. At this point Berthelier lost his temper and began to upbraid the elders and ministers, especially Calvin, for carrying out a personal vendetta against him. The minutes record that in doing so he used “haughty, harsh, and arrogant words” and finally, after receiving remonstrances from the syndic of the court, “disdainfully made an obscene gesture at its members with his fingers.”54 We then read the recording secretary’s concluding notation: “For this reason it was decided that the Messieurs of the Council should be

Calvin and the Consolidation of the Genevan Reformation (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994), 184–​89; Thomas Lambert, “Preaching, Praying and Policing the Reform in Sixteenth-​Century Geneva” (PhD diss.: University of Wisconsin, 1998), 252–​55; and Sermons inédits:  Sermons sur le livre des revelations du prophete Ezechiel:  chapitres 36–​48, ed. Erik Alexander de Boer (Supplementa Calviana, 10/​3) (Neukirchen-​Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2006), xxxviii–​xliv. 52.  For his misconduct in that office, see R. Const. 5:259 and fn. 1777. 53.  R. Const. 2:119–​20; the case is condensed at CO 21, 432. 54.  R. Const. 2:119: “usant de propos haultains, aspres et arrogans.” For the obscene sign, see Christian Grosse, L’excommunication de Philibert Berthelier, 65, n. 59.

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informed of these aforesaid things along with the admonition that they should punish the audacity, pride, and arrogance of one such scoundrel.”55 On August 30, the entire Consistory went before the Council to protest the insolence of Berthelier, but in the end the Council was unable to come to a decision, probably because of the influence of Berthelier among them. Berthelier himself was left unable to marry Jeanne Pinon or, for that matter, anyone else.56 By 1551 he was back in the chambers of the Consistory. On February 19, he was called in to explain why he was missing the sermons and not taking communion. A few weeks later, on March 24, the Consistory brought him back in to address an accusation of fornication with a certain Domaine Varro, and we are told that he verbally abused Calvin directly with “great arrogance” (grosse arrogance). He was also asked why he had not followed through with his earlier promise of marriage, to which he defiantly replied that it was none of the council’s business. The Messieurs of the Council sent Berthelier back to the Consistory on March 26 to apologize for his remarks and to be reconciled, but instead he blurted out in the chamber that “he would rather die than admit that Calvin is a better man than he is, or anybody else.”57 Nor did he feel he had done anything wrong when he spoke against him. At that point, having completely lost its patience, the court finally excommunicated him and sent him back to the Council.58 Efforts to come to a reconciliation in an extraordinary session on the next day failed and for the next few years the suspensions were regularly renewed against him. The reasons behind Berthelier’s excommunication or suspension are complex, to be sure. There are political alliances and pressures, a growing dispute between the Council and the Consistory over the authority to excommunicate, broken marriage contracts, palliardaise, and the failure to attend church services. Beza himself says in his Life of Calvin that the Consistory excluded Berthelier from the Table “for his many iniquities.”59

55.  R.  Const. 2:120:  “Pourquoy l’advis a esté qu’il soit remonstré à Messieurs les choses susdites avecq admon[i]‌tion de reprimer l’audace, fierté et arrogance d’ung tel garnement.” 56. For these details, see Grosse, L’excommunication de Philibert Berthelier, 63–​ 71; and R. Const. 2:120, fn. 633. 57.  R. Const. 5:48: “Dict qu’i perdra la vie avant que de dire que monsieur Calvin soit plus homme de bien que luy et et n’en fera austre.” 58. R. Const. Genève 5:49: “si ne veult confesser entierement, que l’on luy deffende la Cene et remis par devant Messieurs.” 59.  From Beza’s Vita Calvini at CO 21:147: “ob multa flagitia.”

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But what constantly comes up in the various proceedings is Berthelier’s pride and arrogance. His pride expressed itself in his gestures and calumnies against Calvin, but also in his unwavering insistence that the Consistory did not have the right to exercise discipline over him. An entry in the Registers of the Company of Pastors from late December of 1552, is particularly telling: Philibert Berthelier was then sent into our presence. He showed the same or even greater rebelliousness than before, saying that it was not his understanding that the Consistory possessed such authority nor that the people were bound by its decisions. Messieurs therefore confirmed the sentence of the Consistory and pronounced him unworthy of the supper.60 This opposition to the spiritual authority of the Consistory lay at the heart of Berthelier’s perceived sin:  Calvin believed that the Scriptures clearly gave to the Church the right to bar from the Table those whom it judged unworthy, and so a refusal to submit to the Church’s decisions on the matter was tantamount to not listening to the Word of God. The Ecclesiastical Ordinances that Calvin drafted in 1541 had established the Consistory’s right to excommunicate “those who showed contempt for the newly created ecclesiastical order and its spokesmen.”61 Thus in 1553 we see the Company of Pastors, again in regard to Berthelier, writing a letter to the Seigneurs of the Council and calling on them to “take action against contemptuous persons who refuse to respond to spiritual punishment.”62 The point is further made that the Consistory will only remove the penalty of suspension from those who rid themselves of obstinancy, exhibit humility, and submit to remonstrances. The Consistory was exposing Berthelier’s general unwillingness to obey God himself, which is the beginning of pride. There are other such cases scattered throughout the minutes. On August 20, 1551, for example, Jean-​Philibert Bonna and his wife Humberte

60.  The Register of the Company of Pastors of Geneva in the Time of Calvin, ed. Philip E. Hughes (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1966), 205. 61.  Robert Kingdon, “Social Control and Political Control in Calvin’s Geneva,” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, special issue (1993): 521–​32, at 521. 62. Hughes, The Register of the Company, 286–​89.

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Bienvenu appeared before the Consistory to answer to the charge of having danced during the nuptials of Jacques Blondel in the village of Faucigny.63 The court was exasperated because it had called the couple before them in the previous July, but they had ignored the summons. Bienvenu confessed to the charge. But as it happened Bonna faced another accusation, a charge that he had insulted and quarreled with a French pharmacist living in Geneva named Jean de Cortean. The words that Bonna used against him, calling him “a foreigner, exile, and using other injurious words,” reveal his allegiances. First, by drawing attention to Cortean’s outsider status, Bonna means to include himself among les enfants de Genève, the established families of Geneva. Thus we see him defending himself before the Consistory with the assertion that he is from a “family of good reputation and renown” (gens de bonne fame et bon renom), something that was important also to Berthelier. Second, he clearly harbors xenophobic prejudices against the French refugees. Add to that his reluctance to appear before the Consistory, and it comes as no surprise to discover that Bonna aligned himself with the Perrinist Libertines.64 In fact, he was among the adversaries of Calvin that fled Geneva after the Perrinist defeat in 1555.65 On this occasion in 1551, the Consistory scolded Bonna for the dances, but also for being contentious and for disrespectfully “leaving the sermon in the middle, forgetting his hat.”66 The minutes then say that Bonna denied the indictments and rejected the remonstrances “with pride and arrogance.”67 This last phrase is key because, again, just as was the case with Berthelier, it is used to describe resistance to the Word of God as embodied by the Consistory itself. His pride was not allowing him to submit to the order and structure that God had ordained for his Church. Thus Bonna continues to be called in and reprimanded throughout the rest of 1551, and each time the court remarks on his “great and outrageous rebellion.”68

63. R. Const. 6:150. 64.  Herman Selderhuis, John Calvin: A Pilgrim’s Life (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009), 209. 65.  R. Const. 6:4, fn. 18. 66.  R. Const. 6:150 “qu’i sorti du sermon environ le milleu, sans tiré son bonnet.” 67.  R. Const. 6:151: “avec fierté et arrogance.” 68.  See esp. R. Const. 6:223. In 1553 he was finally excommunicated for similar behavior, but greatly offended the Consistory by taking communion on Pentecost despite their direct warning. On this see Kingdon, “Social Control,” 524.

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Shortly after Beza’s death some half a century later, an affair involving councilmen Jean Sarasin and Jean Rilliet follows a similar trajectory to that of Berthelier and Bonna, but this time the events severely diminished the disciplinary power of the Consistory.69 The two were called to the Consistory in February 1606 to answer to the charges that they had participated in the traditional Epiphany Feast of the Three Kings in early January. When they refused to obey the summons, the Council stood by them and advised the Consistory instead to speak to them privately about the matter. The elders and ministers of the Consistory already sensed a growing crisis in regard to their authority and recognized that they risked reviving the problems of the Berthelier days. Still, they thought it essential for the health of the Church and community that they maintain sole authority to punish sinners with suspension from the Lord’s Supper. Thus in March they decided to excommunicate the two as ones who had not yielded to the Church’s directives:  “Because they have disobeyed their mother church, their mother does not recognize them as children of the church.” It is impossible to say with certainty whether they would have been merely reprimanded had they come to the Consistory in the first place, but it is clear that their perceived prideful arrogance exacerbated the punishment. The two simply did not accept that the Consistory spoke for God, and for that they were excommunicated. This is reflected in the impassioned sermons delivered by the minister Jean Jacquemot at the time in which he “condemned Sarasin and Rilliet for their foolishness and pride.” To define pride as a refusal to listen to God’s Word, even as it is expressed through the Church, immediately begs the question why Luther, Calvin, and the other early reformers did not feel it necessary to heed the injunctions of the Roman Church against themselves. This problem will be addressed more extensively along with the discussion of vocation in ­chapter 4. For now, suffice it to say that Beza answered this by disqualifying the papal religion as God’s faithful representative and bride on earth. Since the established “Church” had abandoned God and created its own version of the truth, it was necessary for it to be made anew in his image. With an extraordinary calling, God commissioned unique individuals to carry out that task. This newly reformed Church submitted itself to the Word of God and sought to rediscover God’s intent for it in the world. Collectively, through its synods and by its creeds, it exhibited its fidelity

69.  These details are taken from Manetsch, Calvin’s Company of Pastors, 213–​14.

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to God and rediscovered his truth, and its teachers, preachers, and elders exercised a special authority within those parameters. Any individuals who repudiated that collective authority in order to put forward their own ideas and beliefs, therefore, were guilty of a lack of humility.70

Doctrinal Conformity Both Berthelier and Bonna, and later Sarasin and Rilliet, proved themselves full of pride by ignoring the strictures of the Consistory against their moral lapses. Such lapses could be dealt with and corrected so long as obstinacy born of pride did not hinder their conforming and reintegrating into the social order. The same principle was applicable to instances of doctrinal unorthodoxy as well. If individuals circulated an opinion about God or the Church that deviated from established Reformed doctrine, the pastors and teachers, for whom there was such a calling, could demonstrate their errors from Scripture and set them back on the right path. First, however, those misguided souls would have to possess a willingness to be taught. The importance of doctrinal humility is illustrated for us vividly by a particular crisis that simmered throughout most of the 1560s and embroiled both Calvin and Beza. Often called the Morély affair, this incident involved a Huguenot by the name of Jean Morély and a book that he published in 1562 at Lyon titled Traicté de la discipline et police chrestienne.71 Morély had converted to Protestantism in 1547 and appears to have been living in Geneva from about 1552 onward. During his stay there, he began to work on a manuscript having to do with ecclesiastical structures and institutions, most notably calling into question the Scriptural mandate for the Consistory 70.  This is precisely the argument Beza makes to Italian jurist Ludovico Alamanni (Beza, Corr. VII [1566], no 471, esp.  111–​13) for trying to teach about the sacraments without any kind of calling and against the recognized confessions. “I cannot say whether you intend to trouble the Church there at Lyon,” he writes, “but you are, and if you continue you will definitely feel the avenging hand of God.” Beza goes on to say that he does not wish this punishment to befall Alamanni; instead, he wants him to be reconciled to the Church and lead a peaceful and happy life (sed [velim] te potius Ecclesiae reconciliari et pacatam felicemque vitam transigere). First, however, he must submit himself to be taught, and then he has the privilege of teaching others. 71.  Published at the press of Jean de Tournes. See the article on Morély in La France protestante, 10 vols, eds. Eugène Haag and Emile Haag (Paris: Joël Cherbuliez, 1846–​1859), 7:505–​ 07. Also, Philippe Denis and Jean Rott, Jean Morély et l’utopie d’une démocratie dans l’église (Geneva: Droz, 1993); and R. Kingdon, Geneva and the Consolidation of the French Protestant Movement (Geneva: Droz, 1967), esp. 43–​96.

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as it functioned in Geneva, as well as the Erastian model that gave the power of excommunication to magistrates.72 He may have shown earlier versions to Calvin and Pierre Viret, naively hoping to gain their support, but neither seems to have taken it seriously or even read it. Had they read it, they would have seen that he was advocating a kind of congregationalism in which all decisions of importance, including doctrinal ones, were made by a democratic vote of the congregation as a whole, and not through a church oligarchy or by the use of synods and tribunals. He resisted the idea that one congregation could lord it over others or exercise a special authority, as he believed was the case with the Genevan church. In his view, only those are to be excluded from the governance of the church who do not follow God’s Word and whose ability to form judgments is impaired (for example, as with children).73 No weight was to be given to individual gravitas or even calling in decision making. Morély must have sensed that he would have difficult time in publishing his book in Geneva proper, and so took the book to Lyon to publish it there. He dedicated the book to Viret, who was serving as the principal pastor in the Reformed church there at the time, and asked him in the preface to present it at the upcoming Orleans Synod of the French Reformed Church. He was clearly hoping to sway its members to modify its institutions. The Synod, however, presided over by Antoine de la Roche Chandieu, did not give Morély’s book serious consideration, but condemned it out of hand as subverting “the Order received in our churches, founded upon the Word of God.” This last phrase would prove to be especially important. Before the Genevan Consistory in two separate meetings more than a year later, on August 26 and 31, 1563, Morély refused to retract his views unless they could prove him wrong by the Word of God.74 In the second meeting the body excommunicated him “as schismatic and given to quarrels.”75 In the years that followed Morély found himself before several more synods, and

72. For the Erastian controversy, see Kirk Summers, “The Theoretical Rationale for the Reformed Consistory: Two Key Works of Theodore Beza,” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 105 (2014): 159–​79. 73. Morély, Traicté, 2.9. 74.  L’Extraict des procedures faites et tenues contre Jean Morelli (Geneva: François Perrin, 1563), 5: “Ce que ledit Morelli refusa, disant que si on luy remonstroit par la parole de Dieu qu’il eust failli, il se retracteroit volontiers.” 75.  L’Extraict des procedures faites et tenues contre Jean Morelli, 8:  “comme schismatique et homme addonné à contentions.”

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each time he made a half-​hearted recantation of his views and attempted reconciliation with the French churches and with Geneva. His greatest obstinacy occurred during the Paris Synod held in December of 1565 and presided over by Calvin’s former right-​hand man, Nicolas des Gallars, then pastor of Orleans. The synod condemned Morély for holding views about discipline that were contrary to the Word of God and declared him to be dangerous. He himself responded, the minutes note, that he was persuaded that his opinions were founded on God’s Word, and for the time being refused to retract them. The synod concluded that since he generally held to the Reformed articles of faith he should not be excommunicated, but should stop spreading his views and respond to a treatise that would soon be published.76 This treatise, published at the press of Henri Étienne at Geneva in 1566 and endorsed by Beza himself, was written by Antoine de la Roche Chandieu and titled La confirmation de la discipline ecclésiastique observée en églises réformées du royaume de France. If anything, it confirmed that for Beza and the Company of Pastors at Geneva, Consistory discipline accorded with the will of God and thus was one of the mainstays of a Christian society. It is telling that in this period Geneva continued to reject apologies and retractions from Morély. The pastors there became most alarmed, however, when they discovered that he had taken a post in the court of Jeanne d’Albret, Queen of Navarre, as tutor of her son Henri, future Henri IV, King of France. D’Albret was a staunch supporter of Protestantism and part of the strategy to achieve Protestant success in France. Now they feared Morély was in a position to influence the French monarchy toward a different kind of Church polity than they envisioned. Fortuitously for them, a complicated series of events led to the discovery of a cache of letters from Morély to a pastor in Orleans, Hugues Sureau, called du Rosier. These letters, which showed that Morély had indeed not repented of his views and additionally were full of bitter invectives against Genevan leaders, doomed Morély in Reformed circles. Furthermore, those communications connected Morély to a certain Costanus, who had his own problems with the church on a separate matter. Costanus had been deposed from his pastorate for holding heretical views about predestination, and Morély showed sympathy for him in the letters, though his support appears to have been on procedural grounds

76. Kingdon, Geneva and the Consolidation of the French Protestant Movement, 73.

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rather than doctrinal. The Orleans and Genevan leaders then were able to use the letters, albeit with some difficulty, to persuade the queen to dismiss Morély from his post. By late 1566, Morély was in real trouble with the Reformed churches of France and Geneva. At this point he began a desperate bid to win reconciliation with Beza and the Genevan authorities, but could not convince them that he had a change of heart. The Genevans doubted the sincerity of his repentance, to be sure, and would have punished him severely for being a schismatic and enemy of the church had he come to Geneva. But a series of letters on the matter between Beza, Morély, and others, ranging from late October 1566 to late March 1567, reveal that the lingering dispute was also being framed in terms of ambition and pride. Morély believed that Beza and the Genevans had ambitions to set themselves in authority over the other Reformed churches, and Beza and the authorities at Geneva perceived in Morély’s perfunctory and unenthused expressions of regret a lack of humility before God’s Word. To them, a prideful confidence in his own opinions prevented him from yielding to the overwhelming consensus of the Church leadership.77 It was on October 24, 1566 that Nicolas des Gallars wrote to Beza to inform him of Morély’s insults that appeared in the cache of letters found in Du Rosier’s house.78 The language used by Morély is stunning and vicious, to say the least. There he calls Geneva the “seat of the Antichrist” (sedem Antichristi) and dubs Beza himself “the Jupiter of Lake Leman” (Jovem Lemanicum), taking a cue from an earlier attack by François Bauduin against Calvin.79 Des Gallars could have gone further and does so elsewhere. Morély had added even more insults than is disclosed here, including the exasperated plea, “May God deliver his Church from the rebellious tyranny of a new Antichrist.”80 By Antichrist, the apocalyptic enemy of God’s kingdom, he plainly means Beza himself.

77.  In September, Beza had written in the name of the Company to the church of Orleans warning its leaders to remain vigilant about the doctrine and discipline in which they had originally been instructed and to “watch out for the spirit of pride [orgueil] and libertinism [legereté] which leads to divisions and eventually the ruin of churches.” See Beza, Corr. VII (1566), 310. 78. Beza, Corr. VII (1566), 256–​58 (=no 509). 79. For Bauduin’s insult of Calvin, see Bruce Gordon, Calvin (New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press, 2009), 148. 80.  For the quotation and the reference to the original, see Beza, Corr. VII (1566), 258, fn. 7.

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On December 7 of the same year, an embarrassed Morély writes to Beza to apologize.81 There he asserts that despite what his letters have said, he agrees that the discipline that he received from the French Reformed churches is “good, holy, and founded on the Word” (bonne, saincte, ayant son fondement en la Parole). He goes on to promise that he will subject himself to this discipline without speaking against it and humbly supplicates Beza, whom he addresses “Monsieur et Pere,” and the Company of Pastors his “peres et freres,” to receive him in their fellowship. Furthermore, he regrets what he said about Beza personally and begs for his forgiveness, claiming that his impatience and a bout of cholera induced him to those errors. Beza responded coolly on January 15, 1567. He reminded Morély that his real problem was with the Church as a whole, and not so much with Beza himself. He could forgive Morély, as God would have him do, but he will not let stand the accusation that Beza is setting himself up as an authority over and against the Word of God. He writes, Rest assured that for my part this is forgotten and as if it did not happen, but I hope that henceforth you will be more considerate, if not of me, who has loved you, as you know, and borne you no hatred (even though it is my duty to oppose your purposes as much as I could), then at least to this Church, which has not at all deserved to be so challenged by you or anyone else; and [considerate also] of the charge that God has seen fit that I uphold, about which, if it pleases him to grant me release from it, those who judge me overly ambitious will know if their judgment is right or not.82 The charge of which he speaks is his office as moderator of the Company of Pastors, a position through which Beza had assumed the leadership role in the Genevan church from Calvin and, by extension, considerable influence on the French Reformed churches. Morély had hurled the insults about his being Jupiter and the Antichrist for that very reason.

81. Beza, Corr. VII (1566), 284–​85. 82. Beza, Corr. VIII (1567), 38: “Asseurez vous donc que cela de ma part est oublié et comme non advenu, esperant que desormais vous aurés plus d’esgard, sinon à moy, qui toutesfoys vous ay aymé comme vous le savez, et ne vous portay jamais hayne, encoures que selon mon debvoir je me soys opposé à voz desseings tant que j’ay peu, au moins à ceste Eglise, qui n’a point merité d’estre ainsy calangee par vous ny par aultre, et à la charge qu’il plaist à Dieu que je soustiene, de laquelle s’il luy plaisoit me donner de me delivrer, ceulx qui m’estiment tant ambitieux cognoistroyent si leur jugement est droict ou non.”

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But here Beza is quick to counter on moral grounds:  he would gladly and quickly relinquish the post, should that be the will of God, since he himself has no personal ambitions in the matter. He only wants to be obedient and serve. On January 20, 1567, Morély again wrote to Beza and renewed his request for reconciliation with him.83 Morély claims that he has an orthodox view of predestination and adheres to the reformed confessions on the matter. He claims that Calvin, Farel, and Viret were content with his profession earlier, when he was involved in the case of François de Saint-​Paul, his brother-​in-​law.84 He defends himself against charges that he wished to harm the reformed churches and of having written questionable things on the subject of prophecy in the congregation.85 He is persuaded that Beza will be satisfied by these statements and asks him to help him recover his charge as tutor of the Prince of Navarre. It would seem that Morély is especially concerned about how he will support his large family. In a letter written to Beza on February 4, Morély clearly thinks that he will now be reconciled.86 But on March 26, 1567, Beza writes back to Morély to dismiss his attempts at reconciliation and assert that there is an underlying sin that is keeping Morély in his state of disenfranchisement.87 Beza begins by acknowledging that he has received several letters from fellow Christians in Paris affirming that Morély has changed his view on predestination and that he regrets his earlier sniping at Genevan leaders, but he notes too that no one agrees that he has been fully restored to the church. Beza expresses his dismay that Morély has not yet addressed the principal concern that brought him to this point (i.e., his criticism of church discipline). The repentance that he shows in his letters is full of qualifications and has more to do with his humiliation that the views expressed in the letters were exposed than any regret that he held those

83. Beza, Corr. VIII (1567), no 531. 84.  On this incident, see Denis and Rott, Jean Morély, 35–​37. 85.  The ritual of “prophesying” in the church, a practice that allowed the congregation to comment on a pastor’s sermon at the end of the service, is described in Denis and Rott, Jean Morély, 180–​85. According to the editors of Beza’s correspondance, Morély wrote a letter to Du Rosier on this subject (see Beza, Corr. VII [1566], 236 and 239, n. 14). He based his argument largely on 1 Cor. 12–​14, but failed to convince Beza. 86. Beza, Corr. VIII (1567), no 535. 87. Beza, Corr. VIII (1567), no 545.

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views in the first place. This, Beza points out, is evidence of Morély’s hypocrisy. What follows from this point in the letter, a section that can only be described as an extended vitriolic attack on Morély’s character and objectives, attempts to fix the root of Morély’s problems in his pride and ambition. Here Beza first runs through a litany of figures in the Scriptures who for a time distrusted God or resisted his people: Moses, David, Peter, and Paul. But with each of these, unlike with Morély, the obstinacy did not last long; they all admitted to their mistakes and submitted themselves to God’s purpose. Morély in his conscience still does not perceive that he has gone astray. Beza accounts for this headstrong blindness by contrasting him with those Biblical figures: They were pursuing the glory of God, but you are pursuing your own. They, by lowering themselves, were honored of God and ever will be. You are following the opposite path and will fall so low, if you continue along it, that God himself will not pull you up. Indeed, you do not have it in you, even if you were to acknowledge it a thousand times, to remedy the harm wrought by your pride.88 It is specifically pride, treated here again as a refusal to heed God’s Word, that prevents Morély from being reintegrated into the community of believers. Thus Beza advises Morély to deal with his pride first and foremost, and says that he himself will pray in the hope that God will even be willing to assist him, given that he has “violated the virginity of the French churches.”89 Morély should once and for all disabuse himself of the notion that he has an “extraordinary vocation” in regard to church discipline. He is nothing like the great reformers whose examples he invokes. God commissioned them to build up his Church, while Morély only works to divide it and tear it down. He then concludes the letter with reference to the

88. Beza, Corr. VIII (1567), 91:  “Ceux là cerchoyent la gloire de Dieu, et vous cerchés la vostre. Ils ont esté honnorés de Dieu, et le seront à jamais en s’abaissant. Vous suyvés le chemin contraire et tomberés si bas, si vous poursuyvés, que Dieu mesme ne vous en retirera pas. Et de fait il n’est pas en vous par mille recognoissances de remedier au mal fait par vostre orgueil.” 89. Beza, Corr. VIII (1567), 91:  “Car c’est vous qui avés violé la virginité des Eglises françoyses.”

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personal insults that Morély leveled at himself, further reminding Morély of the ruin that his pride is bringing on him: As to the particular matter, I ask God to pardon me as I have pardoned you. Your business is with God and with the Church, against whom enemies only win ruin.90 May God give you good counsel by his grace and especially the spirit of humility against the spirit of pride, which is the origin of your error and the impediment of your renewal.91 This letter, therefore, encapsulates Beza’s views on the Church’s relationship to vices such as arrogance. The only way for believers to stay within the fold and fortify themselves against the various vices to which they are inclined is to turn themselves constantly to the preaching and admonitions of the Church. The Church remains strong when its members listen and submit. The teachers, preachers, and elders of the churches are ordained to defend orthodoxy against those members who wish to introduce their own opinions about the meaning of God’s Word (i.e., “to prophesy”) in contradiction to established doctrinal confessions. Anyone who arrogantly opens up these doctrines again for debate threatens to throw the whole Church into chaos and rebellion.92

Speculating The vices of pride and ambition involve the transgression of boundaries. We have seen thus far that a key element of the reformers’ ethical vision was that everyone should stay in their place and not try to fashion their own rules, perform someone else’s job, or present individualistic and unauthorized theologies. Pride and ambition undermine that structure. It is in this same spirit that Beza includes two related poems about using

90.  This is a variation on the hammer/​anvil trope discussed in the previous chapter. 91. Beza, Corr. VIII (1567), 92:  “Quant au particulier, je prie Dieu qu’il me pardonne, comme je vous ay pardonné. C’est doncques à Dieu et à son Eglise que vous avés affaire, contre laquelle jamais ennemy ne gaigna que la ruyne. Dieu vous y donne bon conseil par sa grace, et sur tout l’esprit d’humilité contre l’esprit d’orgueil qui est l’origine de vostre mal, et l’empeschement de vostre guerison.” 92.  Beza makes these points clear also in a letter to Viret dated to March 1567; see Beza, Corr. VIII (1567), no 541.

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sophistry to talk about God in ways that go beyond his revealed Word. The first poem is about imaginative theologians: In theologos ultra modum philosophantes93 Quae voce nobis prodidit Deus sua, Ratione sciri nec queunt humanitus, Vanis sophorum somnians insomniis94 Vel posse nosci, vel doceri certius: Id est tenebris lucem egere cogitans,  5 Princeps haberi dignus est amentium. Mendacium nam veritas coarguit: Sed veritatem non probat mendacium. Against Theologians Who Engage in Excessive Speculation The person who imagines that the things which God proclaimed to us by his Word, yet are unattainable by human understanding, can either be ascertained or taught with any degree of certainty by the futile speculations of the sophists (that is, thinking that the light needs darkness), he is fit to be considered the prince of fools. For truth refutes falsehood, But falsehood does not prove the truth. Here Beza warns against straying into empty speculations about divine matters that go beyond human understanding. It was an admonition that Paul made often, in particular at 1 Corinthians 2:1–​5, 1 Timothy 1:4 and 6:20, 2 Timothy 2:16, and Titus 3.9, and was of great importance to the Genevan reformers. We gain a sense of the subtleties of the matter by a perusal of Beza’s comments on several of the aforementioned New Testament passages. For example, on 1 Timothy 6:20, he chides those who try to demonstrate their cleverness at the expense of firm doctrine. The passage itself reads, “O Timothy, keep that which is committed unto you, and avoid profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called.” This Beza translates as follows: “Timothee, depositum serva, et

93. Beza, Cato 1591, 7–​8; Beza, Poemata 1597, 274; Beza 1599, 137v. 94.  Note the word play and alliteration of sibilants in particular to create a hissing effect, evoking evil and snakes, but quite possibly the sound of someone sleeping and dreaming.

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aversare profanos de rebus inanibus clamores, et oppositiones falso nominatae scientiae.” Beza explains the phrase “de rebus inanibus clamores” (prophane and vain babblings) as a reference to sophistic and “philosophastric” disputes and controversies that are “as obscure as they are empty and noisy.”95 The word philosophaster is borrowed from Augustine, who is the only ancient author to use it. It occurs twice in the Contra Iulianum and once, though on dubious manuscript evidence, at De civitate Dei 2.27, in reference to Cicero.96 With its -​ster suffix (cf. poetaster and theologaster), it carries a disparaging connotation, meaning something along the lines of a “so-​called,” “pretentious,” or even “petty” philosopher. For “obscure” (spinosa) as a term of philosophical style he echoes Cicero’s De finibus 3.1.3, where we find Cicero leveling criticism against the difficult and crabbed argumentation of the Stoics (Stoicorum spinosum disserendi genus). More importantly, perhaps, Calvin in his treatise on God’s providence had used the word in advising his readers that a discussion of the doctrine of predestination is essential to the Christian life and not an exercise in “noisy and convoluted speculation” (argutam et spinosam speculationem).97 Then, continuing his discussion of the “philosophastric disputes and controversies” (concertationes), Beza notes that Paul added ἀντιθέσεων, that is, “opposing,” since these kind of vain philosophers engage in a never-​ending game of countering questions with questions. And in reference to the Vulgate reading, vocum novitates, that is, the “novelty of terms,” he admits that he is not totally opposed to the translation, since it speaks to a trend of the day, whereby some try to be innovative in their terminology—​baptism becomes washing, and angels becomes genies, and so on—​but in fact are only finding ways to sin through a profane contortion of words. Beza’s real concern for the damaging speculations prevalent in his own day surfaces again in his comments on 1 Timothy 1:4 and, by extension, Titus 3.9, where Paul tells his brothers to avoid controversies, myths, and geneaologies. He says that while some commentators relate the phrase “myths and geneaologies” to the magi and casters of horoscopes found at

95. Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 2, 363. Beza uses philosophaster on numerous occasions to refer to adversaries in doctrine; see, e.g., Beza, Corr. XXXII (1591), 15, in reference to Claude Aubery, the Lausanne professor whose writings sparked a long-​running controversy over justification. 96. Aug., Contra Iul. 5.11 and 6.18. For the evidence against its reading in the CD see Andrew West, “Philosophaster Once More,” CPh 5 (1910): 50–​55. 97. Calvin, De aeterna Dei praedestinatione, 15.

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Acts 19:19, he interprets it more generally as “curious and vain speculations,” which was particularly directed toward the predilection among the Jews for neglecting the true study of the law and engaging in the overly curious quibbling about useless questions. This is a trend, he laments, that continues to this day among those who claim to belong to the Christian Church. Similarly, at Romans 8:21, where Paul speaks of the freeing of creation from its slavery to corruption, Beza refers the reader to Peter’s statements about the “new Heaven and new earth,” while twice advising his readers to “avoid philosophizing” by straying outside the confines of the Word of God.98 More should be said about Beza’s use of the word “sophists,” a word that appears frequently throughout his theological works. In the well-​ known passage in the first chapter of 1 Corinthians, where in verse 17 Paul writes that Christ sent him to preach the gospel “not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect,” Beza connects the passage to the following oft-​quoted verse about the word of the cross being foolishness to those who are perishing. He interprets Paul to mean that he came speaking to the Corinthians with straightforwardness and simplicity, rather than with all the rhetorical and manipulative verbal tools that he had at his disposal from his education. On the specific phrase, “not with wisdom of words,” Beza writes the following:99 The Vulgate has crudely and obscurely, “in the wisdom of the spoken word.” Erasmus has, “with erudite speech.” We should add that a distinction is drawn between sophia [wisdom] and phronesis [prudence] such that the former concerns contemplation, the latter

98.  Cf. the rubric on a section of homily 13 of Beza’s In historiam passionis (297), here referring specifically to Scholastics in the theological schools who speculate excessively about the persons and offices of Christ: “Useless and vain questions must be avoided” (Vitandae inutiles et vanae quaestiones). 99. Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 2, 106: “Cum dicendi peritia ἐν σοφίᾳ λόγου. Vulg. barbare et obscure, In sapientia verbi. Eras. Erudito sermone. Porro σοφία et φρόνησις sic distinguuntur ut illa in contemplatione, ista in actione versetur. Sed σοφίας vocabulum constat interdum latius patere: adeo ut omnis generis artifices periti soleant a Graecis σοφοὶ appellari, ut infra, 3.10. Sed et nominatim Sophistae dicti sunt qui illam in rebus civilibus administrandis solertiam cum forensi facundia coniunxerant, et ab agendo sese ad dicendum contulerant, ut ait in Themistocle Plutarchus. Itaque non dubito quin oratoriam facultatem Apostolus appellet λόγου σοφίαν, quam a se non modo ut non necessariam removet, sed etiam ut Apostolicae facultati prorsus contrariam. Quid igitur? annon adfuit Paulo sua δεινότης? certe adfuit quanta nulli unquam obtigit, sed caelestis, non humana, et a fucatis illis coloribus prorsus pura.”

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action. But the word sophia sometimes takes on a broader significance, so that expert artisans of every kind frequently are termed sophoi by the Greeks, as below, Romans 3:10. But also those were expressly labeled sophists who joined skill in administrating civic affairs with public eloquence, and became speakers instead of doers, as Plutarch says in Themistocles. Therefore, I have no doubt but that by “the wisdom of words” the apostle is referring to an oratorical virtue, which he separates from himself, not only as not necessary, but also as completely contrary to the apostolic virtue. But you will counter, “Surely Paul had his own cleverness.” Yes, he had more cleverness than anyone ever, but it was heavenly, not human, and completely pure from those murky colorings. The “heavenly” speech of Beza’s comments implies a speech that is plain, straightforward, and free from “murky colorings,” that is, from the fine semantic distinctions that provide fodder for philosophers. Thus, in his comments at 1 John 5:16, he attacks “sophists” for drawing up a distinction between “mortal” sins and “venial” sins, countering with the simpler notion supported by Scripture that all sins are equal before God. In regard to Romans 2:6, he remarks that the sophists abuse the testimony of this passage and twist (detorquent) the words of Paul to mean the opposite of what they plainly say, “sophistically and ineptly utilizing krinomenon (the chief issue under discussion) in their argumentation” so as to make the apostle advocate the doctrine of justification by works.100 While waiting for the start of the Colloquy of Poissy, Beza writes to Calvin that he hopes that Vermigli can arrive in time because he is worried that he and his comrades are about to face “veteran sophists,” and though he has confidence in the “simple truth of the Word” to be victorious, at the same time he does not want his party to be caught off guard and unable to respond to their artifices.101 The concept was so important that, at the outset of his will and

100. Beza, Annotationes 1582, pt. 2, 13: “quod manifestissime detorquent Pauli verba in contrariam prorsus sententiam, inepte etiam ac plane sop(h)istice assumunt τὸ κρινόμενον in argumentando.” Cf. Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 2, 490 (on 2 Peter 3:16). For krinomenon see Quint. 3.11.4. In inventing their cases, legal adversaries steer the case to the question that best serves their respective interests, what in popular parlance we describe as setting up a straw man. 101. Beza, Corr. III (1559–​1561), 143 (letter 188 to Calvin, Aug. 30, 1561): “Erit enim nobis negotium cum veteranis sophistis, et quamvis confidamus fore ut vincat simplex verbi veritas, tamen non cuiusvis est illorum strophas statim diluere, et patrum dicta regerere.”

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testament, Calvin indicated that the avoidance of sophistry was a major concern of his ministry: I testify and declare that in all the controversies and disputes, which I have conducted with the enemies of the gospel, I have made no use of craftiness, nor corrupt and sophistical arts, but have been engaged in defending the truth with candor and sincerity.102 Calvin’s “candor and sincerity” is equivalent to Paul’s “heavenly speech” as Beza described it above. Finally, in Beza’s Life of Calvin, Beza addresses the attack of Albertus Pighius (of Campen in Holland) against Calvin in his work De libero hominis arbitrio et divina gratia in 1542. Pighius, he says, was attempting to refute Calvin’s doctrine of the bondage of the will and original sin—​Luther also falls within his sights—​and argued that God takes special note of works when saving someone. The Protestants generally judged Pighius as an outstanding if misguided disputant who could stir the emotions of his readers by the brilliant presentation of his own case and the twisted disparagement of that of his opponents. It was for these skills that Beza there in Calvin’s biography calls him “the chief sophist of our age” (sophistam illius aetatis facile principem).103 All these examples, along with numerous others scattered throughout Beza’s works, reveal that he mostly applies the term “sophists” to his contemporary Catholic and Lutheran adversaries.104 They also reveal that he has in view not only the most controversial doctrines in which they engage, such as the role of faith and works in justification, or the real presence of Christ’s body in the Eucharist, but also their scholastic methodology. But the term can and does cover any person who spends too much time parsing words and passages of Scripture to revel in their own cleverness and inventiveness and introduce into the simple, sincere message of the Gospel layers of meaning that were never intended.

102. Translation by Thomas Smyth, Calvin and His Enemies (Philadelphia:  Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1856), 119 (Appendix 2). 103.  For the complete passage, see CO 21:135. 104. Such is the judgment of the Catholic theologian James A. Corcoran in his article “Beza as a Translator: His Perversions of the Word of God,” The American Catholic Review 4 (1879): 521–​50, esp. 534; there he references Beza’s attack on “Catholic sophists,” to which he adds, “this is the pet name for our theologians with Calvin and himself [sc. Beza].”

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It is easy to see how Beza could think that the arguments of opponents are sophistic. But how could a poem against theological speculation be relevant internally within the Reformed movement? And why was it important as an ethical matter? When Beza describes the person imagining that “the light needs darkness” as worthy (dignus) to be called the chief among fools, he is again warning his reader of pride and the failure to keep to one’s station in humility and diligence. Such a person wrongly conceives that he is equal with God and even can know things that God did not reveal, just as Adam assumed in the Garden. “We say that the union of the believer to the body of Christ is spiritual, heavenly, and divine,” Beza says to the Lutheran theologian Tileman Heshusius in discussing the Eucharist, “but this is a confession of its incomprehensibility rather than an explication of it; and how faith effects that union, we admit that we are ignorant, but we adore it just as we do the other many mysteries revealed in the Word of God.”105 Furthermore, the last two lines of the poem draw finite boundaries of truth: God gives us the truth that we need to function within our estate as human beings, but we cannot in turn ambitiously and pridefully use things that were not given or revealed to say something valid about God. This stands as a sharp warning against all private theological contemplation and reminds the reader that faith looks not to innovation, but to the shared, communal, and historic understanding of the revealed Word. Beza neatly sums up his views on speculation in a letter written to the dedicatory epistle of his Quaestiones et responsiones of 1570 addressed to Lutheran philologist Joachim Camerarius. Beza begins the epistle by offering his new book in reciprocation for a gift he had received from Camerarius, and then immediately turns to explain his motivation for writing the work and its dialogic form:106 Partly it was friends who gave occasion for this sort of writing, while they were inquiring various things of me, partly I myself summoned it, so to speak, by reflecting on many things. For although the Academics’

105. Beza, Tractationes theologicae, I, 275: “Modum quidem dicimus esse spiritualem caelestem divinum; sed hoc est potius incomprehensibilem esse fateri, quam illum explicare … fides vero qui tandem id efficiat, nos ignorare profitemus, sicut alia plurima et maxima nostrae religionis arcana, in quibus quicquid nobis verbo Dei patefactum est, adoramus.” 106.  From the dedicatory epistle of Beza’s Quaestionum et responsionum Christianarum libellus (Geneva: Jean Crespin, 1570), dated the “Ides of February,” that is, February 13 (see also Beza, Corr. XI [1570], 45): “Causam autem huic qualicunque scriptioni partim praebuerunt amici, dum varia ex me percontantur, partim ipsemet de multis dubitando velut accersivi.

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“denial of certitude” is diametrically contrary to our convictions and must be completely discharged from the Church, and though empty curiosity must be reprehended, nevertheless in this weakness of human judgment it is not only permitted to reflect on necessary and useful things, but also fitting, provided we are not like those who, as I am in the habit of saying, “are ever seeking to never find.”107 Whether I have sufficiently kept this delicate balance in my questioning and responding, you will determine in accord with your very astute judgment. Beza here rejects two approaches to theological contemplation and dialogue within the church. He points first to the position of the sceptical contingent of the Academy, the philosophical school of ancient Greece and Roman represented by Arcesilaus, Carneades, Philo of Larissa, and Cicero. The Academic Skeptics held, with some variation among them, that it is impossible to be certain of our apprehensions, and thus the wise man will suspend judgment about everything and avoid making dogmatic assertions.108 For Beza, this attitude is precluded by the confidence that the Holy Spirit instills in believers about the Word of God. Christians can and should have assurance of their faith. Second, Beza warns against the kind of idle inquisitiveness that dwells on empty, useless, and pointless matters not meant to advance the Christian life. Augustine had condemned such vain curiosity in the same breath as haughtiness and concupisence, and many of the Fathers had censured it fervidly.109 But Beza does allow for, and even encourages, the inner examination and questioning of one’s beliefs, so long as the goal is to strengthen conviction about matters that Etsi enim illa Academicorum ἀκαταληψία nostrae persuasioni ex diametro repugnans, ex Ecclesia prorsus explodenda est, et inanis curiositas valde reprehendenda; in hac tamen humani iudicii imbecillitate iudico dubitare de rebus necessariis et utilibus non tantum licere, verum etiam oportere, modo eorum similes non simus quos dicere consuevi semper quaerere ut nunquam inveniant. Hunc igitur et in quaerendo et in respondendo modum an satis servarim, tu pro acerrimo tuo iudicio aestimabis.” Peter Martyr Vermigli has a similar statement in a digression that he made on Col. 2:3, on whether it is proper for a Christian to study philosophy; see Loci communes (Heidelberg: Daniel and David Aubrii, 1622), 141. 107.  The dictum is an adaptation of 1 Tim. 3:7. 108.  R. J. Hankinson, The Skeptics (London: Routledge, 1995), 85–​86. For most Academics, especially Cicero’s teacher Philo of Larissa, the wise man can still hold opinions, he just cannot be dogmatic about them. 109. See A. Labhardt, “Curiositas,” Museum Helveticum 17 (1960):  206–​ 24. Augustine equates curiositas with the sin of lust, that is, desiring to know things and people you are not supposed to know; see Conf. 10.26–​34.

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are beneficial. Through this sort of reflection, Christians can ground their faith and make progress on the path of holiness. The poem about theologians engaging in philosophical speculation is complemented in later editions of the Cato by another one addressing philosophers who speculate on theological matters. In philosophos ultra modum theologizantes110 Princeps Sophorum qui videtur maximus, A fine Graece idem vocatus optimo, Mundum extitisse semper istum somnians, Nunquam proinde desiturum credidit. Res mira, tanto errore lapsum hunc turpiter  5 Longe sophorum creditum doctissimum. Immo fieri sic hos probat stultissimos, Iustum sapere qui nesciant intra modum. Against philosophers who theologize excessively He who is seen as first and foremost of the wise men,111 whose name in Greek means “chief good,” conjectured that this world always existed, and likewise believed that the world would never end. It is an amazing thing, that the one who is assumed to be the most learned of the wise by far, disgracefully fell into such great error. It only goes to show that people become the biggest fools, when they do not know how to be wise within the right bounds. The philosopher whose name means “chief good” (or literally, “the best end”) is Aristotle; the phrase “a fine optimo” plays off the etymology of his name in Greek. In general, Beza respected the philosophical contributions of the famed thinker, especially his logical methology. At the same time, he recognized that his speculative judgments were merely secular and humanistic, and lacking in a true knowledge of God and the nature of creation. “Philosophical

110. Beza, Poemata 1597, 280; Beza, Poemata 1599, 140r–​v. The poem does not appear in the 1591 edition of the Cato. 111.  In this poem I have translated sophi as wise men instead of sophists to avoid the specific pejorative coloring that Beza intends elsewhere. In any case, sophist would be an anachronism when applied to Aristotle.

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contemplation of the physical world should not contradict the Word of God,” Beza says in his lecture on Romans 1, “but can be an instrument for comprehending it.”112 He adds that Galen was compelled from his study of nature to marvel at the “power and eternity of God,” even though he was an atheist. But then Beza balks at the “foolishness” of Epicurus and Aristotle in denying creation ex nihilo and asserting the eternity of the world.113 Elsewhere he remarks that philosophers have pseudo-​knowledge (ψευδώνυμος γνῶσις) and should not be depended upon for the chief points of theology, though he is quick to praise Aristotelian logic for its ability to uncover the truth.114 In the same passage, notably, he dismisses the kind of scholastic disputation and unnatural “pseudo-​dialectics” prevalent in many schools. His colleague and fellow minister Antoine de Chandieu made similar arguments in a work of commonplaces published in 1580: those who employ such logic revel in confusing their opponents with true-​sounding falsehoods.115 In Beza’s mind, the mistake that Aristotle and other philosophers make when discussing matters of theology is that they do not know what God revealed about himself and so merely fantasize within human limits about God. While their observations about the physical world enhance our appreciation for God’s majesty (as it did, ironically, for the atheist Galen), they arrogantly go “out of bounds” when talking about nonobservable phenomena for which we depend on divine revelation. Christians are advised to check their pride and become “empty barrels” for receiving the wisdom of God. This is the message of one of Beza’s emblems: One Person Filling Up a Full Barrel, Another an Empty One116 Just as it is a simple matter to fill an empty barrel,

112.  Theodore de Beze: Cours sur les Epitres aux Romains et aux Hebreux: 1564–​66, d’apres notes de Marcus Widler, eds. Pierre Fraenkel and Luc Perrotet (Geneva:  Droz, 1988), 30:  “Hinc philosophicum verbo Dei non repugnet oportet. Est enim organum per quod cognoscitur.” 113.  Fraenkel and Perrotet, Cours, 31–​32. See also Beza’s criticisms of Aristotle and other ancient philosophers in a letter to Jean Casimir, Count Palatine, and his nephew, attached to his paraphrases on Ecclesiastes, at Corr. XXIX (1588), 243-​63. 114.  From Beza’s preface to Lambert Daneau’s Christianae Isagoges ad Christianorum the[o] logorum lcos communes, libri II (Geneva: Eustache Vignon, 1588). 115.  For a summary of Chandieu’s arguments, see Manetsch, Calvin’s Company of Pastors, 249–​50. 116.  Beza, Poemata 1597, 250; Beza, Poemata 1599, 125v: “ ‘Alius vas plenum, alius vacuum, replentes’| Ceu vacuum facilis vas est implere laboris, | Quod vero est plenum velle replere furor: | Sic cuius divina animum sapientia coepit, | Et vitae invasit quem melioris amor. |

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but it is madness to fill one that is already full, so is the one whose mind divine wisdom begins to fill, and whom the love a better life has taken hold. Either bring your mind empty of human notions, man, or remain full of your own foolishness. The mention of emptying again evokes the imagery of Christ’s emptying of himself as described at Philippians 2. We noted above that the emptying of Christ involves his submission to the Father and the suppression of his claim to equality. He thus models for believers a life that conforms itself to the divine authority.

Conclusion We began this chapter by searching for the essence of humility in Goulart’s apophthegms from the life of Bernard, in Calvin’s interpretation of the first sin of Adam and Eve, and in Beza’s poems against the proud and on the mulberry tree. It became evident that these representatives of the Reformed faith did more than merely promote a self-​effacing modesty; they advocated what can reasonably be called an ethos of listening. In other words, they espoused submissiveness, obedience, conformity, and reliance on God as the key characteristics of a humble person. True believers, in their view, are endowed with a spirit willing to submit and conform to the truth and purpose of God as revealed both in his Word and in his Church to the extent that it follows the Word. The prideful do not listen to the Word, while the ambitious attempt to impose their own authority and views upon that order. Thus, for both Daneau and Beza, pride and ambition undermine social structure and the peace of the Church and reflect a misunderstanding of what distinction means in the Christian community. Distinction comes through service and service deflects all glory to God. Christians should in no way try to be superior to others. We examined several disciplinary cases in Geneva to illustrate what role pride and ambition played in providing an ethical rationale for social control, beyond simply the political and economic pressures caused by the influx of refugees and the growth of the newcomer class known as Aut vacuam humanis, homo, mentem sensibus adfer: | Stultitiae plenus vel remaneto tuae.” That the vas is a barrel is made clear from the image associated with the poem.

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the bourgeoisie.117 The examples of Berthelier, Bonna, Sarasin, and Rilliet showed that the resistance to the dictates of the Consistory was immediately taken as a sign of pride and arrogance, because the Consistory served as God’s agent on earth, charged with the oversight of discipline. Morély could not be reintegrated into the Church because of his pride as well. He would not listen to the Genevan Company of Pastors, the French Reformed synods, or the various consistories as they attempted to correct his errors. Finally, the two poems of the Cato collection dealing with speculation, theologians philosophizing and philosophers theologizing, have to do with the boundaries of the faith. It is immoral to say more about God than God has said about himself. While it may be tempting to look to nature for extra-​scriptural revelation about God, in fact every observation about God’s nature must be regulated by the simple meaning of the Word of God. Undoubtedly this explains why proof-​texting became so prominent in the theological treatises and controversial works of the Reformed movement. There was a desire to stay within the confines of the Word and not to introduce one’s own speculative opinion. Such is the stuff of pride and ambition that meets with God’s resistance.

117.  These pressures form the thesis of Kingdon’s article, “Social Control.” But even given these pressures, the Consistory in immediate terms saw itself as dealing with arrogance in the face of God’s will.

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As the Truth Prescribes Beza viewed the Christian life and sanctification as a process whereby believers are more and more transformed to righteousness through the agency of the Holy Spirit and restored to their proper place in creation. And while moral perfection can never be achieved in this earthly life, progress in that journey brings the individual into a happier state. Sin causes chaos and confusion and breaks mankind’s fellowship with one another and with God, but growth in morality, at least for those united to Christ, repairs relationships and dispels the disorder. Sanctification reintegrates the individual into the divinely ordained scheme of things. One sure indicator that a Christian is on the path to restoration is the presence of a zeal for authenticity; truthfulness must undergird every aspect of the moral life and in some ways should be understood as equivalent to it. At Geneva, to be sure, Calvin constantly promoted an uncompromising standard of honesty among the Reformed faithful and held himself up as a model.1 He wanted his flock to be on guard against all forms of deception and mendacity in their own conduct. This expectation for a straightforward honesty in personal interactions, however, arises from a larger, more important ethical ideal. The Latin sincere of Calvin’s well-​known motto, “I offer my

1. See Perez Zagorin, Ways of Lying:  Dissimulation, Persecution, and Conformity in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press, 1990); Raymond Blacketer, “The Moribund Moralist: Ethical Lessons in Calvin’s Commentary on Joshua,” Dutch Review of Church History 85 (2005): 149–​68, esp. 162–​66; Karen Spierling, “Putting ‘God’s Honor First’:  Truth, Lies, and Servants in Reformation Geneva,” Church History and Religious Culture 92 (2012):  85–​103, esp.  86–​87. Blacketer, 166, notes the tension between Calvin’s inflexible adherence to a principle of honesty and the fact that in several instances he did exercise deception, such as when he used pseudonyms.

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heart to you, Lord, promptly and sincerely” (cor meum tibi offero, Domine, prompte et sincere), speaks to a more profound and all-​encompassing type of authenticity required of a Christian. A heart offered sincerely is one that yearns to embrace divine righteousness and beauty as the only truths that matter, while at the same time spurning all pretentions of morality and wisdom. It offers itself humbly yet confidently to the Father by drawing its strength and guidance from being united with Christ, whom it recognizes as the embodiment of the truth. Beza certainly understood what Calvin meant. His considered choice of sincere (sincerely) and sinceritas (sincerity) to translate key Scriptural passages dealing with truthful living (along with his in-​depth explanations of the terms throughout his annotations) indicate the central place that this same concept of sincerity held in his ethical thought. For him, the Christian’s experience of sanctification is enveloped and defined by a love for God’s perfect purity and beauty. Christians who are making progress in finding their rightful place in creation are those seeking out this ultimate, unblemished truth and aligning themselves to it. To Beza’s mind, therefore, phrases in the New Testament that refer to walking or living in the truth allude not simply to the Christian’s responsibility to be straightforward and honest in speech, but to a broader commitment to what is true. He called this commitment sincerity. His translation and analysis of the Greek word for “truth” at 3 John 3 illustrates this point: Gavisus sum enim valde quum venirent fratres et testificarentur sinceritatem [τῇ ἀληθείᾳ] tuam, prout tu sincere [ἐν ἀληθείᾳ] ambulas.2 For I rejoiced greatly when the brethren came and testified of the sincerity that is in you, according as you walk sincerely. In his notes Beza explains that he chose sinceritas (sincerity) over veritas (truth) here, in contrast to the Vulgate and Erasmus, to indicate the meaning of the Greek phrase more precisely. The former contains an ethical aspect that the latter does not fully express. In his view, this particular passage reflects a Hebrew usage whereby truth stands for a blameless life, or freedom from wickedness.3 He reminds the reader of his own definition of

2. Beza, Annotationes 1598, part 1, 514. I have inserted the Greek words being translated by sinceritatem and sincere. In the translation I have deviated from the translation of the Geneva Bible to better reflect Beza’s Latin. 3. Beza, Annotationes 1598, part 2, 514: “Ego malui planius loqui. Certum enim est veritatis nomine, Hebraeorum more, significari interdum vitam integram, et (ut inquit ille) sceleris

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truth at John 3:21, where, commenting on the phrase “whoever does what is true comes to the light,” he contends that doing what is true stands for “a life that is truly good and devoid of deceit, whose teacher is the Law of God.” He notes the juxtaposition of the person who is committed to the truth and the person represented by the phrase “the one doing evil things” (ὁ φαῦλα πράσσων) in the previous verse, which he interprets to mean, “the one who knowingly turns aside from the right way, and pursues evil while feigning what is right.”4 These two persons represent opposite ends of the spectrum of living, the one avoiding deceit and the other embracing it: the former is guided down the right path by God’s instrument, the Law, a reflection of his righteousness and truth, while the latter deviates from that path by choosing instead to follow false opinions and inner, rebellious inclinations. Finally, in reference to the final phrase of 3 John 3 (above), Beza refers the reader to his comments on 2 John 4 to explain why he chose sincere to translate ἐν ἀληθείᾳ: there he translates περιπατοῦντας ἐν ἀληθείᾳ with “sincere ambulent” (walking in truth, or sincerely) and glosses it with “as the truth prescribes” (ut veritas praescribit). Thus in the 3 John 3 passage, he understands the apostle to be expressing his joy that brothers came to him and testified to the high moral character of the congregation, and that they live “as the truth prescribes.” Beza ties the two phrases together with “according as” (prout translating the Greek καθὼς), thereby implying an absolute correspondence between moral character and living according to the truth. The two are interchangeable. And since, as was established in the comments about John 3:21, the Law functions as teacher of the truth, it is evident that for Beza authentic or sincere living takes its beginning from obedience to the Law of God. The word sinceritas allows Beza to give a moral tint to the word truth. Elsewhere, when truth is being thought of more conceptually, though still tied to morality, he chooses to employ the more usual word veritas. And so in regard to 1 Corinthians 13:6, where Paul is describing the true nature of love, Beza underscores the contrast being drawn between unrighteousness

puram; sicut docuimus Ioan. 3.21. Neque quisquam est ex Evangelicis scriptoribus, qui veritatis vocabulo aeque delectetur ac Ioannes, passim illud multiplici significatione inculcans.” 4. Beza, Annotationes 1598, part 1, 362: “Veritatis autem nomen hoc loco declarat vitam vere bonam et omnis fraudis expertem, cuius magistra est lex Dei. Isti autem opponitur φαῦλον πράσσων, id est qui animo sibi male conscio a recta via deflectit, et malo studet rectum simulans.”

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(iniustitia) and the truth (veritas) as evidence that the latter can sometimes denote righteousness, because, as he says, “there is no true righteousness which is not devoid of deceit,” and “no love among the evil but rather conspiracy.”5 The last word is striking and unexpected, and speaks vividly of the secretly deceptive motivations of the wicked. In the same vein, commenting on Romans 3:7, Beza equates the truth of God (veritas Dei) with His righteousness, which two he says are “bound up tight together” and stand in opposition to the injustice and mendacity of human beings, which are bound together just as tightly.6 Finally, at Romans 2:2, he interprets the phrase, “the judgment of God according to the truth” (iudicium Dei … secundum veritatem), as an assertion that God’s tribunal will make its determination “not by the appearances of righteousness, which are commonly called morals,” but by God’s standard of what is right.7 Beza is adamant that the human understanding of what constitutes morals always misses the mark in the presence of the Creator. The true morality of God, in short, involves a selfless love, emptied of any intent for personal gain or advantage, and living in peace and union with God and neighbor as directed first and foremost by the Law. In the journey of the moral life, therefore, Christians are internalizing a commitment to the truth while purging themselves and their actions of any vestiges of deceit. Deceitfulness hinders reintegration into the kingdom of God and is, in fact, tantamount to a rebellion against his intents and purposes. Satan, Beza remarks at John 8:44, could not remain in the presence of the Father for the simple fact that he lied, since God only receives

5. Beza, Annotationes 1598, part 2, 160: “Sed apparet ex opposito membro, veritatis nomine hoc loco iustitiam in genere declarari, ex Hebraeorum idiotismo, qui emeth in genere accipiunt pro iustitia, quod nulla sit vera iustitia quae non sit fraudis expers. Nulla est igitur inter malos charitas sed coniuratio potius.” 6. Beza, Annotationes 1598, part 2, 19: “Eodem igitur spectat veritas atque iustitia illa Dei cuius in superiore versiculo facta est mentio, nisi quis malit ex hac Dei veritate, veluti fonte, exoriri illius iustitiam, aut veritatem ex iustitia; adeo arcto vinculo sunt ista inter se devincta. Nam Deus et quia summe iustus est ac verax, idcirco fidem quam ultro dedit, ultro conservat; et quia exhibet quantumvis perfidis quicquid semel pollicitus est, idcirco summe iustum sese ac veracem praestat. Istis autem opponitur hominum iniustitia ac mendacium, id est perfidia, simili prorsus ratione aestimanda, ut illis ex diametro opponantur.” 7. Beza, Annotationes 1598, part 2, 13, commenting on secundum veritatem: “Id est ex ipsius rei natura de qua apud Dei tribunal diiudicanda quaeritur, non autem ex ulla recti specie, quantumvis illustri hominum oculis, vel etiam menti apparente. Haec autem veritas purissima non tantum meros illos simulatores parietibus dealbatis similes refellit, sed veris etiam civilis vitae virtutibus, quas morales vocant, praeditos omni illa imagniariae suae apud Deum iustitiae opinione privat.”

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unto Himself what is true.8 Once fellowship is broken and harmony is disrupted, chaos ensues. Beza stresses in numerous places that this commitment to the authentic life must include more than just what one says with one’s mouth; it encompasses the whole person in every aspect, both action and word. This understanding, for example, leads him to translate the ἀληθεύοντες δὲ ἐν ἀγάπῃ of Ephesians 4:15 with “sincere nos gerentes cum charitate” (conducting ourselves sincerely with love)9 and to offer the following explanation: Or, “constantly persevering,” an interpretation that the Syriac [Aramaic] translator followed. For τὸ ἀληθεύειν corresponds in general to the Hebrew word aman, which in the Niphal conjugation indicates “being steadfast and constant.” The Vulgate’s translation, “Veritatem sectantes” [pursuing the truth] is obscure. Moreover, that truth is set in opposition to deceit, not only in words, as below at verse 25, but in deeds also, and so looks to the whole course of life.10 The phrase steadfast and constant harks back to another comment that Beza made on Romans 3:7, mentioned above, where we find the phrase the truth of God. There the truth of God is his righteousness as expressed through his constancy and faithfulness: God acts in accord with his character and does what he promises. For Christians, then, to act sincerely demands that they discover that truth of God and imitate it without perfidy in speech and action.

A World Full of Falsehood The aforementioned ideas coalesce and find expression in a poem of the Cato directed against liars, where the falsehood that permeates this present

8. Beza, Annotationes 1598, part 2, 397, in discussing the phrase in veritate. 9.  I  have provided a literal translation for the reader since the Geneva Bible’s rendering, “let us follow the truth in love,” does not follow Beza’s intent but shows the influence of the Vulgate translation. From the notes, Beza clearly understands the passage to mean something like, “being steadfast in the truth with love.” 10. Beza, Annotationes 1598, part  2, 277:  “Vel, constanter perseverantes, quam interpretationem sequutus est Syrus interpres. Nam τὸ ἀληθεύειν omnino respondet Hebraeo verbo aman, quod in Niphal declarat firmum et constantem esse. Vulgata, Veritatem sectantes, obscure. Veritas autem ista opposita fraudi non tantum in dicties, ut infra 25, sed in factis quoque, atque adeo toto vitae cursu spectatur.”

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rebellious world is set against the truth held dear by a few faithful in the protective hand of God. The poem reads as follows: In Mendaces11 Ignota caelo, et ipsi Falsitas solo, Illisque cunctis ille quae rerum parens Adstricta servat veritatis vinculo: Sed grata solis (proh scelus!) mortalibus, Omnis magistra fraudis12 et versutiae,  5 Quam plurimorum in corde et ore considens. Impune in ipsos principum irruens thronos, Clamosa iudicum occupans subsellia, In officinis, in tabernis personans, Sacris et ipsis impudens ex pulpitis  10 Sursum, deorsum, sancta vertens omnia: Nunquamne mundo nisi ruente concides? Nam dia cuncta ceu tuetur Veritas, Sic cuncta dira Falsitate corruunt. Regna ergo, regna quamdiu Deus sinet,  15 Mundi hoc merente falsitate Falsitas, At, pauculi vos, Veritas quibus placet, Perstate fortes, Numinis freti manu. Nam tempus aderit, Mundus atque Falsitas Quum pariter uno corruent sic impetu,  20 Ut illa Mundum, et Mundus illam pertrahat. Against Deceivers Falsehood, unknown to Heaven and the very earth itself, and to all those things which the creator keeps bound with the chain of truth;

11.  Beza made significant changes to the text in later editions, which are adopted here. The changes are to be noted as follows: 1 ignota Terrae Falsitas 1591 6 Quamplurimorum 1591 7 invadens 1591 20 corruentes impetu 1591 21 Et … pertrahet 1591. In the last line, Beza changed his original et to ut to emphasize that mutual destruction is the logical consequence of the alliance between the world and Falsehood. 12.  On the phrase magistra fraudis (and its variants) and its frequent appearance in literature, see Phineas Fletcher, Locustae, vel Pietas Iesuitica, trans. Estelle Hahn, Supplement Humanistica Lovaniensia IX (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1996), lxiii, esp. n. 209.

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but pleasing to mortals alone—​ah the crime!—​ the teacher of all deceit and cunning, residing in the hearts and mouths of countless people, with impunity assaulting the very thrones of rulers, occupying the clamorous benches of judges, resounding in workshops and taverns, and shamelessly from the sacred pulpits themselves, turning all that is holy upside down: Will you never rest until the whole world collapses into ruin? Just as divine Truth watches over all things, so all things come to ruin through abominable Falsehood. Therefore, reign, Falsehood, reign, as long as God permits, since the falsehood of the world deserves it. But you few, whom Truth pleases, remain steadfast, relying on the hand of God. For the time will come when the world and Falsehood in tandem will come to ruin by one blow, such that she will drag down the world, and the world her. Here Beza addresses a personified Falsehood and characterizes it as unknown (ignota) to the natural creation (represented by caelum and solum),13 since the latter remains under God’s direct providential control and thus is bound with the chain of truth. He places the influence of Falsehood into two distinct spheres, one being the earthly realm or world (lines 7–​9), and the other the spiritual realm of the Church (lines 10–​11), signaled by the mention of pulpits and all things holy (sancta omnia). The world in particular is replete with falsehood and so receives special mention in the final lines of the poem: the mundi (of the world) of line 16 and the mundus (world) of line 21 signify not the physical creation that is bound to the truth as indicated in the first three lines, but specifically inhabitants of the world. Beza observes in his annotations on 1 Corinthians 1:21 that in the New Testament the appellation world has a range of possible meanings: it sometimes refers broadly to all people considered in the unregenerated state in which they were born, sometimes to reprobates only, and sometimes to all the inhabitants of the earth not taken as individuals.14 13.  The 1591 edition of the Cato reads terra for solum. 14. Beza, Annotationes 1582, part 2, 95. At 1 Cor. 4:9 (Annotationes 1598, part 2, 118), he interprets it to mean “Heaven and earth,” and compares it to the use at Rom. 8:19, but at Rom. 11:12 (Annotationes 1582, part 2, 67) he glosses it as “the Gentiles.”

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But here in this poem, Beza remains vague concerning which inhabitants he means in order to make a broader point: falsehood pervades every corner of human intercourse, extending from kings on thrones, the very seat of government, throughout the legal system where fairness should prevail, down to the dealings that people have in their everyday lives, on the street, in the marketplace, and in the taverns. The fabric of human relationships is torn and damaged, such that what Truth would keep together, Falsehood reverses and brings to ruin. This Beza underscores in line 13 with the collocation dia cuncta, which makes a complete metamorphosis of sense by the addition of one letter in line 14: cuncta dira. The chiasmus of the two phrases emphasizes the dramatic nature of the turnabout. The ruin that Falsehood brings (corruunt) in line 14 is fulfilled, as promised, in line 20, where corruent is reiterated, the reward for a world full of falsehood.15 Only those who stand fast in God’s hand, where truthfulness resides, can hope to escape this collapse of the world.

The Discipline of Lying Scott Manetsch’s study of the consistorial records from 1542–​1609 reveals that during that period 5.0 percent of the cases before the Genevan Consistory that led to suspension from the Lord’s Supper had to do with lying and slander. This statistic does not include some instances of business fraud, which fall under usury, nor does it include blasphemy, which itself encompasses heresy, certainly, but also irreverent utterances and defamation of God. The latter makes up another 5.6 percent of the cases.16 The offences of lying and slander admit several fine distinctions. Slander, or calumny as it is often called in the Consistory records, makes up a large portion of these cases. These involved accusations or slurs leveled against someone without good evidence and proper protocol. Examples include Jeanne Grieuse, who on March 11, 1568 was suspended for calling her daughter a “glutton, drunk and whore,” and Jeanne Valloire, who was charged with “arrogance and menteries” for calling a man a “liar and hypocrite” and suspended on August 5, 1568.17 Some of these slanders took place during the proceedings of the Consistory itself. For example, Audrée Audru, an immigrant who was called before the Consistory

15. Cf. Rev. 21:8b in Beza’s translation:  “et omnibus mendacibus portio adsignata est in stagno ardente igne et sulphure, quod est mors secunda.” 16. Manetsch, Calvin’s Company of Pastors, 199–​200. 17.  I am indebted to Scott Manetsch for providing me with a list of the slander and lying cases that occurred in the years 1568–​1569.

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because her marital status was suspect, responded to the enquiries with stunning charges against the wife of the minister Raymond Chauvet, accusing her of having an affair with the minister Jean Cousin. The original charge was viewed primarily as a matter of improper cohabitation, but all this was trumped when she issued the accusations against Chauvet’s wife. She was imprisoned for one month specifically for the slander. Then, when shortly after her release she charged the ministers of the city with preaching heresies, she was banned from the city itself for three years.18 In another incident, a woman by the name of Anne, the wife of a certain farm laborer named Amy, charged her former landlord Pernete Bochue of having called her a “witch” (herige) because of some property damage suffered during her stay. Pernete denied that she made the insult, but there were witnesses and so she was made to apologize and reconcile with Anne.19 Clearly, Pernete’s aim was to hurt Anne through name-​calling and perhaps even damage her reputation within the community. In a small, interdependent setting such as Geneva was at the time, it would have been socially dangerous to let these sorts of slanderous accusations go unchallenged for obvious reasons.20 If the Consistory had good reason to fear the discord that could be generated by a slander, it had equally good reason to fear the subversive effects of intentional deceit. Lying was something that took place frequently before the Consistory, no doubt. The Consistory’s efforts to uncover the truth about a matter was sometimes hampered by certain family allegiances and loyalties among the hired help.21 And, of course, individuals protected themselves by concealing the truth. But the minutes do show the Consistory detecting lies during their proceedings and taking decisive action as the case allowed.22 Such was the situation with the printer François Étienne, who was suspended

18. Elisabeth Wengler, “Rethinking ‘Calvin’s Geneva’:  Women, Agency, and Religious Authority in Reformation Geneva,” Proceedings of the Western Society for French History 35 (2007): 55–​70, esp. 65. 19.  Registres du Consistoire de Genève, 1:119. In regard to the charge of “witch” in general, see Jeffrey Watt, “Calvin’s Geneva Confronts Magic and Witchcraft: The Evidence from the Consistory,” Journal of Early Modern History 17 (2013): 215–​44. 20.  Raymond Mentzer, Sin and the Calvinists: Moral Control and the Consistory in Reformed Tradition (Kirksville, MO: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1994), 182–​84. 21.  Spierling, “Putting ‘God’s Honor First,’ ” 85–​103. 22.  It should be noted that in 1556, after Calvin’s victory over the Perrin faction, the magistrates allowed the Consistory to require witnesses to take formal oaths when they appeared before the Consistory, which made lying to the Consistory also a civil crime of perjury. On this see Manetsch, Calvin’s Company of Pastors, 187.

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from the Lord’s Supper on September 15, 1569 for “affronteries and falsehood” before the Consistory. He had told the Consistory that he left town on the Sunday of the Supper to retrieve money from a debtor, but the evidence showed he had not done that, and in reality was playing games at the time. Most lying cases followed a similar pattern. There were a few cases, however, when lying to a neighbor or to an authority outside the Consistory prompted the summons before the Consistory. These are particularly difficult to find in the early registers, but they do exist. The hosier Claude Arthaud, for example, was brought before the Consistory in 1542 for wearing a decorated leather collar and then later claiming in a public place that he had not.23 Arthaud was admonished not to repeat this offense else he could expect a harsher punishment. The more frequent appearance of such cases from the most active years for the Consistory, 1568–​1569, better illustrate the kinds of cases that caught its attention. Claudia Maruis, wife of Jehan Lachy from Jussy, was suspended on June 24, 1568 for accusing her son-​in-​law of stealing a cow and a coat (manteau) from her. In reality, she had given him the coat as a wedding present, and so did not just slander him by erroneously calling him a thief, but she also lied about how he had obtained the coat. Blaise de Bonnepose was suspended on January 27, 1569 for lying after he was caught drinking wine at the house of Beza himself. On being apprehended, he falsely claimed that he was one of Beza’s servants. The Consistory registers also indicate that he was known already for his habitual lying in the house of his master Michel Vallete. Pierre Dumontey, son of Jean, was caught playing outside during catechism, and, when asked about his father, gave false information, misrepresenting himself and saying that his father died. He was suspended on November 17, 1569 for both the lie and the idleness. Such examples do exist, therefore, but they are relatively few. It seems that it was difficult for the Consistory to police lying that took place on a daily basis between neighbors. That kind of offence was best addressed through moralizing sermons or other means, such as the poem against liars in the Cato or treatises that touched on the subject.

False Witness in Daneau’s Ethices Christianae The detailed analysis of the vice of mendacity undertaken by Beza’s friend and colleague Lambert Daneau in his Ethices Christianae (1577) sheds light 23.  Registres du Consistoire de Genève, 1:69; the collar (“collet de cuyer … dechiqueté”) seems to have been a point of contention earlier before the Consistory (1, 65), perhaps because of its cost.

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on the underlying premises of Beza’s treatment of it in this poem and so deserves our attention. Daneau sees mendacity as an ethical matter covered by the ninth commandment of the Decalogue, the precept that concerns the reputation of our neighbors and the truthfulness of our words and deeds.24 That precept, he says, has a threefold basis in fairness or equity (aequitas). First, it is based on a divine equity in that God is true and defends the truth, an aspect of his character that he especially wants us to emulate. Second, the precept is derived from a natural equity. This is evidenced by the fact that all people by consensus condemn lying and recognize it as an evil and that philosophers reckon truthfulness as one of the most outstanding virtues. Lying, in contrast, “fights against the very universe and wisdom, and against God’s way of ordering things” (ipsi rerum naturae et sapientiae, ordinationique Dei repugnat).25 Third, the precept has a foundation in political equity: it disrupts the social bond and undermines tranquility. If we allow lying and deception to go unpunished, he says, there can be no commerce, dialogue, contracts, or agreements among people. Here, then, are the three familiar components of ethics that we have already detected in reformed Orthodoxy: image, nature, and the communal spirit. These same components, in fact, give structure to Beza’s poem as well: God is the champion and defender of truth; the world is bound up with God’s truth as by a chain; falsehood is disrupting all sorts of social relations. Daneau continues his investigation of mendacity as it relates to the ninth commandment by dividing it under five headings.26 First he touches on the persons encompassed in the precept. He concludes that all people are bound to the truth, regardless of age, sex, nationality, and station in life. Second he looks to the subjects of lying. We can lie to God either openly or through hypocrisy, or to other people whether they are unwilling recipients

24. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 272r–​303r, 335r–​v, 368v–​373r. On the emerging importance of the Ten Commandments in the late Middle Ages and Early Renaissance (as opposed to the Seven Deadly Sins), see John Bossy, “Moral Arithmetic:  Seven Sins into Ten Commandments,” in Conscience and Casuistry in Early Modern Europe, ed. Edmund Leites (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 214–​34. For the Medieval tradition of “lingua-​texts” dealing with speech violations, see Bettina Lindorfer, “Peccatum Linguae the and Punishment of Speech Violations in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times,” in Speaking in the Medieval World, ed. Jean E. Godsall-​Myers (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 23–​42. 25. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 275r. Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, IIa IIae Q.110 articles 1–​4. 26.  This section begins at 277r and is sustained to 301v.

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or willing. In regard to the latter he is talking about flattery and adulation, the “worst of the sins” (cf. n 37 below), and he calls those who engage in it “a plague” (pestis), a word Beza employs in his poems against usurers (see c­ hapter 5) and whoremongers (see c­ hapter 6). As for the subject matters involved in this precept, in addition to numerous sorts of human interactions, he includes heresies, which he says is properly a topic of the third commandment. Third, Daneau mentions the attitude of the mind required by this precept, or one’s motivating cause in speaking and acting as one does. At the beginning of this section he focuses on what we might call reproach or censure, which, he insists, should never become loud, contemptuous, or irritated, but instead should be simple admonition that is guided by love (charitas). But then he turns to lying (mendacium) proper. He addresses the mirthful (iocosum) attitude that one might find in various kinds of poems and fables, but also in general conversation. Wit and the ability to delight are acceptable, he says, so long as no lies are involved and the purpose is edification. Jesus told parables, for example, but he did so to instruct his disciples, and additionally everyone knew that they were fiction. Scurrility, what Paul calls μωρολογία at Ephesians 5:4, is forbidden, as is any undercurrent of abuse in the wit (Beza will treat this as a matter of leisure, as we shall see in the next chapter). Daneau also follows denounces dutiful (officiosum) lying, by which he means lying in order to perform one’s duty, such as trying to avert panic during a calamity.27 This was a traditional topos that had proponents on both sides. 28 But Daneau concludes that people should be able to trust the providence of God, and believes that true Christian love is too bound up with the truth to find this option acceptable. Philosophers may think there are instances for lying, he says, but those thinkers lack the light of God. Daneau follows Augustine (Contra mendacium 10)  in conceding that there are times when concealment of the truth is allowed, as in the case of spying during war or protecting a brother from unjust harm, but lying itself is never to be approved. He acknowledges that philosophers universally condemn mischievous

27. In this he is following Calvin closely; see Raymond Blacketer, “No Escape by Deception:  Calvin’s Exegesis of Lies and Liars in the Old Testament,” Reformation and Renaissance Review 10 (2008): 267–​89. Calvin held that it is always morally wrong to tell a lie since falsehood is contrary to the nature of God. The classic passages for discussing the “dutiful lie” are Exodus 1:18 (the midwives), Joshua 2 (Rahab and the spies), and 1 Samuel 16:2 (Samuel’s anointing of David). 28.  On the discourse in the Renaissance as to whether deceit and fraud were ever acceptable, one may consult Johannes Trapman, “Erasmus on Lying and Simulation,” in On the

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(perniciosum) lying, or lying out of spite to harm someone, but he does not embrace Aquinas’s opinion that this kind of lying is worse than lies that profit someone, as if there is a hierarchy of lies: in Daneau’s view, God did not create the world to include any deception.29 Fourth, Daneau addresses the modes of lying and reproach. Here he seems to have in mind slander, because he covers such matters as whispering, loud outcry, open versus private censure, speaking directly to the person or speaking of them in their absence, and generally checking one’s tongue. The careful and sensitive approach that guides the Consistory is to be taken as a model for the proper way to handle someone who seems to be going astray. In this section he also delineates three ways in which lying and falsehood are committed:  in word, which is the primary means, in deed, and silence. We cannot keep quiet about Christian truth, he says, nor should we fear the consequences of speaking it. Still, love of God and neighbor should be the principle that governs our tongue. The fifth subject has to do with the various categories of falsehood and censure prohibited by the ninth commandment. They include false suspicion, even if it is hidden in our mind, since love is not suspicious; ears open to falsehood; temerity of speech or garrulity (Beza’s Cato includes a poem against the garrulous that we will treat elsewhere); and duplicity. In regard to the latter Daneau identifies one sure punishment, that is, the death of the soul. For Daneau, the truth (veritas) that stands as the foundation of the ninth commandment does not simply limit or prohibit words and actions, it also encourages certain ethical behaviors.30 Judges are to be fair, businessmen must conduct themselves honestly in contracts and transactions, and individuals should be honest and truthful in their conversations. It commends kindness and a certain serious demeanor rather than boorishness or buffoonery. Truth, in essence, is the “conformity of all our actions to the Edge of Truth and Honesty: Principles and Strategies of Fraud and Deceit in the Early Modern Period, ed. Toon van Houdt, Jan L. DeJong, et  al. (Leiden:  Brill, 2002), 33–​46; Toon van Houdt, “Word Histories and Beyond: Towards a Conceptualization of Fraud and Deceit in Early Modern Times,” On the Edge of Truth, 1–​32; Stefina Tutino, “Nothing but the Truth? Hermeneutics and Morality in the Doctrines of Equivocation and Mental Reservation in Early Modern Europe,” Renaissance Quarterly 64 (2011):  115–​55. Blacketer, “The Moribund Moralist,” 162–​64 and fn. 38 and 41, lists Jerome, John Chrysostom, John Cassian, Denis the Carthusian, Nicholas of Lyra, and Cajetan as among those who accepted the morality of the dutiful lie, while Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Calvin, and Peter Martyr Vermigli rejected it outright in all cases. 29. Aquinas, Summa Theologica, IIa IIae Q.110 article 2. 30. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 302v–​303r.

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precepts of Jesus Christ.”31 The commitment to truth, in other words, is a commitment to be more Christlike.

Truth in the Church Truth does not merely provide the norm that governs human interactions: there is a truth about God himself that is to be reflected by the doctrinal purity of the Church. Daneau, as previously indicated, preferred to handle the matter of the truth about God when discussing the third precept of the Decalogue. In contrast, Beza’s poem mingles the concepts of false living with false thinking and treats both as a problem resulting from the general disdain for the truth among human beings. Falsehood has not only seeped into the markets and the courts, it even makes its presence known “from the sacred pulpits” and works to pervert sacred truths. The close association of these two expressions of falsehood in Beza’s mind no doubt is tied to theological discussions of the day about what constitutes the true Church.32 When the Reformed writers undertake a discussion about the prevalence and domination of falsehood in the world, they are usually interested in making two points:  first, God’s Church is the sole repository of spiritual truth (but not a creator of it), while the world outside the Church is replete with dissimulation and lies; second, the established church of the papacy reveals itself to be of the world and not of God by its attempt to fabricate its own version of the truth and by the mendacious exercise of authority. The poem against liars deftly mirrors this theological paradigm, crescendoing from a personified Falsitas, which runs counter to the natural order of God, yet rules over fallen mortals, to her shameless presence in the religious sphere. Even the pastors of the people, who should be selflessly serving their needs, are in reality manipulating the

31. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 370r. 32.  Beza contributed to the subject with his work De veris et visibilibus ecclesiae Catholicae notis tractatio (Geneva:  Eustache Vignon, 1579). For a discussion of its contents one may consult Tadataka Maruyama, The Ecclesiology of Theodore Beza: The Reform of the True Church (Geneva: Droz, 1978), 159–​73. Most apropos for our purposes, Maruyama summarizes a syllogism of Beza from his second argument (167): “since Christ is the sole foundation of the house of God and the only soul of that mystical body, it is important to discern the true Christ from the false Christ; since the true Christ reveals himself most clearly in Scripture, likewise, to discover its true interpretation is to find the true Christ; and to find him is to discern the true church. The significance of this syllogism is that three ideas of the true Christ, the true interpretation of Scripture and the true church are brought into one single concept of the true, perpetual, necessary and only mark of the church.”

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flock for some personal gain. Beza observes the contrasting attitude, the proper one, in his careful handling of the text of 2 Corinthians 4:2. There Paul describes his own ministry among the Corinthians as intentionally candid and forthright: But have cast from us the cloaks of shame, and walk not in craftiness, neither handle we the word of God deceitfully: but in declaration of the truth we approve ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. Beza’s Latin translation of Paul’s statement highlights the key opposition of vice and virtue, falsehood and truth, in view within the poem at hand (ital. mine):  “neque falsantes sermonem Dei, sed declaratione veritatis commendantes nosipsos.” Had Paul come partially enslaved to his own interests, he could not have been a herald of the truth about God. We can see, then, that the poem dovetails with an important assertion of Reformed doctrine: spiritual truth is found exclusively in the Word of God, while the Church’s fundamental regard for it as sole repository and witness marks her as sound and godly. We find Calvin speaking along these lines in his Institutes: “Again, if the true church is the pillar and foundation of truth [1 Timothy 3:15], it is certain that no church can exist where lying and falsehood have gained sway.”33 In this context, Calvin discusses the qualities necessary for a body legitimately to assume the name church (ecclesia). He maintains that the true Church can sustain trivial errors and moral faults, so long as falsehood (falsitas) does not penetrate into certain key elements of doctrine and practice. Once it does, the church has been mortally wounded just as surely as a man pierced in his throat or heart. The true Church is built up on the foundation of truth as set forth by the apostles and established on Christ the chief cornerstone. Beza himself develops the point in greater detail and much more forcefully in his comments on 1 Timothy 3:15, in reference to the same idea of the Church as a “pillar and foundation.”34 There he asserts that the Church serves as an oasis of truth in a world that is dominated by darkness, lies (mendacia), delusions, deceits, superstitions, a spirit of disorientation and bewilderment,

33. Cavin, Institutes 4.2.1: “Si vera Ecclesia columna est ac firmentum veritatis, certum est non esse ecclesiam, ubi regnum occupavit mendacium et falsitas.” 34. Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 2, 351–​52.

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and seduction. The Church alone is the institution that produces children of God through its preaching and examples of good works; the world, as the follower of Falsehood (Falsitas), lacks that power. But although the Church is the “pillar and foundation of truth,” he says, she herself relies and depends on the cornerstone, which is Christ (referring to Ephesians 2:20). For that reason, she cannot create the truth, but only witness to it, nourish it, and protect it among people. A church that tries to create its own truth is building itself in the air, without a divinely ordained cornerstone, and as such establishes its “truth” on vanity and lies. Then with great rhetorical emphasis he goes on to say that a true Church does not set itself under a single human leader with absolute authority, nor does it put more weight on the traditions and customs of men than on the Scriptures. Additionally, the true Church would not forbid the reading of God’s Word to its flock so that they cannot question doctrines and decrees that have no Scriptural basis.

Conspiracy As noted above in reference to his notes on 1 Corinthians 13:6, Beza admits no deceit or coniuratio, that is, conspiracy or ulterior motives, in true righteousness and love. He concludes that same note with a pair of dichotomies: “There is a great difference between adulation and love, and between philosophical and Christian love.”35 The latter phrase unmistakably echoes Beza’s comment at Romans 2:2 that earthly morals do not stand up to

35.  Ad loc.: “et magnum est quoque inter adulationem et charitatem, atque adeo inter philosophicam et Christianam charitatem discrimen.” A similar statement is made in De magistratu puniendis haereticis, 103, where Beza, in discussing “false faith,” says that, even though we cannot draw a moral equivalency between a Scipio or Cato to a Catiline or Nero, we should not imagine that we can find in them the “life of innocence” that God approves, neither in their noble works or their philosophical precepts. True morality grows from the foundation of faith in Christ. The sentiment is found in other reformers; for example, Philipp Melanchthon, in his comments introducing c­ hapter 12 of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans (for the text I have consulted the 1861 Teubner edition, 206, which is based on 1540 exemplars): “The sort of works that are required are good ones, enjoined from God above, interior and exterior, specifically the fear of God, faith, love, contrition, patience, and prayer. These interior emotions or impulses are not in the impious, even if there is present an external civic discipline (Primum qualia. Requiruntur enim bona opera divinitus praecepta, interiora et exteriora, videlicet timor Dei fides dilectio poenitentia pacientia invocatio. Hi interiores motus non sunt in impiis, etiamsi adest externa civilis disciplina).” Similarly, see Victorinus Strigelius on the same passage (in reference to the word ἁγίαν) in his Ὑπομνήματα in omnes libros Novi Testamenti (Leipzig, ca. 1566): “That is, truly dedicated and consecrated to God, not sacrilegious, since virtues among the Gentiles are not something holy (Id est, vere dedicatam et consecratam Deo, non prophanam, ut virtutes in Ethnicis non sunt quiddam sanctum).”

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God’s morals, while the word adulation introduces a specific instance of superficiality, or what Beza called at Romans 2:2 the “appearances of morality.” To walk in the truth or in accord with the truth requires that one root out falsehood down to one’s core. It means that even one’s inner heart and impulses are conformed to the image of God. Any outward action, such as adulation or flattery, which furtively covers a self-​serving, inner motivation, and seeks to gain an advantage through false representation of one’s opinion, amounts to a type of conspiracy. Beza addresses both of these errors in another poem of the collection: In Assentatores Laudare immodice, laudari si qua merentur,36 Virtutum honesto tegere turpia nomine,37 Ut recto avertit sanas a tramite mentes, Ex improbis sic reddit homines pessimos. Assentatores fugiat quicumque veretur  5 Ultro perenne accersere sibi dedecus. At quanto satius monitorem audire severum, Laudare parcum, liberalem carpere! Against Flatterers Just as doling out lavish praise, when some measured praise is deserved, diverts healthy minds from the straight path, so white-​washing disgraceful things by calling them virtuous makes depraved people even worse than they were.

36.  Similarly, at Emblem XIV (Icones, 1580, Mm.iir [=Poemata 1597, 236, Emblem XIII]), glory is said to attach itself to the humble and flee “those hunting the rewards of unmerited praise” (immeritae captantes praemia laudis). [Figure 16] 37.  Honesto … nomine, i.e., “euphemistically.” Much of the description of the flatterer here echoes Daneau’s characterization in the Ethices Christianae 281r–​282r and 371v. He too mentions the fact that the flatterer encourages vice in some, while corrupting others for personal gain. He calls it “the most foul and dangerous kind of falsehood and mendacity” (turpissimum periculosissimumque genus falsi et mendacii) and a “horrid plague” (teterrima pestis), in fact, the worst of all plagues and very harmful to the commonweal.” (Nulla enim maior est eorum pestis, quaeque magis Rem publ. laedat.) He cites ancient authors who by etymology derive the Greek term for a flatterer, κολακεία, from the word for dog, for their fawning behavior, or from the word for crows, because they pick at dead flesh; and he quotes St. Thomas Aquinas’s definition of such a person as being a “fawning enemy” (blandus inimicus).

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My advice: Flee flatterers if you fear to invite everlasting shame on yourself of your own accord.38 It’s so much better to hear out a stern critic, to laud a sparing one, to benefit from a gracious one! The interwoven structure of the poem has bearing on the overall meaning: the thought of line one, the lavish praise of the good, looks ahead to that of line three, the corruption of the good, while that of line two, the downplaying of mistakes, looks ahead to that of line four, the further corruption of the mistaken. In short, flattery or sycophancy can be directed to those who achieve something positive or have good moral character and also to those who fail in some way or act immorally. In either case flattery degrades the character of the recipient, and so here, unlike in the case of the other poems, the warning is reserved for the recipient of the censured action rather than for the perpetrator. One can detect in these warnings and the way that they are formulated the influence of Plutarch’s work, “How One May Discern a Flatterer from a Friend,” where he counsels Prince Philopappos, his addressee, to guard against those who apply to vices the names of virtues (xii), and those who praise people against their deserts (xvi).39 In both cases, Plutarch observes, the persons praised are misled and brought to ruin:  “For it brings people harm to praise them unseasonably” (xxv). Beza, too, is quick to caution his readers to shun sycophants, since their flattery weakens character by distorting self-​evaluation. Plutarch then looks at the other side of the coin by describing the characteristics of a true friend, as one who employs measured words and a certain dexterity and timeliness to censure a colleague frankly. For Beza, such a friend is a luxury, but he urges his readers to accept the admonishment of critics no matter what their approach. These critics he divides into three types, severus (strict or harsh), parcus (sparing or restrained),40 and

38.  Or, “by fault of your own.” For a similar phrase, see Calvin’s commentary on Jer. 6:19 (= CO 37, 661): “deinde, quod nimis foeda est ingratitudo, ubi ipse ad salutem invitat homines, eos sibi ultro accersere interitum et reiicere eius gratium.” 39. Plutarch’s work is available in F.  C. Babbitt’s translation in the LCL, which I  have used here. For an analysis of the work, see Troels Engberg-​Pedersen, “Plutarch to Prince Philopappus on How to Flatterer from a Friend,” in Fitzgerald, Friendship, Flattery, and Frankness of Speech, 61–​79. Maximus of Tyre also wrote a work with a similar title. 40. For parcum in the sense of “restrained” or “sober,” see Cic. Brut. 148: “Crassus was the most restrained of the elegant, and Scaevola was the most elegant of the restrained” (Crassus erat elegantium parcissimus, Scaevola parcorum elegantissimus).

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liberalis (gracious),41 all of which, he contends, serve the reader better than any flatterer. Beza’s elucidations on the book of Job (1589), which grew out of lectures that he gave at the Academy to teach patience “as a story most fit for these miserable times [sc., of political upheaval],” have bearing on our understanding of this poem.42 In ­chapter 32, after a long monologue on the part of Job that extended for several chapters, in which Job defends his past and his good character before God, a certain youth named Elihu spoke up and rebuked Job for his self-​righteous attitude. After stating that he has waited patiently to speak in deference to his elders, he concludes that he now must answer to Job with frankness (vv. 21–​22). Beza paraphrases the verses in this way: 21. But I  do not want anyone to be offended, if, without giving regard to anyone in a way that prejudices the truth, I speak most freely [liberrime loquar], and I  do not employ the usual prefatory fawning [praefationes blandas] to gain someone’s favor. 22. For, I do not know the arts of flattery [artes istas assentandi], and if by chance I were eager to do so, the Maker would prepare a harsh vengeance against me.43 The word assentandi (to flatter) is cognate, naturally, with assentatores (flatterers), and is further strengthened and defined by blandas (fawning) and its counterpart liberrime loquar (to speak freely). The last phrase evokes the subject of frankness that, as was evident in the case of Plutarch, mentioned above, fell within the purview of the ancient philosophers.

41.  The sense of the word here in relation to the flatterer can be gleaned from Daneau’s usage in his Ethices Christianae: First (303r), in describing the virtues that are commended by the ninth commandment, he speaks of the “commendation of the good and the gracious and sincere praise of another’s virtue” (bonae proximi famae commendatio et liberalis, ingenuaque praedicatio virtutis alienae); and second (281v), in characterizing all flattery as “unworthy of a gracious and sincere person” (homine liberali et ingenuo indigna). 42.  Theodore Beza, Iobus … partim commentariis partim paraphrasi illustratus (Geneva: Jean le Preux, 1589; London:  George Bishop, 1589), 4. Beza dedicates the book to Elizabeth, Queen of England, and, after lavishing much praise on her for her role as protectress in times of troubles, he adds, tellingly, that he does not fear that he will fall under suspicion for engaging in flattery (“assentari”), since praise is not flattery when it accords with the truth (“id quod res est”), and, in fact, silence about such truth results in the vice of ingratitude (ἀχαρηστία crimen). 43. Beza, Iobus, 204.

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Philodemus, for example, devoted an essay to it, titled simply On Frankness, and Plutarch’s work on flattery, as was already suggested, treats the matter extensively; even St. Paul appears to know the conventions reflected in these authors.44 Both Philodemus and Plutarch emphasize the careful employment of frankness or outspokenness for creating goodwill and sustaining a friendship. But the phrases “to prejudice the truth” (veritati officiat) and “to gain favor” (in gratiam) that bracket the phrase “I speak most freely (liberrime loquar)” in Beza’s Job paraphrase creates a tension between frankness and unmerited praise, which underscores their essential difference: whereas frankness is not self-​serving or deceptive, flattery looks inward to personal advantages at the expense of the truth. For this, Beza has the backing of several Scriptural passages, including Proverbs 29:5 (“A man who flatters his neighbor is spreading a net for his steps”) and 26:24–​8 (“He who hates disguises it with his lips, but he lays up deceit in his heart … a flattering mouth works ruin”).45 In the New Testament, Jude (v. 16) warns his fellow Christians against “flattering people for the sake of gaining an advantage.” And Paul reminds the Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 2:5) that he did not come to them with “flattering speech … nor with a pretext for greed,” that is, he did not flatter them in order to take something from them. As for the last passage, Beza offers this translation, employing another cognate of the word assentator (ital. mine):  “Neque enim umquam sermone assentatorio usi sumus, sicut nostis, nec avaritiae causa quicquam praetexuimus—​Deus testis est” (Neither yet did we ever use flattering words, as you know, nor colored covetousness, God is record). On the passage Beza explains that Paul was so resolved not to gain an advantage through his ministry that, instead of seeking support from the Christian community in exchange for his work among them, he 44.  For a translation of Philodemus’s work Περί παρρησίας, see David Konstan, Diskin Clay, et al., Philodemus: On Frank Criticism (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998). Although Beza could not have known Philodemus’s work directly, the work itself reflects the ancient attitude. For relevant studies, see Friendship, Flattery, and Frankness of Speech: Studies on Friendship in the New Testament World, ed. John T. Fitzgerald (Leiden: Brill, 1996). Konstan, in his contribution to the latter titled “Friendship, Frankness and Flattery,” 7–​20, identifies frankness as one of the key elements and even duties of true friendship. See also Clarence Glad, “Frank Speech, Flattery, and Friendship in Philodemus,” 21–​60. For Paul on the philosophical conventions, see J. Paul Sampley, “Paul’s Frank Speech with the Galatians and the Corinthians,” in Philodemus and the New Testament World, eds. John Fitzgerald, Dirk Obbink, and Glenn Holland (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 295–​318. 45.  In his Psalms paraphrases, Beza warns rulers to follow the example set by David who attended to his court but avoided all sycophants. On this see Scott Manetsch, Theodore Beza and the Quest for Peace in France, 1572–​1598 (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 112.

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worked with his own hands to support himself. Beza then reminds his readers of Paul’s statements to that effect in his letter to the Corinthians.46

Perjury and Blasphemy Related to mendacity is the false oath and blasphemy, both of which are addressed together by Beza in the following poem of the Cato: In periuros et blasphemos Iurare Numen,47 Numen est solio in suo Locare,48 partim ut abditorum conscium, Suaeque partim ut veritatis vindicem. Scienter ergo, falsa vel per Numina, Falsumve iurans, scis quod admittas scelus?  5 Certe in Dei throno, Dei hostem collocas, In veritatis pulpito mendacium. Nec huius in caput supera ruetis omnia? Nec infera huius concidetis sub pedes? At te, scelesto quolibet scelestior,  10 Ipsum ore Numen qui lacessis impio, Ut sceleris unum inexplicabilis49 reum, Exspectat uni poena nota Numini. Against Perjurers and Blasphemers To swear by God is to place God on His throne, partly as the one who knows what is concealed, and partly as the defender of His own truth. Therefore, by knowingly swearing by false gods,

46. Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 2, 325 (the notes fall under v. 6 but relate also to v. 5). 47.  For the omission of per (versus line 4), especially in the poets, cf. Tib. 4.13.15 (“sancta tuae Iunonis numina iuro”), Verg. Aen. 6.351 (“maria aspera iuro”), 12.197 (“terram, mare, sidera iuro”) and frequently elsewhere. Servius (at Aen. 6.351) describes the construction without the preposition as more ornate. 48.  He uses “solio in suo | Locare” by analogy with Job 36:7, “et reges in solio collocat in perpetuum.” This phrase is echoed in line 6 with “in Dei throno … collocas.” 49.  He describes blasphemy as inexplicabilis, literally, a wickedness that cannot be unravelled; it is unfixable and incurable, i.e., something that cannot be undone and whose consequences simply must be suffered (see OLD 2). Thus the line’s interlocking word order evokes the interweaving of a knot. The unum anticipates the uni of line 13.

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or by swearing a falsehood, do you know what wickedness you admit? Yes, on the throne of God, you place the enemy of God, in the pulpit of truth you place falsehood. And will all you things above not tumble down onto the head of this man? And will all you things below not collapse under his feet? But you, more wicked than any wicked person, who assails God Himself with your impious mouth, as one who is guilty of insoluble wickedness, a punishment known to the one God awaits. Here, as the title suggests, Beza addresses two distinct but closely related types of sinners: perjurers and blasphemers. Perjurers commit their sin in one of two ways: they either swear by false gods (line 4), and by doing so set the enemy of God on the throne of God (line 6), or they swear a falsehood (line 5), thereby placing falsehood in the pulpit of truth (line 7). The duplication of huius in lines 8 and 9 logically points to one and the same person (as opposed to a huius … illius dichotomy). The blasphemers are not alluded to until line 10, as signaled by the strong contrastive that begins the line, which corresponds to their secondary position in the title of the poem. These sinners, by verbally and directly attacking God and His character, lie by belittling His majesty, which among sins ranks as the worst. In one of his sermons on the passion and burial of Jesus,50 Beza recounts that he himself was aware of a man who perjured himself and because of it was struck immediately with apoplexy as a judgment from God. In the centuries that followed the story was often repeated in sermons and commentaries (particularly on Zechariah 5:1–​4), by virtue of its appearance in Thomas Beard’s collected stories of “the admirable justice of God against all notorious sinners” for use by ministers.51 After attributing the story to Beza, he writes,

50.  Theodore Beza, In historiam passionis et sepulturae domini nostri Iesu Christi: Homiliae … ex Gallicis latinae factae (Geneva: Jean le Preux, 1592), hom. 26, 656: “Alterum exemplum in hac regione contigit non procul in quendam qui quum ad fraudem peierasset, repente in apoplexiam incidit, ex qua nunquam postea loquutus, intra paucos dies interiit.” He goes on to say that, although God does not exercise such swift judgment on a daily basis, he can do it as he pleases in order to point out how miserable and detestable the lives of such people are. 51. Beard, Theatre, 136. The first full edition of 1597 has the story on 184.

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Another example happened … upon a perjurer that forswore himself to the end to deceive and prejudice another thereby; but he had no sooner made an end of his false oath, but a grevious apoplexy assailed him, so that without speaking of any one word he dyed within few dayes. Although Beard in the Theatre includes this example of perjury somewhat unexpectedly under chapter XXXI in regard to “cursers,” it comes attached to two other stories from Beza about men who curse family members. All three stories, the one about the perjury and the two about the cursing, were related together in homily XXVI of the In historiam passionis to illustrate the displeasure that God takes in “the levity of tongue,” “constant swearing,” and “having the Devil in one’s mouth.”52 God speaks seriously when He speaks, Beza says, so we should not imagine we can joke with Him. Here we are led naturally to think of the nugaces of another poem of Beza (see ­chapter 4) and the seriousness of God, as well as to see the correlatations between all verbal sins. In the Theater, the story in fact looks back to and logically fits with chapter XXVII, which treats perjurers specifically, and so serves to draw together and bind all the connected sections (XXVII–​XXXI) on verbal improprieties, that is to say, on perjury, blasphemy, and cursing. Through Beard one can determine the major talking points of the topic of perjury for this time period—​the first edition of the Theatre came out just six years after Beza’s Cato—​from the author’s introduction to the pertinent chapter (XXVII). He begins by citing the third commandment, which speaks of taking “God’s name in vain,” a statement he understands mostly to refer to perjury. Perjury, he says, can be defined as the misuse of God’s name to deny something that is true, or to affirm something that is untrue. It includes vows made to others, such as marriage vows or oaths taken by magistrates. The act of perjury shows a disdain and disbelief in God’s majesty (as if He cannot defend or vindicate Himself) and His omnipresence (as if He does not bear witness to the falsehood). In other words, perjurers lack a fear of God and pay more attention to their own affections. Beza also puts emphasis on the vindication and witness of God in talking about the swearing of oaths. In his comments on 2 Corinthians 1:23,

52. Beza, In historiam passionis, 632–​60, esp. 655: “Denique absit cum Domino iocari velimus. Serio enim loquitur et percutit. Quid fiet igitur deieratoribus, et istis Diabolum in ore toties habentibus?”

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he interprets Paul’s words there in terms of an oath. The verse reads as follows: “But I call God as witness to my soul, that to spare you I came no more to Corinth.” Beza has: “Ergo vero testem Deum invoco in animam meam, me idcirco nondum venisse Corinthum, ut vobis parcam.” The usual English rendering, “to my soul,” leaves the sense somewhat vague; Beza more confidently explains his own translation, “in animam meam,” to mean “in meum caput (on my life),” or, “meae vitae periculo (at my life’s peril).” He notes that while others understand that by the phrase Paul calls on God as a witness of his intent or will, the phrase has a much more significant force, because, in a true and valid oath, God is summoned not only as a witness, but as a champion (vindex) of the truth. He formerly developed this point at 1 Corinthians 15:31, where he discusses the difference between an obtestatio and ius iurandum. In an obtestatio, one can call to witness anything, earth or sky, or, just as Paul did at 1 Timothy 5:21, even angels. In a true oath (in vero iureiurando), however, God and only God is summoned as a witness, both in regard to secret things (arcanis, echoed by abditorum in line 2 of our poem) or things that are hidden within us, which only he can know, and in other situations that require Him especially. But he is summoned also as a judge and champion (iudex et vindex) against perjury, since he has the power to respond against falsehood. For the reformers, blasphemy stands as the more comprehensive term of the two sins dealt with in this poem, but as an historical concept within the Church its exact sense remains difficult to pin down. Alain Cabantous in his study of early modern manifestations of the concept encapsulates the problem in this way: “Blasphemy eludes the historian with its shifting definitions and approaches, with the multifarious perceptions imposed on it by political, legal, and, of course, religious thinking.”53 A detailed review of that complex history does not lie within the scope of the current work, but it is possible to paint the picture with broad strokes in order to place Beza’s thinking within it.54

53. Alain Cabantous, Blasphemy:  Impious Speech in the West from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Century, trans. Eric Rauth (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 9. 54. In addition to Cabantous, I  have depended on the following works for my summary: Leonard Levy, Blasphemy: Verbal Offense against the Sacred, from Moses to Salmon Rushdie (New York: Knopf, 1993); David Lawton, Blasphemy (New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993); Gerd Schwerhoff, Zungen wie Schwerter: Blasphemie in alteuropäischen gesellschaften 1200–​1650 (Konstanz: Universitätsverlag Konstanz, 2005) [dealing mostly with German material]; David Nash, “Analyzing the History of Religious Crime: Models of ‘Passive’ and ‘Active’ Blasphemy since the Medieval Period,” Journal of Social History 41 (2007): 5–​29; David Nash, Blasphemy in the Christian World: A History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); and Francisca Loetz, Dealings with God (Farnahm: Ashgate, 2009), focusing on the situation at Zurich.

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The groundwork for the reformers’ obsession with blasphemy began early in the thirteenth century, when itinerant preachers began to recognize a significant amount of ignorance and indiscipline among the commonfolk. What stood out most to them was the persistent superstition and basic doctrinal misconceptions along with levity of tongue involving the divine. This discovery led to the formation of the Inquisition as an instrument for shepherding these wayward souls back to the path of truth. The Inquisition, however, became most concerned with the danger posed to the institutionalized Church by deviant beliefs, and so spent the bulk of its time prosecuting instances of heresy, far more than was spent on curses and sudden public outbursts that made light of God’s majesty and divinity, or blasphemy, since such did not threaten the polity per se and were seen as temporary lapses.55 These indiscretions did receive increasing attention in the Middle Ages, however, as treatises dealing with speech and the bridling of one’s tongue began to appear more frequently.56 This was a topic that the reformers themselves seized upon as well with some fervor, causing a shift in emphasis: whereas heresy had always overshadowed blasphemy as a perceived problem, the reformers were hesitant to embrace so wholeheartedly a term that had in fact been used against them. While the term heresy still had currency in reference to doctrines that contradicted those established by the widely accepted creeds and formulations of the early Church—​the anti-​Trinitarians and the Anabaptists provide the clearest examples—​blasphemy for them had the potential to encompass an expansive spectrum of sins. Since blasphemous speech was essentially speech that vulgarized the holy mysteries of God and his nature, including the incarnation of Christ, it could be applied to much more than just an abrupt lapse in judgment or levity of tongue. Calvin, for one, envisioned a kind of gradation of blasphemous offenses, which included at one end swearing and on the other end false teaching, or heresy.57 All of these offend God’s august majesty to

55.  On this see Nash, Blasphemy, 48; also, Lawton, Blasphemy, 85: “It remains true that blasphemy is not often used as a category separate from heresy, or from some other critique of sin as in the penitential manuals of the thirteenth century onwards.” 56. Nash, Blasphemy, 3, believes that for the Church in the Medieval Period blasphemy was deemed more of a “public-​order problem” involving those who otherwise held orthodox beliefs, but who engaged in concomitant evils such as drunkenness; but see also his statement at 47:  “Aquinas had begun to take the potential evil perpetrated by blasphemy and blasphemers more seriously than had previous generations of theologians. He argued that blasphemers should suffer the ultimate penalty because they followed a false faith and actively intended to do harm to God’s honour.” 57. Levy, Blasphemy, 61–​62.

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some degree or other and as such harm the community as a whole by threatening to alienate it from God’s favor. All forms of blasphemy merited punishment, but blasphemous heresy, that is, to publicly and persistently espouse doctrines that could lead the entire community away from the truth about God, had to be dealt with quickly and decisively. Even capital punishment was deemed appropriate in such cases. This was not merely a hierarchical exercise. As Francisca Loetz has demonstrated through her detailed analysis of the situation at Zurich, certain assumptions created by the Reformation itself, such as the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, contributed to the assumption that every individual should be involved in setting the bounds of a good society, not just the priest in confession.58 For a clear definition of the word “blasphemy” in Beza’s day, one can turn again to Beard’s Theatre, this time to book one, chapter XXIX, which is dedicated to the topic of blasphemers. Beard assigns blasphemy to the third commandment as he did perjury, but with its own connotation and more severe punishment. God does not hold the perjurer guiltless, he says, but he absolutely abhors the blasphemer. The blasphemer does not merely misuse the name of God from a lack of faith; the blasphemer uses presumptuous speech against God’s name, slandering it and speaking evil of it. He describes how a certain man of the OT, when the Jews wandered in the desert, blasphemed and cursed God, and was soon thereafter stoned to death. This fate for blasphemers was then codified into law at the direction of God, which, Beard remarks, if it were in force in his own day, would end the reign of so many blasphemers and deniers of God. It is useful to take note of the words that Beard couples with “to blaspheme” in reference to God and His name: to slander, speak evil of, ban (i.e., execrate), swear, curse, spite, despise. In his view the Catholic Church welcomes those into its fold who best excel at such speech, and he commends “King Saint Lewis of France” for his efforts to put a stop to it within his realm. He concludes succinctly, “Now wee call blasphemy (according to the Scripture phrase) every word that derogateth either from the bounty, mercy, justice, eternity, and soveraigne power of God.”59 Beza’s phrase in line 11 of our poem, “ore Numen qui lacessis impio,” ties in closely with his own simple definition of the word as it appears in his

58. Loetz, Dealings with God, 265; thus Loetz perceives a horizontal and vertical pressure at play in the management of morals. 59. Beard, Theatre of God’s Judgements, 131.

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comments on Matthew 9:3, where the scribes accuse Jesus of blasphemy. For blasphemat, βλασφημεῖ, Beza writes: “That is, he speaks impiously (id est, impie loquitur).” This definition, he says, derives mostly from sacred writers, though a few such uses in Plato are to be noted. He also observes that in secular usage the word more broadly means, “to slander, to speak ill of, to harm the reputation of another through evil speaking,” which, as we learn from his translation and comments at Matthew 15:17, corresponds best to the Latin obtrectatio, that is, calumny. Calumny speaks to human interactions, he says, whereas blasphemy has in view our interaction with the divine. A fuller explanation of this distinction appears in Beza’s De magistratu puniendis haereticis, a work addressed to the pseudonymous Martinus Bellius (=Sebastian Castellio), author of the corresponding De haereticis, an sint persequendi (1554), in regard to the execution of Michael Servetus at Geneva in 1553. Beza touches on the matter of blasphemy in response to a particular argument of Castellio, namely that if we start killing blasphemers, most of the human race will have to be put to death. Beza’s response to this point leads to the following taxonomy of blasphemy:60 Someone can be called a blasphemer, generally speaking, who harms the reputation of another—​the very etymology of the word indicates this, and this is the way that Paul understands it at 1 Corinthians 4:12 as well—​just as you Academics do, when you most slanderously accuse so many celebrated republics or so many exemplary servants of Christ as being cruel and inhuman. Judgment in regard to this crime is to be determined in the civil courts. But in a more narrow sense, theologians call a person a blasphemer who either strips God of His due honor, or who attaches to Him anything that is alien or unworthy of His nature, or, finally, anyone who offends the majesty of God and inflicts abuse upon it. Moreover, the various species of

60. From the De haereticis a civili magistratu puniendis, adversus Martini Bellii farraginem, et Novorum Academicorum sectam (originally published at Geneva in 1554 at the press of R.  Étienne; throughout I  have used the version in the Tractationes theologicae [Geneva: Eustache Vignon, 15822], vol. 1, 85–​169), 136–​37: “Blasphemus enim in genere dici potest qui famam alterius laedit, ut ipsa verbi notatio declarat, utque etiam a Paulo accipitur 1 Cor. 4.12, sicut vos Academici facitis, quum tot clarissimas respublicas, totque eximios Christi servos ut crudeles et immanes calumniosissime accusatis; de quo crimine ex civilibus legibus iudicandum est. Sed angustiore significatione blasphemus a theologis vocatur qui vel proprio honore Deum spoliat, vel quippiam illi affingit ipsius natura indignum et alienum, is denique qui maiestatem Dei laedit, et contumelia afficit. Huius autem blasphemiae species praeterea distinguendae sunt. Interdum enim cum haeresi coniuncta est, sicut

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this blasphemy must be distinguished. Sometimes it is joined with heresy, just as recently in the case of Servetus, and also in the case of those Academics who deny that a knowledge of the Trinity carries with it any value for human beings, who threaten God’s grace by positing free will, and, lastly, who complain that the Word of God is obscure and enigmatic. Truly, there is no doubt that those types are worthy of severe punishments equal to the degree that the majesty of God should be avenged, once it has been stubbornly and wickedly violated, more severely than the dignity of kings and princes. Here Beza aims to undermine Castellio’s premise through a finer analysis of the nature of blasphemy. He mentions first the secular or broader sense of blasphemy, which is essentially slander of one person against another, but quickly turns to the narrower, theological use of the word, that is, slander against God Himself. The latter is of several types. The first, and the most serious, is the one described in the passage above, where blasphemy accompanies heresy. Michael Servetus represented this sort of blasphemy and so deserved his fate. The other types can be differentiated from the first by their relation to the truth. Sometimes blasphemy comes forth from ignorance, from those who know little or nothing about the Christian faith (“ignoratione potius quam improbitate”). Such ignorance can be corrected with patient education until the offenders see the error of their ways. But if, after hearing the truth, they still resist, the Christian prince should punish these rebels in proportion to their crime, since they trouble the tranquility of the Church (“Princeps Christianus rebelles Ecclesiae pertu[r]‌batores, pro criminis magnitudine coercere debet”).61 Their contumaciousness in their error threatens ordered society and must be dealt with. At other times, blasphemy comes from a sudden burst of anger or uncontrolled impulse. Note the distinction:  this blasphemy comes from the emotions rather than one’s lack of commitment to the truth. In these cases, the circumstances have to be considered and a punishment applied

nuper in Serveto, sicut etiam in istis Academicis qui Trinitatis cognitionem negant meliorem hominem efficere, qui libero arbitrio constituto gratiam Dei imminuunt, qui denique verbum Dei, obscurum et aenigmaticum esse conqueruntur. Istos vero non dubium est tanto gravioribus suppliciis dignos esse, quanto maiestas Dei pertinaciter et improbe violata, severius quam regum et principum omnium dignitas est vindicanda.” 61.  On the increased role of the State in regard to blasphemy along with a more fully defined grading of the seriousness of various blasphemies, see Nash, Blasphemy, esp. 50–​52.

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that mixes charity with severity and is calibrated so that the remedy of the disease cleanses it rather than exacerbates it. The goal, then, is to bring the offender, who does not ordinarily deny the truth, back to the fold. The last phrase in Beza’s poem under discussion, “a punishment known to the one God awaits,” brings to mind another essential element to the doctrine of blasphemy. To assail the Holy Spirit is a grevious sin from which no one can recover or hope to be forgiven. Beza strongly defends this doctrinal point at Matthew 12:32, where Jesus tells the Pharisees, “whoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.”62 First he gives a lengthy explanation of the meaning of the “forgiveness of sins in the future,” saying that while many sins are forgiven during our lifetime, the final absolution of all our sins comes at the very moment of death, which is the beginning of our “future age.” No sins are forgiven after the time of death of the individual. At times the Scriptures seem to postpone the remission of sins or the reprobation of the wicked to that final judgment day, but only in the sense that on that day the Lord at last will completely reveal and execute his judgments. Whether the moment of death is at issue in this passage, or the future judgment, or both, is of no consequence, he continues, since it is more important to understand that the phrase “will not be forgiven” is an example of a very common Hebraic figure of speech, litotes or meiosis (i.e., understatement). The phrase is equivalent to “will be punished definitely and without any grace, both in this present life and in the future.”63 In the poem, Beza calls this an “unfathomable wickedness.” Even greater nuance is added to this point in Beza’s comments on 1 John 5:16.64 There John encourages believers to pray for their brethren who have slipped into sin, but with the qualification that they not pray for those who have committed the sin that leads to death. In reference to the passage, Beza stresses how we must recognize that all sins, even if some are more grievous than others, are equal inasmuch as they merit eternal death a thousand times over. Original sin by itself is a grave sin not removable by the sprinkling of water, or some such, as if God is a schoolmaster

62. Beza, Annotationes 1598, part 1, 61. 63. Beza, Annotationes 1598, part 1, 61: “Notum enim est Hebraeis usitatissima μειώσει huiusmodi negationes in contraria maxime affirmare. Itaque Non remittetur, idem fuerit atque certo et absque ulla venia punietur, tum in praesenti vita, tum in futura.” 64. Beza, Annotationes 1598, part 2, 507–​08.

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whom boys appease by giving apples or nuts. The fact is, for just one sin God should have destroyed the world—​there are no venial sins that are easily forgiven—​but he did not because mercy is one of His attributes. Sins in and of themselves are fatal, although, because of God’s goodness, they are rendered innocuous in Christ. The result is that no sins are fatal for the elect, and none are venial for reprobates; thus, there is no need to pray for the latter. How, Beza asks rhetorically, can believers tell these sins apart so as to know for whom to pray? He answers that the elect and reprobrates have many sins in common which are harmful to either group in their own way. The apostle says that in general believers should pray about brothers committing those sins without discrimination and without trying to make a judgment, leaving the arcane things of God to God. There is one exceptional sin, however, that these two groups do not share. It is a sin so fatal that eternal death without any hope of grace and forgiveness follows immediately upon it. This, he says, is the sin committed against the Holy Spirit, which neither in the present nor in the future age is forgiven. Again Beza asks rhetorically, “What in the world is this sin?” His answer bears quoting verbatim: Augustine in his De Trinitate 1.2, understanding that about the person of the Holy Spirit and weighing the words of Christ at Matthew 12:31, where the Son of Man is compared with the Holy Spirit, gathers from this that Christ, according to the form of a servant, is less than the Holy Spirit. But, however that may be, it must be established that this sin is said to be committed against the Holy Spirit properly and specially, not inasmuch as He is a person of the holy Trinity.65 For, the dignity of the Holy Spirit is not greater than that of either the Father or the Son, since in those persons nothing ought to be conceived of as unpar or unequal, nor also can one person of the Trinity be offended without the injury of the sin redounding to the one Deity itself, but in respect to his own special energia (activity) in us. In other words, inasmuch as the Holy Spirit is the one who particularly illumines us, and after he has introduced us into

65. Beza agrees with Calvin (Inst. 3.21.22) that Augustine has not fully explained why blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is worse than blasphemy against the other persons of the Trinity. On this see Nicholas Lammé, “The Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit:  The Unpardonable Sin in Matthew 12:22–​32,” Mid-​America Journal of Theology 23 (2012): 19–​51, esp. 26.

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the light of truth, he opens up for us the path to the Father, Son, and Himself. Therefore, he who has been illumined by him to the point that he is not able to ignore the truth of God even if he wishes, and with determined malice knowingly and purposefully assails God Himself, he is said to sin against the Holy Spirit; for this reason we should not make prayers.66 Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit carries more serious consequences because of the nature of His work. The Holy Spirit leads people to the truth, and therefore to reject Him is to reject the authenticity needed to live the Christian life. Beza gives as an example of his point the Devil himself, who in numerous Gospel passages is seen to know that Jesus is Lord and final judge, and even states as much, but he still fights against Him.

An Intolerable Sin: The Punishment of Blasphemy The handling of several famous cases of perjury and blasphemy at Geneva as well as neighboring Bern demonstrate just how seriously both Calvin and Beza approached the defense of what they understood to be pure and true doctrine. In matters of “prodigious error,” both believed that an unrepentant heretic should be executed under the power of the civil magistrate. The questions of Christ’s divinity and the nature of the Trinity, together with the implications of those doctrines for Christ’s work on the cross and justification, tested the limits of toleration. In the best-​documented example, the Spanish medical doctor Michael Servetus ran afoul of Calvin and brought about his own execution through an almost relentess effort 66. Beza, Annotationes 1598, part 2, 507–​08: “Augustinus lib. de Trinit. I cap. II de Spiritus sancti persona istud intelligens, et expendens Christi verba Matth. 12:31, ubi filius hominis cum Spiritu sancto confertur, inde colligit Christum secundum servi formam esse Spiritu sancto minorem. Sed utcumque sit, statuendum est hoc peccatum dici in Spiritum sanctum committi proprie ac specialiter, non quatenus est sacrae triadis persona (nec enim maior est Spiritus sancti dignitas quam vel Patris vel Filii, quum in his personis nihil impar aut inaequale concipi debeat, neque etiam offendi una Trinitatis persona possit, quin peccati iniuria in unicam Deitatem ipsam redundet) sed respectu ipsius propriae in nobis energiae; quatenus nimirum Spiritus sanctus is est qui peculiariter nos illuminat, et in veritatis lucem introductis, iter ad Patrem et Filium et seipsum nobis patefacit. Ideo qui ab eo hactenus illustratus est ut Dei veritatem ignorare, ne si velit quidem, possit, et tamen destinata malitia sciens ac prudens ipsi Deo bellum indicit, is in Spiritum sanctum peccare dicitur; pro quo preces concipi non oporteat.”

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of his own doing.67 Servetus, who was living in Vienne near Lyon, had initiated a correspondence with Calvin in 1546. In this correspondence he raised several questions about the relationship between the man Jesus and God the Father, in which he attached questions about baptism and faith. In the course of the exchange, Servetus leveled sharp and detailed criticism at parts of Calvin’s Institutes and revealed that he himself was writing a book titled The Restitution of Christianity (Christianismi restitutio). The latter, in fact, reflected a trend among a small minority for whom criticisms of Catholic traditional doctrine coupled with an advocacy of sola Scriptura led to an unintended consequence: they began to call into question certain formulations of the early Church councils concerning the hypostatic union of the two natures in Christ and the shared essence of the Trinity.68 When Servetus foolishly then attempted to anonymously publish the same work in 1553 at Vienne, his identity was quickly ascertained there by the Inquisition (ironically with Calvin’s help) and he was forced to flee. Perhaps not fully grasping the gravity with which others viewed the situation, he made his way to Geneva and on August 13, 1553, actually attended one of Calvin’s sermons. Not surprisingly, he was detained. Subsequently Servetus continued to worsen his own situation by responding defiantly to questions put before him in writing by Calvin and ministers from other Swiss cities. By October, after hearing opinions from the councils at Bern, Basel, Zurich, and Schaffhausen, the Genevan council determined that Servetus should be burned at the stake. Although Calvin had urged for beheading as being a more humane punishment, and had made a last-​minute effort to cause Servetus to recant his views, he did so to no avail. Even so, Calvin defended the execution of Servetus with his Defensio orthodoxae fidei in 1554, a work occasioned, among other factors, by the criticisms of Basel theologian Sebastian Castellio in his Historia de morte Serveti.69 Castellio responded to Calvin under the guise of anonymity

67.  For the full Servetus story one may see Roland Bainton, Hunted Heretic (Boston: Beacon Press, 1953; revised 2005 by Peter Hughes) and Jerome Friedman, Michael Servetus: A Case Study in Total Heresy (Geneva: Droz, 1978). A popularized but well-​researched version of the narrative exists in Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone, Out of the Flames: The Remarkable Story of a Fearless Scholar, a Fatal Heresy, and One of the Rarest Books in the World (New York: Broadway Books, 2002). 68.  This observation is made by Philip Benedict, Christ’s Churches Purely Reformed: A Social History of Calvinism (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002), 107. 69.  Uwe Plath, “Calvin und Castellio und die Frage der Religionsfreiheit,” in Calvinus ecclesiae Genevensis custos, ed. Wilhelm H. Neuser (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1984), 191–​95.

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with another work attacking the general question of the prosecution of heretics, and in response to this Beza himself, still a professor of Greek at Lausanne, wrote a treatise on whether heretics should be punished by the civil magistrate.70 Beza begins the work on punishing heretics with reference to the turmoil and disquietude that the Church faces in his day both from within and without. A few people, he says, have taken a stand against these evils in favor of the truth, but in doing so invariably they create enemies for themselves among people who feign godliness but in fact wish to undermine it. Among the latter was Michael Servetus, whom he calls “the most impious and blasphemous of all who lived” (Servetum illum impurissimum haereticum … per quam homo ille omnium qui adhuc vixerunt maxime impius et blasphemus).71 No charity, patience, or diligence could stir him to repentance; he steadfastly held to his heretical views and defamed the majesty of Christ. This leads Beza into three questions to be treated in the work: whether heretics should be punished, whether civil magistrates should be involved in punishing them, and whether capital punishment is fitting. But an initial line of inquiry, “Who exactly are heretics?” relates particularly to the matter of truth and blasphemy. Beza begins by drawing several fine distinctions.72 Some people are alienated from the Church altogether and know nothing about the Son of God. Turks, Jews, and any others in the world who do not embrace Christianity fall into this category and can be deemed infidels or atheists. In regard to those who have embraced the Christian faith and profess that they are citizens of God’s kingdom, however, there are two types (here he is excepting the “very few” who have a “solid and sincere knowledge” and who have “consecrated themselves to Christ”). Some are like Judas in that they seem to be a follower of Christ but in fact conduct their lives such that the Devil rules in them. The Scriptures label hypocrites, rebels, sons of the flesh, faithless, and even unbelievers. Some are what we would call schismatics. These are generally contentious and unable to tolerate others. They

70. Theodore Beza, De haereticis a civili magistratu puniendis libellus (Geneva:  Robert Stephanus, 1554); reprised in Tractationes Theologicae I, 85–​169 (I have used this version throughout this section). For further replies of Castellio, see Wulfert de Greef, The Writings of John Calvin: An Introductory Guide, trans. Lyle Bierma (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 20082), 164, and Gardy, 45. 71. Beza, De haereticis, 85. 72.  This part of the discussion comes from Beza, De haereticis, 89–​90.

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break off, form separate groups, and often degenerate into heresies with themselves at the head. But for others this is not so much a matter of character as a dissent from orthodox teaching, either because they have not been confirmed in the truth well enough, or because they allowed certain sins such as greed and ambition to warp their minds. In the latter group fall two types:  those who allow themselves to be taught over time and are not anxious to cause upheaval in the Church, and those who “tear at the peace and concord of the Church and resist the truth.” Paul specifically labels this second type heretics and warns that after admonition has been given several times, we should cut off fellowship with them (devitandos). Many people are unfaithful, ignorant, apostate, errant from the truth, infelxible, and harsh, but what distinguishes heretics is that they bring their perfidy and divergent views into the Church “as if they are opening a school” (quasi ludum aperiunt) and so are harmful to the Church. In other words, they introduce their own blasphemous doctrine, despite being consistently taught otherwise, and so “take away the peace and accord of the Church.” The reason this “monstrous plague” (portentosa haec ingenia maximae … pestes) must be punished, he goes on to say later, is because they are not an outside force attacking the Church.73 In that case the pure doctrines of the Church remain safe. Instead they are insidious instruments of the Devil, who work from within under the appearance of truth to lead people astray and to create a great disturbance (perturbatio) among believers. It is the greatest evil when a disguised Satan (transformatus Satan) enters into the vitals of the Church. When he does, “a swifter and keener remedy is needed” to keep this infection from spreading, a cauterization, as it were, to protect the rest of the body. This is impiety and blasphemy, the violation of received public religion, he concludes when speaking of the gravity of heresy, which the consensus of mankind agrees should be treated as a capital crime along with parricide, voluntary homicide, and other crimes of this sort; in fact, impugning the majesty of God is a greater crime than is anything that can be done to another person.74 Beza then ends the work with a lengthy ennumeration of all the doctrines which, when challenged or undermined, constitute blasphemy, including the doctrines of the status and office of Christ, the Trinity, predestination, free will, the invocation of the saints, baptism, the

73. Beza, De haereticis, 143. 74. Beza, De haereticis, 151.

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Lord’s Supper, and so on.75 Such blasphemy is a poison (virus) that must be removed from the Church. Another case relevant to the Reformed notion of blasphemy was that involving Valentino Gentile, one of several Italian refugees who were causing trouble around Geneva and Bern due to their views on the Trinity.76 Gentile had fled Catholic authorities in Italy in 1557 and made his way to the Italian congregation at Geneva. At the time, a Paduan lawyer named Matteo Gribaldi, who had a vacation estate at Gex near Bern, and the Italian physician Giorgio Blandrata, were influencing the congregation with their anti-​Trinitarian ideas. They had also rankled Calvin by their criticism of the execution of Servetus. Gentile likewise took up the criticism of the Trinity, arguing along with his fellow Italians that notions of Trinity, essence, and person were not to be found in the Scriptures but were in fact papist constructs. Perhaps the old formulations of the councils that determined that the Son and the Spirit were coexistent with the Father, he argued, missed the mark, and in fact the Father, the first-​mover, had produced the Son, the creator, along with the Spirit, the vital force of the world (the Nicene Creed contains the phrase “God of God, Light of Light”). Both of these emanations from the Father, though coeternal, were subordinate to him and were substances unto themselves, just not through themselves. Gentile’s ideas were little more than a renewal of Arianism and they met

75. Beza, De haereticis, 169. 76. Gentile was from Cosenza in Calabria and was born around 1520. For the controversy surrounding Gentile one may consult Antitrinitarische Streitigkeiten: Die tritheistische Phase (1560–​1568), ed. Irene Dingel (Göttingen:  Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2013), esp. “Valentino Gentile:  Confessio, Adnotationes, Protheses (um 1561),” 97–​131; Luca Addante, Valentino Gentile e il dissenso religioso nel Cinquecento. Dalla Riforma italiana al radicalismo europeo (Pisa:  Edizioni della Normale, 2014); de Greef, Writings of John Calvin, “Debating with the Anti-​Trinitarians Gribaldi, Blandrata, and Gentilis,” 165–​67; Christoph Strohm’s article on Gentilis in RGG4 3 (2000), 684–​85; Brannon Ellis, Calvin, Classical Trinitarianism, and the Aseity of the Son (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2012), esp. 50–​60; Michaela Valente, “Calvino e gli italiani:  un rapporto difficile (da Valentino Gentile a Benedetto Croce),” Dimensioni e problemi della ricerca storica 2 (2010):  99–​110; Joseph Tylenda, “The Warning That Went Unheeded: John Calvin on Giorgio Biandrata,” CTJ 12 (1977): 24–​62; Antonio Rotondò, Calvin and the Italian Anti-​Trinitarians, trans. John and Anne Tedeschi, Reformation Essays and Studies 2 (Saint Louis, MO: Foundation for Reformation Research, 1968), originally published as “Calvino e gli antitrinitari italiani,” Rivista Storica italiana 80 (1968): 759–​84. The latter should be read in conjunction with E. David Willis’s review in Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 62 (1971):  279–​82; Tommaso R. Castiglione, “Valentino Gentilis antitrinitario calabrese del XVI sec.,” Archivio storico per la Calabria e Lucania 8 (1938): 109–​28; 9 (1939): 41–​54; 14 (1945): 101–​14; 28 (1959): 97–​116. Still useful is Benedictus Aretius, A Short History of Valentinus Gentilis the Tritheist, trans. Sherlock (London:  E. Whitlock, 1696), originally published in Latin in 1567.

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with strong resistance from Calvin and Beza. Calvin circulated a confession with orthodox Trinitarian affirmations among the Italian refugees in 1558. Gentile reluctantly signed it, but almost immediately recanted and was forced to flee to Poland, where other anti-​Trinitarian Italians had gathered. From there Gentile continued his attack on Calvin’s views on the Trinity as expressed in the Institutes (1.13.20–​29), until he was forced to leave Poland because of the Edict of Parczów (1564), which in short drove all apostate Catholics from the realm. Eventually Gentile returned to Gribaldi at Gex in 1566 where he was immediately arrested by Bern officials and executed by the sword on September 10 of that same year, recalcitrant to the end. Later in 1567, prompted by the visit of a Polish theologian Christoph Thretius, who had pushed for the aforementioned Edict in 1564, Beza edited a volume that brought together all the documents pertaining to the case of Gentile, including some treatises of Calvin. He attached a preface to it in which he gave a detailed account of his own views on the matter, for the most part reiterating the views already presented in the De haereticis.77 One finds there, for example, some of the same phrases employed, such as the reference to heretics “opening a school” in the Church. But the overarching theme of the preface is the defense of orthodoxy within the Church against mendacity: how Satan the deceiver uses these men as instruments to “rip up the foundation of the Christian faith,” and how it is the duty of all Christians “to assert God’s truth and oppose Satan’s lies” wherever they are found.78 The truth of the faith can only be derived from the word of God, he insists, but there are some heresies that can only be refuted by a precise terminology hammered out in the major ecumenical councils of the early Church: I am guided by this principle, that though the truth in regard to sacred matters lies nowhere but in the Word of God alone, and we should carefully avoid all empty talk (κενοφωνία), nevertheless, when we take away the difference between essences and hypostases

77.  The full title of the work is Valentini Gentilis teterrimi haeretici impietatum ac triplicis perfidiae et periurii, brevis explicatio, exactis publicis Senatus Genevensis optima fide descripta; earundem refutationes a doctissimis aetatis nostrae theologis scriptae, quarum elenchum proxima pagina continet; eiusdem Gentilis extremae perfidiae, et iusti supplicii de eo sumpti, historia seorsim est excusa (Geneva:  Franciscus Perrinus, 1567). For letters that Beza wrote to Poland on the matter after Gentile’s death, see Corr. VIII (1567), no 561, 562, 563; Beza’s preface is reprised in Appendix 3. 78. Beza, Corr. VIII (1567), 243.

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(or whatever terminology one might use in regard to anything) and when we lack the term homoousion, it is barely possible, if that, to uncover their blasphemies and disprove their errors sufficiently enough. I say that it is not possible without the terms nature, property, hypostatic union, communication of idioms for anyone to easily refute the blasphemies of Nestorius or Eutyches. If I am deluded in this matter, let someone show me how this can be and I will put a crown on him.79 This is a remarkable statement by Beza in that it demonstrates with some subtlety how he understood the nexus between Church tradition and the teaching of Scripture as related to divine truth and the problem of blasphemy. Clearly he has great deference to the consensus created by the synods of Nicaea, Ephesus, and Chalcedon, “than which,” he declares, “the sun has seen nothing more august or holy since the time of the apostles” (quo nihil unquam sanctius, nihil augustius ab apostolorum excessu sol unquam aspexit). The community of the Church through time has weight when it comes to maintaining the truth among its members. This extends, however, to the explanation and clarification of doctrines that are already found in Scripture and as such must always be weighed against God’s direct revelation about himself. “Can we not refute the deceits and lies of pseudoprophets with strong and well-​formulated rational arguments, so long as we do not stray from the Word of God?” (an … pseudoprophetarum fraudes et mendacia firmis et solidis rationibus, nusquam tamen a verbo Dei deflectens, refutat?) Beza concludes that there is another way to judge whether those who are introducing new interpretations are following the truth or just blaspheming:  we only need to look at how the leaders of the Church resist them, as if standing up against Satan, and also how God himself vindicates himself through his judgment. Servetus, Gribaldus, Gentile, and the rest ended their lives cast out from God for eternity (the flames that consumed Servetus suggested the eternal flames

79. Beza, Corr. VIII (1567), 244: “Nam ego quidem sic statuo, etsi non pendet aliunde rerum scrarum veritas quam ab unico Dei verbo, et sedulo vitanda nobis est omnis κενοφωνία, tamen sublato essentiae, et hypostaseon discrimine (quibuscunque tandem verbis utaris) et abrogato ὁμοουσίῳ, vix ac ne vix quidem istorum blasphemorum fraudes detegi et errores satis perspicue coargui posse. Nego quoque sublatis vocabulis, Naturae, proprietatis, hypostaticae unionis, ἰδιωμάτων κοινωνίας, posse Nestorii et Eutychis blasphemias commode a quoquam refelli, qua in re si forte hallucinor, hoc age nobis demonstret qui potest, et nos illum coronabimus.”

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for one who denied Christ’s eternal nature), shunned and rejected by others (Gribaldus contracted the plague and could scarcely find someone willing to bury him; Lismaninus, the mentor of Blandrata, was thrown into a pit), deprived of their shelter (François David’s house collapsed), and horribly disfigured (Gentile’s fate was fresh on everyone’s mind still). These are “manifest testimonies of God’s wrath” (manifesta divini furoris testimonia) and an unambiguous warning of what will happen to those who blaspheme him.80 Many years later Beza appears to be recollecting these specific events and the principles that guided him while preaching on the passion and burial of Jesus, sermons which were published around the same time as the first edition of the Cato.81 In Homily 25 on Luke 23:16 and John 19:1–​9, commenting specifically on the fear that Pilate felt when he heard the Jews say that they wanted Jesus crucified because he claimed to be the Son of God, Beza makes the following application: In what category shall we place you cursers and blasphemers, who make every effort to separate God and Christ? You outdo the demons in wickedness, since the demons quake at the sight of him whom you revel wildly against in this way. Woe! How did those who claim to be Christians come to the point that they have, not only allowed such a horrid and abominable crime to go unpunished in their midst, but they enjoy food and drink with them and even carry on conversations? Good God! Your patience is so great and long-​ lasting! And yet that sin has reached all the way to us who profess the name of the Reformed Church.82 It is noteworthy that Beza quickly turns from being outraged at those committing the sins to being agitated at the Christian community itself. He is appalled that good people have not cast out and isolated these particular sinners, but instead dangerously associate with them in such a common but highly emblematic setting as the meal—​one thinks of the importance

80. Beza, Corr. VIII (1567), 245–​46. 81. Beza’s In historiam passionis was published in 1592; a French edition was published the same year. 82. Beza, In historiam passionis, 628: “Vos vero deieratores, blasphemos, Diabolis peiores, qui Deum et Christum proscinditis, quantum in vobis est, quo loco tandem habebimus? Horrent enim eum Diaboli adversus quem ita debacchamini. Vah! quinam eo devenere qui

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of the communion as a means of ecclesiastical discipline—​and in social or commercial situations where general interaction is required. It is evident that, although in any case blasphemy is a particularly heinous and, in some instances, unforgiveable sin in the eyes of the Church, Beza regards banishment and isolation, even capital punishment, as the appropriate resolution to the ethical problem. Some of these same themes are repeated in Homily 30 on Matthew 27:39–​44, Mark 15:29–​32 and Luke 23:35–​42, where Beza is commenting on those who cursed Christ as he hung on the cross. Here, in a digression on those who hold God in contempt and blaspheme against him, he adds another familiar element: But if we think that those [sc. who were cursing Him then] deserve our loathing, what is our opinion to be about those present-​day atheists and contemptors of God? What will happen to those monsters and—​should I say—​incarnate devils who blaspheme the one whom the devils fear, and do not spare your body, blood, flesh, or wounds, eternal Son of God, you who bore away our sins on the wood? O accursed age! O immeasurable patience of God! What more shall I say in regard to these things, except that I humbly ask God either to quickly receive His own unto Himself, or forever shut the mouths of such monstrous men. The earth itself that sustains them, groans and fervently demands it; the air that they breathe and the sky whereby they are covered plead earnestly for it.83 The word here that stands behind the translation “loathing” is really abominatio, which could just as well read anathema, in that within the particular syntactical construction, it looks to the active shunning and banishment of those who engage in something completely out of order, the cursing of God. It is unnatural for the created to curse the creator because he is superior in the scheme of things and has sacrificed himself for the good

Christiano nomine gloriantur, ut tam horrendum, tam abominandum crimen, non modo inter Christianos inultum iaceat, sed etiam non minus quam ipse cibus ac potus, immo ipse etiam sermo sit frequens, et usitatum? Deus bone! tantam esse tuam tamque diuturnam patientiam! Et tamen istud vitium ad nos usque qui Reformatae Ecclesiae nomen profitemur penetravit.” 83. Beza, In historiam passionis, 757:  “Quod si merito nobis isti sunt abominationi, quid futurum putamus hodiernis Dei contemptoribus et Atheis hominibus? Quid fiet monstris

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of his creation. Thus, in the homily, Beza prays that God either put an end to the disorder by shutting up the mouths of the blasphemers forever, or separate those living according to God’s will from those who do not. That will is the created order, as evidenced by the dismay and disgust of the very earth, sky, and air, who find the commotion and agitation more than they can bear.

Conclusion Beza’s denunciation and condemnation of various forms of mendacity, from misdealings in the marketplace and misrepresentation from the pulpit, to flattery, swearing falsely, and blaspheming God, brings us to the essence of what he envisions the ethical life to be. The ethical life first and foremost has its grounding in the pure truth of God, which is his righteous and holy character expressing itself steadfastly in love. This truth of God has attached itself as if with a chain to the created order—​God built into creation the mechanisms and principles that lead to peace and tranquility for mankind—​but more importantly for human beings with a fallen nature, it is spelled out clearly in the written Law as revealed in time. The commandments of the Law point us back to the kind of love exhibited by God as the governing ethical rule. Whereas falsehood underlies all immorality and introduces chaos in the sense that its practitioners look inwardly to their selfish needs and their thirst for advantage, truth directs those who walk in it to look outside their own motives and self-​fulfillment to both the glory of God and the needs of others. “James does not enumerate all the responsibilities attached to a true and sincere love,” Beza says of the meaning of θρησκεία (religion) at James 1:27, “but instead focuses on only two [sc., helping widows and orphans], in which freely-​given generosity shines resplendent, given that no reward can be anticipated from the afflicted.” Here love given truthfully and sincerely expects no gain. He also wonders in the same note how James would react to the pilgrims (“Iacobipetae”) to his tomb in Santiago de Compostela, since they abandon those who need their support, their families, orphans, and widows, to indulge in a false, illis, ac potius Diabolis incarnatis eum blasphemantibus quem ipsi Diaboli metuunt, nec corpori, nec sanguini, nec carni, nec vulneribus tuis, aeterne Fili Dei, qui peccata nostra supra lignum tulisti, parcentibus? O infaustum seculum! O immensam Dei patientiam! Quid autem ad haec aliud dicturus sum, nisi ut supplex Dominum orem ut aut cito suos ad se recipiat, aut talibus hominum monstris os in aeternum occludat; quod ipsa tellus quae ipsos sustinet gemens efflagitat, aer quem spirant, et coelum quo teguntur expostulat?”

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personal piety.84 Furthermore, the civic virtues and moral philosophies, however noble their outward appearances, invariably mix in an element of conspiracy and deceit, and the foundation of all human ethical ideals can really be traced back to self-​advantage. They lack the proper grounding in God’s purpose and design, which, because of the blight of sin, can never be discovered by human intelligence alone. Godly truth, therefore, is attained only through the guidance of the Holy Spirit and is maintained in the Church that rests its authority on the cornerstone of Christ. In his annotations on the NT, particularly on passages from 1 John, Beza stresses the dependency of any truly ethical act, which he sums up as love or charitable deeds done for the glory of God or the benefit of others, on a relationship with the one true God through Christ. 85 On 1 John 2:4–​5, for example, where the evangelist is making a point about how the knowledge of God is tied in with obedience to God, he develops the idea of an interdependency between the knowledge of God, the love of God (objectively), and obedience toward God. The person who claims to know God but does not keep his commandments is a liar (which here Beza translates with mendax), according to John. From this Beza observes that the source of good works is the true and effectual knowledge of God, and that the quibbling subtleties of the philosophers fail to demonstrate how a person is rendered fit to act in an ethical way. A person’s capacity to love God as one ought, Beza goes on to say, referencing the statements in verse 5, is derived as a consequence of our union through faith with him. As such, it is not the source of one’s salvation, as if one could love and thereby bring about a union with God, but an indisputable token of it.86 It is not just the

84. Beza, Annotationes 1598, part  2, 444:  “Religiosus autem cultus. Non enumerat omnia verae et sincerae charitatis officia, sed duo tantum commemorat, in quibus refleget gratuita liberalitas; quia videlicet ab afflictis nulla expectatur merces. Quis si vero Iacobus hodie illos cerneret qui ementito ipsius nomine Iacobipetae vocantur? Non eos procul se ad familias suas alendas, ad pupillos, ad viduas ablegaret?” Beza had already mocked such pilgrimmages and the concommitant abandonment of one’s family in an epigram (87) of his 1548 edition of poetry, against a certain Spurinna. Spurinna, it seems, desiring offspring, took a long journey to all the holy sites, including the tomb of St. James in Spain. The result of his neglectful and arduous resolve was that, when he returned home, he found that his wife had given birth to three children. 85.  At 1 John 4:16 (Annotationes 1598, part 2, 504), Beza says God Himself offered the “most absolute exemplar” of true love by sacrificing His Son to save a wayward mankind, which shows what our inner disposition should be when our hands act. 86. Beza, Annotationes 1598, part  2, 494:  “Et accurate, phrasis ista observanda est, unde intelligimus charitatem qua Deum diligimus, minime illud esse per quod Deo adiungimur,

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love for God himself that originates in God’s love toward His people: the love of neighbor, Beza says in his summary of 1 John 5:2, depends on the love that one has for God, which in turn can be seen in a regard for His commandments (i.e., living with sincerity), and for an understanding of who He truly is (a commitment to the truth).87 Then, reiterating what he said before, he remarks in his notes that salvation does not take its beginnings from love, but love results from salvation.88 In the same vein, on 1 John 4:17–​18, he calls love the “index of faith” (charitas est fidei index), leading believers to know that they have fellowship with God and have nothing to fear, while at 1 John 3:19 he declares that love does not produce faith, it is instead born from it.89 Similarly, at Hebrews 6:11 he comments, “For love, demonstrating itself by its good works, is a sure testimony of our election, and therefore of a sure hope.”90 Thus it is clear that for Beza, the moral life and good works begin when God communicates Himself to His own, and by virtue of that union alone can they begin to enjoy the possibility of authentic, ethical living.

sed esse illius nostrae per fidem cum illo κοινωνίας effectum consequens, ac proinde nostrae salutis non causam, sed τεκμῄριον.” 87. Beza, Annotationes 1598, part 2, 505. 88. Beza, Annotationes 1598, part 2, 505: “Itaque nihil est illis ineptius qui salutem volunt a charitate auspicari, quoties quidem de causarum salutis ordine disseritur.” 89. Beza, Annotationes 1598, part 2, 498. 90. Beza, Annotationes 1598, part 2, 506: “Est enim charitas sese bonis operibus demonstrans certum electionis, ac proinde spei certae testimonium, Rom. 8:14 et 2 Pet. 1:10.”

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Born for Work The reformers of the sixteenth century insisted that all able-​bodied Christians eschew idleness and sloth and diligently embrace the particular vocation or “calling” that God has chosen for them. Social interactions and reciprocity of obligations through vocation were considered an integral part of what it means to be pious. It was also considered essential to a healthy community. Even if the individual stands alone before God in regard to justification, sanctification itself takes place in the commerce of humanity. Calvin famously championed this view of work with much conviction and vigor, and in doing so made it one of the pillars of the Reformed movement. The doctrinal stance that he took and the program that he began to implement in Geneva before his death demonstrated how a new social order tied to work could be fashioned. It was left to the next generation to weave his vision into the moral fabric of the Church so that a society functioning as God intended could be realized. Part of Beza’s own contribution to that effort is reflected in two poems directed against the idle in the Cato collection. These will provide us with a suitable entry point for a discussion of the various aspects of the doctrine of one’s calling, and in particular how Beza and his colleagues carried forth its banner. The first of the poems runs as follows: In otiosos1 At tu, otiari cui unicum est negotium, Spectare sueto, nil agendo, caeteros,

1. Beza, Cato Censorius Christianus (1591), 4; Beza, Poemata 1597, 270–​71; Beza, Poemata 1599, 135v–​136r.

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Viden’ rotatu supera ferri perpete? Ventos ruentes aeris per areas? Aquas perenni defluentes impetu?  5 Aequor reciprocis aestuare fluctibus? Ipsumque stabile permanens licet solum, Induere formas tam subinde dispares? Haec cernis, inquam: nec tuam coargui Sic supra et infra cogitas ignaviam?  10 Audi ergo, stulte, audire si tibi vacat, Natus labori quum sit homo, non otio, Quies labore redimitur, non otio: Peius nec ullum est otio negotium. Against the Idle Don’t you, whose one and only business is being idle, whose habit is to watch others while doing nothing, don’t you see the stars above ever turning? The winds rushing through the open air? The waters flowing downstream in constant motion? That the sea ebbs and flows as the waves go back and forth? That the ground itself, though firm and stable, so constantly takes on different shapes? Yes, you see these things. So don’t you realize that your laziness is exposed from above and below? Then listen, foolish one, if you have leisure to hear: Since man is born for work, and not for idleness, rest is earned by work, not by idleness, and there is no business worse than idleness. Beza launches into the poem with a tone of dismay and indignation (signaled here by the words at tu at the beginning) and reinforces it with a rapid succession of rhetorical, even adamantly confrontational questions.2 Essentially the censor demands, “Are you not ashamed of the way that you waste time?” The idle, in fact, have good reason to be ashamed. Nature herself models the appropriate mode of life; God expects everyone to be

2.  On the Latin particle at introducing an indignant question, cf. Verg. Aen. 9.144:  “Did they not see the walls of Troy, built by the hand of Neptune, collapse in the flames (At non viderunt)?”

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busily engaged in some sort of useful task, just as he has assigned tasks to all of his creation. Indeed, Nature’s attention to her work is incessant: the heavens are ever-​turning, the streams never stop their flowing, and the earth continuously transforms itself. Thus, just as a prosecutor in a courtroom, proving, refuting, and convicting, obedient creation in all of its parts uncovers the guilt of the lazy and slothful. Beza’s remarkably subtle handling of sounds, allusions, intertexualities, and poetic devices throughout adds force and color here. The viden’ (do you see?) of line 3, as a less formal and more conversational form of videsne, transports the reader out of the theological classroom and evokes the bantering, man-​in-​the-​street dialogues of the Roman comedic playwrights.3 The alliteration and play on words in line 4 (ruentes aeris per areas)—​the repetition of the s’s and r’s —​mimicks the relentless whistling and humming of the breezes in the ear.4 In the next line, the phrase waters flowing downstream (aquas defluentes) speaks to the exertion and toil of creation. It recalls Ovid’s axiomatic observation, made as a querelous analogy to his own lot of forced leisure in exile, that unless water keeps in constant motion it becomes tainted.5 One’s life becomes stagnant in the solitude of idleness. For the imagery of the alternating tides and the fluctuations of the waves Beza draws heavily on the language of Pliny the Elder’s description of the force of Nature on water in his Natural History: “Nature the Creator is not idle even among them [sc. aquatic animals], but puts forth her tireless strength on waves, billows, ebb and flow of tides, and the rapid currents of rivers.”6 As often in Pliny, Nature is treated as a positive force and role model, while human behavior within Nature is taken as problematic. For the expression if you have leisure (si tibi vacat) there is an important ironic subtext as well:  often used as a phrase in antiquity to invite people to a literary recitation, its politeness assumes the invitee’s annoyance at being pulled away from a “busy” schedule, though in fact they may just be too lazy

3.  The form viden’ is an abbreviated, less formal and more conversational form of videsne; cf. Cat. 61.98, Verg. Aen. 6.779 and often in the bantering, man-​in-​the-​street dialogues of Plautus and Terence. 4.  The phrase is likely inspired by the Vergilian “aeris in campis” at Aen. 6.887. 5. Ovid, Ex ponto 1.5. 6. Pliny, NH 31.1 (I have italicized the relevant words):  “opifice natura ne in illis quidem cessante et per undas fluctusque ac reciprocos aestus amniumque rapidos cursus inprobas exercente vires” (LCL).

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to attend.7 Furthermore, the play on otium (leisure or idleness) and negotium (business), which ends the first and last lines, is well-​worn in ancient literature.8 The structure of the final stanza (lines 11–​14) is complex: the words ullum, otio, and negotium bring our attention around to the key words of the first line, otiari, unicum, and negotium, especially with the parallel ending. But negotium at the end, while making an obvious play with otio juxtaposed to it, also echoes and refashions the non otio at the end of the previous two lines (12 and 13). The structure is meant to intensify the censor’s plea. Two related phrases in the last stanza, that man is born for work and rest is earned by work, have a gnomic quality to them. The former is adapted from the Vulgate version of Job 5:7, where it is said that “Man is born for labor and the bird for flight.” (Homo ad laborem nascitur et avis ad volatum). Most interpreters, including Beza,9 consider the Vulgate and Septuagint translators to have rendered the Hebrew inaccurately, though the phrase nevertheless became proverbial. Calvin himself alluded to it numerous times, including comments on Genesis 2:15, where God’s gift of the earth to mankind to tend leads Calvin to interpret this as a sign that man was created for it; on Matthew 20:1, in regard to the parable of the laborers in the vineyard; and in a sermon on Deuteronomy 5, about the Sabbath. Thomas à Kempis turned to it in his De imitatione Christi (2.10.1) to encourage the believer to gratitude for grace:  “Why do you seek rest when you are born for hard work?” (Cur quaeris quietam cum natus sis ad laborem?) For him, the Christian life is a “carrying of the cross” and suffering (patientia) on the road to true spiritual joy and consolation, without time for repose to enjoy the delights of this world. An interesting application of the topos appears in the supplement to Hans Jakob Christoph von Grimmelshausen’s innovative work of German fiction, published in 1669, titled The Adventurous Simplicissimus. In it, the protagonist Melchior

7.  For examples, see Juv. 1.21, Ovid, Ex ponto 1.1.3–​4, and Hor. Epist. 2.2.95. Pliny links it with commodum est at Ep. 3.18.4 to make the point that very few people in Rome had leisure or the convenience to listen to recitations: “I have taken no small pleasure from the fact that, when I desired to recite this book to my friends, I invited them, not by short notes or handbills, but by saying, ‘if it is convenient’ and ‘if you really have time’ [si valde vacaret]—​never does one really have the convenience or time [valde vacat] at Rome to hear someone giving a recitation.” 8.  For examples, especially in Plautus and Terence, see W. A. Laidlaw, “Otium,” Greece and Rome 15 (1968): 42–​52. 9.  “Tametsi homo ad molestiam et aerumnam nascitur” from p. 135 of Beza, Iobus … partim commentariis partim paraphrasi illustratus (London: George Bishop, 1589).

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Sternfels is describing how he, abandoned on an island and now a hermit, spent his time creating work for himself: So that these might the less stain my soul with sins, I  busied myself not only in the avoiding of that which profited naught, but did impose on myself a bodily task the which to perform with my customary prayer; for as man is born for work like the bird for flying, so on the other hand doth idleness inflict her sickness both on soul and body, and in the end, when we be least ware of it, eternal ruin.10 Melchior recognizes that work is tied up with his humanity and that he cannot be whole without it; his belief is grounded in the passage from Job. The associated idea that “rest is purchased by work” in line 13 points to the Sabbath in particular. What is bought by six days of hard labor is not leisure (otium), which in the parlance of the reformers equates with idleness, the opposite of work, but something more spiritual:  toil turns to rest (quies).11 Beza, as did Calvin, considered the Sabbath “rest” as a time for being confirmed in the doctrines of God as guidance during the remainder of the week, an opportunity to pray and call upon God’s name, and an occasion to reflect on the blessings bestowed upon his people. The Christian Sabbath, Beza remarks in regard to Revelation 1:9, was instituted and retained in the history of the Church because of the benefit that it offered, namely, “so that the mind can be free from its daily chores and give itself wholly over to hearing the word of God.”12 Work for the Christian is not an option. Augustine’s distinction between the active life and the contemplative life, where the latter is a leisure (otium) preferred to the busy life (negotium), when circumstances permit, is not a vocabulary that Beza wishes to adopt.13 Medieval theologians borrowed Augustine’s distinction

10.  From the translation published in London: W. Heinemann, 1912. 11. Beza was consistent in using quies in a positive sense; for example, he refers to the “Sabbati quies” at Annotationes, pt. 1, 114 (on Matt. 24:20). 12. Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 2, 524:  “quod boni usus causa institutum erat, ac merito retinetur, nempe ut animus a quotidianis laboribus vacuus totum sese audiendo Dei verbo donet.” Elsewhere (Annotationes 1598, pt. 1, 373) he maintains that the Sabbath’s “true use” (verus usus) consists in the honoring of the Son. 13.  No doubt Augustine and others of the same opinion may have been influenced by the proverbial wisdom concerning scribes presented in Ecclesiasticus, such as at 38:24:  “The

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and, combining it with an Aristotelian view of leisure, reiterated the preference for a life freed from work. In doing so they granted to priests and monks a higher spiritual status. Generally speaking, these schoolmen maintained that work is an unavoidable necessity for most people, but the most fortunate person is the one who does not need to work and can spend time in the leisure of pursuing the truth through contemplation.14 For Beza, in contrast, there is no time when the obligation of charity does not bind a person, and even study is merely a preparation for engagement through teaching, preaching, edifying, and defending the truth. A second poem on idleness appears only in the editions of the Cato published after 1591. Beza may have felt that the original poem on idleness lacked clear-​cut directives about a specific calling and its importance for the community. If his poems were aimed in part at the civil authorities, then he needed to define the city’s role in regulating work. The following brief poem filled that gap: In Eosdem15 Mortalium si nemo nascitur otio, Urbem o beatam, curat in qua sedulus Quod quisque rite nactus est negotium. Against the same If no mortal is born for leisure—​ o blessed city!—​in which someone diligently sees to it that each person has duly obtained work.

wisdom of the scribe depends on the opportunity of leisure; and he who has little business may become wise” (RSV). 14.  Augustine’s views can be found in City of God, 19.19. The ideas mentioned here are succinctly surveyed in Paul Heintzman, Leisure and Spirituality (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2015), 66–​68; He summarizes the matter as follows: “The distinction between the active life and the contemplative life formed the basic pattern of medieval Christianity. It resulted in the notion that the only true, or at least the highest, Christian calling was a priestly or monastic one that focused on the contemplative life. The creational mandate of work was minimized.” For Aristotle’s notion that work is merely preparation for the ultimate goal of leisure (as opposed to Cicero’s view that leisure is time to prepare for work), see 63–​65. 15. Beza, Poemata 1597, 271; Beza, Poemata 1599, 136r.

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The poem attaches itself to the previous one by restating its key phrase, but now in the negative: if man is born for work, then man is most decidedly not born for leisure. The words sedulus (diligent) and negotium (work or business) at the ends of the second and third lines are meant to contrast sharply with the otio (leisure) at the end of the first. But most important here is the assumption that work has a mutuality about it:  the city as a whole thrives because some proactive individual or body of individuals attentively encourages each citizen in their proper calling.16 This restates the social vision that Calvin expressed succinctly in his commentary on Matt. 25:20 in regard to the parable of the talents: Those who usefully employ whatever God has given them are said to be engaged in commerce (negotiari). The life of the pious is aptly compared to commerce, for they ought naturally to exchange and trade in order to maintain society; and the industry with which each one executes this mandate, the calling (vocatio) itself, the ability to act well, and other gifts, are designated merchandise, because their use and end in view is mutual communication among people. Christians, in short, are called to engage in some task assigned to them by God so that they can establish and sustain the interdependence and social bond that God originally intended for them in the created order. Beza’s poem adds the significant detail that the city should take an active role in making sure that no one fails to make a contribution.

Idleness: A Social Ill Between the years 1542 and 1609 the Genevan Consistory suspended eighty males and twenty-​four women from the Supper for what was generally labeled “begging and idleness.” Of these one hundred and four

16.  For the collocation of curat and sedulus, see Tib. 1.5.33:  “tantum venerata virum hunc sedula curet” (having venerated such a great man she will diligently care for him); Hor. Odes 1.38.6: “simplici myrto nihil allabores | sedulus cura” (Take care lest with overdiligence you bother to add to the simple myrtle). The Latin rite here (translated “duly”), looks not to religious behavior, but is a general reference to anything done in accordance with a sense of duty. For this particular phrasing (“rite nactus est negotium”), cf. Cat. 64.310, of the Fates: “aeternumque manus carpebant rite laborem” (“and their hands duly pressed on with their everlasting task”).

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total cases, an overwhelming ninety-​seven were urban suspensions, while only seven involved rural parishioners.17 Although these cases represent less than two percent of the suspensions by the Consistory, we should not assume that they necessarily reflect the extent of the problem as the Consistory saw it or the concern that the Church leaders had for it. Certainly it would be valid, following Daneau’s opinion (see below) to include in the category of idleness the two hundred and fifty-​five gaming and gambling cases (2.8 percent), and to associate the categories of illicit dances/​songs (4.8 percent) and drunkenness (4.0 percent). Idleness overlaps with a number of categories; however, since the offense of idleness was deemed more easily remedied compared with sins such as blasphemy or adultery, the Consistory could, given a suitable expression of remorse on the part of the offender, be content with issuing a verbal reprimand. The records of actual suspensions, in other words, do not tell the whole story. While at times the Consistory excommunicated Genevans for idleness (usually accompanied by other egregious vices),18 in many instances it simply rebuked individuals for their laziness and advised them to stay busy. Thus from the earliest days of the Genevan Consistory, we see defendants such as Claude Arthaud, a hose maker mentioned in the previous chapter, and Bocardz, a weaver, together with his wife, receiving their censure and responding with the promise that they will stop wasting time and instead work at their trade (“suyvra son mestier” and “se travalliera de son mestier”).19 In February of 1548 Jean Frochet, a tailor from a respected Genevan family, is brought before the body for “wandering about like a vagabond with an unsavory crowd, living a debauched life instead of working in his trade.” Calvin lectured that he should be “chaste and modest and obey his father and mother” and return to his work as a Christian should.20

17. For these figures, based on extant records, see Scott Manetsch, Calvin’s Company of Pastors, 201 and 206. For the years 1568–​1582, Manetsch records fifty-​six total cases, fifty-​two of which were urban; see “Pastoral Care East of Eden: The Consistory of Geneva, 1568–​82,” Church History 75 (2006), 274–​313, esp. 295. 18.  See the case of Tivent Paper at Registres du Consistoire de Genève 3:59, 257 and 4:34. 19.  Registres du Consistoire de Genève 1:127 (Arthaud) and 1:174 (Bocardz). 20.  Registres du Consistoire de Genève 4:5: “qu’il est tout debauché et que au lieu de travailler de son mestier il ne faict que vagabonder avec gens truans et dissolus. Monsier Calvin luy remonstrant que ung jeune homme doit estre chaste et modeste, estant servant à son pere et mere, non pas aller boire avec canailles tout ce qu’il travailloit, et qui’il avisast de s’amander et vivre chrestiennement avec son pere et sa mere.”

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The very same lecture seems to have been given two months later to the son of Jean Levet.21 An example of how the problem of idleness could be handled can be ascertained from the cases occurring during the month of October 1560. In that brief span of time the Genevan Consistory called in no less than forty-​four youths whom it deemed loafers (fainéants), due to the fear that their dissolute behavior was threatening to undermine order.22 This month may be exceptional—​though notably in 1612 Simon Goulart is sent by the Consistory to the Company of Pastors to complain of the exact same behavior23—​but it underscores the fact that the Consistory expected everyone to conduct themselves with purpose at all times. Even young boys who were not yet employable needed to be doing something useful that suited their station. The minutes of October 3, for example, outline an investigation undertaken by the Consistory assistants to ascertain why some boys, instead of attending catechism on Sundays, were “playing around and wasting time here and there” (vont jouer et perdre le temps ça et là). One of these assistants, Pierre Chappuis, reported that he found three boys who left town by La Porte de Rive during the catechism and was able to apprehend one of them, the son of a certain Soillette. The Consistory sent Chappuis to the Council with a recommendation to call in the boy who had been caught in order to find out from him the names of his companions. It also urged that the boys should be spanked in the customary way, as they deserved, and warned not to return to La Porte de Rive again. It added that this action was to serve as an example to the youth not to engage in such idle mischief and debauchery (n’estre ainsi debordée et debauschée). The Consistory also wanted to ascertain which of the boys were responsible for randomly beating up a French woman. In the same session, it was noted that there was a large contingent of the youth who wished to do nothing (ne veullent rien faire) but rove about in rowdy gangs, enjoying the inheritance left to them by their parents and loitering on the streets armed with swords. This conduct, they warned, could land someone in the hospital or worse (cela est le droict chemin pour aller à l’hospital ou en aultre lieu plus dangereux). The assistants were sent out to their various quarters to gather 21.  Registres du Consistoire de Genève, 4:51. 22.  Archives d’État de Genève, Registres du Consistoire, vol. 17: 159r–​v, 164r, 167v, 172r (3, 17, 24, October 31, 1560). I am indebted to Jeffrey Watt for the reference and for supplying the text. 23. See Registres de la Compagnie des Pasteurs de Genève 11:92, fn. 52.

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the names of these individuals so that the Consistory could deal with the matter and urge them to go about finding some work for themselves (pour tant qu’ung ch[asc]ung en fasse son debvoir). Under Calvin’s and Beza’s leadership certain social programs were set up at Geneva, including public teaching and hospitals, to lift up the poor and sickly from their troubles so that they could contribute to the community.24 Despite this, Geneva was not a welfare State in the modern sense: the Genevans did not allow individuals to become dependent on the system. Many French refugees, as they arrived in Geneva, were set to shoring up the city’s defenses or digging trenches until suitable employment could be found. Regardless of their skills or level of education, they were not permitted to mill about the city in idleness. In late 1579, the Company of Pastors, with Beza still as their moderator, urged that (and here we find another connection to Beza’s Cato) “censors be established at Geneva, as in Republican Rome … to see that all children of ten to twelve are taught some useful trade.”25 And Beza was present in 1578 as well when Guillaume Barbelet was reprimanded by the Consistory for “laziness and neglect of his seven children.” The Consistory registers note that Barbelet did not take too kindly to this rebuke.26 In the sixteenth century, moralizing sermons and treatises that targeted self-​indulgent behaviors formed an important part of the strategy to demonize idleness and promote a work ethic of communal piety. In the Lutheran tradition, for example, Johannes Brenz (1499–​1570) delivered an

24.  Eric Fuchs, “Calvin’s Ethics,” in John Calvin’s Impact on Church and Society, 1509–​2009, ed. Martin Ernst Hirzel and Martin Sallmann (Grand Rapids, MI:  Eerdmans, 2009), 153, observes, “The best way of combating begging and immorality is to target the economic and moral causes, enabling everybody to find work and receive an education.” On the importance placed on hospitals at Geneva, see William C. Innes, Social Concern in Calvin’s Geneva (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Press, 1983), 129-​60; and W. Fred Graham, The Constructive Revolutionary: John Calvin and His Socio-​Economic Impact (Richmond, VA: John Knox Press, 1971), 102-​04. On school and catechism as a way to head off idleness, see Jeffrey Watt, “Childhood and Youth in the Geneva Consistory Minutes,” in Calvinus Praeceptor Ecclesiae, ed. H. J. Selderhuis (Geneva: Droz, 2004), 43–​64, esp. 56–​57 and fn. 58; and Karin Maag, “The Spectre of Ignorance: the Provision of Education in the Swiss Cities,” in Fear in Early Modern Society, ed. William Naphy and Penny Roberts (Geneva: Droz, 2004), 137–​49. 25.  R. H. Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1926), 121. See also Paul Bernstein, American Work Values (Albany: SUNY Press, 1997), 56. Tawney is quoting from Eugène Choisy, L’état Chrétien Calviniste à Genève au Temps de Théodore de Bèze (Geneva:  Ch. Eggimann and Co., 1902), 166, who himself is quoting a “memoir” issued by the Company of Pastors to the council. The full text of this advice from the Company can now be read in Registres de la Compagnie des Pasteurs de Genève, 4 (1575–​1582), 300–​06, esp. 301. 26.  See Manetsch, “Pastoral Care,” 280 (from R. Consist. 31 [1578] 249v–​250).

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interesting sermon on, as he puts it, a passage of the New Testament (Acts 19:21–​27) that appears immaterial and inconsequential to the Christian life.27 There Luke describes Paul’s plans for future missionary journeys, travels that will take him from Asia Minor to Macedonia and Greece, back to Jerusalem and eventually to Rome. Brenz advises his congregation not to assume that the Holy Spirit, who inspired the writings in the Scriptures, did any of it without a specific purpose: even the rather mundane description of Paul’s proposed route is instructive. In this passage one learns from the tireless diligence of Paul, who had such total disregard for personal danger and discomfort, and such energy to fulfill his calling as an apostle, that his mind is ever on thoughts of missionary journeys to old and new locations, both to maintain his earlier work and to plant new seeds. True faith, he goes on to say, is not a casual and nonchalant matter, nor does it allow believers to be lazy and indulge in leisures. Instead, it compels believers to search out earnestly the tasks to which they have been called, just as Paul’s example demonstrates. The lazy and the idle, who lack the heart of a true faith, do not deserve to bear the Christian name. He adds: We can conclude that if we wish to become assured of our faith, we should not give ourselves over to laziness or wickedness, rather each one should diligently keep to his own calling without regard for the toil or danger, and should do his duty, lest they should hear what the master says in the Gospel, “Cast out the useless servant into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”28 The latter passage is a quote from Matthew 25:30, part of the parable of the coins that are entrusted to the servants. On the verse that precedes it, where it is said that, to those who have, more will be given, while to those who have not, all will be taken away, Beza in a sermon on Song of Solomon observes that in this context Jesus is talking about those who are inactive and lazy, among whom the talents given by God lie unused. Those who are

27. Johannes Brenz, Hom. XCI of In Acta Apostolica homiliae centumvigintiduae (Haguenau: Peter Braubach, 1536), 176r–​77r. 28. Brenz, In Acta apostolica, 176v: “Reliquum nunc est, ut si voluerimus de fide nostra certificari, non ignaviae, neque sceleribus nos tradamus, sed suae quisque vocationi diligenter et pie nullo laboris aut periculi respectu serviat, et officium suum faciat, ne audiat, quod paterfamilias in Evangelio dicit: ‘Inutilem servum eiicite in tenebras exteriores, illic erit fletus et stridor dentium.’ ”

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rich in the parable are those who use the gifts that God gives them, while the poor are those who took no care for them. God is offended by this negligence, he says, and we can be sure that he will snatch away what gifts he finds being misused. Beza rebukes his congregation for the excessive number among them who are idle and unwilling to do the sort of “running” required by the Christian life.29 The Scriptures afforded many more opportunities for addressing the problem of laziness beyond simply the parables of Jesus. Calvin, in a sermon concerning on Deuteronomy 15:11, denounced begging as a recourse for the poor on the grounds that it eventually becomes an enjoyable and preferred option to them, leading to idleness and all sorts of mischief.30 Experience, he adds, has already taught us this.31 He also interpreted Genesis 2:15, where God turns over the earth to Adam for cultivation, to mean that God does not intend for people to lie about idle (ignavia) and inactive (desides), and that “nothing is more contrary to the order of nature than that someone should waste away life in eating, drinking, and sleeping.”32 He alludes to this again in a sermon preached about the Sabbath, concluding that “it is against our nature for us to be useless blocks of wood.”33

29. Beza, The Song of Solomon (Master Bezae’s Sermons upon the First Three Chapters of the Canticles of Canticles [Oxford: Joseph Barnes, 1587]), particularly on 1.4 (“Drawe me; we wil runne after Thee”), 60–​62. 30. John Calvin, Sermon on Deuteronomy, 15:11 (=CO 27, 341). See also Bonnie Pattison, Poverty in the Theology of John Calvin (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Press, 2006), 335–​36. Pattison writes, “At the core of the problem of begging is a serious spiritual problem. Beggars ultimately do not beg in order to relieve their poverty but because they enjoy the activity and do not intend to be productive with their lives. Beggars are motivated by greed, covetousness, and idleness, wishing only to live off the resources of others. The community that permits begging, therefore, invites social disorder. According to Calvin, by permitting the practice of begging, a city cultivates thieves and sanctions idleness. The only remedy for this situation is to forbid the practice altogether.” 31.  John Calvin, CO 27, 341:  “car on les accoquine, ils s’accagnardent, comme desia nous avons monstré … et l’experience le monstre par trop.” 32.  John Calvin, CO 23, 45: “Quare nihil magis contrarium naturae ordini quam edendo, bibendo et dormiendo vitam consumere.” 33. Sermons on Deuteronomy, CO 26, 296:  “Cela est contraire à nostre nature, d’estre comme des troncs de bois inutiles.” Cf. his commentary on Psalm 127:1: “He does not, however, reject either the labor, the enterprises, or the counsels of men; for it is a praiseworthy virtue diligently to discharge the duties of our office. It is not the will of the Lord that we should be like blocks of wood, or that we should keep our arms folded without doing

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In 1574 Lambert Daneau wrote a treatise against games of chance, which he treated as a form of idleness and an unwillingness to be busy in the countless duties that God sets before believers.34 After quoting 1 Peter 4:2–​3, which states that believers have no more time to engage in the amusements of the Gentiles, he follows, There are so many duties that God requires of us by this passage, so many means and holy occasions to keep us busy either for the glory of God or for the assistance of our fellow man, all the hours of the night and day, or even if every day were longer than it is, even if it had forty-​six hours in it; but for us to amuse ourselves in playing games instead of busying ourselves in such holy offices and better occupations, this seems intolerable to many and not at at all permissable to the person who claims to be a believer and Christian.35 In his Ethices Christianae (1577) he ties the vice of idleness (pigritia) to the eighth commandment (the prohibition against stealing) and counterposes it to the virtue of labor, defined as “the earnest application of our body or mind to some honest and permissable work or study, and the energetic employment in it, to serve God and be of use to our neighbor, as well as to be able to make a living, if thus it is necessary.”36 Idleness, in contrast, is explained as the neglect or lazy and slothful performance of that labor “to which we are called or suited.”37 As his primary proof text he relies on 2 Thessalonians 3:6–​12, where Paul admonishes the Thessalonians not to walk in idleness and to be willing to work, or expect not to eat. Therefore,

anything; but that we should apply to use all the talents and advantages which he has conferred upon us.” 34.  Lambert Daneau, Briève remonstrance sur les jeux de sort ou de hazard, et principalement de dez et de cartes; en laquelle le premier inventeur desdits ieux, et maux infinis qui en adviennent, sont declarez, contre la dissolution de ce temps (Geneva: Jacques Bourgeois, 1574), 4–​11. 35. Daneau, Briève remonstrance, 5–​6. 36. Lambert Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 368r–​v:  “Labor … diligentia est seria corporis, animive nostri ad honestum et concessum aliquod opus aut studium applicatio, atque in eo strenua occupatio, ut et Deo serviamus et proximo utiles simus; ex quo etiam nobis victum quaerere, si ita necesse est, possumus.” 37. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 368v:  “Pigritia ὀκνότης sive ἀταξία quam vocat Paulus 2 Thessal. 3, est superiori animi virtuti contraria. Est autem operis studiique, ad quod vocati, vel apti sumus, vel in totum praetermissio, vel illius negligens et perfunctoria sive remissa functio et aggressio.” The word apti (“suited”) linked with vocati (“called”) shows that already, in the first generation after Calvin and Luther, the two concepts were being merged.

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he ascribes laziness to the eighth commandment because this is the commandment that has mainly to do with commutative justice (iustitia commutativa). This kind of justice works on the basis of simple arithmetic, he says. It is “the disposition which, without regard for persons, attributes to each person in arithmetic proportion what is rightfully his, so that a person receives in return the exact equivalent to what was taken away.”38 In a commercial contract there is a mutual agreement as to what this equivalency involves, but in the case of stealing, one side imposes its will, either clandestinely or through violence. But positive virtues also are encompassed by the prohibition of this commandment, he says, which concern giving to a neighbor without hope of return, since God commands that we look out for our neighbor and because such expressions of generosity accrue to his glory.39 In other words, mutual care among us reflects God’s loving character and thus reminds us of who he is.40 Therefore, instead of the vain hoarding of our wealth, we are called to sharing (commutatio or κοινωνία) in accord with our neighbors’ needs.41 Hard work and an honest occupation are tied to these positive virtues, because in working we are being useful to our neighbor and providing food for ourselves, as much as possible, so that others do not need to do it for us. Even if we could live without our neighbors’ help, not to work with diligence so that we can help them when they need it and thereby glorify God, is akin to stealing.42 This includes being slothful or doing one’s calling carelessly or half-​heartedly.43

38. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 360r–​v: “voluntas quae nulla personarum ratione habita ius suum cuique arithmetica proportione tribuit, ut rei tantum cuique restituatur, quantum illis ab altero ablatum.” 39. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 363r. 40. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 262r: “The lazy therefore are like the drones, an idle and thieving creature, who are rebuked and reproved in countless passages in Proverbs” (Sunt igitur desides, uti fuci, ignavum animal et fures, qui quantopere a Dei spiritu increpentur, arguanturque, docent infiniti pene in lib. Proverbiorum loci). 41. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 364r. The context clearly indicates that virtuti incorrectly stands where Daneau means vitio. 42. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 262r:  “The disgraceful term ‘thieves’ also applies to the lazy and idle, who, although they live off their own means, nevertheless they are thieves. Therefore, laziness should not be condemned just because it is inert, useless, and offers offense, but because also it is a certain species of stealing (Ac quidem turpi nomine furest sunt desides et ignavi homines, qui quamquam de suo vivunt, tamen sunt fures. Nec enim damnanda est desidia ideo solum, quod iners est, inutilis et offendiculum praebet, sed quod etiam quaedam furti species)”; also see 365r and 368r–​v. 43. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 262r.

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Peter Martyr Vermigli has an almost sermon-​like digression on idleness in his commentary on the great sin of David as described in the eleventh chapter of 2 Samuel.44 He believes that this particular passage is meant to show us how David arrived at the point where he could commit adultery with Bathsheba. It was his leisure that began his downfall. We see him sleeping from midday to dinner, which, Vermigli underscores, is evidence of a carefree and idle person (hominis securi et otiosi). If he had been thinking seriously about the law, about the blessings of God, the important issues of the kingdom, the war being waged at the time, the dangers that the State was facing, the kinds of things that leaders should be contemplating, he never would have fallen into these sins. “Of such great significance was it that he was idle,” Vermigli adds, adopting and modifying Lucretius’s famous line about religion for more pathos.45 He then gives weight to his view through the judgments of ancient wise men. While passing the Cumaean villa of a certain Roman praetor named Vacia, who was notoriously idle and lazy, Seneca had commented, “Here lies Vacia,” expressing the sentiment that someone so useless to the State is to some extent already buried. But Vermigli contends that Seneca did not go far enough: “Cadavers of this sort already stink profoundly and generate putridity and worms.”46 In other words, they are not just useless; they annoy others and let in decay. He cites a passage from Cato’s Origines where it is said that for an honorable person a reckoning must be given no less of leisure than of business. He hopes that Christians will see themselves as Cato’s honorable people and realize that at some point in time they are to be recalled to that reckoning. Even our leisures will have a reckoning, he says, and thus should have purpose to them. He recounts a story from Ambrose about a crab and an oyster to illustrate how idleness puts us in danger. The crab would like to eat the meat of the oyster but cannot because it cannot break the oyster’s shell. Instead it waits for the oyster to open its shell to soak in sun and enjoy the breeze. At this moment the crab throws a stone into the mouth of the oyster, who then tries to close his shells back together and cannot,

44. Peter Martyr Vermigli, In duos libros Samuelis prophetae qui vulgo priores libri regum appellantur … commentarii doctissimi, cum rerum et locorum plurimorum tractatione perutili (Zurich:  Christoph Froschauer, 1564; I  have used the 1575 edition issued from the same press). 45. Vermigli, In duos libros Samuelis, 263r: “Tanti fuit esse otiosum.” Cf. Lucr., DRN 1.101. 46. Vermigli, In duos libros Samuelis, 263r: “Sed ego hoc etiam addo, huiusmodi cadavera et gravissime foetere et putredines et vermes procreare.”

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providing an opening for the crab’s claw. In the same way, Ambrose says, when people give themselves to leisure and open their minds to pleasures, the Devil throws in foul thoughts so that they can no longer retreat into their protective shell. Thus, through idleness, they are devoured. This then is what happened to David, as it also happened to Nebuchadnezzar when he indulged in leisure and allowed himself to become prideful. He concludes with the colorful story of a certain Latimerus, once faithful Bishop of Vigornia in England, who afterwards became a martyr for Christ. According to Vermigli, when Latimerus was wishing to exhort his fellow bishops to do their duty, he told them, “There is no more diligent Bishop in England than the Devil; for he always teaches, warns, administers, and encourages his church.” In this way, Vermigli says, he exhorted them that if they were not willing to listen to God and follow him, at least they should imitate the Devil. “Always be doing something,” he quotes Jerome as saying, “so that when the Devil comes he always finds you busy.”47 Simon Goulart included sections on sloth and idleness in his Morum philosophica historica (1594).48 In his view it is one of the lessons of history, as evinced from numerous authors of classical antiquity, that these moral failings in particular corrode and subvert the robustness of the State.49 In his Apophthegmata (1592), he cites thirteen separate maxims against laziness (pigritia) from Proverbs, and two from Ecclesiastes, including an allusion to the proverb about the industrious ant.50 Under a section on idleness (De

47. Vermigli, In duos libros Samuelis, 233v: “Prudenter monuit Hieronymus ad Rusticum: ‘Semper age aliquid, ut diabolus adveniens semper te inveniat occupatum.’ ” 48.  Simon Goulart, Morum philosophia historica ex probatis scriptoribus collecta (Geneva: Jacob Stoer, 1594), 78 (desidia, slothfulness) and 239–​40 (otium, leisure). 49. For example, at 240 Goulart quotes the following from the Historia Augusta (Julius Capitolinus on Antoninus Pius) in regard to otiosi, the idle: “Antoninus Pius used to say that nothing is more sordid, nay cruel, than someone picking away at the State who confers nothing to it by their labor (Antoninus Pius dicebat nihil esse sordidius, imo crudelius, quam si Rempubl. ii arroderent, qui nihil in eam suo labore conferrent).” On desidia (slothfulness), he cites Valerius Maximus 7.2, where the wise man is said to equate the dangers posed by physical damage within the State (the burning of houses, the exhausting of the treasury, etc.) with the unnerving of the vigor and energy that once made the State tough (“prisci roboris nervos hebetari”). 50.  Simon Goulart, Apophthegmatum sacrorum loci communes, ex sacris ecclesasticis et secularibus scriptoribus collecti (Geneva, 1592), 479. He cites the following (some passages are repeated): Prov. 10:4–​5 and 24–​30, 18:9, 24:30, Eccl. 4:5, 10:18 (sloth brings poverty); Prov. 15:19, 19:15, Eccl. 4:5 (the idle are sluggish); Prov. 10:26 (people hate the slothful); Prov. 6:6 (the idle contrasted with the industrious ant); Prov. 19:24, 20:4 (various descriptions of the sluggard); Prov. 22:13, 26:13–​16 (the sluggard makes excuses for inaction); Prov. 13:4,

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otio), he repeats the reference to the ant proverb, while adding Paul’s rebuke at 2 Thessalonians 3 against those who refuse to take up a vocation: “In the letter to the Thessalonians, [Paul] prohibits the idle who are unwilling to work from consuming food, and deservedly so, since by doing so they discourage others who are doing work.”51 He goes on to say that even though the apostolic office was physically and mentally demanding, Paul quite often earned his own living. Even Christ, he says, is called a carpenter (faber), and some apostles were fishermen. There follows upon these comments three pages of quotes on laziness from St. Anthony of Egypt, Theodosius, Basil, Gregory Nazianzus, Ambrose, Augustine, John Chrysostom, and Bernard. For Beza, idleness, sloth, and the failure to actively contribute to the community all interweave in complex ways with a host of other sins. To the extent that the dutiful execution of our vocation is the outward expression of our obedience, its converse feeds upon and is fed by disobedience. Daneau not only associated laziness with the eighth commandment’s prohibition against stealing, as noted above, but also viewed certain activities of leisure, such as drunkeness, revelling, eating at taverns, and choral dancing, as inciters of lust, as prohibited by the seventh commandment.52 In his discussion of David’s adultery as described in 2 Samuel 11, Vermigli identifies the cause as idleness, as noted above, and adds, “Though idleness fosters many evils besides this one, it fosters none more easily or abundantly than sensuality.”53 Similarly, in his view it was “leisure and luxury” that paved the way

21:25–​26 (the misery of the slothful). Goulart does not attempt to list all the passages of Proverbs that touch on the foolishness of the slothful and indolent, but the most notable omission is the extended comparison of the sluggard to the ant, which busies itself in preparation for winter all summer long (6:6–​11). The topos was well worn. Pliny recognizes and appreciates the industriousness of the ant, as well as bees, and later writers, such as the naturalist Theodore Gaza, found examples for human morality in his descriptions of the animal kingdom, including ants and bees (De animalibus, fol. 4r: “Who is so sluggish, inactive, and lazy, that he is not stirred to the duties of life when he observes the labor and industry of the ants and the bees? [Quis tam piger, iners et segnis, quin excitetur ad vitae munera, cum formicarum aut apum labores atque industriam intuetur?]”). 51. Goulart, Apophthegmatum, 435:  “Otiosos qui laborare nolunt ab usu ciborum arcet in epistola ad Thessalonicenses, et merito quidem, utpote qui fruges consumere nati aliis laborantibus sunt impedimento et offendiculo.” Under the entry on work (De labore, 241), Goulart repeats the passage from 2 Thessal., along with Ephes. 4:28 and 1 Thessal. 4:11. He also lists passages from Proverbs and Ecclesiastes where work is characterized as “necessary” and “useful,” as well as “blessed by God” and a “gift from God.” 52. Daneau, Ethices Christianae 245b–​46b. 53. Vermigli, In duos libros Samuelis, 233r. Vermigli may be thinking of Ecclesiasticus 34: 27, “idleness teaches much evil” (RSV).

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for Amon’s incestuous lust for his sister at 2 Samuel 13.54 Calvin complained that idle people inflicted the human race by being prone to anger, irritated, as they were, by their own inactivity, and by acting as transporters of gossip.55 Beza himself makes similar associations. For example, at Matthew 12:36 he explains that a word spoken to no purpose and unprofitably can be described as “idle” (otiosum), which before the judgment seat of Christ must be accounted for or satisfied by his blood as much as the greatest of sins.56 Then in regard to the unclean spirit who departed from a man and then decided to return with seven others, finding his original “house” to be “swept and ungarnished” (Matt. 12:44), Beza rejects the renderings of the Vulgate and Erasmus and finds here a reference to laziness as well:  “We must explain these words (sc. swept and ungarnished) allegorically,” he says: “They appear to indicate a state of being carefree and leisurely. The latter of these gives admittance to a host of demons, while the former invites him in willingly.”57 Likewise, Beza draws a connection between failure to abide in one’s calling and empty curiosity in a sermon preached on the ending of John 21, particularly in v. 21 where Jesus rebukes Peter’s questioning in regard to “the beloved disciple.”58 In the previous verses, Jesus had just foretold the violent death of Peter after his ascension, but Peter responds by looking to John (presumably) and inquiring, “What will this man do?” By this he means to say, “How and when will this man meet his end?” Jesus sternly

54. Vermigli, In duos libros Samuelis 251r: “Horum malorum capita duo sunt, otium et luxus; amovendae ergo sunt delitiae et occupandus est animus iustis actionibus.” 55.  See his commentary on 2 Thess. 3:11. 56. Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 1, 62: “Christ is making an argument by comparison, comparing the greatest of sins with the smallest, which, however, are not able to be so small that an accounting for them does not have to be given, unless we embrace the satisfaction of Christ. And Tertullian in his De patientia rightly calls ‘idle words’ empty and unnecessary words. These are the jesting sorts of words that the apostle condemns at Eph. 5:4 (Argumentatur enim Christus a comparatis, comparans peccatorum maxima cum minimis; quae tamen tam parva esse non possint quin reddenda sit erorum ratio, nisi Christi satisfactionem amplectamur. Otiosos autem sermones Tertullianus de patientia recte vocat vana et supervacua dicta; huiusmodi est etiam εὐτραπελία quam damnat apostolus Eph. 5.4).” 57. Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 1, 63: “Vulgata, scopis mundatam. Erasmus, scopis purgatam. His autem verbis, quae quum ad homines ipsos referantur, necesse est allegorice exponere, securitatem et otium videtur designare; quorum illa Satanae aditum patefacit, istud autem eum etiam ad se ultro allicit.” 58.  The main passages of interest here come from Beza, Sermons sur l’histoire de la resurrection de nostre Seigneur Iesus Christ (Geneva: Jean le Preux, 1593), 613–​22; Theodore Beza, Homiliae in historiam Domini resurrectionis (Geneva: Jean le Preux, 1593), 520–​27.

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scolds him in the next verse, saying, “If I will that he tarries until I come, what is it to you?” Jesus’s reaction could appear unreasonble at first, but Beza explains the harshness of Jesus’s retort by reminding his congregation that the Lord knew Peter’s heart and so was responding to the inner thinking of his disciple, whatever that may have been. Peter erred not because he showed concern for the affairs of John—​to not care about what is happening in the lives of others, Beza inserts, is inhuman and unChristian—​but in that he exceeded the bounds of his calling in life. He strayed into vain and futile curiosity born of idleness and itself the cause of numerous other sins.59 Such idle curiosity distracts us from self-​censureship and leads to the jealous regard of others’ good fortunes, or it encourages a self-​righteouness through the uncovering of a neighbor’s faults. In the case of Peter’s query, it is only for God to know how and when each person will die, and rarely, and then only for a special purpose, does he choose to reveal that information to some people. Peter was, in a sense, leaving his sentry post, to borrow a phrase from Calvin (see below), by asking about John’s future. He was being idle and curious when he should have been thinking about the words that Jesus had just spoken to him about himself. In the same sermon, Beza defines the relationship between inquiry and vocation in greater detail. He explains that our own individual vocation in life determines the bounds for our inquiry. Our general vocation to the Christian life obliges all, without exception, to seek the benefit of our neighbors in accord with the glory of God. In other words, we should actively inquire into another person’s affairs when we think we can help them or snatch them from some evil. There are also public vocations, such as those that pastors and magistrates have for giving guidance to their flocks and subjects. Private vocations exist as well which bind all together in special ways and necessitate that we give mutual love and support to certain individuals:  children, spouses, neighbors, servants, masters, and the like (here Beza is thinking less about professions as he is about the role or estate which each individual has assumed within society). Depending on the relationship, inquiry of this sort may come with authority and even coercion, or be done with benevolence and charity. Regardless of how it is carried out, the duty of looking into the affairs of others is necessary both to free the conscience and to foster human society, so long as it is guided by discretion and wisdom and is done with the right spirit and intent. It must be free from all self-​importance and hatred, and devoid of any ambition to gain the upper 59. Beza, Homiliae … ressurectionis, 524–​25.

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hand through censuring. It should not be born of mere curiosity about matters that do not need to be scrutinized or divulged. Such ulterior motives and indiscretion turn inquiry into idle inquiry, that is, curiosity. Being a busybody about things that are of no great importance or none of our concern (as when a husband tries to meddle in the affairs of another man’s wife or a magistrate inquires about someone under another magistrate’s jurisdiction) causes social confusion, Beza says, and “infinite quarrels, conflicts, and hostilities” (unde infinitae rixae et contentiones ac inimicitiae nascuntur).60 “This is something that we struggle with here very much,” he concludes, “even among Christians, I am sorry to say, to the point that it seems to be an incurable disease.” The Christian life for Beza is a busy one in which each person actively engages others in the community for the glory of God. Since God is glorified when individuals obey his law and live as he intended, accordingly keeping in view the proper order and limits he has established, Christians should encourage one another in this endeavor. At the end of the sixteenth century in England, the Puritan Thomas Beard describes idleness as a “wide door and passage for many vices to enter by,” as Beza had done, and goes on to show how those who do not occupy themselves in useful employment find ways to hurt others or themselves. But while idleness can lead to a host of other sins that can do damage to good society, it is itself fostered and promoted by other sins that involve varying degrees of self-​indulgence and self-​involvement. There is a chain, in other words, from egocentricity to idleness to the disruption of social order. Beard identifies drunkeness as one of those major causes of idleness, and is quick to demonstrate how an inward focus wreaks havoc in the community: “Wherefore, wee ought to be here advertised every one of us to apply our selves to some honest and seemly trade, answerable to our divers and severall estates and conditions, and not to suffer our selves to be overgrowne with Idlenesse, lest thereby we fall into mischiefe; for whom the adversary (that malicious and wicked one) findeth in that case, he knowes well how to fit them to his purpose, and to set them about filthy and pernicious services.”61 we noted above how Daneau had made a similar connection between idleness and gaming, while Calvin pinpointed begging as a major cause of idleness. 60. Beza, Homiliae … resurrectionis, 523. 61.  Beard, Theatre XXXVI (p. 284).

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The pervasiveness of the denouncements against idleness during the Reformation suggests that there was a heightened desire to strengthen an appreciation for all manner of work. The shifting economic climate of the period and the growth of urban populations may have contributed as much to this desire as certain doctrinal developments, such as the new understanding of sanctification. Christians were seen as participating in the rebuilding of a godly society here on earth through exchange, social interaction, work, and service. Everyone had a role to play in establishing order.

The Theology of One’s Calling Both of Beza’s poems cited at the beginning of this chapter assume a version of the doctrine of temporal calling which was still relatively new in intellectual history. Before the reformers, before Calvin and Luther, there were three different paradigms or “languages” in place for discussing the diversity of human labor and how each individual must find work for the benefit of all.62 These can be labeled broadly as Medieval, Ciceronian/​humanistic, and Greek. In Medieval thought, God providentially inclines us to certain vocations as part of his design for structure in human society. God grants individuals certain spiritual gifts through which, by grace and the work of the Holy Spirit in baptism and confirmation, he channels to them natural talents and skills (technai) that they must translate into careers. In this way Christians find their place within the larger community as God designed it. These spiritual gifts are to be understood within the context of the theology of the “seven gifts of the Holy Spirit,” as derived from Isaiah 11:1–​ 3, as well as Romans 12:3–​6 and 1 Corinthians 12:12–​31, which in turn, as Aquinas explains it, open the possibility to virtues, including theoretical and productive ones.63 In the contrasting humanistic view, drawn primarily from Cicero and other Roman writers, all persons must identify their own natural aptitudes and inclinations, cultivate them and be trained in accord with them, and find the work and way of life that most takes advantage of them. As Cicero put it in the De officiis, “Everybody must resolutely hold fast to his own particular gifts … and follow the bent of [his] own peculiar

62.  Sometimes in the Medieval period the versions combine and overlap in various ways, but three basic paradigms can be discerned; on this see Richard M. Douglas, “Talent and Vocation in Humanist and Protestant Thought,” in Action and Conviction in Early Modern Europe, ed. Theodore Rabb and Jerrold Seigel (Princeton, NJ:  Princeton University Press, 1969), 261–​98. Douglas calls the various theories about vocation “languages.” 63.  For this see John Jenkins, Knowledge and Faith in Thomas Aquinas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), esp. 156–​57.

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nature.”64 Whereas in the Medieval mode of thinking, individuals are discovering what God has in store for them through an examination of the innate gifts made available to them, the humanists emphasized self-​determination and choice based on a knowledge of oneself. In the former, God is ensuring the well-​being of all by making a harmonious and fit distribution of offices; in the latter, the commonweal is made healthy when individuals find what they are most passionate about and pursue this without interference from others. Both Erasmus and Petrarch speak of a pedagogical model in which children are encouraged to examine their own disposition and choose a way of life respectively.65 They themselves chose their path of life by following and conforming to their own inclinations and aptitudes. Yet another line of thinking about careers and offices looks to a physiological determinant based on Greek humoral theory.66 Ficino, for example, felt that certain mixtures of elements within the body, specifically, the distribution of blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile as determined by the alignment of the stars, shapes a person’s personality and bent. One’s choice of career follows the influence and constraints of one’s physical constitution. In this regard Douglas writes, “Ficino the philosopher becomes Ficino the physician, and metaphysics yields to the horoscope and the medicine cabinet:  ingenium turns out to be an inherent property of innate nature, over which in the temporal world the soul has no real powers of control.”67 It was Luther who laid the groundwork for a new conception of calling through his use of the word Beruf at certain key points in his translation of the Bible; before him Beruf was typically reserved for priestly or monastic callings, but Luther applied it to temporal callings as well, giving them an equal spiritual significance.68 Nonetheless, the Reformed tradition’s take on calling, whereby work itself is seen as an act of obedience, would prove especially pivotal in economic history. At times, however, the very use of 64. Cicero, De off. 1.30–​34. 65. Petrarch, De vita solitaria, Bk. 1., tract. 4., ch. 1; see the edition and commentary by K. A.  E. Enenkel:  Francesco Petrarca, De vita solitaria, Buch I. (Leiden:  Brill, 1990); Erasmus, Opus epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami, eds. P. S. Allen and H. M. Allen, 12 vols. (Oxford:  Clarendon Press, 1906–​1958), III, no 447 (1516), 294; The Epistles of D.  Erasmus, trans. F. M. Nichols, 3 vols. (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1901–​18), II, 340. 66.  Douglas, “Talent and Vocation,” 277. 67.  Douglas, “Talent and Vocation,” 279. 68. Luther’s contributions will not be addressed here, but one may consult Peter Marshall, A Kind of Life Imposed on Man:  Vocation and Social Order from Tyndale to Locke (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), 22–​24.

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the term calling could be confusing, because it could carry an active or passive sense and cover a variety of spiritual and mundane realities. Vermigli, for example, distinguishes between an immediate calling, whereby God himself, in and of himself, chooses and calls someone directly, and one that he simply calls a second type (presumably he means mediate), whereby he “does the same through people.”69 The immediate calling can further be divided into general (such as the call to justification, life, and salvation) and particular (such as a call to teach, to marry, to act as a magistrate). For the mediate type of calling, it is unclear whether he envisions the same division between general and particular, but earlier he said that through people God “does the same thing.” Regardless, in this category he clearly means to include mundane employments, since he specifically names two groups of workers, mercenary soldiers and pimps, as having an illegitimate vocation.70 It was the Puritan William Perkins in the seventeenth century who popularized the term personal calling, which looked mostly to one’s work or employment (though here too he includes broader categories such as husband, wife, master, servant), as opposed to the general calling that all have to the Christian life.71 Beza himself preferred to stress what ties all the variant senses of the word together: the Lord effects his purpose through callings. In his annotation on the phrase I have called at Acts 13:2 (“the Holy Ghost said, ‘Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the

69. Vermigli, In duos libros Samuelis, 186v: “intelligere debemus Deum aliquando immediate, ut loquuntur, ipsum per se eligere et vocare aliquem, aliquando idem facere per homines.” 70.  Vermigli (In duos libros Samuelis, 186r–​87r, also describes four causes (causae) of vocation, which he names as material, formal, efficient, and final (materia, forma, efficiens, finis). Material refers to the nature of the function (Is it honest and just?), formal to the motivation (whether for money, ambition, etc.), efficient to the agents (by whom the vocation is assigned), and final to the end goal (a vocation should look to the good of the kingdom of God). He goes on to say that when God calls directly, we should obey without questioning; when God uses agents to call us, we should hesitate to use our own judgment, since we have a tendency to over-​or underestimate ourselves, even when we are trained for the task. “Wherefore judgment ought to be in the control of the State or the Church.” (Quare iudicium esse debet penes Rempub. aut Ecclesiam.) But, he adds, if we see altogether that we are not fit for a task (munus), then we should lodge our protest, but still be ready to submit to authority. 71.  William Perkins, “A Treatise on the Vocations or Callings of Men, with Sorts and Kinds of Them, and the Right Use Thereof” (Cambridge: John Legat, 1603); this is based on a sermon that he preached on 1 Cor. 7:20. Large selections of Perkins’s text are available in Working: Its Meaning and Its Limits, ed. Gilbert Meilaender (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003), 108–​14; Puritan Political Ideas, 1558–​1794, ed. E. Morgan (Indianapolis: Bobbs-​ Merrill, 1965), 35–​57; and Callings:  Twenty Centuries of Christian Wisdom on Vocation, ed. William Placher (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005), 262–​73. For an interpretation of this passage of Perkins, see Phil Withington, The Politics of Commonwealth: Citizens and Freemen

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work whereunto I have called them”), Beza provides a complex explanation for what it means to be called by the Spirit, showing how the one word should be applied to various realities: Advocavi, προσκέκλημαι [I called]. An Atticism for προσκέκληκα, or προσεκαλεσάμην, as below, 16:10. From this comes the term κλήσις [calling], in Latin vocatio, which I  was happy to preserve. And it indicates that kind of life and function, both private and public, to which someone is appointed by God. It is based on a Hebrew idiom, whereby the Lord is said to call those whom he causes to come forth, and conversely they are said to be called by the Lord who begin to come forth; or it is referred to the very οὐσία καὶ ὕπαρ ξις [substance and existence], as when the Lord is said to call those things which do not exist, as if they do exist; or it is referred to qualities or to attributes, as at 1 Cor. 7:20–​1; or to the public revealing of the eternal counsel of God, whereby he appoints us to a specific duty and target, as it were, in this world and sends us as if unto the possession of it; or it references something that is common to all the saints, as when calling is placed under election, as at Rom. 8:30; or regards a special function, as when Christ says that he was called from the womb at Isaiah 49:1, and Paul says that he was called to be an apostle. However you take it, the sense is metaphorical, drawn from the fact that when something begins to come forth, then it has a name; and when it takes on a new quality, then it also takes on a new cognomen. Second, the metaphor is also drawn from leaders who call to themselves those for whom they have a task to perform, and to whom there is need of giving a command about something.72

in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 114. Perkins’s personal and general are to be distinguished from Calvin’s general and special at Inst. 3.24.8. 72. Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 1, 509:  “Advocavi, προσκέκλημαι. Atticismus pro προσκέκληκα, vel προσεκαλεσάμην, ut infra, 16.10. Inde ortum κλήσεως nomen, id est vocationis, quod libenter servavimus. Significat autem genus illud vitae ac functionis tum privatae tum publicae, cui destinatus est aliquis a Deo; idque ex Hebraeorum idiotismo, apud quos dicitur Dominus vocare quos facit existere, et vicissim a Domino vocari qui existere incipiunt; sive id referatur ad ipsam οὐσίαν καὶ ὓπαρξιν, ut quum dicitur Dominus vocare quae non sunt, tanquam sint; sive ad qualitates, aut ad attributa, ut 1 Corinth. 7.20 et 21; sive ad aeterni consilii Dei publicam declarationem, qua nos certo muneri ac veluti scopo in hoc mundo destinatos, quasi in eius possessionem mittit; sive id de quo agitur sit omnibus sanctis ommune, ut quum electioni subordinatur vocatio, ut Rom. 8.30; sive peculiarem functionem respiciat, ut quum dicit Christus se ab utero vocatum, Esa. 49.1, et

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There are two points worth noting that draw this passage together. First, a calling in any of its manifestations is a creative act by God, inasmuch as with his word and power he brings forth something into being that was not in existence before. It speaks to his continued intervention in and care for the world. Second, a calling represents God’s shaping of the order of the world. He has specific tasks and appointed roles for everyone, and he places individuals in a calling as he sees fit. Such is the significance of the word sufficit in the last sentence: the prince directs his subjects to where they will be of the greatest benefit within the kingdom. Obedience to his bidding is the only proper response. In a similar vein, at 2 Thessalonians 1:11, where the apostle prays that the brethren be “worthy of this calling,” Beza points toward the cohesive meaning of the term: He calls “vocation,” not the act of calling (for the Lord had already called the Thessalonians, and, in fact, efficaciously), but the thing itself to which they were called, namely, the glory of the celestial kingdom. The kind of metonymy is similar to when we refer to the various functions of life by the term “vocations,” to which the Lord has called us.73 The Lord has called the Thessalonians to the heavenly glory, a major theme throughout the letter, but he has in the same way called them to certain duties in the here and now. In giving nuance to the meaning of calling, Beza was able to build upon principles that Calvin derived from Scriptures and presented as an important aspect of the governance of social interaction within the divinely ordered polity.74 In Calvin’s view, God does not permit that anyone

Paulus, vocatum apostolum. Quomodocunque autem accipias, translatitia est significatio, inde sumpta quod quum aliquid existere incipit, tum nomen habeat; et quum novam induit qualitatem, tum quoque novum sumat cognomentum; deinde etiam sumpta est translatio a principibus qui ad se vocant quorum opera uti constituerunt, et quibus sufficit aliquid mandasse.” 73. Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 2, 336: “Vocationem autem appellat non ipsam vocandi actionem (iam enim Dominus Thessalonicenses, et quidem efficaciter, vocarat) sed illud ipsum ad quod vocati erant, nempe caelestis illius regni gloriam. Similis est metonymiae species, quum diversas vitae functiones vocationum nomine significamus, ad quas Dominus nos vocarit.” 74.  For Calvin’s views on calling (and it’s relation to Max Weber’s thesis about the Protestant work ethic), one may consult the following: Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, 102–​32;

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should lie about in idleness but created them to be doing something and assigned to each a province. Everyone should look to their calling and regulate their life by it, he says, lest swept away by internal ambition and restlessness they lead a disorganized life, which undermines their own well-​being and introduces chaos into society. The very term calling suggests that God is the one choosing each person’s station in accord with his good pleasure, and once this is ascertained, should not be transgressed.75 “They labor to no purpose,” he remarks in his commentary concerning Matthew 20:1, “who rashly undertake this or that course of life, and do not wait for the intimation of the call of God.” A calling therefore can be thought of as a kind of sentry post to which one is assigned, a duty that one has; if one leaves that post spontaneously and unexpectedly, then the whole of society is left vulnerable and weakened. Thus Calvin interprets Christ’s words at Matthew 20:1 to mean that God is pleased with those only who in their labor are thinking of the common good and not their

Roland Bainton, “Calvin, Beza, and the Protestant Work Ethic,” The Reformed Journal 32 (1982): 18–​21; A. Biéler, Calvin’s Economic and Social Thought, ed. E. Dommen, trans. James Creig (Geneva: WCC Publications, 2005 [originally publ. in French, 1961]), 351–​66, the chapter titled “Human Work and the Calling of God”; Bernstein, American Work Values:  Their Origin and Development, 53–​68, the chapter “Calvin and the Calling”; Michael Monheit, “The Ambition for an Illustrious Name:  Humanism, Patronage, and Calvin’s Doctrine of the Calling,” SCJ 23 (1992): 267–​87; G. Babcock, The Way of Life: A Theology of Christian Vocation (Grand Rapids, MI:  Eerdmans, 1998), mainly about Luther; A. McGrath, “Calvin and the Christian Calling,” First Things: The Journal of Religion, Culture, and Public Life 94 (1999): 31–​ 35; Callings: Twenty Centuries of Christian Wisdom on Vocation, ed. W. Placher (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005), contains several sections on Luther and Perkins’s work on vocation; it also includes the Institutes text; Jeffrey Scholes, Vocation and the Politics of Work: Popular Theology in Consumer Culture (Plymouth, UK: Lexington Books, 2013), 25–​29; Scott Manetsch, Calvin’s Company of Pastors, 69–​74. The response to Weber is massive, but particularly useful are the following: Graham, The Constructive Revolutionary, esp. c­ hapter 11, “Calvinism and Capitalism: The Weber Thesis in the Light of Calvin’s Thought and Practice”; Ulrich Körtner, “Calvinism and Capitalism,” in Hirzel and Sallman, eds., John Calvin’s Impact on Church and Society, 159–​74; Gordon Marshall, In Search of the Spirit of Capitalism: An Essay on Max Weber’s Protestant Ethic Thesis (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982). 75.  Already among the German mystics there was the notion that everyone should “remain in their position,” but in Luther this is seen more as the fulfillment of a duty given one by God: “Everyone should take care that he remains in his estate, looks to himself, realizes his calling, and in it serves God and keeps his command.” Also, “To serve God is for everyone to remain in his vocation and calling, be it ever so mean and simple.” For the mystics, see Karl Holl, “The History of the Word Vocation (Beruf),” Review and Expositor 55 (1958): 126–​54, esp. 142. For Luther, see Marshall, A Kind of Life Imposed on Man, 23 and F. E. Cranz, An Essay on the Development of Luther’s Thought on Justice, Law, and Society (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964), 157. The second Luther quote comes from The Table Talk of Martin Luther, trans. and ed. William Hazlitt (London: H. G. Bohn, 1857), 363. On the careful consideration needed to ascertain one’s calling, see Biéler, Calvin’s Economic and Social Thought, 358.

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own internal aspirations. Elsewhere he speaks of a mutual obligation in human society and relays that “no life is more praiseworthy before God than that which yields usefulness to the common society of humanity.”76 Not to promote the advantage of one’s neighbor as much as one’s own is to be a robber before God. The broader implication, however, is that, if someone is called to be a carpenter, this person should devote himself to the business of carpentry and not erratically attempt to “transgress” limits by, for example, trying his hand at printing or playing the role of a minister. No one must “attempt more than his calling will permit.”77 The most important point for Calvin was that everyone’s place in life, everyone’s calling, is something that God lays upon them. It is their God-​given lot in life with which they should be content. He writes, “From this will arise also a singular consolation: that no task will be so sordid and base, provided you obey your calling in it, that it will not shine and be reckoned very precious in God’s sight.” This last statement represents a significant innovation. As Biéler observed, neither the ancient world nor the scholastics has given such value to the whole spectrum of labor.78 In fact, neither did most of the Church Fathers.79 Calvin intended to endow all work, from manual labor to the employment of the educated, with divine sanction and dignity, assigning it to the believers’ sacrifical living for the glory of God and in service to his kingdom.80 Beza offers a succinct synopsis of this view in his summary paraphrase of the aforementioned 2 Thessalonians 3:11–​12 (“For we hear that there are some who walk among you inordinately, and work not at all, but are busybodies; therefore them that are such we warn and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, that they work with quietness and eat their own bread”), while adding his own perspective. He interprets the two verses as follows: How great is the vice of leisure he declares from the fact that there is no one whom the Lord created in vain, and in fact whom the Lord has not placed in a fixed station, as it were. Leisure, it follows,

76.  Calvin on Matt. 25:24; see also Biéler, Calvin’s Economic and Social Thought, 362–​65. 77. Calvin, Inst. 3.10.6. 78. Biéler, Calvin’s Economic and Social Thought, 365. He does see an appreciation for the equality of persons and their work as a significant feature of the early Church. 79. Marshall, A Kind of Life Imposed on Man, 18–​19. 80. Calvin, Inst. 3.7.1.

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disturbs the order established by God, which is indeed the greatest wickedness. He censures a vice [sc. being a busybody] that is conjoined with the previous one [sc. being idle], whence follows infinite evils, namely, that none more curiously look into other people’s business than those who care nothing about their own. The Lord commands, and the apostles pray through the name of Christ, first, that no one be lazy, and second, that each one peacefully see to the duty placed upon them by the Lord.81 Beza here adds a logical rationale, based on the attributes of God, for why each person should be busy in their own work:  since it would be inconsistent with the perfect and omnipotent character of God to create something with no purpose—​ultimately all of creation is meant to glorify the creator—​everyone should recognize that they have some task to perform and a specific objective in life. Furthermore, as God’s character also includes beauty and order, it is only natural that he would assign a fixed station (Calvin’s “sentry”) or duty to each individual. No one should imagine that they can drift erratically in accord with their own whims. Beza also strongly reiterates the social significance of work:  idleness is a supremely selfish act that breaks the bonds of mutual love and creates disorder within the community. For him, this is the “greatest wickedness,” an indication of the central position and significance that he gave to social order within the realm of ethics. Lazy individuals have the potential to weaken the resolve of those around them and unravel the interdependency and reciprocal support that God intended: “We have to be careful,” he says of the next verse, “that the unworthiness of some not render us inactive so that we do not make a positive contribution.”82 Likewise here the same connection is drawn between idleness and curiosity that was made in the sermon on John 21:21 discussed above, in regard to Peter’s idle curiosity about John’s fate. Busybodies who focus on the

81. Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 2, 340: “Quantum sit vitium otii declarat ex eo quod nemo sit quem Dominus frustra condiderit, atque adeo quem in certa veluti statione non collocarit; ex quo consequitur ab otiosis perturbari ordinem a Deo positum, quod quidem est maximum scelus. | Taxat vitium cum superiore coniunctum, unde infinita mala consequuntur, nempe quod nulli curiosus investigant aliena quam qui sua nihil curant. | Praecipit Dominus et precantur apostoli per Christi nomen, primum, ut nemo sit otiosus, deinde ut quisque tranquille curet munus sibi a Domino impositum.” 82. Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 2, 340: “Cavendum ne quorundam indignitas nos reddat ad beneficientiam frigidiores.”

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faults or successes of others tend not to focus sufficiently on their own situation (including their work) and quite often fail to see their own faults. For this insight Beza is thinking of Jesus’s admonition at Matthew 7:3: we look not at the mote in someone else’s eye lest we miss the beam in our own. To translate the word busybody (the Greek word περιεργαζόμενοι), Beza turns to inaniter satagentes (the Vulgate and Erasmus had rendered it curiose agentes), he says, as a way of keeping the pun of the original. The pun is also retained somewhat by the English word as well: these people have the appearance of being busy as they bustle about, that is, they seem to be engaged in work, but it is not the right kind of work. Beza adds the word inaniter (“idly” or “unprofitably”) to be clear that this is understood to be a vice.83

Garrulity and Frivolity As noted above, Calvin had mentioned the problem of gossip when commenting on 2 Thessalonians 3:11 and associated it with idleness. Beza addresses the topic in his annotation on 1 Timothy 5:13, where widows are being discussed: “And likewise also being idle they learn to go about from house to house: yea they are not only idle, but also prattlers and busybodies, speaking things which are not comely.” Beza’s Latin translation of the passage is particularly instructive because it includes much of the language of idleness (ital. mine): “Simul autem etiam otiosae esse discunt circumeuntes domos: imo non solum otiosae, sed etiam nugaces, et curiosae, garrientes quae non oportet.” The curiosae are those who seek to meddle in other people’s private affairs (cf. curiosi at Cic. Epist. ad Atticum 6.1) and then spread that information about in gossiping. They are garrientes, that is, garrulous, a vice Beza attends to in another poem of the Cato: In Garrulos84 Quum fari decuit, tacere velle: Velle, quum decuit tacere, fari:

83. Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 2, 340–​41: “Sed mihi videtur feliciter et erudite Henricus Stephanus hanc vocem servata quoque paranomasia expressisse. Addidi vero adverbium inaniter, quoniam satagere apud Latinos non semper in vitio ponitur, περιεργάζεσθαι vero apud Graecos nunquam aliter accipiatur … Vulgata, nihil operantes, sed curiose agentes. Erasmus, nihil operis agentes, sed curiose agentes.” 84. Beza, Cato 1591, 7; Beza, Poemata 1597, 273; Poemata 1599, 136v–​37r.

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Humanis duo sunt cavenda summe Privatis mala publicisque rebus. Ex istis sed enim malis duobus,  5 Malim quae potuit loqui tacentem, Quam quae non decuit loqui loquentem. Nam sunt quae pateant tacendo multa, Et dici potuere saepe multa, Quae sunt temporibus suis tacenda.  10 Ergo aut discite, garruli, tacere, Aut toto semel exulate mundo. Against the Garrulous To want to be silent, when one should speak, to want to speak, when one should be silent, are two evils that people in all walks of life, both public and private, should especially avoid. But, truth be known, of those two evils, I would prefer the one who is silent about what could be spoken, than the one speaking things which should not be spoken. For there are many things which are exposed by being silent, and often many things that one could say, which should be held back for the right time. Therefore, either learn to be silent, garrulous one, or at once be banished from the whole world. Generally speaking, the term garrulity covers a range of vices falling into three broad categories. First, there are incessant babblers who simply love the sound of their own chatter and thus irritate everyone around them. They are not motivated by maliciousness so much as they lack self-​ control. It is these that Calvin finds referenced at James 1:19, where we read, “Wherefore my dear brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath.” By “slow to speak” Calvin understands not “the silence of the Pythagorean school,”85 but a certain thoughtfulness and restraint in speaking coupled with a readiness to hear and be taught by

85.  According to Aulus Gellius, Att. Noctes 1.9, new initiates to the Pythagorean school were commanded to maintain a complete silence for no less than two years, without even asking questions or writing anything down, in order to become adept in the skill of listening.

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God. Christians become erudite by listening more than speaking.86 The second type of person that falls under the heading of garrulous is the gossiper, whom Beza clearly understands to be referenced at 1 Timothy 5:13. Gossipers want to tell other people’s secrets.87 The third category of garrulous people is comprised of those who are not careful with their speech. These engage in idle and loose talk, using words that are frivolous, harsh, hurtful, or foul. We have already discussed above this type of garrulousness in regard to Matthew 12:36 and Ephesians 5:4. As to which of these three types of the garrolous this poem is directed, Beza is perhaps intentionally vague. There are two references to timing. The description of the second kind of vice (malum) referred to in line 2, the one that Beza considers the worse of the two, has to do with the appropriateness of when something is spoken: cum decuit.88 In line 10, the phrase temporibus suis likewise implies that there is a right time and a wrong time for many utterances (we presume that idle words are never appropriate).89 And the word cavenda in line 3 insinuates that garrulity involves a certain amount of risk, as Plutarch also warned in his De garrulitate with his story about the conspirator who made the ill-​advised decision to reveal a plot against Nero to a condemned prisoner. In line 8, the word pateant could hint at the revelation of secrets, the tell-​tale sign of a gossip, but what Beza really

86.  The ancients saw in the relationship between the relatively quiet swans and other noisier birds, such as the swallow, a metaphor for this breed of garrulousness. Lucretius (3.6–​7), for example, has the pithy phrase drawn from a Greek adage: “contendat hirundo | Cycnis.” The swallow chatters while the nobler swan knows to keep quiet, a sign, according to Cic. Tusc. 1, that the latter is more erudite. 87.  Plutarch provides a positive counterexample in Leaena, who participated with Harmodius and Aristogeiton in the attempt to overthrow the tyrants at Athens. Once the plot failed, she died under torture refusing to reveal the names of other participants. The Athenians, Plutarch says in his De garrulitate, set up a bronze statue of a lion without a tongue in her honor, since she had had the courage and strength of a lion, but the sense not to reveal secrets with her tongue. Plutarch goes on to remark that gossipers with their secrets are like pregnant vipers: They burst to give birth to what is inside of them. 88.  The chiasmus emphasizes the contrast between the vices:  decuit … velle | Velle … decuit. Beza is careful to use potuit (could be) in line 6. 89.  The phrase temporibus suis appears in the Vulgate and in Beza’s Latin translation at 1 Tim. 2:6. Beza has, “Qui semetipsum dedit redemptionis pretium pro quibusvis, Christus inquam, testimonium suis temporibus destinatum.” To explain the sense of suis temporibus he trots out this example:  “Consules extremo hoc anno magistratum ineuntes, sequente anno lectos dixeris,” that is, “You will say that the consuls entering their office at the end of this year were chosen for the following year. Latin, he says, does not have the word for “for,” but in French the phrase would be translated pour sa saison or pour certaine saison.

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seems to be emphasizing in the context is the power of nonverbal communication. Words paradoxically can undermine or mute one’s message.90 And then in the final line, with its threat of exile, Beza turns to one of his favorite themes: sin leads to excommunication; it is a choice not to belong to the community.91 Again, the irony is that loquaciousness stifles communication and mutuality, the purported aim of the loquaciousness itself. In the final analysis, however, the poem falls far short of developing a nuanced coloring of a garrulous person; that is not the intent. Instead, with its reiteration of forms of tacere, that is, “to be silent” (tacere, line 1; tacere, line 2; tacentem, line 6; tacendo, line 8; tacenda, line 10), it stresses one central idea, one skill that should be cultivated: judicious silence (discite … tacere, line 11). Another association with the idle in the 1 Timothy 5:13 passage is indicated through the word nugaces, the frivolous, or those who engage in buffoonery. We saw in the previous chapter that Daneau subsumed this to the sin of mendacity, but Beza, perhaps influenced by the Timothy passage, conceives of it as a problem of wasting time. Another poem in the Cato collection makes this clear: In Nugaces92 Irrequieta suo quum volvant tempora motu Sydera, et incertum currat mortalibus aevum, Quo semel exacto, sit numinis ante tribunal Praeteritae ratio vitae reddenda severi, Quid vos nugando vitam exegisse iuvabit,  5 Invitos cogent quos ad tam seria nugae? Against the Frivolous When the restless stars change the seasons with their movement, and an uncertain span of life quickly runs its course for mortals, and in the end, before the tribunal of a strict God, you must give a reckoning of how you lived your life,

90.  For the sentiment, cf. Cic. Pro Sestio 40. Also, Plut. De Garrulitate 8: “No spoken word, it is true, has ever done such service as have in many instances words unspoken” (LCL). 91.  Plutarch (De garrulitate) also warned that people tend to ostracize and isolate those who cannot hold their tongue. 92. Beza, Poemata 1597, 273; Poemata 1599, 137r.

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what will it help you to have spent your life in folly, you whom folly will drive to consequences so serious? The juxtaposition of the words seria and nugae at the end of the poem is reminiscent of epigram 23 of Beza’s youthful Poemata, where Beza praises François Rabelais’s skill for writing farcical pieces (nugatur) that surpasses those who treat serious subjects (seria). This was a literary convention,93 yet clearly in the Cato Beza changed his point of view: Nugae (reasonably translated by “frivolity”) is just another form of leisure. Augustine already commented on this in his Confessions (1.9) with regard to the adults that he observed as a disillusioned child:  “The elders call their frivolities [nugae] work [negotia], while punishing the boys who engage in the same sorts of things.” Even the young Augustine recognized that his elders were trying to cover their idleness with a moral and respectable term such as work. In fact, what they were doing was the same kind of unproductive self-​amusement for which they punished the boys. In classical literature, the word seria is most often opposed to some cognate of iocus (joke), as at Plautus Poen. 1320–​21: “If I said anything jokingly (per iocum), please don’t turn it into something serious (in serium).” That alone indicates that ioci and nugae are somewhat interchangeable. But at Ars Poetica 451, Horace brings seria and nugae together and perhaps serves as the more direct inspiration for the construction of Beza’s final line, with Horace’s ducent (lead) replaced by cogent (drive): “hae nugae seria ducent” (these frivolous matters will lead to serious trouble). Horace is talking about the criticism of poetry, and in his case the nugae are infelicitous words or lines that can get a poet into trouble if they remain uncorrected. For Beza the same is true in the moral sphere, except frivolity does not just lead to trouble, it compels one there.

The Periphery of Idleness There are several other issues that are tied closely to the matter of calling and the ethic of work, perhaps none more important than the notion of frugality. In his commentary on Genesis 2:15, after concluding that God’s assignment of work to Adam in the garden indicates that God intended work to be fundamental to the natural order (though originally it was to be

93.  For example, Nicolas Bourbon’s collection of Nugae (Paris: Vascosan, 1553), 112v includes a poem to the reader that delineates the conflicting aims of the two words.

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“exempt from all trouble and weariness”), Calvin follows with an important passage about the need for thrift and temperance in the management of creation: Moses adds that the custody of the garden was given in charge to Adam, to show that we possess the things which God has committed to our hands, on the condition, that being content with a frugal and moderate use of them, we should take care of what shall remain. Let him who possesses a field, so partake of its yearly fruits, that he may not suffer the ground to be injured by his negligence; but let him endeavor to hand it down to posterity as he received it, or even better cultivated. Let him so feed on its fruits that he neither dissipates it by luxury, nor permits to be marred or ruined by neglect. Moreover, that this economy, and this diligence, with respect to those good things which God has given us to enjoy, may flourish among us; let every one regard himself as the steward of God in all things which he possesses. Then he will neither conduct himself dissolutely, nor corrupt by abuse those things which God requires to be preserved.94 A crucial part of serving the community and working in service of others consists in the constant self-​regulation of the use of the fruits of one’s labors. For Calvin, the godly life is a kind of perpetual fasting through frugality and sobriety.95 To take more than one really needs through luxury is to rob others, even in a future generation, of what they need. To be neglectful or slothful in the execution of one’s calling, on the other hand, is injurious to others. Frugality finds the proper balance between the appreciative enjoyment of God’s beneficence, without falling into self-​indulgence and distraction, and a self-​deprivation that stands to render a person inhuman.96 Daneau likewise sees frugality as a matter of striking the right balance. For him, frugality is the “moderated and proper conservation of money and other things necessary for this life and the proper using up of those same things as needed.” Therefore, frugality or “honest parsimony” 94. Backus, Commentary on Genesis, trans. John King, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1847–​1850), I, 125. 95. Calvin, Inst. 3.3.17. 96. Calvin, Inst. 3.10.1–​5. See also Ford Lewis Battles, “Against Luxury and License in Geneva: A Forgotten Fragment of Calvin,” Interpretation 19 (1963): 182–​202, esp. 185.

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has to make judgment calls; it requires that the head-​of-​household not only store up but also draw down at the right time. Daneau warns, however, that we have to be careful not to confuse frugality with greed.97 Many reformers also attached to the doctrine of the calling a criticism of the lifestyle of monks and the proliferation of “popish” holidays. Vehement complaints leveled against the various orders of monastics, including the Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelites, and Benedictines, extend back to the fourteenth century, reaching a feverish pitch by the time of Erasmus.98 In fact, the monks’ idle debauchery became part of the narrative for what justified the Reformation in the first place.99 But while those pre-​Reformation attacks tend to emphasize the monks’ failure to live up to their vows of prayer and personal piety, among the reformers we can observe a subtle shift in focus that ties their sin to vocation itself. The charge is that monks are not engaged in some service that helps the community, but instead become a drain on it. For Daneau, if laziness is a species of stealing, then monks have to be reckoned thieves, because they are idle and lazy (otiosi et desides) types who “seem to be born for eating, not for working.” He especially condemns the wandering mendicants who have the health and strength to work.100 In the same passage, Daneau mentions Augustine as a witness to the fact that the monks of old used to work, though many of the current ones do not. Peter Martyr Vermigli likewise turns to Augustine in his own condemnation of monks and treats more fully their justification for not working.101 He agrees that monks at first were living off their own labors, but believes that they became weary of the effort that good works required and began to demand stipends from the Church. They did this so that they could remain idle (otiosi).

97. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 364r: “Est autem frugalitas moderata et qualis oportet pecuniae rerumque aliarum ad hanc vitam necessariarum conservatio et earumdem et quantum oportet et quando oportet insumptio. Itaque frugalitas et parsimonia honesta quaedam expendit; quaedam etiam conservat et patremfamil. non solum condum facit, sed etiam promum. Cavendum tamen, ne quandoque tanquam frugi laudetur avarus, ut ait ille.” 98.  Will Durant discusses this and cites several passages involving a critique of monasticism in The Reformation: A History of European Civilization from Wyclif to Calvin: 1300–​1564 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1957), 19–​21 and 34. 99.  See, e.g., John Poynder, A History of the Jesuits, 2 vols. (London: Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1816), 1:213, which includes the monks’ idleness and luxury along with indulgences as main causes of Luther’s break with Rome. 100. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 262r. 101. Vermigli, In duos libros Samuelis (on 2 Sam. 11:1–​5), 233r–​v.

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Pious men recalled them to work, he says, but the monks responded that by doing so they would be violating the Gospel message: Jesus admonished his followers not to be anxious for tomorrow, but to consider the lilies of the fields and the birds of the air. Augustine countered them in his treatise on the duties of monks (De opere monachorum) by arguing that they differ from lilies and birds in many respects in which they would never imagine to imitate them. He rightly interpreted Christ’s words, according to Vermigli, as being a prohibition against anxious worry combined with a lack of faith. We are not nourished from our own industry, but by the providential care of God.102 Calvin’s friend and fellow reformer Pierre Viret attacked monastic life as a “choice of a life of idleness under the pretense of dedicating oneself to God.”103 He reckons holidays and festivals as part of a Satanic plan “to reduce man to idleness and provide him with both the temptations and the time to destroy himself in taverns, gambling dens, and bordellos.”104 Calvin described contemporary monasteries as pigsties where the monks gorge themselves in idleness at the expense of others.105 But this was not always the case. Monks of old, he says, eschewed idleness pursued under the pretense of the “contemplative life” and supported themselves in a well-​ordered monastery. For them, monastacism was merely an opportunity to carry out the duties enjoined on all Christians to serve others in a social setting.106 Lutheran theologian and noted botanist Otto Brunsfel frequently blasted monks (he himself had been a Carmelite monk in his youth) and charged them with robbery for the same indolence in his annotations on the New Testament.107 102.  Vermigli also addresses the “hypocritical sanctimony” of monks (i.e., their penchant for display) in his commentary on 1 Sam. 28 (In duos libros Samuelis, 159r). 103.  Daniel Augsburger, “Pierre Viret on the Sabbath Commandment,” Andrews University Studies 20 (1982):  91–​101, at 97. Augsburger is paraphrasing Viret’s Instruction chrestienne (Geneva: Jean Rivery, 1563), 418. 104.  Augsburger, “Pierre Viret,” 96–​97, paraphrasing Viret, Instruction chrestienne, 417. 105. Graham, The Constructive Revolutionary, 81; Biéler, Calvin’s Economic and Social Thought, 361, citing Calvin’s comm. on Matt. 19:21. 106. Calvin, Inst. 4.13.10. 107.  Otto Brunfels, Annotationes … in quatuor Evangelia et Acta Apostolorum ex Orthodoxis Sacrarum Literarum scriptoribus congestae, plusquam credi potest, divinarum rerum candidatis usui futurae (Strassburg: Georg Ulricher, 1535). On Acts 4:2 (204v), where the author describes how the Jewish priests became annoyed at the apostles and arrested them, Brunfels draws a comparison with the Saducees and Pharisees with present-​day monks. They suck out luxuriousness and wealth from Christianity, though Christ modeled a life of humble means and “in his name they drink down from the vitals of the poor, calling whatever they possess

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One spectucular attack appears in his notes on Acts 4:32, where he provides a beautiful description of the Christian life, which he says is to be characterized by kindness, sharing, and hospitality among people of like minds; money is to be earned not for the purpose of accumulation, but to be able to assist the poor. This is a way of thinking alien to most of those in the monasteries: The Christian life is nothing but the charitable love of God and neighbor, which has its hope in the living God, and holds in contempt anything that will one day perish, which goes hand in hand with the sharing of possessions, as you see here. The sharing of possessions has its roots in charitable love and is necessary for salvation, according as it is written at Deut. 15 and Matt. 6.  That is, we are to be generous toward our neighbors, and not allow any of our brothers to be in need, nor hoard treasures, but give alms to the poor. In fact, since the number of Christians grew immensely and was dispersed through the lands and provinces and kingdoms, this one law of almsgiving, kindness, and hospitality remained constant. From this we can gather that those who are not of a mind to share their possessions, and worry about keeping them rather than alleviating the poverty of poor brethren; who exploit the world for the good of themselves and not for others; who not only do not give, but make loans and receive interest from their own brothers, they are not Christians, but lost hypocrites. And there is no reason why monks should apply this passage to themselves, because they are not of one heart and mind, nor do they believe in Christ, nor are they poor, struggling for food and clothing, but are robbers of the people (praedones populi), plunderers of things that do not belong to them. Nor are their monasteries temples of God, but gathering places of the wicked, dins of thieves, and brothel houses of all kinds of fornication, idolatry, and abominations of the earth.108

the patrimony of Christ and Peter, while hating nothing more than actually preaching the Gospel” (et sub illius nomine ex visceribus pauperum hauserunt [sic enim vocant patrimonium Christi, patrimonium Petri, quicquid possident) et tamen nihil peius oderunt, quam annunciare sub nomine Iesu Christi Evangelium). You cannot find ten of them, he continues, who care for Christ’s glory, but you can find plenty of worthless fellows among them, including thieves and robbers (nebulones, fures et raptores illos). 108. Brunfels, Annotationes, 205v.

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Beza’s annotation on 2 Thess. 3:10 (“that if there were any who would not work, that he should not eat”) contains a similar attack on monks, and in fact reveals the source of the comparison of monks to robbers. He refers to the monks’ “idle bellies” and then quotes a passage from book 8 of the Tripartite History of Socrates Scholasticus, where it is said, “The monk who does not work with his hands is like a robber.” He goes on to say that the meticulous scholar Johannes van den Driesche (d. 1616) observed that this is derived from a Hebrew proverb. But here Beza finds something else important in the sentiment of Paul. Many people incorrectly cite this passage as, “He who does not work, let him not eat,” but this rendering leaves off the important words οὐ θέλει (does not wish), which reminds us why we must work in the first place: “None are more worthy of outside help than those who are not able to work because of some legitimate and unavoidable hindrance, although they want to very much.” Not only do we close the door to Satan’s temptations and machinations when we work, we assist those in the body who are not as fortunate as we are, thereby expressing the love that God wants us to show.109 Finally, the reformers were confident that a proper view and practice of vocation played a key role in re-​establishing God’s intended order. We have already noted above Beza’s view that God shapes the world through vocation. Nowhere is this idea more clearly spelled out than in Vermigli’s commentary on 2 Samuel 11:8–​11.110 The passage on which he makes his observations describes the obstacles which David faced in consolidating his kingdom after the death of Saul. Vermigli here remarks that some may think that such difficulties should have given David pause in regard to his calling, that perhaps it was not from God. In fact, some people judge the validity of someone’s calling or vocation from a person’s success with it. To this Vermigli responds that success is not the measure of the legitimacy of a calling; even Christ himself suffered bitterly while carrying out what he was called to do. Ministers and magistrates, he continues, should take

109. Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 2, 340:  “Nolit operari, οὐ θέλει ἐργάζεσθαι. Male igitur haec Pauli sententia citarisolet, his verbis, Qui non laborat, non manducet, quum nulli sint digniores quibus aliunde subveniatur, quam qui operari iusto et necessario impedimento nequeunt, etiamsi maxime velint. Etiam non edito, μηδὲ ἐσθιέτω. Ubi igitur monachorum et sacrificiorum otiosi ventres? Monachus (inquit Socrates Tripartitae historiae lib. 8) qui manibus non laborat, similis est praedoni. Hoc autem esse Hebraeum proverbium observavit hom diligentissimus I. Drusius.” 110. Vermigli, In duos libros Samuelis, 186v–​87r.

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consolation in this and not become discouraged because they face challenges, since these are the work of the Devil. They should know that he allows people with illegitimate callings to sleep soundly at night, because they are helping his cause, but he vexes the minds of those who are doing God’s work, and sends against them all kinds of obstacles and disturbances. A vocation, for Vermigli, is essentially a battlefield for supremacy in the world. “The fact is,” he says, “the Devil hates every legitimate vocation, for he sees that God will bless it and his own power will be diminished by it.”111 God gives consolation in many ways to those who are despondent and overwhelmed by the Devil’s machinations: He strengthens and confirms them through his Word where the suffering of Christians is foretold, and through the examples of those who have endured in the execution of their calling. He also “breaks and weakens” (frangit et debilitat) those who seek to undermine them. In this way, he concludes, the kingdom of Christ will stand forever. “Therefore, each person ought to remain in his own vocation, and not despair because of adverse circumstances or become unnerved.”112

Beza’s Lecture on Romans From 1564–​1566 at the Genevan Academy, Beza delivered a series of lecture on the epistles to the Romans and to the Hebrews. We are fortunate to have the notes on those lectures as taken by Marcus Widler, a student from Zurich, which have been transcribed and published in an edition by Pierre Fraenkel and Luc Perrotet.113 The notes themselves are in Latin and, as one might expect from common note-​taking experiences, loose with regard to grammar, spelling, and syntax. There is no denying that some degree of imagination is required to reconstruct what Beza was actually saying, but they do open a window to the reformer’s thinking that would not otherwise be available. Of special interest for our purposes here is a small section

111. Vermigli, In duos libros Samuelis, 186v: “Ista enim proficiscuntur a diabolo. Is enim odit omnem legitimam vocationem. Nam videt, Deum benedicturum esse eam et vires suas per illam esse imminuendas.” 112. Vermigli, In duos libros Samuelis, 186v: “Ita Christi regnum stat et stabit aeternum … Quisque ergo debet in sua vocatione manere, neque ad casus adversos animo cadere aut perterrefieri.” 113.  Théodore de Bèze, Cours sur les épîtres aux Romains et aux Hébreux, 1564–​66, ed. Pierre Fraenkel and Luc Perrotet (Geneva: Droz, 1988).

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covering four pages and labeled “De vocatione,” where Beza is commenting on one phrase of Romans 10:15, “they have been sent” (missi fuerint, translating the Greek word ἀποσταλῶσι).114 The notion of missio or “sending” leads him to make a digression to its counterpart, vocatio or “calling,” which Beza treats as the same basic concept considered from a different angle. Although his main concern is with a calling to the work of the Church,115 his analysis does encompass vocatio more broadly understood, thus allowing us to ascertain the basic principles that guided his thinking. First, Beza distinguishes between two uses of the term vocatio. It sometimes is used actively, with its focus primarily on the act of God in calling one to a certain kind of work, and sometimes passively, referring the work or duty to which one is called. The latter is referred to variously as munus, officium, and opus. One can be called, for example, to be a shoemaker, and that process whereby one is led to the task is a “calling,” regardless of the formality of it. But shoemaking, taken as an opus to which individuals might devote themselves, can also be named a “calling,” or, as we might say, a “vocation.”116 Furthermore, Beza says, it is possible to make distinctions among both the offices and means of calling. As for the kinds of offices, they can be divided according to their form and end. Of the latter there are two: one has to do with the worship of God, and as such is superior to the other end, which has to do with the conservation of human life. And even though these ends (fines) could be subdivided and made even more specific, their derivatives can always be reduced to these two headings. In regard to the means of calling (vocandi rationes), there is one

114. Beza, Cours, 185–​89. 115.  This is the case with his annotation on the same passage, a note that reflects some of the ideas in the student’s notes: “Nisi missi fuerunt. He is talking about the sacred and legitimate ministry, authorized from God, whether he sends his own out by ordinary or extraordinary means. Anyone not sent lacks authority, and either teaches false things or feigns the truth under some appearance of what is true. But the word of a sacred minister is a witness to God’s good will in preserving those who are touched by this means, even if that does not include each and every individual (Loquitur de sacro legitimo ministerio, et apud Deum rato, sive ordinario modo sive extraordinario suos mittat. Nam qui non missi sunt, auctore carent, et aut falsa docent, aut sub aliqua veri specie fucantes veritatem. Sacri autem ministerii vox testis est benevolentiae divinae de servandis qui hoc beneficio afficiuntur etiamsi non singulis).” 116. Beza, Cours, 185: “Deus nos ad officium active vocat. Interdum [passive] accipitur et significat id ipsum ad quod vocamur: unde munera ‘vocationis’ nomine intelligantur.” NB: In the second sentence the editor writes active, but clearly passive is what was meant, as is demonstrated by the sentence a few lines up:  “vocationem dicamus interdum actionem, interdum passive accipi debet.”

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overriding truth: in every case and without exception, God is the efficient cause of a vocation.117 This is generally so because nothing happens by chance or outside of God’s will, but it is not individually or particularly so. If one’s vocation, for example, is pandering, God is not the author of that per se, or anything of the like. He may rouse up kings to punish sins as at Jeremiah 25:9, “but with regard to means and intent, they are not from God” (respectu medii ac animi non sunt a Deo). To this point Beza has established that God is the author of all vocations, efficiently so, implying that one’s work is divinely chosen and therefore to be approached with seriousness and zeal, and of two broad categories, one looking to the conservation of human life, the other to the worship of God. He continues with a focus on the latter, but in doing so expresses principles that apply to every kind of vocation. He says that sometimes God calls individuals to their life’s work directly (immediate), as if speaking to them, or indirectly (mediate), through signs, or by orderly and regular means, that is, through a process of ordination (ordinate).118 His interest here is with the ordination process within the Church itself, where ministers express the belief that they are called and, after an examination of their life and morals, along with a consensus between magistrates and other ministers, the people of the Church cast their vote. This is the normal way that ministers can be sure that they have a true calling. Someone may object, Beza admits, that Luther, Zwingli, Farel, and others have not had the sanction of the Church to become ministers; they lack the foundation of their calling provided by the traditional laying on of hands, the anointing, and the papal bulls. Beza responds that God is not boxed in by this institutionalized process. Its whole purpose was to create priests who would do their duty (officium), not act of their own accord. Therefore, when the Church is beseiged with leaders who are not guiding it correctly—​“when the Church is instituted in such a way that it is scarcely a Church”—​God may use extraordinary signs or even miracles to call individuals to oppose them.119 “There is a place for extraordinary calling,” he says in a 1566 letter

117.  On Beza and the sense of “efficient cause,” as derived from Aristotle, see Richard Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1985), 61, s.v. “causa.” 118.  Cf. Calvin, Inst. 4.3.10. 119. Beza, Cours, 188, “Cum sit ecclesia ita instituta ut vix sit ecclesia, orandus est Deus, ut aliquem vocet et expellat illos extraneos.” Cf. Calvin, Inst. 4.3.4 and 4.3.10–​13. Many of these same arguments are made (at almost the exact same time as the lectures are being given)

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to Ludovico Alamanni, Italian jurist and “troubler of the church of Lyon, “when there is no, or almost no, ordinary calling, just as happened in our times under the papacy.” He explains: “Either none was available and so could not or should not be waited for; or those who had legitimate callings were not fulfilling their duty; or because they were teaching false things instead of true; or they remained mute like dogs; or, as often happened, they sullied the Church with their bad morals.”120 Thus it was when God called up the prophets of old, without regard to the Levitical laws, to point out the error of Israel’s ways. But what sorts of signs confirm this calling of the prophets or any other minister not ordained by conventional means? Here Beza advances his most basic qualification in regard to the validity of a calling: they show themselves to be true ministers of God, and truly called, who advocate sound doctrine, live honorable lives, work for the glory of God instead of their own, and are concerned to establish the true worship of God. So it was with Luther, he says, who simply preached against the corruptions of his time, with a view to opposing false doctrines and restoring true religion.121 Beza further expounds on this in his annotations on Acts 14:23.122 He says that some use this passage (and the fact that the Greek word indicates a stretching out of the hands) to accuse Beza and his colleagues of having an invalid ministry, since no ordinariii placed their hands on them, and they were not consecrated in the Roman Catholic Church. He responds from their own canons that no minister can be chosen without election (Beza is interpreting the Greek word to indicate an election) or by

in a letter to Ludovico Alamanni whom Beza deemed a “disturber of the church at Lyon” for his opinions on the Lord’s Supper; see Corr. 7, no 471, esp. 112 and, for more bibliography, 121 fn. 2. Also around this same time, Antoine de la Roche Chandieu counters Roman Catholic arguments about ecclesiastical polity by appealing to “les vocations extraordinaires” in his La confirmation de la discipline ecclesiastique observee es eglises reformees du royaume de France (Geneva: Henri Étienne, 1566), 28–​33, a book approved by Beza before publication (R. Consist. LXI, fol. 43v, May 23, 1566). 120.  See Beza, Corr. VII (1566), no 471, esp. 112: “Huic vero tum demum locum esse dicimus, quum vel nulla vel pene nulla est ordinaria vocatio, sicut nostris temporibus accidit in papatu, quum expectari ordinaria vocatio quae nusquam erat nec debuit nec potuit; vel quum ii qui legitime vocati sunt, munus tamen suum non obeunt, sive quod falsa pro veris doceant, sive quod sint canes muti, sive quod malis moribus Ecclesiam dedecorent, quod quoties incidit.” 121.  Some of these same points about ordinary and extraordinary callings can be found in Calvin, Inst. 4.3.10–​13 and Beza, Tractationes Theologicae, I, 43–​4 (=Confessio 5.28). 122. Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 1, 519.

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someone who is excommunicated (Beza believes that the Catholic priest would be excommunicated a hundred times over if there was someone to judge them). There is no reason why we should seek out a consecration through a laying on of hands from them, Beza continues, nor why they should be the ones to impart it. We have the sure marks of our vocation and the Church, which elected us, bears witness to our life and teaching. “I hope that the Lord will bless our ministry,” he concludes, “after casting out the thieves and hirelings from our midst.”123 One can extrapolate from this discussion of the ordination process and the calling to the ministry, even if they specifically encompass callings that look to the maintenance of true religion, how Beza would view callings related to the conservation of human life. While temporal callings may not involve preaching “sound doctrine” and promoting “the true worship of God,” they nevertheless are created by the command of God,124 and consequently should be directed to his glory rather than one’s own.125 In other words, they form part of the active ethical response to the preaching about sound doctrine and true worship within the communal body. They reflect the image of Christ in us and exemplify obedience to the law of God. Thus instead of merely being endured, temporal callings are to be done with integrity, with concentrated effort, and out of a love for neighbor.

Conclusion Beza’s attacks on otium in the two poems with which this chapter began is in accord with the general sentiment of the sixteenth-​century reformers. By otium is meant leisure, but without the modern positive aspects of that word; leisure can imply idleness, laziness, sloth, and inactivity, but more often it indicates a neglect of one’s duty, the failure to man one’s assigned post. Beza makes the point, perhaps more forcefully than his fellow reformers ever did, that Nature is modeling for us the need to stay busy. The activity of toil and labor is part of God’s intended program for human beings in the world and reflects his own character. God brought about creation for his own glory, as the catechisms say, but also (and relatedly)

123. Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 1, 519, commenting on χειροτονήσαντες. 124. Beza, Cours, 185: “Profisciscitur [=proficiscitur] ex Dei ipsius voce, qua declarat, quid nos esse velit.” 125. Beza, Cours, 187: “illos non quaere[re] suam gloriam, sed Dei.”

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because it was not in his essence to be inactive. But more than mimicking God’s affinity for activity, work (labor) and business (negotium, the negation of idleness and leisure) are an expression of God’s love and fairness. As God loves through his creative activity and reveals his just character, so mankind shows a mutual love and justice through work. Cities, as Beza’s second poem contends, need for their citizens to provide mutual support. At Geneva as well as in other places there was a concerted effort to demonize idleness and at the same time create a culture where work was valued. Sermons, treatises, consistory discipline, and pastoral care all contributed to this effort to ensure that idleness among its citizens did not cause disorder in the city. Idleness leads to all kinds of mischief, they say: adultery, stealing, gossping, drunkeness, curiosity, and so on. Hard work builds community and creates a godly society. Counterbalancing the strong denunciation of idleness was a theology of vocations. It is true, as Marshall argues, that the mention of “callings” at 1 Corinthians 7:20 has nothing to do with various types of vocation in the modern sense and therefore does not offer strong support in and of itself to a doctrine of calling.126 In other words, the term “calling” does not have a solid footing in Scriptures. Still, the reformers did find the doctrine implied throughout both Testaments, and, in fact, saw it as a creational mandate. Beza significantly contributes to the validity of the doctrine by bringing in the example of Nature and by developing a unified understanding of all callings by God. His Romans lecture makes this apparent, in which the end goals of glorifying God and strengthening his kingdom are most important to Beza. Though the language of calling is sometimes imprecise in the reformers, ranging from state to estate to a particular employement and at times focusing mostly on religious functions, the principle that a calling in all its manifestations is initiated by God and thus demands obedience is something Beza emphasized. The act of calling is part of God’s providential care of the world as he returns it to order. The reformers associated a number of other issues with vocation:  the need for frugality, the sin of the monks, and the fight against the Devil’s disorder. In regard to frugality, Daneau urges an Aristotelian balance between extremes: honest parsimony straddles the middle between greed on the one side, and extravagance on the other. Calvin treated this kind of stewardship and temperance as a responsibility to future generations. Monks are attacked across the board as lazy plagues on society and feast days are treated as opportunities

126. Marshall, A Kind of Life Imposed on Man, 14.

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for idleness. What riles the reformers the most about the monks is that they take, but do not give, and in this way break the commandment against stealing. All individuals, whether they need to earn money or not, should be engaged in helping those who want to work but cannot and in interacting through work with their fellow man. Vocation thus strongly connects to order in the minds of the reformers. Beza and Vermigli, in particular, held that God shapes the world according to his purpose through our work. Such work also thwarts the designs of the Devil, since he is trying to cause disorder in the world. In his brilliant book about the Reformed conception of time and punctuality, Max Engammare quotes from Beza’s 1559 inaugural address to the students of the newly formed Genevan Academy to illustrate a novel outlook in human thought: “You will have to account for the time spent here before our Sovereign Captain and Prince, since he was gracious enough to enroll you in his holy school under his banner.”127 Engammare argues that while an aversion to wasting time and a respect for hard work typified traditional values going far back into antiquity, and that these were adopted in turn by Humanists such as Erasmus, the Reformed leaders were envisioning something far more encompassing:  “In the Reformed mindset, God will require an account of human beings’ stewardship of time at the last judgment.”128 Time in this view takes on an ethical dimension and becomes an essential part of sanctification. God created time and is the master of it, therefore the Christian uses it, every second of it, in the various duties to which God has called him or her. Engammare reviews the habits and recommendations of many in the Reformed movement and finds an almost obsessive concern with reckoning for their time. He shows how Calvin kept an insanely packed schedule that left no time for leisure, which gave him the “feeling of fully living out his vocation.”129

127.  Max Engammare, On Time, Punctuality, and Discipline in Early Modern Calvinism, trans. Karin Maag (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 105. Also the Leges Academiae remind the students that they have come to work for the glory of God so that they can one day support their families and honor their countries. “Always remember that you are soldiers,” it admonishes them, “and you have to give an accounting to the supreme head of this holy calling (Mais, instruits dans la vraie religion et dans la connaissance des bonnes lettres, vous êtes venus afin de pouvoir travailler à la gloire de Dieu, de devenir un jour le soutien de vos proches et de faire honneur à votre patrie. Souvenez-​vous toujours que vous êtes des soldats et que vous aurez à rendre compte à votre ehef suprême de cette sainte mission).” On this see Charles Borgeaud, Histoire l’Université de Genève, vol. 1 (Geneva: Georg & Co., 1900), 48–​49. 128. Engammare, On Time, 105. 129. Engammare, On Time, 247.

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From the pulpit he urged his congregation to consider the importance of every moment. Isaac Casaubon, who was professor of Greek at the Academy from 1581–​1597, kept a journal that he called Ephemerides, so he could “keep track of the only acceptable miserliness, namely being miserly with one’s time.”130 Simon Goulart is said to have “castrated” Montaigne when he published an edition of his Essays that edited out all references to leisure time. Pierre Viret’s work on the reform of the so-​called canonical hours, titled De l’institution des heures canoniques, does not admit a place for relaxation. Martin Bucer’s De regno Christi includes a lengthy attack on idleness, the “bubbling and ceaseless spring of all vices,” and rebukes university students in England for being lazy like monks.131 On the flip side of this vice of idleness one finds the virtue of punctuality, which Engammare views as an original contribution of the Reformed movement. For example, Mathurin Cordier’s pedagogical treatise Colloques emphasizes the need for punctuality and the careful use of time, as did the keen interest in the ringing of bells, clocks, and timekeeping around Geneva.132 Such intense control of time, Engammare suggests, may have been one instrument in a broader program of social control, moral discipline, and dogmatic orthodoxy.133 Returning to Beza’s inaugural words before the students at the Academy in 1559, Engammare concludes his work with a final observation that can serve as the summary of the chapter at hand as well: “Genevan Christians were called to fight idleness, to sanctify the whole of life in work above all, and hence give a rational structure to their vocations.”

130. Engammare, On Time, 95. 131. Engammare, On Time, 107. 132.  On Cordier’s work, see Engammare, On Time, 114; for the bells, see especially ­chapter 2. 133. Engammare, On Time, 246.

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Rebuilding a Godly Society In an insightful essay on John Calvin’s thinking about usury, Mark Valeri challenges the well-​known thesis of Max Weber that Calvin’s doctrine of predestination contributed to the modern capitalistic spirit by promoting an inward-​looking ethos and demanding self-​discipline in regard to one’s calling.1 Weber contended that an anxiety over their eternal standing vis-​à-​ vis God’s eternal decree led reformed Christians to value hard work in the worldly sphere and to aspire to a rigid asceticism as a means to build confidence in their own salvation. As a counter to this view, Valeri argues that the Genevan Consistory’s dealings with usury cases in the mid-​sixteenth century, during the tenure of Calvin, originate from an entirely different principle than Weber suggests. In the matter of moneylending, its real concern, derived ultimately from the teachings of Calvin, was for how individuals treated their neighbors within the body social. He traces the handling of the case of one Pierre Mercier, who was called before the Consistory in 1557 under suspicion of usury, by which is meant the lending of money at an unfair rate of interest.2 In the disciplinary action that followed Mercier is treated not as someone who failed to properly showcase the marks of his own election 1.  Mark Valeri, “Religion, Discipline and Economy in Calvin’s Geneva,” SCJ 28 (1997): 123–​ 42. Weber’s work was originally published under the title “Die protestantische Ethik under Geist des Kapitalismus,” in Archiv für sozial Wissenschaft und sozial Politik, vols. 20 (1904) and 21 (1905) and has undergone numerous editions and translations into English since under the title The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. 2.  The year 1557 is notable, because it was a year that saw a spike in usury cases brought before the Genevan Consistory. Valeri counts some fifty cases throughout the course of the year and attributes the spike to the economic stress created by the large influx of refugees from France.

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and sanctification, but as someone who did not live up to social obligations of fairness, charity, and concord, and whose selfish actions spilled over into the community and affected many. Usury, in other words, was not viewed outside and separate from the corporate sphere, as if it were a violation of a capriciously imposed moral law that is merely relevant to the individual’s salvation, but was consistently taken as a manifestation of one’s covetousness and greed toward fellow believers. The Consistory would not tolerate usury because of its socially disruptive nature. Valeri then reviews Calvin’s moral commentary about usury in his sermons and exegetical writings and finds them infused with references to a corporate ideology that supersedes concern for the individual. This he aptly terms “the rhetoric of mutuality.” Usurers rely on dishonest social interactions and exhibit a disregard for the welfare of their most vulnerable neighbors, whereas the true citizens of the kingdom are guided by charity and mutual affection, even in their chosen profession. And given that the sacraments, especially the Lord’s Supper, were partly meant to make all Christians acutely aware of their membership in the body social, it only made sense that a hostile act of immorality such as usury, which broke the bonds of unity by taking advantage of brothers and sisters in the body, and which flowed from and led to numerous other unsociable acts, should be punished by excommunication. Thus, Valeri concludes, the Consistory “intended public censure and admonition, sometimes civil punishment and sacramental discipline, to prohibit people from acting in the privacy of their economic interest.”3 Additionally, Calvin’s emphasis on the corporate nature of Christianity in his moral instruction ties together commerce and the needs of people within that body. David Jones has undertaken a separate study of Calvin’s ideas on usury, somewhat different in its approach, but similar in its conclusions.4 Jones interprets Calvin’s views against the backdrop of his doctrine concerning the “renewal of the order of creation,” a reference to the Church’s role in restoring individuals to their proper place in creation through regeneration while awaiting the return of Christ and the final restoration of all things. This gradual conversion of mankind to the true order of creation, so far as it can be taken now, functions to reinstate the natural, pre-​Fall state of human beings, which is constituted in true affection and mutual respect. With that in mind, Jones argues, Calvin interpreted all human interactions and the 3.  Valeri, “Religion, Discipline and Economy in Calvin’s Geneva,” 142. 4.  David W. Jones, Reforming the Morality of Usury: A Study of the Differences that Separated the Protestant Reformers (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2004), 71–​97.

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rules that govern them with an eye to this restoration of the natural order and the authentic love that characterizes it. This gives him a degree of flexibility in dealing with intractable issues such as usury, because he could allow for some forms of interest lending, under the condition that it be done in the spirit of brotherly love. Jones also ties in Calvin’s hermeneutical principle as he applied it to various controversial passages on usury in the Old Testament. Calvin was guided by the principle that the rigid or literal meaning of a passage in its historical context took second place to the intent behind the author’s words. The Holy Spirit could convey something specific about usury in a particular context, but the principle behind it could manifest itself differently in another context. In that way, Calvin could maintain that lending at interest (or “usury” in its broadest sense) is permissable among Christians so long as it was kept within the bounds of equity (at Geneva, 5 to 6.7 percent interest seemed like a fair rate) and to the betterment of everyone involved.5 Together, these two studies present a consistent picture:  in Calvin’s view, usury in most instances violates the moral principles governing the Christian life. The golden rule, a sense of fairness, love of neighbor, and charitableness preclude one from demanding back more than the principal on a loan. Usury is not condemned by an arbitrary rule or by some philosophical and scholastic rationalization, and so even in Calvin’s point of view, there are some cases where it may be permissible. In other words, insofar as the Christian enjoys a wide liberty of action, the rightness or wrongness of usury is governed by an ethos grounded in a concept of community.6 Valeri’s observations on the Consistory’s frequent dealings with the vice of usury and Calvin’s own commentary on the matter, along with

5.  On the circumstances surrounding the increase from 5  percent to 6.7  percent during Calvin’s time at Geneva, see Graham, The Constructive Revolutionary, 117–​21. Graham demonstrates that for practical reasons of commerce Calvin drew distinctions between both tolerable lending-​at-​interest (anything nonpredatory that was lent below a 6.7  percent rate) and intolerable usury (anything above that rate), but also between lending for consumption, which was discouraged, and lending for enterprise, even at a usurious rate, which was defended. Graham (91), using Calvin’s 1545 letter to Sachinus, also notes Calvin’s contextualized interpretation of Old Testament passages regarding usury. 6.  For a broader view of “community,” see Charles George, “English Calvinist Opinion on Usury, 1600–​1640,” Journal of the History of Ideas 18 (1957):  455–​74. While Valeri focuses primarily on the Christian community, the brotherhood and sisterhood of believers, Charles George is correct to note, against the thesis of Ben Nelson (The Idea of Usury [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1949]), that Calvin’s somewhat loosely articulated doctrine of usury should be seen in the context of his belief in the brotherhood of all mankind. Charity is due Christian and non-​Christian alike. George’s assertion forms part of his contention against the widely held belief that the rise of capitalism derives directly from Calvin’s lax

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Jones’s examination of Calvin’s doctrine of restoration, provide a useful starting point from which to begin an analysis of Beza’s ethical thought. Beza inherited both Calvin’s theological program along with responsibilities for oversight that included the tasks of the Consistory. Therefore, a study of Beza’s view on the matter of usury in relation to Calvin and within the context of the Christian tradition, that is, Patristic, scholastic, and philosophical thought, as well as Scriptural exegesis on the matter, can shed light on his contributions to the Reformed ethical outlook.

Philosophy and Theology in Beza’s Concept of Usury The task of studying Beza’s thinking about usury is not so easily undertaken. Beza did not write commentaries on the books of the Old Testament, where most Scriptural precepts concerning usury occur, nor did he have occasion to include the topic in his controversial writings and confessional works. As such, it is difficult to ferret out any full and systematic approach to the subject of usury in his corpus. For this reason, the appearance of a poem titled “In foeneratores” (Against the moneylenders) in the Cato volume is fortuitous.7 The poem both summarizes his views in regard to lending at interest and simultaneously nicely encapsulates many of the major features of his ethical theory. The poem runs as follows: In Foeneratores Qui mutuando8 de Suo nunquam Tuum, Sed usque et usque de Tuo, Suum facit: position toward usury and his rejection of certain tenets of natural philosophy and scholasticism. George shows that the English Calvinist moralists of the first part of the seventeenth century found in Calvin an ally in their crusades against all forms of usury, and so, he concludes, Calvin absolutely did not overthrow the Medieval view on usury and usher in a revolutionary social and economic ethos. He himself was fairly traditional in the matter. 7. Beza, Cato 1591, 12–​13; Beza, Poemata 1597, 278–​79; Beza, Poemata 1599, 139v. 8.  In Renaissance usage, mutuor generally carried the meaning “to borrow,” while mutuo had the sense of “to lend,” even though in late Latin some confusion between the active and deponent forms had crept in. Thus while the Vetus Latina (or Itala) translates Matt. 5:42 with “et volenti mutuare a te,” the Vulgate reads “et volenti mutuari a te” (both translating the Greek δανίσασθαι). On this see Herman Rönsch, Das Sprachidiom der urchristlichen Itala und der katholischen Vulgata unter Berücksichtigung der römischen Volkssprache durch Beispiele erläutert (Marburg: N. G. Elwert, 1869), 298, with more examples of the rather rare use of mutuare meaning “to borrow.” Likewise, see the TLL under mutuor/​mutuo, I.B for even more examples.

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Cui, sterile quod Natura condidit, parit: Qui dando spoliat, erogando colligit: Nunquam serens qui metere nunquam desinit:  5 Qui cocta, cruda, devorat, nunquam satur: Cui, sive sterile, sive fertile sit solum, Fert Luna census menstruos, Sol annuos: Vis iste quis sit nosse? Foenerator est, Quo nulla mundo pestis est nocentior,  10 Quo nulla mundo pestis est frequentior. At tu severus pauperum vindex Deus, Exedit iste quos suis centesimis, Fac sapiat, aut raptus tribunal ad tuum, Centesimo poenas luat cum foenore.  15 Against Moneylenders This man, by lending, never makes yours of his, but again and again makes his of yours; and what Nature made sterile, for him gives birth; he robs when he gives, he collects when he pays; and though he never sows, he never stops reaping; he devours things whether cooked or raw, yet is never sated; for him, whether the ground is sterile or fertile, the moon brings monthly reckonings, the sun yearly; do you want to know who he is? He is the moneylender, a plague more pernicious and more rampant than any other in the whole world. But you are a stern God and a champion of the poor, the very ones the moneylender consumes with his percents; make him wise up, or snatch him up to Your tribunal, and let him pay his dues with hundredfold interest. Here Beza addresses the vice of the moneylenders, those who increase their wealth without engaging in the work of production or assuming any of the risk. Their accounts grow relentlessly regardless of the circumstances, feeding their insatiable greed, and always at the expense of the poor. In the end, however, God, the ultimate usurer, will justly demand exorbitant interest on such activity. Of particular note is the striking phrase that occurs in line 3: “and what Nature made sterile.” By this Beza means that money by its very

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nature is a barren or fruitless thing, even though moneylenders unnaturally use it to produce more money. The term “sterile” alludes to a proposition first made by Plato in his Laws (11.921d) that any moneys given on loan should be viewed as, to use his term, ἄτοκα.9 The latter typically applies to females who have never produced a child and as such are barren; by analogy, therefore, money that is loaned out should never produce more of itself, since in and of itself it is fruitless. The moneylenders only make it produce more money by going against its nature. The context of Plato’s statement about money on loan deserves some attention. At this point he is in the process of constructing a law about the exchange of money between a contractor and the person doing the hiring. The contractor, by Plato’s law, should complete the work in a timely fashion and at a fair price or expect to pay a hefty penalty. Conversely, the hirer should be prepared to pay once the work of the contractor is completed, or expect to pay a percentage as a fine the more time passes. This is the only instance in which interest is appropriate, and in this case serves as a penalty to cover loss incurred rather than as a mechanism for gain. This, Plato says, must be enacted in a constitutional partnership with the gods as a way to maintain the foundations of the state and protect the bonds of society. In essence, society’s well-​being depends on a fair and equitable exchange of moneys and labor, and the person who fails in that exchange becomes, as Beza has it, a plague (pestis) for everyone. Plato’s protégé Aristotle expands upon these ideas by offering a more complex explanation as to why money should be viewed as sterile.10 Aristotle taught that the acquisition of property or wealth for the sake of managing a household serves an honorable purpose, because it is the derivation of that necessary material, for the needs of the family, from what Nature provides. Certain businesses, in other words, engage in adding to the general store of goods through the natural environment. Moneymaking that aims to build wealth through trading alone is unnatural (οὐ γὰρ κατὰ φύσιν) and therefore should be censured because of certain ethical problems that it inherently poses. Money is 9.  The exact phrase is “τῶν ἄλλων ἀτόκων ὄντων χρημάτων (since money is sterile).” 10. Particularly useful in this regard are Carl F. Taeusch, “The Concept of ‘Usury:’ The History of an Idea,” Journal of the History of Ideas 3 (1942):  291–​318; Robert P. Maloney, “Usury in Greek, Roman and Rabbinic Thought,” Traditio 27 (1971):  79–​109; and Jones, Reforming the Morality of Usury, 24.

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ideally an instrument that facilitates barter and exchange and is not an end to itself. For Aristotle, the most detestable example of commerce or retail trade is usury, because, unlike trade, where some product at least is being exchanged for the money, in usury money itself produces the gain, a purpose for which it was not devised. He notes that the Greek word for interest, τόκος (or tokos), connects it to the idea of bearing children, as if money is the producer of its own kind. Here Plato’s idea that money (χρήματα) cannot produce children, that it is sterile, ἄτοκα, comes to the fore again. Thus, of all modes of making money, he says, usury stands as the most unnatural (παρὰ φύσιν). There is no reason to assume that statements of Plato and Aristotle stand directly behind Beza’s poem, only the general conception. In many ways, Beza’s poem echoes the language of the Cappadocian Fathers about usury, in particular Gregory Nazianzus and Basil of Caesarea, who revived the Greek philosophical arguments (perhaps with Plutarch as an intermediary)11 about sterility and added their own Christian coloring to it. In his Homily on Psalm 14, Against Usurers,12 after underscoring for the moneylenders the depths of their inhumanity and greed, Basil warns borrowers that they are assuming for themselves a merciless master, who hunts them

11.  Specifically, Plutarch, Moralia, “That We Ought Not to Borrow,” (=LCL 321, vol. X of the Moralia, 316–​39, trans. H. N. Fowler). 12.  PG 29, 264–​80; Agnes Clare Way, St. Basil, Exegetic Homilies, Fathers of the Church, vol. 46 (Washington, DC: Catholic University Press of America, 2010), 181–​91. In his diary, the Ephemerides, Isaac Casaubon mentions how much enjoyment he took reading Basil for an entire morning (he says the same of Jerome later on), which implies that, for those with the ability, the practice of reading the Fathers directly instead of through secondary sources was not so uncommon; on this see Engammare, On Time, 96. It is also known that Beza had begun a long-​term project of editing the ante-​Nicene Fathers, and published one translation of Basil, Athanasios, and others in 1570 (=Gardy 257). On Beza as a reader of the Fathers, see Irena Backus, see “Reformed Orthodoxy and Patristic Tradition,” in A Companion to Reformed Orthodoxy, ed. Herman Selderhuis, 91–​117, esp. 107–​10, and the bibliography cited there. If Beza used Basil directly, he may have had access to him through the editions of Janus Cornarius (of Zwickau) published at Basel at the Froben press, which we know Calvin also used (see Anthony Lane, “Calvin and the Fathers in Bondage and Liberation of the Will” in Wilhelm Neuser and Brian Armstrong, Calvinus Sincerioris Religionis Vindex [Kirksville, MO: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1997], 67–​96, esp. 81). The first, appearing in 1540, was a Latin translation: Omnia D. Basilii magni … quae extant opera juxta argumentorum congruentiam … Jano Cornario … interprete, with the homily against usurers found in vol. 1, 75–​79. Cornarius produced his Greek text in 1551. It is possible that Beza knew the 1540 Latin edition of Wolfgang Musculus, also done in Basel, but at the press of Johann Herwagen, with the title, Opera D. Basilii Magni Caesariae Cappadociae episcopi omnia sive recens versa, sive ad Graecos archetypos ita collata per Wolfgangum Musculum Dusanum; the homily on Psalm XIV is in vol. 1, 265–​70.

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down like dogs, hounding their every step, but unlike dogs never being pacified with what is thrown to them. The anxiety, the perspiration, the pounding of the heart never stops, because maybe, the borrower believes, the creditor is coming. He next draws a metaphor from the prolific reproductive pattern of hares, who—​here he is following Plutarch—​produce, rear, and become pregnant in an endless, overlapping pattern.13 He continues by modifying Aristotle’s comments about sterility and associating such a cycle of birthing with the very name for lending itself, tokos. He sees this as a concealed reference not just to money from money, as Aristotle, but to the parturition of boundless greed occasioned by usurious practice. Thus he recasts Aristotle’s assertion that usury is the unnatural and abhorrent reproduction of money from money into a more concretely metaphorical statement: usury produces evil children. He wonders too if the birthing idea looks to the pains and sorrows that it produces in those who have borrowed the money. In that case, both lender and borrower share in the travails produced: “Let these offspring be called the progeny of vipers, for they say that vipers, when they are being born, eat away at the belly of the mother.”14 But animals produce their offspring over time, not like the loans that produce interest early and often. Eventually animals cease to bear new offspring and pass on the power of reproduction to them, but the money of a loan and its offspring, the interest, reproduce simultaneously. “Do not,” he says, “risk an encounter with this unnatural beast.”15 Basil concludes his sermon by scolding the moneylenders for their inhumanity in the name of humanity, for taking no thought of a connection (τῆς συγγενείας) to the sufferer. Some collect a hundredfold, he continues, some tenfold, but relentlessly with the cycle of the moons they all come to exact more money from the poor,16 producing without land, sowing without reaping (Ἄνευ γῆς φυτεύεις· ἄνευ σπορᾶς θερίζεις).17 The latter

13.  Plutarch, “That We Ought Not to Borrow,” sect. 4; Aristotle mentions the superfetation of hares in his History of Animals (=LCL 438, trans. A. L. Peck) 5.9. 14.  See also Ambrose, De Tobia 12.41 (=PL 14, 774). Beza uses the same imagery, but to a different end, for his Emblem XXVIII (Poemata 1597, 251, titled Vipera ex utero matris rupto erumpens [Vipers Bursting Forth from the Ruptured Womb of the Mother]). 15.  PG 29, 276: “τοῦ ἀλλοκότου τοῦ θηρίου.” 16.  Again, taken from Plutarch, “That We Ought Not to Borrow,” 2; for a similar idea, see also Aristoph. Clouds 17, 1134; Hor. Sat. 1.3.87 (“tristes Kalendae”). 17.  PG 29, 280; similarly, Plutarch, “That We Ought Not to Borrow,” 4, complains that moneylenders do not let the borrowers reap what they sow. Musculus, in his edition of Basil’s

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finds a parallel in the sixteenth oration of Gregory Nazianzus.18 Speaking about the many disasters that have struck his flock, Gregory warns the people that God is punishing them, and that they should repent lest he empty out his wrath upon them completely. First, he says, they should beg for mercy, and second, the egregious disobedience must come to an end. Among those acts of disobedience that he ennumerates, which in every case is an evil act perpetrated against a neighbor, Gregory adds the following statement on usury: Another person, by usury and loaning, contaminated the earth, gathering whence he did not sow, and reaping (θερίζων) where he did not scatter seed, securing wealth for himself, not from the cultivation of the earth, but from the helplessness and need of the poor. The fact that Basil applied the offspring (tokos) motif somewhat differently than Aristotle and Plutarch,19 and that Gregory does not mention offspring at all, suggests that with the sowing-​reaping motif they intend to emphasize a different, though certainly related, line of argument. In both instances where the sowing-​reaping motif is mentioned, the Fathers, on the one hand, are looking back to the more fundamental argument of Aristotle that one should produce wealth from the earth itself by one’s own labor and according to the needs of one’s family (that led Aristotle to disparage the making of “offspring” from money itself), and, on the other hand, are rebuking the wealthy for not showing Christian love to the poor. For Basil, the usurers are abusively “exacting money from the poor,” while Gregory has them “securing wealth from the want of the poor.” Again, Gregory’s statements come within the context of descriptions of neighbors taking advantage of the vulnerability of neighbors. The sowing-​reaping

works (1540), 269, translates as follows: “Sine terra plantas, sine semine metis, incertus cui congreges.” 18.  PG 35, 934–​64, esp. sect. 18 on 957. If Beza knew this text of Gregory directly and not derivatively, it may have been through the Latin translation of Willibald Pirckheimer, published in Basel at the press of Hieronymus Froben in 1531, titled D. Gregorii Nazianzeni orationes XXX, Bilibaldo Pirckheimero interprete, nunc primum editae. Here the oration is XIII, with the title, “Oratio consolatoria, quum pater eius episcopus ob grandinis taceret calamitatem,” 126–​36. A folio edition of his works in Greek appeared in 1550 at Basel from the press of Johann Herwagen, with the title S. Gregorii Nazianzeni opera omnia. 19.  See Plutarch, “That We Ought Not to Borrow,” 4.

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motif, then, looks primarily to the indolence of the usurers, who fail to make an honest living through their own labor, and to their inhumanity toward the poor, who are terrified to see the Kalends—​the new moon and the first of the month—​come around, because that is when their interest is due. Ambrose of Milan brings together several of these elements in a novel way in his De Tobia,20 a treatise dealing with usury and greed based on his reading of the life of Tobias (Tobit). Ambrose recounts how Tobit was forced into exile during the ascendency of the Assyrians, but remained faithful to God even to the point of his own blindness and poverty, and that in his old age he sent his son (to Media) to retrieve some money that he had entrusted to some kinsman not because he wanted it for himself, but because he was thinking of his son’s inheritance. This money he did not put out at usury, but had simply committed to their care. This act, though not the main point of the story, leads Ambrose into a lengthy discourse on the distinction between lending, which is seen as virtuous, and usury, which is to be condemned as marked by greed and harmful to the poor: “Therefore, the fact that he entrusted money, and did not loan it at interest, he preserved the duty of a righteous person. For, a loan is evil that aims at interest.”21 Ambrose describes the deceit that moneylenders engage in, pretending to build friendships and to be concerned about those in need, but in the end only willing to lend if interest is contracted for, thus “hastening to receive before even giving”22 and “plundering even when helping.”23 Such is the kindness of the moneylenders to those in 20.  PL 14, 759–​94; CSEL, ed. Schenkl (1897) 32/​2, 517–​73; L. M. Zucker, S. Ambrosii De Tobia, Commentary, with Intro. and Transl., Patristic Studies, vol. 35 (Washington, DC:  Catholic University Press of America, 1933). Also, see W. Dunphy, “On the Date of St. Ambrose’s De Tobia,” Sacris Erudiri 27 (1984):  27–​36. Ambrose’s views on usury had become widely disseminated by Beza’s time, so his knowledge of them may be derivative (Augustine, e.g., quotes from De Tobia in Contra Iulianum 1.3.10 in regard to the Devil being a usurer of sin through Eve (see the discussion below under the section “The Microscopic View; even so, he certainly could have had access to Ambrose’s works directly through a five-​volume edition put together by Jean de Coster (of Louvain) and printed at Basel at the press of Hieronymus Froben in 1555, bearing the title, Omnia quotquot extant D. Ambrosii Episcopi Mediolanensis opera, primum per Des. Erasmum Roterodamum, mox per Sig. Gelenium, deinde per alios eruditos viros diligenter castigata; nunc vero postremum per Ioannem Costerium. The De Tobia appears in vol. 4, 339–​56. 21.  De Tobia 2.7: “Quod igitur commendavit pecuniam, et non feneravit, justi servavit officium. Malum est enim fenus quo quaeruntur usurae.” 22. Ambrose, De Tobia 3.10: “Itaque antequam det, recipere festinat.” 23. Ambrose, De Tobia 3.11: “Talis humanitas, ut spolietis etiam cum subvenitis.”

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need, he adds, since they demand money from those who need to buy food, and offer poison to those who ask for medicine. The moneylenders hunt, ensnare, devour as a lion,24 and like a bird of prey seek to sink talons into the weaker. In regard to the money itself, Ambrose ventures another comparison (12.41–​42): The money of the lenders is a kind of viper, which gives birth to such great evils. But the viper, dragging along vitals fertile for punishing,25 is burst open in the process of giving birth, and by a mother’s death she shows the offspring not to be inferior. Therefore, the serpents begin to eat their mother; they tear her apart with their bites.26 There where the venom is born, it is first put to the test. But the money of the moneylender conceives, births, and nourishes its own ills, and itself grows more in its offspring and by that vile progeny becomes more numerous. Then Ambrose turns to the familiar offspring (tokos) imagery, comparing the mating and birthing of snakes, which occur at various times, to money lent on interest, which snakes along (serpit) with increasing interest. But even though it continuously gives birth, it never knows the travail of childbirth, but instead passes those pains on to others. “For this reason,” he surmises, “the Greeks called interest τόκοι (offspring), because it seems to invoke the pains of childbirth in the mind of the debtor.” He then speaks of the arrival of the first of the month, when the evil principal gives birth to its evil offspring, interest (parit sors centesimam). The lenders come to collect, but the borrower cannot pay, so the interest (centesima) is folded back into the principal, becoming a new producer of offspring,

24. Ambrose, De Tobia 7.25:  “ille quasi leo quaerit quem devoret.” Also at 15.53, where Ambrose is exhorting the usurers to lay aside their perjury, savagery, and bitterness, he compares them to lions who devour money and avarice: “qui pecuniam et avaritiam devoratis.” 25.  From Verg. Aen. 6.598–​99: “fecundaque poenis | viscera.” 26.  Here I have deviated slightly from the editions and followed the emendations of Joseph Morel in his Élémens de critique (Paris: H. Fils, 1766), 344 (included in the Dictionnaire raisonné de diplomatique Chrétienne [Paris, 1846], 1102): “et morte materna docet subolem non esse degenerem. Matrem igitur incipiunt serpentes; illam morsibus suis scindunt.” It only makes sense for the second esse to be from ĕdo and not sum. The copyists in their confusion must have attempted to fix the text with degenerem in matrem followed by a period. Zucker follows Schenkl in the CSEL, who tries to solve the difficulty by emending to “igitur primum incipiunt esse serpentes,” with the sense of “as soon as.”

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so that “the hundredth of interest becomes interest on a hundredth (non fenoris centesima, sed fenus centesimae).”27 Gregory of Nyssa more closely follows the argument of Aristotle about sterility in two brief statements in two separate works. Maloney, in his study of the Fathers and usury, describes both succinctly in this way (brackets mine): Turning to the problem in his Homilia IV in Ecclesiasten [=PG 44, 663–​679], Gregory argues that usury results from an evil union unknown to nature28 … which has the power to make sterile things bear fruit, even though nature itself has made only animate things fecund. Though Gregory does not develop this argument at length, it is much the same as Aristotle’s treatment of interest-​taking … Gregory returns to the theme in his Contra usurarios: “But you, copper and gold, things that cannot usually bring forth fruit, do not seek to have offspring.”29 The latter phrase is in fact even more forceful than Maloney’s translation intimates in that the addressees are not the metals which stand for money, but people: “But you [sc. moneylenders, or those contemplating the lending of money], do not seek offspring of copper and gold, which do not usually bear fruit.”30 The treatise, as with Beza’s poem, is directed against the moneylenders themselves, and not some abstract idea, to keep

27. Ambrose, De Tobia 12.42. 28.  The text he is referring to is at PG 44, 672:  Ὤ κακῆς προσηγορίας! τόκος ὄνομα τῆς λῃστείας γίνεται. Ὤ πικρῶν γάμων! Ὤ πονηρᾶς συζυγίας, ἥ ἡ φύσις μὲν οὐκ ἐγνώρισεν. 29.  Robert P. Maloney, “The Teaching of the Fathers on Usury: An Historical Study on the Development of Christian Thinking,” Vigiliae Christianae 27 (1973): 241–​65, esp. 249. Beza is not likely to have seen the Contra usuarios, since it was not included in the Laurentius Sifanus editions at Basel (1562 and 1571), and did not come to light until the edition of Fronto Ducaeus at Ingolstadt in 1596 (in Latin, translated by Jakob Gretser) and in Claude Morel’s 1618 Paris edition (this time in Greek and Latin, again by Gretser); on this see Gregorii Nysseni opera dogmatica minora, part 2, ed. J. Kenneth Downing et al. (Leiden: Brill, 1987), lxxxii, following E. Gebhardt in his edition of Contra usurarios, vol. 9 of Opera (Leiden, 1958), 135–​36. For more on this treatise, see Brian Matz, “Alleviating Economic Injustice in Gregory of Nyssa’s Contra usurarios,” Studia Patristica 44 (2010): 549–​53. The date of delivery is generally agreed to be Lent of 384, for which see The Brill Dictionary of Gregory of Nyssa, ed. Lucas Francisco Mateo-​Seco and Giulio Maspero (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 161. 30.  The text of Gregory’s Contra usurarios can be found at PG 46, 433–​52, with the quote coming from 441: “Σὺ δὲ χαλκοῦ καῖ χρυσοῦ, τῶν ἀγόνων ὑλῶν, μῆ ζήτωι τόκον.”

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the finger pointed squarely at those who are engaged in doing the harm to others.31 In his seminal work on the teaching about usury among the scholastics, Noonan has argued that up until about the year 1050 a.d., the prohibition against usury was based on the simple and unquestioned theological notion that it is turpe lucrum, shameful gain, to be denounced as related to avarice and uncharitableness.32 Beza echoes this sentiment in the Cato in line 5 of his poem “Against the Greedy” (discussed later); there we find the very phrase turpe lucrum. It is not until after that period, and especially from 1150–​1450 a.d., that scholastic writers, confronting a more complex world of international business and trade, driven by large companies that bring in substantial profits, begin to speak in more nuanced and precise ways about what really constitutes usury and how it relates to natural law, and, more specifically, the right of private property (i.e., no one should take the property of another against that person’s will). St. Anselm of Canterbury, Anselm of Lucca, and Peter Lombard are the first ones to speak about usury in terms of justice and fairness and to relate it to the eighth commandment, which has to do with stealing. Noonan writes, “The early Middle Ages had made this far-​reaching decision to treat usury as a sin not of uncharitableness or avarice, but as a sin against justice.”33 To explain how the scholastic writers understood justice, as they had culled the concept from Roman law, he quotes William of Auxerre as representative: “If it is strictly used, justice is the virtue by which to each one is rendered what is his own, because it is his own.”34 This definition places usury, in legal terms, in a distinctly different category than avarice or uncharitableness, because now it involves restitution, not just repentance, and applied in

31. McCambley’s wholly inaccurate translation of Gregory’s treatise has caused unnecessary confusion in the scholarship; see for example, Brenda L. Ihssen’s comments on p. 129, fn. 16 of “‘That Which Has Been Wrung from Tears:’ Usury, the Greek Fathers, and Catholic Social Teaching,” in Reading Patristic Texts on Social Ethics:  Issues and Challenges for Twenty-​First-​Century Christian Social Thought, eds. Johan Leemans, Brian Matz, Johan Verstraeten (Washington, DC: Catholic University Press of America, 2011), 124–​60. Ihssen uses McCambley’s mistranslation of the Greek, “Do not force poverty upon those who are rich,” to refute assertions of Cleary in The Church and Usury, but the translation should be, “Do not compel poverty to provide those things that belong to the rich.” 32.  John T. Noonan, The Scholastic Analysis of Usury (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957). 33. Noonan, Scholastic Analysis of Usury, 30. 34. Noonan, Scholastic Analysis of Usury, 31.

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cases and ways that the other vices did not. Eventually, this leads to a more precisely stated notion of “commutative justice,” that is, the equal value of things exchanged, in St. Albert the Great and St. Thomas, who found inspiration for the concept in Aristotle. The scholastics also saw in Luke 6:35 an emphasis on one’s state of mind when making a loan. The real sin lies in one’s intent to profit and not just in the objective content of the contract. As Noonan puts it, this “provided an effective spiritual control to which public social controls were only a supplement in notorious cases.”35 A correlation of Beza’s mention of the sterility of money wth Aristotle’s assertion that money does not bear fruit allowed for a broad survey of thinking about usury through the Patristic period, since the Fathers were attracted to that argument, and for brief mention of how it re-​emerged in the scholastic period in connection with Roman law. This survey of thinking about usury up to the Reformation period is far from exhaustive, and did not include actual practice in the legal and social spheres. Even so, with these philosophical and theological strands of thought pulled together and taken into account, Beza’s poem against moneylenders can more easily be understood. Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, especially the Cappadocian Fathers, and to some extent the scholastic theologians and jurists provide the language and framework for Beza to talk about the ills of usury. It is not so important to know exactly from where Beza garnered his information about the usury problem as it is to understand the broad context of the debate, because it is the context that permits a deciphiring of his poem on usury and provides some sense how that ties in with his overarching theory of morality. The specific ideas he selects for his poetic admonition and how he weaves them together for a coherent message, however, is best understood through a line-​by-​line analysis of the poem.

The Microscopic View Beza begins the poem by alluding to a widely used etymological pun that would have been familiar to his contemporaries: “This man, by lending, never makes yours of his, | but again and again makes his of yours.” He is referencing a wordplay on the Latin word for “loan” that entered into the scholastic consciousness via a comment in the Bolognese canonist

35. Noonan, Scholastic Analysis of Usury, 37.

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Paucapalea (c. 1165) on the Concordia discordantium canonum of Gratian.36 In regard to usury, Paucapalea writes, The term loan (mutuum) comes from the fact that what is mine (meum) becomes yours (tuum). A loan is something that is quantifiable and which I pass on to you with the expectation of receiving back only as much of the same kind.37 Paucapalea’s wording is not original with him, but paraphrases an expression of Roman law found first in 3.14 of the Institutiones of the Corpus iuris civilis: “whence also it is called a loan, because thus is it is given from me to you (unde etiam mutuum appellatum sit, quia ita a me tibi datur, ut ex meo tuum fiat).”38 The idea is that mutuum derives from a combination of meum and tuum, and thus in the essence of its parts reveals the true nature of what loaning is: when something is lent to someone, there is an implied transfer of actual ownership of the thing loaned, whether money or goods, to the borrower for the duration of the loan. This notion that a loan is the temporary transference of property became a major argument against usury in the scholastic period. The foundations were laid for it already by the palea Eiciens, a fifth-​century work commenting on Matthew 21, where Jesus throws the moneychangers out of the temple, that at some point in the twelfth century was incorporated into the Concordia of Gratian. The anonymous author states that the usurer is cursed, because after lending out the money the same seeks to receive back not only the original property, but some of the other person’s property as well. Money lent differs from the renting out of a field or a house, where use is made (without ownership) and deterioration occurs. So, in essence, usurers benefit from another person’s work, because the money is in itself fruitless and useless.

36.  Also known as the Decretum Gratiani, it was compiled around 1150 AD. 37.  J. F. von Schulte, Die Summa des Paucapalea über des Decretum Gratiani (Giessen: E. Roth, 1890), Causa XIV, Qu. 3, 83. See Noonan, Scholastic Analysis of Usury, 39. 38. For the text:  The Digest of Justinian, ed. A. Watson (Philadelphia:  University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985), 4 vols.; Latin text with English translation. The English translation was revised by the same and republished in two volumes at the same press in 1998; the former uses the Latin text of Krueger in T. Mommsen, W. Kroll, P. Krueger, and R. Schoell, Digesta Justiniani Augusti, corpus, iuris civilis (Berlin: Weidmann, 1889), vol. I.

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It was left to other scholastics to flesh out the ideas hinted at in the palea Eiciens and brought to the fore with the help of Roman law by Paucapalea. One influential Bolognese canon commentator, Huguccio, develops the point with some subtlety in his Summa of 1187. He points out that in Roman law a distinction is made between a commodatum, a good that someone is allowed to use, for which a locatio, a charge for that use, is not unjust, and a mutuum, which is the transfer of ownership for a time (i.e., mine has become yours and all I expect is to get it back), for which the foenus, the charge for that transfer, is unjust, since in that case one is charging for a good that one no longer possesses. Huguccio goes on to say that in Roman law, loans refer to “fungibles,” meaning things that can be measured by weight, quantity, or portion (here he is drawing on a statement in Digesta 44.7.3). In regard to fungibles, the risk stays with the borrower (i.e., the borrower must return the goods in kind), hence it is not right that the borrower should be burdened with both risk and interest at the same time; but in the case of nonfungibles, ownership and risk stay with the loaner. Accordingly, the loaner can legitimately charge for them, as would be the case with the renting out of a horse. Two points in what Huguccio says in amplification of the meum-​tuum concept are relevant to an understanding of Beza’s first two lines. First, he solidifies and clarifies the place that the Roman-​law definition of mutuum in the usury argument will have: a loan is at its essence a transfer of ownership. Second, since ownership has transferred, the risk also transfers to the borrower and consequently there is not a sharing of the peril of loss, the risk, between lender and borrower. The payment to the lender is guaranteed on a fixed timetable (which explains why Beza refers to the dreaded Kalends later in the poem), regardless of what happens to the principal. This is followed by comments in the Glossa ordinaria, which suggest that if one can sell money in such a way that the peril is retained, then that is licit. Other scholastic writers found the argument of risk convincing. For example, St. Albert the Great (d. 1280), in his commentary on Luke 6:35, connects usury to the sin of greed and uncharitableness, and stresses that the usurer profits while the neighbor works and risks the vicissitudes of fortune. This riskless profit, he says, is an exploitation of a neighbor in need, because only the loaner is the one certain of gaining a profit.39

39. Noonan, Scholastic Analysis of Usury, 45–​46; Diana Wood, Medieval Economic Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 178.

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Throughout the early scholastic period, the definition of a loan (mutuum) provided by Roman law stands as the favored argument against usury. The theologian Robert of Courçon (d. 1219), who, among many accomplishments, wrote the first consititution of the University of Paris in 1215, wrote a work on usury (De usura) in which he rehearses the basic points, including the argument that a loan is simply the transference of property: And we distinguish between a lease (locatum) and a loan (mutuum), because in the case of the lease the property does not pass over to the possession of the one who receives it, but remains the property of the one who is doing the leasing. It is necessary that all the risk of the property remain with the one doing the leasing, because the property remains wholly his. Whence it is possible to receive something extra in exchange for the loss and use of his property. But this is not the case with the loan. For it is called a loan (mutuum) because the property switches from being mine to being yours, and conversely. For example, you loan me five coins and they are mine, the ownership of them passes over to me from you. Because of this, it is a sin if you receive something for what is mine, because you are not entitled to anything from my property.40 The etymological argument and the point that it made was becoming standard. Thus William of Auxerre (d. 1229) speaks of a loan as a transfer of ownership, using the maxim “mutuum dicitur quasi de meo tuum (it is called a loan, a ‘yours from mine,’ so to speak),” which is repeated verbatim in the Summa of Alexander of Ales (d. 1245), the instructor of St. Bonaventure, who also adopted the argument.41 William, in fact, follows the logic of the point by adding that if ownership is being transferred, then to take extra money back for the use of something that the borrower owned, even if temporarily, is equivalent to stealing, since that would be against the will of the owner.

40.  For the text see Georges Lefèvre, Le Traité De usura de Robert of Courçon (Lille: Au siège de l’Université, 1902), 15; see also 51. 41. Alexander of Ales, Summa theologica, P.III.  quaest. xxxvi. memb. 4.  art. 2.  For Bonaventure, see Noonan, Scholastic Analysit of Usury, 48.

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The most significant advancements in the analysis of usury in the scholastic period comes from St. Thomas Aquinas. Early in his career he followed the same basic line of thinking as his predecessors, namely, that in a loan, ownership is transferred. Later, however, he moves away from that idea, and instead bases his arguments on the formal nature of money. He maintains that money has a fixed face value, and is a measure, and that the measure cannot be diversified or varied. If this is true, it would be stealing for someone to demand in return a different amount of money than was loaned. Eventually, this leads him to the belief that money is consumed when it is used, in the same way that wine or oil is consumed in its use. As such, he concludes, the use of money cannot be distinguished from its substance, and therefore one cannot sell both the use of it and its substance separately. To do so would be to go against natural justice. In other words, he is saying that money has a value, such as food, and when it is transferred to another, the person receiving it consumes it as a substance with a fixed price (presumably by spending it), and as a result must only pay for that amount. Anything else would be asking more for the substance than the substance is worth, or equivalent to charging someone for wine, and then charging someone for drinking the wine.42 This long history lies behind Beza’s first two lines. Beza loses the original etymological pun (no longer meum-​tuum, but now suo-​tuum), partly for the sake of the chiastic structure, but more importantly to address the usurers directly, yet he evokes the context from which it arises. That mutuando recalls the mutuum-​loan is unmistakable. He then proceeds to underscore the wickedness of the usurer, who through his trickery never transfers the ownership of the money to the one receiving it—​he “never makes yours of his”—​although that is generally agreed upon as the basic meaning of a loan. Instead, the moneylender violates the borrower’s right to hold property inviolable because, by demanding back more than he gave, or, as the Eiciens puts it, by asking back not only property loaned, but also something of the property of the other, he steals. He “again and again makes his of yours.” Furthermore, it might be said by extension that by keeping the money locked in his possession and never sharing it with the other person, the lender has failed even to form a societas, a partnership, whereby he might share the risk of the business venture and thus legitimately the

42.  See esp. Summa Theologica, 2–​2.78 and De malo 13.4, eds. P. Bazzi and P. M. Pessian Turin: Marietti, 1949).

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profit. Accordingly, in the first two lines Beza looks to the traditional definitions provided by Roman law and the scholastic use of them, as well as to a universal principle of morality, the right not to have one’s property taken against one’s will. He also implies the detachment of the usurer from the borrower, that they are not in a relationship where neighbor is helping neighbor, but in a relationship of exploitation. After introducing the poem with a play on the fundamental argument from Roman law, Beza follows up in line 3 with the Aristotelian proposition that money is a naturally sterile thing, the rich history of which has already been traced in some detail above: “and what Nature made sterile, for him gives birth.” The word parit (“gives birth”) at the end of the line alludes to the omnipresent offspring (tokos) concept, which the Fathers handled in various ways, but which for Beza means that the usurer made money unnaturally give birth to more money. The sterility of money figures frequently in the works of the reformers. In his Admonition to the Clergy That They Preach against Usury (1540), Luther labels it “an unfruitful thing,” which is nonvendible, and in a 1542 table talk he explicitly states, “money is a sterile thing.”43 But Singleton, in his reassessment of Luther’s statements on usury, sees a marked nonreliance on the concept of sterility in the reformer. He believes that Luther replaces the Medieval scholastic arguments that depended on Roman and canon law and certain precepts of natural law, including the premise that money is a sterile thing, in favor of strictly moral arguments of neighborly love and charity:  “Scholastic natural law reasoning is replaced with an appeal to Christian morality.”44 Singleton admits, however, that Luther knows and refers to the axiom of sterility, but takes the position that his reliance on it decreased over time and that it only appears rarely in his works. Singleton additionally finds Luther’s use of the term “natural law” really to refer to not the philosophical concept, but what is natural for a Christian to do in accord with God’s command to love one another. In this regard he is not too different from the Fathers.

43.  “Pecunia est res sterilis”; see Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, 55 volumes, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan, Helmut T. Lehman, and Theodore G. Tappert (Philadelphia and St. Louis: Fortress Press and Concordia Press, 1957–​1986), 54.254; Luther, Luther: Letters of Spiritual Counsel, ed. Theodore G. Tappert (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1955), 234; Luther, Tischreden, 6 vols. (Weimar: H. Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1912–​1921), 5.5429. 44.  John Singleton, “Money is a Sterile Thing”: Martin Luther on the Immorality of Usury Reconsidered,” History of Political Economy 43 (2011): 683–​98; the quote comes from 685.

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Luther’s approach to usury is mirrored in a short exposition of reformed theologian Wolfgang Musculus, a contemporary and correspondent of Calvin, on the same subject.45 The exposition is really an appendix that stands at the end of Musculus’s commentary on Psalm 15 and addresses the question of what usury is and whether it is permitted for a Christian to engage in it in any circumstance. Musculus dispenses with scholastic arguments, as did Luther, and opts instead to treat the subject of usury in terms of Christian love. Beginning with a definition of usury based on Ezekiel 8, as taking back a “superabundance” on what one lent, and supporting it with statements from Jerome, Augustine, and Ambrose, Musculus sees no room for lending at interest among Christians. While civil law may permit it due to the dormancy of charity in the world and to put a limit to greed, nothing in the Old Testament or in the statements of Christ sanctions it. In contrast, “Christians are led by the Spirit in such a way that they love their neighbor from their heart and would provide not only their money for their neighbor if it should be necessary, but they would also expend their life for their neighbor.”46 Musculus stands fast on this principle, and answers numerous objections of the moneylenders, showing that in all cases how an injustice is done, or that avarice serves as the motivation, or that selfishness is involved, or that the oppressiveness of it ruins the lives of individuals. Mutual love is the only debt that Christians should owe to one another. He does not even allow for loans to wealthy merchants or to princes, since there are ample ways in which God’s holiness is offended; loans set up for the benefit of orphans and widows (where the interest is paid out to them) are also viewed as a concession to human sin.47 And yet, he concludes, it is unlikely that usury will completely be removed from the secular sphere, or even from the sphere of Christ’s Church, unless there

45.  For the text, see his “De usura, Appendix ad Psalmum XV” in In Davidis Psalterium sacrosanctum commentarii (Basel:  Sebastian Henric Petri, 1573), 1137–​46. For a translation, one may consult Wolfgang Musculus, On Righteousness, Oaths, and Usury:  A  Commentary on Psalm 15, trans. Todd Rester with introduction by Jordan Ballor (Grand Rapids, MI: CLP Academic, 2013), 79–​108. 46. Musculus, On Righteousness, Oaths, and Usury, 85; De usura, 1139:  “Sic enim spiritu dilectionis ducuntur, ut proximum ex animo diligant, paratique sint non solum pecuniam illi, si opus sit, sed et vitam ipsam impendere.” 47. At the Diet of Nuremberg in 1522, the city of Augsburg, prompted no doubt by the Fuggers, had defended large, monopolistic companies on this very ground, that widows and orphans depend on investments in them for their very survival. For an excerpt of the argument, see Will Durant, The Story of Civilization, vol. VI, The Reformation (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1957), 381.

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is a complete submission to God’s word. He desires that the Church will at least act to protect the destitute and weak, and that usurers will have a disposition that seeks to assist instead of oppress.48 Musculus’s handling of the topic is, as noted, decidedly scriptural; he, like Luther, has little interest in the complex legalistic opinions developed by Catholic schoolmen. Yet Melanchthon’s manifest statements about usury in his Definitiones reflect an interest among some reformers in both the old scholastic arguments from law and the moral arguments.49 He defines usury as any gain on a loan, which is forbidden. He points to passages of the Pentateuch and to the assertion of Jesus at Luke 6:35. He goes on to relate usury to equality, which is an argument from natural law, and also adds the well-​worn propositions from the scholastics that in a loan, ownership of property has transferred and that money itself is not by nature productive. Elsewhere he equates lending at interest to stealing, as many others did, since the person who pays the usury receives nothing back in return, which is an inequality in itself.50 It should be added that Melanchthon did not view all interest added to a loan as illicit, but was governed by the rule that there should be equality and just compensation. In the expectation of emergent loss and cessant gain before a loan is repaid, the lender could stipulate an interest payment in the contract.51 Still, there is very little flexibility. In contrast, John Calvin does not find the sterility argument particularly compelling. In his Epistolae et Responsa,52 the claim of Ambrose and Chrysostom that money does not 48. Musculus, On Righteousness, Oaths, and Usury, 107; De usura, 1145. 49. P. Melanchthon, Definitiones multarum appellationum, quarum in ecclesia usus est … traditae Torgae et Witebergae, anno 1552 et 1553 (Wittenberg:  P. Seitzius, 1554), C3v–​C4r, s.v. “usura” as well as “interesse” and “locatio.” 50. P.  Melanchthon, Enarratio Psalmi Dixit Dominus, et  aliquot sequentium scripta Anno MDXLII et sequenti, in Operum, vol. ii, 772–​73, and quoted in Eric Kerridge, Usury, Interest, and the Reformation (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), 101–​02. 51. This is clearly stated in his Philosophiae moralis epitomes (quoted in Kerridge, Usury, Interest, and the Reformation, 135) and in Definitiones appellationum in doctrina ecclesiae usitarum (Kerridge, Usury, Interest, and the Reformation, 137). 52.  Printed at Geneva in 1575 at the press of Pierre de Saint-​Andre, compiled and edited by Beza himself. The full title is Ioannis Calvini epistolae et responsa, quibus interiectae sunt insignium in ecclesia Dei virorum aliquot etiam epistolae. Eiusdem I. Calvini vita a Theodoro Beza Genevensis ecclesiae ministro accurate descripta. On Beza’s role, see Ioannis Calvini Epistolae (1530–​Sept. 1538), eds. Cornelis Augustijn and Frans Pieter van Stam (Geneva: Droz, 2005), vol. 1, 16–​18, discussing, in particular, the selectivity required in preparing such a volume; and Rodolphe Peter and Jean-​François Gilmont, Bibliotheca Calviana:  Les Oeuvres de Jean Calvin publiées au XVIe siècle, 3 vols. (Geneva: Droz, 1991–​2000), vol. 3, 200ff.

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produce money—​and here he uses the same verb parit that Beza includes in his poem—​does not have much import (“non est magni momenti”).53 While it is true that money stored up does not grow, when industry is applied, money certainly can be used to make more money.54 The governing principle, therefore, should be the Word of God, which does not lay down specific rules about lending at interest, but instead establishes broad parameters within which all should live. Christians know not to oppress the poor and disadvantaged; they should do unto others as they would have done to themselves; they should stay within the rules laid down by the State and not do anything to hurt society as a whole. If these kind of guidelines are abided by, there is no reason that someone cannot lend money with the hope of a small amount of gain, since not all usury is banned (though Calvin does reject that anyone could have moneylending as their God-​given calling in life), only usury that is carried out sinfully. In the fourth line of the poem, Beza considers yet another paradox of usury that looks directly to the Patristic argument from the Seventh Commandment:  the moneylender robs when giving and collects when paying. Several of the Cappadocian Fathers mention the hypocrisy of the moneylenders whose giving has the appearance of helping but in reality has the purpose of enriching the giver at the expense of the receiver. For example, Ambrose (De Tobia 3.9–​11) describes a scenario in which someone in dire need (a barbarian is selling his relatives as captives) asks someone of means for financial help. The latter is unmoved by the petitions and tearful supplications, claiming that he does not have any funds and is in fact seeking a loan himself for his own needs. When the suppliant mentions a willingness to pay interest or provide security, suddenly the moneylender exhibits brotherly affection and professes that he could raise some capital by melting and selling some artisan silverware, precious

53. See esp.  355–​57. Furthermore, in his Commentarii in Libros Mosis necum in Librum Josue (Amsterdam, 1567), 528, quoted in Kerridge, Usury, Interest, and the Reformation (41), Calvin writes:  “Nor, indeed, will Aristotle’s reasoning hold water, that foenus is against nature, because money is barren and money cannot beget money (Nec vero arguta illa ratio Aristotelis consistit, foenus esse praeter naturam, quia pecunia sterilis est, nec pecuniam parit).” 54. Wood, Medieval Economic Thought, esp. 175–​82, reviews the many weaknesses that were being exposed in the scholastic period in regard to the condemnation of usury. Time, industry, “interest” as a restoration of the balance of justice, all affect the value of money as it is transferred back and forth between parties. Also, the practical needs of an international market forced even more concessions to lending on interest.

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heirlooms, at home. He bemoans that this will be a great loss to him that no interest could compensate, but once the borrower makes a return, he will have them refashioned. On the Kalends he will come around to collect the interest. “Therefore,” Ambrose laments, “before he even gives he hastens to receive, and from the person he claims he is offering the utmost help he demands interest … such is your humanity, that you despoil at the very moment when you are offering help.”55 The frequent reference to the mating and birthing habits of hares in these discussions of usury is meant to illustrate the principle of taking while giving. Plutarch in his “That We Ought Not to Borrow” (sect. 4), as noted above, demonstrated to the Cappadocian Fathers how the analogy could be drawn: They say that hares at one and the same time give birth to one litter, suckle another, and conceive again; but the loans of these barbarous rascals give birth to interest before conception; for while they are giving they immediately demand payment, while they lay money down they take it up, and they lend what they receive for money lent (LCL). Plutarch (section 5) goes on to say that the moneylenders find it disgraceful to be a tax collector, one within the legal profession, and prefer the illegal collection of taxes from those to whom they lent money, or, as one might say, “cheating them in the act of lending.” Next, in line 5, Beza borrows the metaphor from planting: “though he never sows, he never stops reaping.” As noted above, Basil and Gregory Nazianzus both refer to the moneylenders’ habit of reaping where they do not sow. Both of these authors emphasize the unwillingness of the lender to engage in honest work themselves while profiting for themselves from the work of others. Beza’s repetition of nunquam (never) underscores the relentlessly crushing nature of interest and debt, which continues to produce a harvest for someone who never did the hard work. And as stated before, the clockwork nature of their reaping, the fact that, as Beza says in line 8, “the moon brings monthly reckonings, the sun yearly,” or as Ambrose has it, “each month comes, interest is born (De Tobia 12.42),” and

55. Ambrose, De Tobia 3.11 (=PL 14, 763):  “itaque antequam det, recipere festinat et qui in summa subvenire se dicit usuras exigit … talis humanitas, ut spolietis etiam, cum subvenitis.”

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the reaping of the usurer is not tied to the natural seasons and rhythms of the land, but to an arbitrary date that has nothing to do with productivity. What the usurer produces is not tied to nature, nor is it in proportion to the effort. This same observation led Calvin to complain in his commentary on the Psalms that while others endure pain for their livelihood, while husbandmen and craftsmen weary themselves with long hours, and merchants endure all sorts of discomforts and risk, the moneylenders “sit on their rears and exact tribute from everyone else’s labors.”56 It also stands behind Vergil’s explanation to Dante in the Inferno (Canto XI) that usury is a sin because the usurer makes money not from skill or industry, as Genesis stipulates that humans should, but from money itself. In line 6 of the poem, Beza describes the moneylenders as those who devour things cooked or raw, without ever being sated. Similarly, in his Gospel for the Festival of the Epiphany, Luther rails against the papacy which administers the Church almost entirely on the basis of a kind of usury called Zinskauf, which he views as the supporter and patron of avarice, whereby the pope “manifestly devours the world.”57 The verb “to devour” became a favorite rhetorical device for communicating the ravenous and insatiable greed of the moneylenders. There was a story circulating in England sometime before 1648 that a noted usurer in the Bishopric of Collen, while on his deathbed, was observed chewing with his mouth. When asked what he was eating by those attending to him, he responded that the Devil stuffed it (sc. the money) into his mouth and now he could do nothing but devour it.58 The story was meant to illustrate that the usurer died in the way that he lived, in the greedy consumption of money. It was also common to draw upon the etymology of the Hebrew word used for lending at interest, nashak (or neshek), literally “to bite” (e.g., at Deut. 23.20) to identify the wicked intent of the practice. Musculus, for example, refers to it in his appendix on usury, concluding that “in the end it bites the one who pays the usury.”59 Henry Smith, in a sermon on the topic of usury preached in London in 1550, declares,

56.  Commentarii in Librum Psalmorum (Amsterdam 1567), 47: “solos trapezitas sedendo vectigal ex omnium labore colligere.” 57.  Quoted by Jones, Reforming the Morality of Usury, 53. 58. Beard, Theatre, 374. 59. Musculus, De usura, 1138: Ebr. dicitur nashak a mordendo, eo quod postremo mordeat eum qui foenus persolvit.”

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As the Name of the Devil doth declare what an Enemy he is; so the Name of Usury doth declare what an Enemy she is. That you may know Usury for a biter, her Name doth signify biting. If there were one biting Usury, and another healing Usury, then Usury should have two Names, one of biting, and another of healing:  but all Usury signifyeth biting, to shew that all Usury is unlawful.60 In the same section he comments that usury has been the undoing of many, for—​and this is reminiscent of what Beza says in line 4—​ moneylenders take when they seem to be giving, and they hurt when they seem to be helping. Not only do they bite, they continue to bite until they have devoured and consumed all that the debtor has.61 Beza accentuates this devouring, all-​consuming character of the moneylender with the colorful juxtaposition, cocta, cruda,62 that is, “cooked or raw,” signifying the moneylenders’ compulsion to ingest everything in sight, whether it is ready for consumption or not, whether it is “cooked or raw.” The same thinking lies behind Plutarch’s frustration with borrowers who allow this to happen (sect. 8): But people in debt are content to be dunned, mulcted of tribute, enslaved, and cheated; they endure, like Phineus, to feed winged harpies which carry off their food and devour it, buying their grain, not at the proper season, but before it is harvested, and purchasing the oil before the olives have been plucked (LCL). Plutarch also makes the analogy of a person sick and swollen with dropsy, who is appalled at the physician’s suggestion that he should cease to drink. “Would you not rather do without so you can get well?” the physican

60. Henry Smith, The Examination of Usury:  A  Sermon Preached in the City of London (Boston[?]‌: n. p., 1751), 6; first published in 1591, the same year as the Cato. This application of the etymology of nashak was fairly widespread; see, e.g., Charles Spurgeon’s comments on Psalm 15:5 in his The Treasury of David (London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1870), 211. More examples are given by George, “English Calvinist Opinion on Usury, 1600–​1640,” 465 and Kerridge, Usury, Interest, and the Reformation, 26–​27. 61.  An allusion to Gal. 5:15: “But if you bite and devour one another, take care lest you be consumed by one another.” 62.  For the play on the words, cf. Plaut. Aul. 3, 2, 15–​16: “Why do you care, knave, whether I eat it cooked or raw (Quid tu, malum, curas | utrum crudum an coctum edim)?”

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wonders. Another story was circulated about a Roman soldier in Africa under the reign of Claudius who resorted to a usurious trick to make money from his rations, for which he was left to starve and inevitably, as one writer puts it, became a miserable example of “that foul dropsy covetousness.”63 Beza himself uses the dropsy image in his Emblemata to a similar end: A Man with Dropsy Taking a Drink64 If by chance you think that the greedy who have acquired their wealth unjustly are happy, you are mistaken. Who thinks that the man with dropsy, after greedily drinking water, can be happy? [Figure 7] The association of avarice with the sickness of dropsy can be traced back to Horace, Odes 2.12–​15, where dropsy, like the appetite for personal gain, is said to grow through an indulgence that cannot ever satisfy the thirst. Greed, in the end, is a counterproductive excess. Augustine(?) borrows the imagery of the hydropicus from Horace for a sermon on the woman who was suffering from an issue of blood. The target of his chastisement is also the greedy:65 Therefore an issue of blood in the mind is indulgence. In what way the greedy are like those with dropsy—​for they desire to drink—​so the indulgent are similar to an issue of blood. For, the greedy are afflicted with their desiring, the indulgent with their expending. In the former case it’s the taking in, in the latter the giving out; but each kills.

63. Beard, Theatre, 376. 64. Beza, Icones 1580, Mm.iiv; Beza, Poemata 1597, 237; Beza, Poemata 1599, 119r: “Hydropicus potans | Iniuste partis opibus si forte beatos | Putas avaros, falleris. | Epotis avide lymphis quis posse beari | Hydropicos existimet?” 65.  For the text see A. Mai, Novae Patrum Bibliothecae (Rome:  Typis sacri Consilii propogando christiano nomini, 1852), I, 55: “Fluxus itaque sanguinis in animo luxuria est: quomodo avari hydropicis similes sunt—​appetunt enim bibere—​sic luxuriosi fluxui sanguinis similes sunt. Avari enim appetendo laborant, luxuriosi erogando: illic appetitus, hic fluxus; sed utrumque occidit.” A man afflicted with dropsy figures in Jesus’s ministry at Luke 14:2: et ecce, quidam hydropicus aderat coram eo. The attribution is not at all certain, but the wording of it certainly stitches together a number of passages from Augustine.

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St. Chrysostom even references this passage of Horace in his Homily XIV.9 in characterizing greed as an illness. They are “as if in a dropsy,” he says, longing with all their being for what they already have. The only cure, as Horace has it too, is not more money (or water), but to attack the cause of the malady. Here, significantly, undergirding this imagery of the “cooked and the raw” is the ancillary idea that what the usurers do to one individual is bad for society as a whole. The repercussions of usury are far-​reaching and insidious, because it does not concern itself with the usefulness of the product to society, but only about the process of accumulation. Plutarch makes this point in section 5, and attributes it to “avarice, not necessity or want, but insatiable greed.” He complains that the moneylenders do not even use the land, houses, clothes, or whatever they take from their debtors. Instead, they use one debtor to draw in another in an endless drive to consume and destroy everything in their path. Similarly, at De Tobia 7.25 Ambrose describes the coming together of usurer and debtor, a meeting that an old proverb says the Lord watches over from both sides (the lender is wicked and the debtor is foolish), and compares the lender to a lion “seeking whom he may devour,” and the debtor like an exposed bullock dreading his attacker. The unsociable, unneighborly character of the moneylenders is underscored with the word pestis, which is echoed so many times throughout the collection of the Cato in various ways. The pestis, in essence, is a “nuisance” to the happy workings of the community, or, perhaps more apropos for the time, a “plague” spreading ruin.66 Thus, in other poems Beza tells sinners to go away, that there is no place on earth for them, and that they will be shunned by all good people. Nature herself rejects their presence, and God at the final judgment banishes them from his heavenly kingdom forever. With the last few lines of his poem, Beza describes God’s involvement in the matter of usury. God is a stern champion of the poor (pauperum vindex), especially those whom the strong abuse and exploit. God’s special protection over orphans, widows, and the downtrodden is a constant motif of both Psalms and Proverbs, and a hallmark of the ministry of Jesus, who identifies with the poor as someone who was born in a stable and lived and

66. Musculus, De usura, 1141, presents it similarly as a plague: “When someone of this sort feels the inescapable plague, his spirit is downcast and he abandons wife and children (Ubi qui eiusmodi est, pestem hanc ineluctabilem esse sentit, abiecto animo deserit uxorem ac liberos).”

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died with nothing and who, in his own words, came “to preach the Gospel to the poor” (Luke 4:18). The significance of this is most beautifully handled by the Jesuit writer Cornelius a Lapide (1567–​1637) in his commentary on Proverbs 23.10–​11, where the reader is warned, “Do not move the ancient boundary, or go into the fields of the fatherless; for their Redeemer is strong; He will plead their case against you.”67 Cornelius understands the Hebrew word goel behind the translation “Redeemer” to mean, precisely, “neighbor.” In other words, the proverb is warning them not to encroach upon the land of the orphans and the poor, who, although they are weak and helpless themselves, have an omnipotent neighbor as their champion. God embraces and cares for those who have been neglected and deserted by others. The psalmist warns the wicked at 10.13–​14 not to spurn God or believe that he will not call them to accounts, because he sees how they vex the poor who are under his special protection. Beza ends the poem by imploring God to bring about repentance in the heart of the moneylender—​“make that one wise up”—​or, as a twist of irony, himself to become the usurer, demanding interest from the moneylender at one hundred times interest. Beza’s assertion that God should be seen as the ultimate usurer stands in stark contrast to Ambrose’s warning (De Tobia 9.33) about the Devil, a usurer from whom Eve borrowed sin and passed on the debt to the entire human race:  “Therefore, the Devil is a usurer.” (Fenerator ergo diabolus) Ambrose may have been inspired by Basil’s second homily on Psalm 14 (section 5), where the Cappadocian Father scolds the rich for not lending to the poor without expectation of return (again, an allusion to Luke 6:35), since they should know that God stands as their surety and pays their interest on their behalf. In support of this he cites Proverbs 19:17: “He who has mercy on the poor, lends to God.” Gregory of Nyssa uses Matthew 19:29, where Jesus tells his disciples that they will “receive a hundred-​fold” in return for leaving behind their lives and their families for his name’s sake, to develop a similar point about God’s repayment to generous and unselfish moneylenders.68 Augustine develops the same point in his enarrationes on Psalm 36:26, where he brings in both the passage from Proverbs and Jesus’s words at Matt. 25:35

67. There have been numerous editions; I  have used Cornelius Cornelii a Lapide, Commentaria in Proverbia Salomonis (Antwerp: H. & C. Verdussen, 1714), 627. 68.  On this see Brenda L. Ihssen, “Basil and Gregory’s Sermons on Usury: Credit Where Credit Is Due,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 16 (2008): 403–​30, esp. 423.

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that the righteous are said to be repaid for feeding the hungry when the Son of Man comes again. But in all these instances, God is the borrower and only the Devil is seen as a usurer. Luther may have suggested to Beza that the reverse could be true. The German reformer turned these images on their head when in his Four Psalms of Comfort he interpreted Psalm 109:11 (“Let the creditor seize all that he has”) as a warning for the Jews that though they are skilled usurers and bleed everyone white, they will never prosper since “an even greater usurer will come along and take it all away from them.”69 Luther may have been induced to this conclusion by his own interpretation of the Deuteronomic directive (15:6, 28:12) to “lend only to foreigners,” which he sees as God’s way of pouring out his wrath upon the Gentiles; in the strictest terms, it is not the Jews who are usurers, but God, using his chosen people as instruments of punishment.70 Nonetheless, there is also the perspective given by Musculus, where God is seen as the usurer because he provides the means for one to be blessed, as he benefited Abraham and Isaac, and because he can receive interest, as at Matthew 19:29. This he calls “heavenly interest” (coeleste usurae genus) because no one is harmed and nothing is done out of avarice.71

The Practicalities of the Market Every phrase of the “In foeneratores” alludes to some aspect of the historical debate over usury. Beza draws upon the meum-​tuum etymology of Roman law as it was adopted in Scholastic thought along with the associated argument about the transference of property. The Aristotelian notion of the natural sterility of money figures here, as does the later Scholastic appeal to the seventh commandment about stealing. He borrows Patristic imagery about the relentless coming of the Kalends and the hungry avarice of the moneylenders. Both the Fathers and Calvin influenced him to appeal to Scriptures in rejecting moneylending as uncharitable and harmful to the poor. His poem concludes with a sententia, already known from Luther, depicting God as the ultimate collector of interest owed by the unrepentant usurer.

69. From Vier trostliche Psalmen (Wittenberg: Johannes Klug, 1526), ad loc.: “So kompt ein grosser Wucherer.” Luther does not specify, but presumably he means God. On the same passage, see also Jones, Reforming the Morality of Usury, 59. 70. Jones, Reforming the Morality of Usury, 55. 71. Musculus, De usura, 1138.

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Beza’s stance on usury as presented in the poem leaves no room for compromise. He assembled the major legal, theological, and philosophical arguments against lending at interest of any kind and condensed them into a few commanding lines of poetry:  the very integrity and logic of God’s cosmos denounces the practice of the moneylenders. Calvin was not so sure. In his own writings he rejected several of the traditional proofs about usury, such as the one based on money’s sterility, and acknowledged instances in which lending was desirable.72 If Calvin was finding ways to modify and adapt the canonical approach to usury, how are we to evaluate Beza’s Cato poem on the subject? Does it represent a stiffening of Calvin’s original position? In some ways perhaps it does, but the historical realities in Geneva during Beza’s lifetime should mitigate our understanding of his seemingly hardline stance. In practice, Beza did not prevent a market economy from moving forward in Geneva. He and the Company of Pastors understood that Geneva’s financial system required the availability of credit; they were willing to accept this so long as the rate was measured and balanced against the needs of the most vulnerable citizens. When Beza arrived in Geneva in 1559, the rate of interest on private loans already stood around 6.6  percent by law, which he in no way condemned or tried to overturn.73 Even a minister as prominent as Nicolas des Gallars, second only to Calvin among his peers before Beza arrived at Geneva, pushed the boundaries of the rate. When in 1560 he closed the account on a loan that he made six years before, the interest he received worked out to be close to 8 percent. Neither government records nor Consistory proceedings give any hint that

72. A. Biéler, Calvin’s Economic and Social Thought, ed. E. Dommen, trans. James Creig (Geneva:  WCC Publications, 2005 [originally publ. in French, 1961]), 405–​06 (examining Calvin’s Letter to Claude de Sachin); J.-​F. Bergier, “Taux de intérêt et crédit à court terme à Genéve dans la seconde moitié du XVIe siècle,” Studi in Onore di Amintore Fanfani (Milan: Giuffrè, 1962), 96–​98; Paul-​E. Martin, “Calvin et le prêt à intérêt à Genève,” Mélanges d’histoire économique et sociale en hommage au professeur Antony Babel, ed. Claude Terrier (Geneva: Droz, 1963), 1, 251–​63. 73.  The information on interest rates in Geneva in the latter half of the sixteenth century comes primarily from the following sources:  E. Choisy, L’État chrétien calviniste au temps de Théodore de Bèze (Geneva:  Eggiman, 1902), 187–​200; J.-​F. Bergier, “Taux de intérêt et crédit,” 89–​119; E. William Monter, “Change public à Genève, 1568–​1581,” Mélanges d’histoire économique et sociale en hommage au professeur Antony Babel, ed. Claude Terrier (Geneva: Droz, 1963), 1, 265–​90; Robert M. Kingdon, “The Economic Behavior of Ministers in Geneva in the Middle of the Sixteenth Century,” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 50 (1959): 33–​39; Biéler, Calvin’s Economic and Social Thought, 145–​48; 400–​22; E. William Monter, Calvin’s Geneva (Huntington, NY: Robert E. Krieger, 1975), 214–​21.

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transaction caused a scandal.74 In the year after Calvin’s death, 1565, when the magistrates were attempting to pass harsh statutes against usurers (meaning in this case anyone lending above the 6.6 percent rate), Beza objected that the enforcement of such a law would drive off those who live on lending.75 That same year he defended “usurious” rates when consulted by the Council about foreign loans and commercial ventures. Meanwhile, he implied his support for small-​interest loans for everyday affairs within the city, so long as such consumptive loans were not extended to the poor.76 By 1572, the rate for interest on private loans officially stood at a little over 8 percent, again with the support of the Company of Pastors. The Company likewise defended the 10 percent rate charged by the newly established public exchange (bank), arguing that, since it was being used to pay off debt to Bern, it was more akin to a tax than an excessive interest rate.77 Not all of the ministers agreed with the higher levels. Nicholas Colladon, long-​time secretary of the Company of Pastors, began to openly attack the interest rate of the public exchange from the pulpit in August of 1571; he listed it among the sins for which the Genevan people needed to seek forgiveness before taking communion. This denunciation stood in direct opposition to the support given by a consensus of the Company at the exchange’s opening. It also came on the heels of a related quarrel a few months before between Colladon and the magistrates over alleged mismanagement at the exchange. Colladon and his colleague Jean Le Gaigneux, a volatile minister who had been part of the first class of the Genevan Academy in 1559, grudgingly apologized to the council for this incident earlier in the year. After a second round of the same kind of trouble, Le Gaigneux abruptly left town. Colladon’s scathing sermon in August rebuking the exchange led Beza to appear before the Council to voice his frustration over his colleague’s continuing insubordination. In addition

74.  Kingdon, “The Economic Behavior of Ministers,” 37–​38. 75.  Bergier, “Taux de intérêt et crédit,” 107 and n. 58: “on sera cause que plusieurs qui ne vivent que de leur argent se retireront allieurs” (R. du Conseil, LX, f. 129v). Other texts are provided by Martin, “Calvin et le prêt à intérêt à Genève,” 261–​62. 76. Graham, The Constructive Revolutionary, 122–​24. Graham goes on to point out that the ideal of nonconsumptive loaning at interest to the poor was never strictly honored. It may be this failure of an ideal that Beza addresses in his poem. 77.  Monter, “Change public à Genève, 1568–​1581,” 271–​74. For a chart of the rates in this period, see Bergier, “Taux de intérêt et crédit,” 119.

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to a request to be released from his duties as Moderator of the Company because of the intractable nature of some of the ministers, Beza expressed a willingness to defend the 10  percent rate from the Scriptures. In fact, he said he would be willing to do it again, implying that he had already sanctioned the decision of the magistrates when the bank first opened. He ended with a kind of ultimatum to force the hand of the Council: since he and Colladon had supported their respective positions to their congregations from Scriptures, one of them must be a false prophet. With that, a disgruntled Colladon too left Geneva.78 The case of Colladon together with other instances in which Beza showed tolerance for lending at interest forces us to read the poem of the Cato with a more discerning eye. If Beza had written a treatise about usury, undoubtedly his argumentation, laid out in a more nuanced and logical way, would have reflected the day-​to-​day reality at Geneva. However, the “In foeneratores” represents a different genre with a specific purpose. Beza represents his Cato censuring sinners, not scrutinizing the problem of usury with the subtleties of scholastic reasoning. This serves to underscore the real purpose behind the poems of the Cato: as we have suggested, they are meant to be stylized versions of the remonstrances so often delivered in the Consistory hearings, before the congregations, or in a “grand” form to the magistrates and general public. With the Cato, in other words, Beza deals with those who fall short of the ethical ideals that he and the majority of his colleagues were promoting; he was not interested in sifting through the permissable exceptions. Beza frequently complained that the magistrates were not doing enough to punish monelylenders operating in the city. For example, he and the Company linked the reappearance of the plague in May 1568 to the failure of Genevan officials to rid the city of them, as indicated by the following entry in the Council records: The ministers of the Word of God have sent from their Company Monsieur Beza and others to warn that they think that the rod of

78.  See RCP III (1565–​74), 33, n.  5; Robert M. Kingdon, Geneva and the Consolidation of the French Protestant Movement, 1564–​1572 (Geneva: Droz, 1967), 24–​29; Paul F. Geisendorf, Théodore de Bèze (Paris: Librairie Protestante, 1949), 258–​60; Choisy, L’Etat chrétien calviniste au temps de Théodore de Bèze, 51–​67. Colladon took revenge on the Company of Pastors by taking the official minutes with him as he left. On this see Hippolyte Aubert, “Nocolas Colladon et les registres de la Compagnie des pasteurs et professeurs de Genève, Bulletin de la Société d’histoire et d’archéologie de Genève 2 (1899): 138–​63.

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God we are experiencing now results from the general contempt for his Word, and especially the considerable number of usurers who hold sway among us.79 In 1582, when the syndic Ami Varro foolishly exposed his own usurious activities to the Council after hearing a sermon strongly rebuking the practice, the Council was forced to punish him even though the 10 percent rate on his private loan was only slightly above the permitted level. Beza seized the occasion to rail from the pulpit that the magistrates were ignoring all but the most extreme cases and had been doing so for two years. Beza’s protests seem at first glance to constitute a contradiction: had not he himself at times supported the charging of interest, even at 10 percent? In the same sermon, Beza reveals that he has a specific number in mind: “The city is full of usurers,” he says, “who are charging 10 percent or more.” To the point, Beza objects to rates that are out of line with those set by the magistrates for private loans. He wants the magistrates to enforce the level agreed upon as fair.80 Beza concurred with Calvin wholeheartedly that the heart of the matter in regard to usurers is the harm that they do within the social setting, preying on the destitute poor while not contributing to society with their own hard work. Although one can find a certain flexibility in Calvin that seems wanting in Beza’s poem—​for Calvin the rich are allowed to loan to the rich, since such loans were not technically “biting,” and coventures where risk is involved for both parties are permitted—​it is fair to say that Beza’s focus is solely on the weakest of society.81 He makes reference to God as champion of the poor, whom the usurers hurt, but makes no attempt to qualify the matter in regard to other less vulnerable kinds of borrowers. Furthermore, he labels usurers a pestis (“plague”) as a way to vividly signify their unwelome presence among the company of good people. They spread pollution and pain throughout the populace and therefore must 79.  R. du Conseil LXIII, f. 57r: Les ministres de la parolle de Dieu ont icy envoyé de leur compagnie Monsr de Beze et autres remonstrer qu’ilz estiment que la verge de Dieu que nous sentons maintenant vient du mespris de la parolle de Dieu. Et notamment des grandes usures qui regnent au milieu de nous” (cited by Bergier, “Taux de l’intérêt et crédit,” 101, n. 39). For the date, see the entry at RCP III, 18 and n. 3. 80. Choisy, L’Etat Chrétien calviniste, 187–​200; E. William Monter, Calvin’s Geneva, 218–​19; Bergier, “Taux de intérêt et crédit,” 101–​02. 81. On various ways of structuring loans to share risk, see Bergier, “Taux de intérêt et crédit,” 98–​99.

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be quarantined. This is a notion that Beza will express in every one of his poems in the Cato in various ways, making it a central motif in the collection: sinners must repent and show that they can integrate into a mutually supportive community or find themselves excommunicated. Everyone must make it his or her business to love, contribute, and help others.

Envy, Greed, Sumptuary Laws In his study of programs of social welfare in Calvin’s Geneva, William Innes calls attention to the efforts there to foster a sense of fairness and belonging among its inhabitants through the regulation of social distinctions: “If Geneva’s Councils had permitted great differentiation to exist between the legal, personal, and/​or economic privileges of the wealthy merchant and the poor artisan, civic unity would have been seriously damaged.”82 Innes argues that a State with a greater population and more expansive territory could perhaps better negotiate or absorb the societal stress created by conspicuous inequalities among the citizenry. Geneva, however, with its relatively small population hemmed in on all sides by political foes such as Savoy, needed to mitigate internal rivalries to maintain stability. Civil and ecclesiastical authorities alike recognized the threat posed to the city’s vitality and potency by the presence of both a priviliged class greedily accumulating honors and wealth and an envious substratum of disenfranchised poor. The ministers, moreover, felt passionately that these two related vices, greed and envy, ran counter to the spirit of selflessness and communal love which they believed marks a truly Christian society.83 Calvin readily accuses Jews of being “profane” dogs because they follow “base and animalistic dispositions” to greedily devour more than their fair share.84 Both Calvin and Beza observed that some Christians were behaving in the same way, even using religion as a pretext for their ambition and envy.85 In his

82. William C. Innes, Social Concern in Calvin’s Geneva (Eugene, OR:  Pickwick Press, 1983), 277. 83.  For example, Beza rails against envy and greed among a host of other vices in a sermon reprised in In canticum canticorum Solomonis homiliae (Geneva: J. Le Preux, 1587), 262–​63. 84. See Robert Michael, Holy Hatred:  Christianity, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006): 106–​07. 85.  Commenting on “In speciem, προφάσει” at Philippians 1:18 (Annotationes 1598, pt. 2, 291), Beza writes, “Or, “through pretense”; for they were assigning a specious cause, that is, Christ himself, as a pretext to their own ambition and envy, with which internally they were

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commentary on 2 Corinthians, for example, Calvin cautions his readers that for some to live in affluence as others remain in need is unnatural. Elsewhere, while explicating Amos 8:16, he excoriates the rich of Geneva for engaging in monopolistic practices during grain shortages as a means to enslave the less fortunate.86 From the pulpit he branded such speculators as “murderers, savage beasts, biting and eating up the poor, sucking up their blood.”87 Additionally, Calvin and Beza raised theological arguments against greed. They treat greed as a species of idolatry that corrupts the passions and distorts Christian values at the core. In his annotations on Ephesians 5:5, for example, Beza explains that while gluttons and whoremongers are addicted to some object which they prefer before God, the greedy uniquely deserve the name idolators because they place the entire hope of life in their wealth.88 The word addicted draws our attention to another poem of the Cato, one which did not appear in the original 1591, but which Beza included in later editions. Here the conscience, so thoroughly damaged and addicted to sin, can hardly do its work in discerning between right and wrong. The one message it can convey through all the noise and impairment, however, is that people can only possess the goods (commoda) that God gives to them. He writes: In eos qui ex malo lucrum sperant89 Si (quod fateri cogit impios licet Addicta cuivis conscientia crimini) Pendent ab uno cuncta commoda numine, Uno ecquis usquam vivit illo stultior, Qui se boni ullius futurum compotem,  5 Boni omnis ipso auctore spreto, somniat?

inflamed.” See also Calvin on 1 Thess. 2.5 (CO LII, 147–​48), who uses Paul’s words to warn Christians about using the Gospel as an avenue to wealth and status. 86.  The passages (=CO L, 101 and CO XLIII, 145–​46) are cited by Graham, The Constructive Revolutionary, 70–​71. 87.  These words come from a sermon on Matthew 3:9–​10 and are quoted by Graham, The Constructive Revolutionary, 71 (=CO XLVI, 552). 88. Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 2, 281; there he also refers the reader to Col. 3:5. 89. Beza, Poemata 1597, 279; Beza, Poemata 1599, 140r. Meter: iambic trimeter.

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Against those who hope for gain from evil If all good things depend on God alone—​something the conscience compels the impious to confess, even though it is addicted to all sorts of crime—​is anyone living in the world a bigger fool than that person, who imagines that he will be in possession of any good thing, when he spurns the very author of every good thing? Beza is essentially reminding his readers to “seek first the kingdom of God” from which they will be enriched and blessed as God deems fit. For many years the Company of Pastors prodded the Council to pass ordinances which would address excesses of expenditure and display as a way of managing and curbing these competitive, idolatrous tendencies in people. Through sermons on relevant passages in Timothy (1555) and Isaiah (1556), Calvin chided his congregations for flaunting their wealth, singling out the women especially for their immoderate hairstyle, jewelry, and dress.90 In 1558, the pastors sent Nicolas des Gallars, Calvin’s personal secretary, to the Small Council to request that something be done about wanton and unnecessary expenditure among the people.91 The Council eventually relented to these and other pressures, passing Geneva’s first set of sumptuary ordinances. Although early versions of these statutes appeared attatched to a list of other edicts in 1560, the first detailed and dedicated versions of them were published in 1564 (mainly focused on rules for dress) and 1566 (establishing restrictions on spending during celebrations and banquets).92 The Council modified both of these with increasingly greater stringency six more times before the publication of the Cato in 1591.93 Several prominent members of the 90. Marie Lucile de Gallatin, “Les ordonnances somptuaires à Genève au XVIe siècle,” Mémoires et Documents Publiés par la Société d’histoire et d’archéologie de Genève 36 (1938): 191–​ 277, esp. 198. 91.  Gallatin, “Les ordonnances somptuaires,” 213–​14. 92.  M-​L de Gallatin, “Les ordonnances somptuaires,” 212–​15. Gallatin gives evidence for the formulation of decrees as early as 1558, though no evidence exists that they were published. 93. Monter, Calvin’s Geneva, 215–​17; Corinne Walker, “Les lois somptuaires ou le rêve d’un ordre social. Evolution et enjeux de la politique somptuaire à Genève (XVIe–​XVIIIe siècles),” Equinox 11 (1994): 111–​27; M-​L de Gallatin, “Les ordonnances somptuaires,” 191–​277. For the observation of their increasing rigor (following Gallatin), see Christian Grosse, “Il y avoit eu trop grande rigueur par cy-​devant:’ La discipline ecclésiastique à Genève à l’époque de Théodore de Bèze,” in Théodore de Bèze (1519–​1605): Actes du colloque de Genève (septembre 2005), ed. Irena Backus (Geneva: Droz, 2007), 55–​68, esp. 64.

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community fell victim to these rules, including the wife of the magistrate Antoine Liffort in 1569 and that of Ami Varro in 1575, both for sporting expensive clothes.94 Even so, the Company of Pastors felt that the people were ignoring the laws and continued to grumble and issue remonstrances to the Small Council lamenting the lax enforcement. Twice in early February of 1577, for example, the Company sent Beza and other pastors to complain of lavish banqueting during weddings and baptisms and of women wrapping their hair with wimples of gold and silver and wearing golden belts and bracelets, both of which were forbidden.95 Later that year Beza complained from the pulpit of the magistrates’ inaction in maintaining order, while concurrently the Company of Pastors delivered a remonstrance to the Council censuring it for allowing disorder and confusion to fester in the city. These ministers pointed to the threat of an imminent attack from an alliance between the king of France, the Duke of Nemours, and the Duke of Savoy as a sign that God was enraged at the moral laxity in Geneva and ready to punish it as he once had a wayward Jerusalem.96 The comparison with Jerusalem expresses a feeling shared among the Genevan pastors that they inhabited a city specially chosen by God to restore his people to their intended estate. It also puts the pastors themselves in the position of being God’s prophets tasked with constantly reminding the community of faithful about his expectations and standards for living. If people were falling into a pattern of selfishness and greed while refusing to extend a helping hand to others less fortunate—​the antithesis of a godly society—​sumptuary laws could certainly attend to some of the contributing factors.97 However, since the city’s laws were sometimes insufficient or poorly enforced, it was important for the pastors to use their religious authority to censure such behavior and explain its ramifications from a theological perspective.

94. Monter, Calvin’s Geneva, 216. 95.  M-​L de Gallatin, “Les ordonnances somptuaires,” 239. 96. Choisy, L’état Chrétiene Calviniste 152–​56. This idea that God will exact punishment communally is sometimes called the “theology of retribution.” For its presence in many of the Protestant confessions, see Heinrich Schmidt, “Gemeinde und Sittenzucht in protestantischer Europa der Frühen Neuzeit,” in Theorien kommunaler Ordnung in Europa, ed. Peter Blickle (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1996), 181–​214. 97.  M-​L de Gallatin, “Les ordonnances somptuaires,” 198–​99:  among other vices, luxury leads to promiscuity, vanity, and pride.

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Two poems in the Cato, one against the greedy and the other against the envious, reveal to us in succinct form the key elements of such a censure. The first of the two reads as follows: In Avaros98 Amore quinam tangeretur Numinis? Amare quinam mutuo quemquam velit? Amare quinam velle sese dixerim Cui sola Numen unicum est Pecunia?99 Qui captat ex re turpe lucrum qualibet?  5 Qui vivit ipse carnifex saevus sibi? Exosus ergo est iure Avarus omnibus Ut qui sit hostis Numini, cunctis, sibi. Against the Greedy Tell me, how could he be touched with a love for God, or how could he hold out hope for reciprocal love, or how could I ever really say that he wants to love himself, seeing that money alone is his sole God, and that he hunts for gain from any shady business he can find, and that throughout his life he acts as his own cruel tormentor? Therefore, the greedy person is rightly hated by all, since he is an enemy to God, to all, to himself. The poem’s structure is built around the three varations of love alluded to in lines 1–​3, love for God, love for neighbor, and love for self, which are then mirrored in the final line by their counterparts of hate and enimity. The resulting bracketing created by the contrasting sentiments draws the focus to the main idea in lines 4–​6 of an all-​consuming, nonreciprocating love, that is, greed. Lines 4–​6 should be anchored to the first three questions, since each line corresponds to one of them: the greedy cannot love God, because they love money; they cannot build a trusting relationship, because they are only interested in gain; they cannot enjoy εὐθυμία or true peace of mind because the obsession with money harms them in numerous ways. 98. Beza, Cato 1591, 11–​12; Beza, Poemata 1597, 277; Beza, Poemata 1599, 139r. 99.  The phrase can also be observed in a poem by Friederich Taubmann about generosity titled “Fabiano Michaeli,” (J. Gruter, Delitiae Germanorum [Frankfurt: Jonas Rosa, 1612], 6:673; the poem was originally published in 1604 in the Schediasmata poetica): “Queis una Numen unicum est pecunia.”

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In the conclusion to the introduction of this book we described εὐθυμία as one of the primary goals of Reformed ethics. Christians understand that they can only achieve that state of blissful repose when they have found God’s place for them in creation. This entails a proper vertical relationship with God and a self-​sacrificing horizontal relationship with fellow Christians. The Consistory exercised its right, in varying degrees at various times, to punish those who threatened the fabric of society with disorder. It could suspend the guilty from participation in the Table and/​or recommend a punishment to the Small Council. In 1591, however, at a time when the Consistory was experiencing a dimunition of its authority and, as one can observe, a softening in the rigor of its disciplinary action, we see Beza’s Cato stressing the inescapable, natural consequences of sin. Regardless of how successfully the ecclesiastical tribunal was able to exact punishment for wrongdoing, or how strictly the magistrates enforced the ordinances, one truth seemed unchanging: sin alienates us from God and negates the possibility that we can experience happiness in his creation. Frustration and anxiety take its place. Beza’s emblem poem on the man with dropsy (discussed above) makes the same point:  it would seem on the surface that the man who gets whatever he wants, in this case another drink, is happy, but in fact the insatiable longing for a drink is a disease, not a means to happiness. Normally people assume that anyone who has accumulated great wealth also feels happy, but Beza wants to qualify the matter. Those who come into their wealth unjustly, that is, apart from God’s standard of righteousness, can no more find happiness or satisfaction than a man with dropsy can through drinking more. We recall that in line 6 of the Cato poem Beza underscores the point that the greedy suffer enormously by the very nature of their sin. “He acts as his own cruel tormentor” he writes, conjuring up an image that would have been familiar and terrifying to most Genevans. The tormenter or executioner (carnifex) carried out the directives of the magistrates against the guilty with an acute cruelty that shocks modern sensibilities. Prisoners were often strung up, broken, and twisted to elicit a confession about adultery or some other crime. Botched and mishandled executions could turn into protracted ordeals of torment, as happened with the two Comparet brothers who were embroiled in the Libertine controversy in 1555.100 Beza warns that the greedy inflict 100. See Registers of the Consistory of Geneva in the Time of Calvin, eds. Robert M. Kingdon, Thomas A. Lambert, and Isabella M. Watt, trans. M. Wallace McDonald (Grand Rapids,

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this same kind of agony upon themselves. Though he does not specify precisely how the greedy torment themselves, he no doubt is remembering the old trope of the insatiable, singleminded person who will endure anything and everything to accumulate more possessions. “The greedy person cannot think about his possessions as satisfying real needs and so becomes the tormenter and executioner of his own mind,” wrote the Jesuit scholar Cornelius a Lapide (1567–​1637) while explaining Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 14:4, “since for greed he compels his mind to endure thirst, hunger, cold, heat, and sweat. If he endured these things for the sake of God, he would earn much praise; instead, because he does it for greed, he deserves the opposite and summons upon himself additional punishments in this life and the one to come.”101 Lapide adds that the greedy derive additional emotional torment from the fact that the treasures stored up through their relentless toil and stress inevitably go to others. If they live long enough to see them spending that wealth prodigiously, the sight becomes for them a cross and affliction. The sumptuary laws were aimed at curbing and redirecting this misplaced, self-​destructive love of the greedy. They were also calculated to tamp down the kind of resentment and rivalry that originates from an unneccessary display of good fortune. Nevertheless, it was impossible to conceal the fact that some people in Geneva were better off than others or had blessings of a nature that others lacked. God’s plan for mankind did not include an equal distribution of advantages. In view of that truth, Beza’s Cato likewise warns the faithful to learn humble contentment with what God has given them according to his infinite wisdom. Otherwise, like the greedy, they should expect to experience torment and spiritual anguish. The following poem of the Cato is addressed to them specifically:

MI: Eerdmans, 1996), 161, n. 607 for information on the two brothers and the relevant references. For more examples of cruel torture and Calvin’s role in it, see Hugh Young Reyburn, John Calvin: His Life, Letters, and Work (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1914), 202–​05. 101.  Cornelius a Lapide, Commentarii in Sacram Scripturam (Malta:  Bibliographic Society, 1846 [the commentary on Ecclesiasticus originally appeared at Lyon in 1633]), vol. 5, pt. 1, 355–​56: “Nam primo, avarus usum opum subtrahit suae animae, itaque tortor et carnifex est animae suae, dum prae avaritia cogit eam sitire, esurire, frigere, aestuare, sudare: quod si haec Dei causa subiret, multum utique apud eum mereretur; iam quia ob avaritiam ea subit, adeo non meretur, ut demereatur, ac novas huius vitae et futurae poenas sibi accersat.”

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In Invidos102 Vos inferorum lurido infimo ex specu Haustis venenis pectus omne turgidi, Nec vestra ferre qui potestis commoda, Rebus favere nec bonorum prosperis: Abire quonam iussero vos, Invidi,  5 Quos nec pati mundus queat superstites, Nec ipsa forsan tartara ferant mortuos? Nempe esse vobis inferorum ut omnium103 Instar soletis, semper esse pergite. Et mutuo vos perdite, Invidi, Invidos,  10 Quum miserius nil esse possit Invidis. Against the Envious You, with your heart completely swollen from poisons drawn out of the depths of the ghastly dungeon of the dead, who are not able to accept your own blessings, nor countenance the prosperity of good people, whither will I bid you go, envious ones, whom alive the world is not able to suffer, nor perchance would Tartarus itself bear dead! Ah, of course, here’s what I bid: As you are typically a complete Hell to yourselves, continue to always be that way, and destroy one another, envious against envious, since nothing could be more wretched than the envious. In the Scriptures, James (3.14–​16; 4.2) cautions the faithful of the diaspora that bitter jealousy and selfish ambition do not represent a heavenly wisdom, but one that is earthly and demonic. As the opposite of all that is pure and perfectly ordered—​wisdom from above rejoices when good things happen to a neighbor—​the vice of quarrelsome jealousy (invidia et rixa) leads to “an unquiet life and all manner of evil works.”104 The rendering inquietata vita (unquiet life) in Beza’s 1598 edition of the New

102. Beza, Cato 1591, 12; Beza, Poemata 1597, 278; Beza, Poemata 1599, 139r–​v. Meter: iambic trimeter. 103.  For this phrase Goulart has “Comme vous soulez estre à vous cent mille enfers (as you are wont to be for yourselves a hundred thousand Hells).” 104. Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 2, 451.

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Testament (glossed in the annotations with the Greek παραχή, meaning confusion or disorder) replaces tumultatio of earlier editions (translated as “sedition” in the Geneva Bible). This slight change allows Beza to underscore the kind of life that is undone when citizens contend over prestige and advantages: God wants his people to live in peace and harmony, free from the kind of anxiety and self-​centeredness inherent in rivalry. As the antithesis of God’s wisdom and a “demonic” trait, envy is one of the quintissential attributes of Satan in his rebellion against God. It is his lack of contentment, his demonic and disruptive invidia, that pits Christian against Christian and spawns quarrels and dissension within the Church, along with a disdain for the reasonable and gentle order of God. Beza develops this same point within the context of original sin in a work written against Tileman Heshusen and attached to the Kreophagia of 1561.105 While making the point that Adam’s fall was an opportunity for God to demonstrate both his grace and his justice, Beza raises the question why Satan contends with God when ultimately his imprudence serves the plan of God. He answers, “It is because he hates God, and in his whole being he burns with envy, and wants to sow strife between God and men.”106 In this view, then, envy was present at the very moment of Satan’s rebellion against God; it was, in fact, something that he invented, an aspect of the original sin, the source of all other evil, and the rejection of the wisdom of Heaven. The association of envy with the original sin of Satan allows Beza to locate its wellspring in the very deepest chambers of Hell. This imagery is strengthened by a passage in the Song of Solomon (8.6), where envy is said to resemble Hell in its severity and with Hell’s “flashes of fire” whereby the wicked are punished. Thus for Beza, envy fills the heart with poisons drawn from the lowest of all Hells, a dark and dank (lurido, line 1) lowest level of Hell, in which the wicked experience the tortures appropriate to all other levels (an idea implied by inferorum ut omnium, line 8). But there is an additional element here too, which can be understood from Calvin’s commentary on the tenth commandment against coveting. Calvin notes there that although the sins of stealing and adultery were already touched upon in

105. Beza, Κρεωφαγία, sive Cyclops and the Abstersio aliarum calumniarum quibus aspersus et Ioannes Calvinus ab eodem Heshusio (Geneva: Conrad Badius, 1561); I have used the version at Tractationes Theologicae, I, 312–​36. 106. Beza, Tractationes Theologicae, 320: “Nempe quia Deum odit, et totus invidia exaestuat, inimicitias serere voluit inter Deum et hominem.”

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earlier commandments, which would seem to encompass the desire to steal and commit adultery as well, the tenth commandment is not a redundancy but instead an unequivocable command to keep the law not only through outward obedience, but also through inward, spiritual obedience. In other words, “to covet,” that is, to experience lust, concupiscence, and envy, speaks to the initial cause of all the practical matters of moral integrity touched on by the other parts of the Law; thus, the other sins crescendo to that one initial sinful impulse. Coveting is the sinful desire implanted in the heart (not a passing desire that does not affect the mind in any way) that if the will gives way, could lead to the full-​blown sinful act. Either one, the thought or the action, renders a person guilty before God, because at its core the Law is spiritual. Calvin points to James 1.15 as confirmation of the paradigm: “Then when lust has conceived, it brings forth sin; and when sin is finished, brings forth death.” Lust is bound up with jealousy, envy, and covetousness, which are in essence all desires for something that one does not already possess. Beza echoes Calvin’s sentiments in his own comments on James 1:15 when explaining the type of sin being discussed in the passage: He is talking here about the sin which they call actual; since it proceeds from the root (that is, cupidity), and, since the fruit and the tree must be of the same quality and nature [sc. as the root], it follows that even those first impulses be included under the term sin, as is explained fully at Romans 5 and in many other passages.107 Cupidity, as lust in the previous passage, stands in close association with envy, and, in fact, Beza links these words, cupidus and invidia, in his translation of Gal. 5.26 when talking about spiritual fruits. Part of belonging to Christ, Paul says, is the crucifixion of the flesh together with affections and desires (Gal. 5.24). This latter phrase Beza translates as “cum affectibus et concupiscentiis,” and explains his choice of affectibus on the basis of Cicero’s interpretation of the word to refer to “disturbances and diseases of the mind.” The point is, envy does not have in view a specific actualization of a sin, but is an internal, mental, and spiritual disorder, that is, a Satanic poisoning of the heart leading to numerous other sins.

107. Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 2, 443: “Peccatum intellige quod actuale vocant, quod quum a radice (id est a cupiditate) prodeat, necesse sit autem fructum et arborem eiusdem esse indolis ac naturae, consequitur et ipsos primos motus, peccati nomine generalius accepto censeri, sicut copiose expositum est Rom. cap. 5, et aliis multis locis.”

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Conclusion One way to unravel the subtleties of Beza’s thinking about lending at interest is to examine the position set forth by his friend and colleague, Lambert Daneau.108 In his Ethices Christianae, Daneau treats at length the matter of usury in conjunction with the eighth commandment, as Medieval theologians had done.109 There he reviews many of the fine distinctions made in the debate over usury throughout history. He begins by listing the relevant scriptural passages and discussing the significance of the Hebrew words that are used. Along the way he alludes to numerous classical and patristic passages, including the fundamental argument of Aristotle, Plutarch’s comparison with the snake, and the unwavering stance of Ambrose. He touches on some of the scholastic contributions as well. In the end, however, he is struck by the confusion that remains. He concludes by summing up his own opinion as follows (he refers the reader to Calvin’s commentary on Exodus 22:25 for a similar, fuller exposition): given that we must refer all things to Christian charity, as Paul says at 1 Timothy 1:5, we should turn to charity as our guide in thinking about and defining the limits of usury. When we make a loan, we are either coming to the aid of a neighbor in need, or we are helping someone who is trying to make a profit. “If we come to the aid of someone in need and give them a loan,” he says, “for example, as in the case of someone who requests money so he can support himself and feed his family, it is contrary to nature and the precepts of Christian charity to demand interest, since often the principal itself has to be pardoned and forgiven.”110 To demand interest in this case is equivalent to theft and is a kind of “land piracy.”111 However, when making a loan to a brother who is seeking to make a profit or buy some property, or even to make improvements on his property, then it is permissable to demand interest on the

108.  The latter looked to both Calvin and Beza as his mentors, and, as we have noted earlier, Beza encouraged and supported Daneau’s theological writings; the two were certainly like-​minded in matters of religion and doctrine. For a biography of Daneau one may still consult Paul de Félice, Lambert Daneau, pasteur et professeur en théologie (Paris:  Librairie Fischbaucher, 1882). 109. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 2.15, 550–​55. 110. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 266r:  “Si egenti succurrimus mutuumque damus, velut qui quaerit, petitque a nobis unde se exhibeat et suam familiam alat, contra naturam est contraque Christianae charitatis praecepta, si quis ab eo accessionem exigat ullam, cum saepe etiam sors ipsa remittenda sit et donanda.” 111. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 266v: “piratica terrestris.”

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principal, or a share in that property, to the degree that it is in accord with public law and justice. One can perform this act with a clean conscience and without violating Christian charity. Further, almost everyone agrees that if the lender shares in the risk, as in a joint venture, then it is certainly fair to make a profit. What is important, he concludes, is that the interest not “bite.”112 He adds that here is also a political aspect to the precept, particularly in the passage where the Jews are allowed to charge foreigners interest on a loan (Deuteronomy 23:20) and in Aristotle’s assertion at Nichomachean Ethics 5: to lend at interest has value in that it preserves the commerce that holds together human society. Daneau’s line of reasoning lends credence to the claim that “love of neighbor” was central in Beza’s mind when writing about morality, including usury. This contrasts distinctly with Charles George’s opinion that Beza proved Calvin’s “theocracy” to be severe through his treatment of usurers,113 and to Alister McGrath’s argument that under Beza and his colleagues, Geneva’s disciplinary body, the Consistory, “appears to have lost its sense of direction, and degenerated into little more than a crude instrument of social control, verging on the hysterical.”114 For Beza, the Christian life is not defined by a top-​down imposition of arbitrary rules, nor does it find conviction of spiritual union with God through an internal, self-​involved, and self-​denying purification. The ethics of the individual comprises more than anything a process of integrating oneself into the kingdom of God, both as it is manifest here on earth through the body of Christ and the community of believers, and eventually and perfectly in the heavenly abode before the presence of God himself. In short, ethics for Beza are Christian citizenship not in the sense that the citizen lays claim to a set of consitutional rights, but in the sense that certain corporate responsibilities and expectations are

112. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 266r: “Primum illam prohibitionem ex nostra distinctione esse intelligendam, quia acessio non damnatur, quae non mordet.” 113.  Charles George, “English Calvinist Opinion on Usury, 1600–​1640,” Journal of the History of Ideas 18 (1957): 455–​74. 114.  Alister McGrath, The Life of John Calvin (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), 113–​14. Scott Manetsch, Calvin’s Company of Pastors, , 211, suspects that the sharp increase in activity before the Consistory after the death of Calvin was an attempty by the Company of Pastors to enact Calvin’s vision for a Godly society, but that after 1569, when one sees a decline in cases before the Consistory, there came a recognition that the “frenetic rate of censure … had not been successful in transforming moral behavior in the city.” The Cato sheds light on the ethical ideals behind Beza’s disciplinary activities and shows him to have his focus foremost on the harmony and well-​being of society as opposed to how the Church might exert its power and authority over its congregation.

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incumbent upon a citizen.115 This comes out clearly in Beza’s annotations on Luke 6:35, a passage that many theologians employed in their discussion of usury, but which Beza interprets in much more sweeping terms. In commenting on the phrase, “hoping from that,” he writes, I admit that nowhere else have I read “apelpizein” with this meaning, since properly it means “despairing.” And certainly the Lord in this passage could be seen as considering what, generally speaking, keeps people from lending money to a brother in need (they are too afraid that they’ll lose what they lend to them), and therefore he wants to wrest that fear away from us and lead us to the point that as often as we help a neighbor in the name of God, never does that thought enter our minds that we did it to our detriment. The reason is, God himself interposes himself as a surety and bond, that whatever we lend, we will receive back and with much interest. If we follow that interpretation, then in place of “hoping from that” we will have to say, “despairing.” The Syrian translator interpreted it this way. But even so I did not wish to deviate from the received interpretation, since that too makes good sense, and in many words it is apparent that the preposition has a similar force, as in the case of “apechein” and “apolambanein,” that is, to receive from another, and “apografein,” to copy from another,” and many others. Therefore, we are bid to make a loan, not because we know that we will receive the loan back later, but motivated only by a desire for helping our neighbor. For, they are mistaken who distort this passage into a prohibition of usury, as if Christ prohibits contracting for and exacting anything beyond the principal. But it is certain that, if we are supposed to help our neighbor without any thought of getting our money back, so much the more are usurious contracts prohibited.116

115.  It is ironic that, at the very time the Catholic Church is embracing usury (Jones, Reforming the Morality of Usury, 4; 35–​36), especially as it was stated at the Fifth Lateran Council (1512–​ 1517), the Protestant reformers were strongly denouncing its most abusive forms and treating all loaning at interest, in theological terms, as a concession to human moral weakness. The reason for the discrepancy may be that the reformers were envisioning Christian life within a more tightly knit community, and not on an international and multicultural stage. 116. Beza, Annotationes 1598, part 1, 263: “Inde sperantes, ἀπελπίζοντες. Fateor me nusquam alibi legisse ἀπελπίζειν in hac significatione, quum proprie declaret τὸ ἀπογινώσκειν, id est, desperare. Et certe videri possit Dominus hoc loco considerare quid plerunque soleat homines deterrere ne fratri inopi pecuniam credant (quia nimirum metuunt ne pereat quod inopi creditur), ideoque nobis istum metum velle extorquere, et nos huc adducere, ut quoties proximum in nomine Dei iuverimus, nunquam illa cogitatio nostros animos subeat, nostro

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Here again Beza entertains the idea so favored among the Patristic writers that God himself will pay back the interest on a loan to the poor. More importantly, though, Beza reveals precisely and unmistakably what underlies his impassioned prohibition of lending at interest in the “In foeneratores”:  it is not because Christ imposed that rule upon believers specifically, but because the usurious contract countermands brotherly love, which stands in the forefront as the guiding ethical principle.117

damno id esse a nobis factum; quum Deus ipse quasi vadem et sponsorem se interponat, fore ut multo etiam cum foenore, quicquid crediderimus, recipiamus. Hanc autem interpretationem si sequamur, pro Inde sperantes, dicendum erit, Desperantes; et ita hunc locum intellexit Syrus interpres. Sed tamen nolui ex recepta interpretatione quicquam mutare, quum et ipsa commodum sensum habeat, et in multis verbis similem vim esse appareat praepositionis ἀπὸ, ut in ἀπέχειν, et ἀπολαμβάνειν, id est, ab alio accipere, et ἀπογράθειν, ab alio describere; et  aliis plurimis. Itaque iubemur mutuum dare, non quia nos postea mutuum recepturos sciamus, sed solo iuvandi proximi affectu impulsi. Falluntur enim qui hunc locum ad foenoris prohibitionem detorquent, quasi prohibeat Christus quicquam supra sortem pacisci vel exigere. Illud tamen certum est, si iuvandus est proximus, etiam nulla recipiendae sortis habita ratione, multo magis prohiberi foeneratorias pactiones.” 117.  This coincides with Calvin’s assertions in Praelectiones in Libris Prophetiarum Jeremiae et Lamentationes (=CO 39:431 [first published at Geneva at the press of Jean Crespin in 1563]): “In a well-​ordered state no usurer is to be tolerated: even profane men recognize this. Therefore whoever practises fenory as an occupation ought to be banished from all human fellowship. For if there be any mean tricks that earn ill will for the users of them, to be an usurer is beyond doubt mean and money-​grubbing, and unworthy of any upright or honorable man … And certainly an usurer will always be a brigand, that is, whoever makes a living out of fenory will be a robber and in his wickedness will go on the prowl, just as if there were no laws, no fairness, in short, no brotherly love among men … As I have said, the usurer should have no place in, nor be tolerated in, the Church of God (In republica bene constituta nemo foenerator tolerabilis est: etiam hoc viderunt profani homines. Quisquis ergo ex professo foeneratur, ille omnino debet ab hominum consortio rejici. Nam si quaedam artes illiberales invidia onerant eos qui ipsis utuntur, foenerari certe est quaestus et illiberalis, et indignus homine tam pio, quam honesto … Et certe foenerator semper erit latro, hoc est, qui quaestum faciet ex foenore, ille praedo erit, et grassabitur eius iniquitas perinde acsi nullae essent, nulla aequitas, nullus denique mutuus amor inter homines … Foenerator, ut dixi, locum habere non debet, neque ferri in Ecclesia Dei).”

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Figure  1  A Captain with His Ship Full of Holes, Sinking Himself along with his Shipmates and Ship, from Theodore Beza, Poemata varia (Geneva:  Jacob Stoer, 1599), 131v. Engraver: Pierre Eskrich.

Figure 2  A Blacksmith Striking the Anvil Itself, from Theodore Beza, Poemata varia (Geneva: Jacob Stoer, 1599), 114v. Engraver: Pierre Eskrich.

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Figure  3  A Dog Barking at the Moon, from Theodore Beza, Poemata varia (Geneva: Jacob Stoer, 1599), 122r. Engraver: Pierre Eskrich.

Figure  4  The Sea Stirred Up by the Winds, and a King with a Roman Catholic Priest on His Right and a Cardinal on His Left, from Theodore Beza, Poemata varia (Geneva: Jacob Stoer, 1599), 123r. Engraver: Pierre Eskrich.

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Figure  5  A Criminal Escapes Punishment by Swimming, But in the End Is Burned, from Theodore Beza, Poemata varia (Geneva:  Jacob Stoer, 1599), 132r. Engraver: Pierre Eskrich.

Figure 6  One Crocodile Pursuing Someone Fleeing and the Other Fleeing a Pursuing Man, from Theodore Beza, Poemata varia (Geneva:  Jacob Stoer, 1599), 128r. Engraver: Pierre Eskrich.

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Figure 7  A Man with Dropsy Taking a Drink, from Theodore Beza, Poemata varia (Geneva: Jacob Stoer, 1599), 119r. Engraver: Pierre Eskrich.

Figure  8  A Man, While Walking along a Patch of Ice, Dying When It Breaks Apart, from Theodore Beza, Les vrais pourtraits (Geneva: Jean de Laon, 1581), 259. Engraver: Pierre Eskrich.

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Figure  9  Water Is Being Poured into Leaky Pots, from Theodore Beza, Poemata varia (Geneva: Jacob Stoer, 1599), 129r. Engraver: Pierre Eskrich.

Figure 10  Little Boys Building Small Houses out of Stubble and Bits of Wood, from Theodore Beza, Poemata varia (Geneva: Jacob Stoer, 1599), 124v. Engraver: Pierre Eskrich.

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Figure 11  A Bird Escaping from a Broken Cage, from Theodore Beza, Poemata varia (Geneva: Jacob Stoer, 1599), 119v. Engraver: Pierre Eskrich.

Figure 12  A Ship Sinking in Port, Theodore Beza, Poemata varia (Geneva: Jacob Stoer, 1599), 120r. Engraver: Pierre Eskrich.

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Figure  13  A Blacksmith Smoothing Iron with a File, a Peasant Threshing Out the Harvest, from Theodore Beza, Poemata varia (Geneva:  Jacob Stoer, 1599), 121r. Engraver: Pierre Eskrich.

Figure 14  A Horse Galloping after Throwing Its Rider, from Theodore Beza, Poemata varia (Geneva: Jacob Stoer, 1599), 117r. Engraver: Pierre Eskrich.

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Figure  15  A Barrel Falling Apart Because Its Hoops Have Been Broken, from Theodore Beza, Poemata varia (Geneva: Jacob Stoer, 1599), 118r. Engraver: Pierre Eskrich.

Figure  16  Two People Traveling in the Opposite Direction, One with His Shadow Preceding Him, the Other with His Shadow Behind Him, from Theodore Beza, Poemata varia (Geneva: Jacob Stoer, 1599), 118v. Engraver: Pierre Eskrich.

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Sexuality in Geneva Thus far in our study we have chronicled the efforts of Beza and his like-​ minded colleagues to shape Genevan society by building on Calvin’s theological and anthropological vision. They used the Consistory, the pulpit, and the written word to encourage their citizens to adopt an ethos of mutual support, simple honesty, hard work, and complete obedience to the Word. All of these moral ideals served their aim of reconstituting the well-​ordered, fair, and healthy community through which God had originally intended to bless mankind and be glorified. In this chapter we turn to another aspect of their program, the classification and regulation of physical interactions within the community. For the Reformed leaders, the sexual misuse of the individual body reverberated throughout the entire body politic and led to numerous grave consequences. On the surface, this outlook may not seem particularly earthshaking. Obviously, most Christians agreed with them that the Scriptures make adultery and other extramarital sexual acts a crime before God; but our interest here is in the more pragmatic principles that guided these reformers as they tried to suppress and respond to instances of both adultery and fornication in their midst. What concrete considerations for their overall program led them to treat these illegitimate physical unions as a uniquely insidious problem within the State? Without question they felt that civil and ecclesiastical authorities had drifted in their resolve and convictions on the matter of sex and that they themselves were called to restore and even enforce an appreciation for the sanctity of the body. As a point of departure we begin with a letter that Beza wrote to his friend Rudolf Gwalther, the antistes of Zurich and successor to Bullinger,

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on February 18, 1582, together with a related letter of protest and recommendation (avis) written a few months earlier by Beza on behalf of the Company of Pastors to the Council of Two Hundred.1 When the letter to Gwalther was written, Calvin had been dead for nearly eighteen years, during which time Beza served as moderator of the Company of Pastors and positioned himself as a respected voice in the international Reformed movement. The central portion of the letter relates Beza’s concerns about a recent and striking adultery case that occurred at Geneva involving a certain Susanne Fontaine, wife of Jean Besson.2 Susanne appears to have been on very familiar terms with numerous important men in the city of Geneva, both married and unmarried, and perhaps could best be described as a married prostitute. She was arrested and interrogated on October 10, 1581, found guilty of committing adultery multiple times, and condemned to die by drowning in the Rhone, the typical capital punishment for women at Geneva in this period. When news of her arrest spread throughout Geneva, a dozen or so citizens fled, knowing that they had exposed themselves to the punishments provided in an edict published in 1566 dealing with prostitutes and adulterers.3 According to the edict, those who engaged in double adultery (cases involving two married people), or who illicitly cavorted with servants of their own household, were to undergo capital punishment; fornicators (les simples paillardises entre gens non mariez) and other adulterers (usually a married man having sex with an unmarried woman) were to be reprimanded by the Consistory and then thrown into prison for nine to twelve days on bread and water. In most instances, they also were forced to endure three hours of public humiliation on the pillory (i.e., the stockade). One of Susanne’s unlucky lovers, a married man, had been arrested and executed as well. Among the many culprits who had snuck away to avoid prosecution was Jean Sarasin, 1. Beza, Corr. XXIII (1582), 14–​19 (no 1505, Feb. 18, 1582) and, in the same volume, 228–​32 (Appendix 1b, “Avis de Bèze au Conseil de Genève sur la Stricte Observation de l’Édit,” dated Nov. 15, 1581). 2.  The case of Susanne Fontaine is discussed in E. Choisy, L’Etat chrétien calviniste au temps de Théodore de Bèze (Geneva:  Ch. Eggiman, 1902), 201–​13 with additional details at Beza, Corr. XXIII (1582), 17, fn. 4. 3.  Edits et ordonnances de la cité de Genève sur les crimes de paillardise et adultères (Geneva: François Perrin, 1566). The document contains eight octavo pages and was republished several times, including a 1577 reprint at the press of Jean Durant. The key passage is on page 8: “La femme mariee qui aura paillardé, sera pour les causes ci dessus declarees, punie de mort. L’homme marié qui aura commis adultere avec la femme mariee, sera semblablement puni de mort.”

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a twenty-​nine-​year-​old man with a promising political career. He appealed to the diaciosi (members of the Council of Two Hundred) in absentia to pardon him or at least not punish him in a way that would diminish his standing in the community. He argued that he was only twenty-​one years old when he began his affair with Susanne and, because he had been away awhile, did not know that she was married. This was an important point to make, since the edict specifically stated that an unmarried man fornicating with a married woman was to be whipped publicly and permanently banished.4 Sarasin humbly promised to submit himself to their paternal correction in the future, so long as they were willing to forgive him this time and offer him protection from the harshest penalties prescribed by the edict. Much to the dismay of the Small Council and the Company of Pastors, and against their ardent recommendations, the Council of Two Hundred ignored the 1566 edict and reduced the sentences of the absent fornicators to nominal terms of imprisonment offset by fines as part of an effort to uphold their reputations. In the letter to Gwalther, Beza is keen to make two points:  first, he argues that harsh punishments had to be instituted for adulterers at Geneva because sinful people “feared laws more than the Word of God.”5 This echoes the sentiment of the preamble to the grand remonstrance (one addressed generally to the magistrates and public), issued on November 3, 1579, where the ministers complain that “most people are so perverse that they fear more the rod of the magistrate than the scepter of the Word of God.”6 It also recalls the Reformed doctrine of the “second use” of the law, the notion that “dreadful punishments” function to restrain evil and curb injustice. According to Beza, the edict prescribed capital punishment for those who commit adultery, whether simple or double, while the pillory and a whipping were to be applied to fornicators.7 In previous years, Beza 4.  Edits, 7: “L’homme non marié qui aura paillardé avec la femme mariee, sera condamné et puni par le fouët public, et banni perpetuellement.” 5. Beza, Corr. XXIII (1582), 15: “quorum legum metu potius quam Dei verbo.” 6.  RCP IV, 300: “C’est que la pluspart des hommes estant si perverse qu’elle craint plus la verge du Magistrat que le sceptre de la Paraloe de Dieu.” 7.  The law is much more nuanced than Beza makes it out to be. For example, the edict says that a fornicator was only whipped for his or her third offense (Edits, 6):  “Pour la troisieme fois l’homme sera puni au fouët public, et banni perpetuellement, à peine de la vie.” And simple adulterers were not always assigned the death penalty or banished (Edits, 7): “L’homme marié ayant paillardé avec une femme non mariee, pour la premiere fois sera puni par prison douze iours au pain et à l’eau, et condamné à estre trois heures au collier, sans bannissement.” But it should be noted that Sarasin had carried on with Susanne for

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explains, the sentence of simple imprisonment with fines had not sufficed to control them. Malefactors in the city murmured and neighboring cities objected to the new law, he concedes, but the end result has been that few judgments of this sort have been necessary. In other words, to his mind the threat of death or severe public humiliation, as codified in the 1566 Edict, for the most part successfully checked vices and constrained wrongdoers. Second, through the precedent set by the handling of the fugitives, Beza recognizes that the reins on sin are likely to be loosened with time, leading to a lamentable diminishing of moral restraint. Although the Council vows hereafter to apply the edict on sexual crimes, he and his colleagues know “well enough this is headed nowhere but to leniency for even the most guilty.”8 He himself does not doubt that God’s resolute anger hangs over them. He imagines God will curse the city as it begins to deviate from his strict moral standards, just as he once did the Israelites when they strayed. He ends with the hope that “the Small Council will resist retreating from the plan,” by which he means the plan to check sexual sin through the strict 1566 Edict.9 These are basically the same arguments that the pastors, led by Beza himself, used in the avis mentioned above to defend the edict against what the Council decided about the fugitives. There they call it “the grand treasure” (le grand tresor) of which other States are deprived, a source of blessing from God and a tool for suppressing “the great confusion” (les grandes confusions) that exists in other places and that plagued Geneva before it embraced the reform. They conclude:  “For these reasons and the ones laid out by the Small Council, the pastors urge the Messieurs to keep the honor and glory of God before their eyes, as well as the conservation of this city.”10 Beza and his fellow pastors were confident that the mechanisms of moral control that had been set in place at Geneva were key to producing

six years (see Beza, Corr. XXIII [1582], 17, n. 4), and so his case could have seemed even less worthy of a reduced sentence. 8. Beza, Corr. XXIII (1582), 15: “tamen satis animadvertimus non alio tendere quam ad ipsorum tandem nocentissimorum impunitatem.” 9. Beza, Corr. XXIII (1582), 15: “Senatum quidem certe spero obstiturum quominus longius a scopo regrediamur.” 10. Beza, Corr. XXIII (1582), 230: “Ainsy ilz recommandent à Messieurs d’avoir l’honneur et la gloire de Dieu devant les yeux, et la conservaion de cest Estat, tant pour ces raisons que aultres proposees en Petit Conseil qu’ilz on repeté chacun separement.” Cf. RCP 3:117, 126–29, 287–​90; 4:121–​22, 167–​68, 323–​35.

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a community that can receive God’s approbation and sustaining benevolence. They also believed strongly that adultery threatened to undo that same community by introducing “confusion” or an uncertainty and turmoil in interpersonal relationships. The building blocks of society are fractured when the promises and vows that created them are disregarded. Fornication could also bring about social confusion, if not to the same degree as adultery. This is evident from what follows in the same letter to Gwalther in which the Fontaine case is described. Beza follows up his heated assessment of how that case was handled with a more politic narrative about another incident of sexual impropriety. The case involved younger men—​Beza calls them boys, but they appear to be around twenty—​ and an unmarried servant girl who had become pregnant. Beza relates to Gwalther how the pregnant girl was arrested and in the process of interrogation named two Zurichers who were students at the Academy, Johann Jakob Koller and Johann Heinrich Schwytzer. Gwalther had recommended them to Beza for the Genevan school some two years earlier and thus had a vested interest in what happened. The servant girl claimed she engaged in sex with both boys and Koller made her pregnant. Koller was brought in and confessed to “some minor indiscretions” (nonnulla parum honesta), but denied he could have made her pregnant. The girl, however, provided details convincing authorities to arrest Koller so they could put him on trial. Meanwhile, Schwytzer managed to elude them. Beza explains to Gwalther that the girl was banished from Genevan territory while Koller was released through the influence of Hans Heinrich Lochmann, an important merchant from Zurich. In a later letter to Gwalther he adds the detail that the boy was admonished sharply at his release, but was neither condemned nor absolved, only told to return with renewed diligence to his studies.11 Even so, Koller responded by leaving the city immediately. In the same letter, Beza tries to reassure Gwalther the incident has not hurt the boy’s reputation such that he cannot recover from it, though in the earlier letter he indicated his annoyance that such commotion might give a bad reputation both to the school and to the other hardworking students. Notably, Beza seems satisfied in this instance that the servant girl was banished and the foreign student Koller, who, we might add, was from a respected Zurich family, was given suitable remonstrances and sent back

11.  The letter referred to is no 1507 of Beza, Corr. XXIII (1582), esp. 25.

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to his books. The girl bore the marks of her guilt more obviously and, no doubt, lacked the family ties to protect her from the full brunt of the law. Such was the state of affairs in 1582 in Geneva. If, as Beza says in the 1581 Avis, these uniquely strict policies were not always in place in Geneva, one has to wonder precisely how they originated. What factors led the Genevans to adopt such stringent laws? In his study titled Adultery and Sexuality in Calvin’s Geneva, Robert Kingdon examines several cases of adultery at Geneva during the period of Calvin’s ecclesiastical ascendancy and through them traces the evolution of the policing and punishing of sexual infidelity.12 Kingdon notes that initially Genevan officials were loathe to grant a divorce for any reason and preferred to put their energy into forcing the reconciliation of a couple alienated by adultery. He attributes this to the contractual significance of marriage for the Genevans and the widespread complications that would arise from the rupturing of a family. In other words, marriage brought together not only the two individuals immediately involved, but extended families along with property, dowries, businesses, and other obligations. It also sometimes involved a staff of servants who lived in close proximity to the family. In a tight-​knit and relatively small city such as Geneva, a divorce could create enmities and conflicts with a significant ripple effect, and thus do serious damage to the city. But so could sexual infidelity. To discover in the story that Calvin and his colleagues were the first to push for the possibility of divorce in Geneva specifically on the grounds of adultery, a justification to which they also added abandonment, is an unexpected turn. Yet what could seem on the surface a concession to human weakness and a disregard for old Genevan entanglements was really something much more complex and foreboding. The reformers did not view divorce as simply a chance for both parties to make a clean start and a new life. Kingdon argues that the Small Council depended more and more on the opinions of professional jurisconsults who used both Jewish and Roman laws to encourage a wider acceptance of the idea that

12.  Robert M. Kingdon, Adultery and Divorce in Calvin’s Geneva (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995). I  have also depended on the following:  Robert M. Kingdon and Thomas Lambert, Reforming Geneva:  Discipline, Faith and Anger in Calvin’s Geneva (Geneva:  Droz, 2012), 95–​99; Philip Benedict, Christ’s Churches Purely Reformed:  A  Social History of Calvinism (New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press, 2002); Thomas Lambert, “Preaching, Praying, and Policing the Reform in Sixteenth-​Century Geneva,” PhD diss., University of Wisconsin-​ Madison, 1998; Jeffrey Watt, “Women and the Consistory in Calvin’s Geneva,” SCJ 24 (1993): 429–​39; William G. Naphy, Calvin and the Consolidation of the Genevan Reformation (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994). Also valuable are the Annales calviniani (CO 21), a compilation of excerpts from Genevan registers.

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executing adulterers who are especially promiscuous is appropriate. These opinions at the same time squared with the pastors’ view that the Scriptures support capital punishment for marital infidelity. Under these kinds of pressures, some adulterers received death sentences as early as 1560, although in those cases there seem to have been extenuating circumstances that justified the verdict. By 1566, the edict codifying the extreme penalty was in place. Kingdon also traces the problem of desertion and whether confessional differences could be used as grounds for divorce. In this too the jurisconsults played a key role, but the initial impetus was provided by the case of Galeazzo Caracciolo, an Italian nobleman who had come to Geneva and sought to be relieved of his Catholic wife who remained in Italy. Beza’s own treatise on divorce, first published in 1569, may be a direct outcome of this case, but also represents a culmination of twenty or so years of wrangling with such cases by the Small Council and Consistory. Kingdon interprets this work as an attempt to codify a new understanding of divorce based primarily on moral considerations (as opposed to the material ones of the councils) that could guide Reformed communities anywhere. He does not explain exactly how it does this, and so we will return to Beza’s work below to answer this question. While studying the specific cases of adultery that led to divorce, Kingdon alludes again and again to a detail that is of special interest for the present study. Often in the proceedings of a case, it came up that the accused engaged in illicit sex in some way that concretely threatened the family’s well-​being and stability. The cases deemed most dangerous always had some blatantly subversive aspect to them. Pierre Ameaux, for example, accused his wife Benoite of a kind of free love espoused among some Anabaptist sects of the day. She was affectionate with many men and believed that the Scriptures endorsed the idea that all men were her husbands. She denied that there should be one husband for each wife and insisted that love should be shared in common. Anne Le Fert, who was married to John Calvin’s brother Antoine and living with her husband in John’s house, had a history of adulterous encounters and the city officials worked hard to force reconciliation with her husband. She appeared especially promiscious, however, when in 1556 evidence suggested that she was carrying on an affair with a servant of the Calvin household, a “hunchback,” as he was known, by the name Pierre Daguet. The fact that he worked for her husband was especially alarming to Genevan officials.13 She was 13.  Kingdon calls attention to the constant and pervasive presence of servants in the day-​to-​ day life of many Genevans and the lack of privacy that arrangement entailed. It also invited dangerous entanglements and crossed boundaries.

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tortured but no confession was forthcoming, so she was banished at the advice of the jurisconsult, while Antoine was permitted his divorce with a right of remarriage. In 1557 Jean Bietrix sued for divorce from his patrician wife, Marie de la Maisonneuve, after only three years of marriage. On the word of numerous witnesses, Marie committed adultery with a servant named Rollet des Noyers from the house of the wealthy Mme. de Chamoix. The Consistory and Council exerted much effort on prying these two apart, and the two countered with equally impassioned efforts to continue their communication. In the trial dossier are letters that had been discovered in which the two can be seen engaging in an inversion of social roles, with Marie playing subservient and Rollet assuming the position of master. In some letters she complains about her husband to Rollet. Even though there were lingering doubts about sexual misconduct, her disobedience toward her husband and subversion of domestic order seemed to be evidence enough of her guilt. She was sentencd to imprisonment for life. The Genevan authorities, perhaps goaded by the pastors and the jurisconsults, found these cases to be alarming and a threat to social order. Thus in 1560, when Anne Le Moine was accused of committing adultery with a servant named Antoine Cossonex who worked for her husband, both were executed. Among other misdeeds, it was alleged that they had sex in the bed of Anne’s husband and that Antoine stole items from his master. Later that same year, Jacques Lenepveux was put to death as a sexual predator and seducer primarily because of his heinous mode of operating. He insinuated himself into the lives of certain women by various means in order to have sex with them, going so far as to become a godfather of the child of one as a means of cover. Another woman, Bernadine Neyrod, also tried to make her lover a godfather and committed adultery with him in her husband’s shop. A certain Marie Binot engaged in secret bigamy by exchanging several promises to marry (though never in church) and thus binding herself to several men at once. In the end, she was executed for being a prostitute who only pretended to be interested in marriage. Louise Maistre, wife of Jean-​Jacques Bonivard, had been caught by her husband having sex in bed with another man and then reacted to his reprimands with screaming and insults. As it turned out, this was only one of many affairs, and she too was executed. Kingdon draws the conclusion that the attitude toward adultery among Genevans changed over time, becoming more severe and strict.14 This is

14. Kingdon, Adultery and Divorce, 3.

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true, at least, in regard to Genevans who welcomed Calvin’s social experiment. Some magistrates resisted, including several from patriarchal families and especially those of the Libertine persuasion.15 Adulterous offenders, who before the introduction of the Reformation at Geneva had only endured minor fines and penalties, under the Protestants increasingly faced imprisonment and fines, banishment, and even death under certain circumstances.16 There were significant economic and social forces in place at Geneva that allowed for this, no doubt, but there were also real ethical concerns that were being raised by the leaders of the newly reformed Church. For Calvin and his cohorts, adultery weakens the key pillars of a godly society by insinuating itself into the bedroom, business relationships, and social arrangements and thus threatening to cause extensive disarray and confusion. For its strength it depends upon secrecy and deception, disobedience to authority, idleness, and a lack of mutual respect, all insidious deviations from God’s plan for his people and unsustainable in a god-​centered community. These are the precise justifications that make their way into the 1566 edict on sexual vices.17 In adultery, as in few other sins, a rebellious legion of vices coalesces for the destruction of the city, and thus all the power of the government and Church must be brought to bear against it.

The Christian Cato on Adulterers The severity of the punishment of adulterers reached its zenith around the same time that Beza arrived in Geneva. In no way did it taper off because of his presence. In fact, it is evident that he fully knew about the state of affairs before he came to Geneva from a response that he gave to some personal

15.  Paul Henry, The Life and Times of John Calvin, the Great Reformer, trans. Henry Stebbing, 2 vols. (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1851), 359, refers to an instance on Nov. 15, 1560, when the Council of Two Hundred balked at some codes introduced by Calvin “sur les paillardises, adulteres, blasphemes, juremens et despitemens de Dieu” as being too harsh and immoderate, probably in response to the execution of Anne Le Moine and Antoine Cossonex in August of the same year. At RCP 2:69 the same is told of its proposal in 1556; see E. William Monter, “Women in Calvinist Geneva (1550–​1800),” Journal of Women in Culture and Society 6 (1980): 189–​209, esp. 190, fn. 3. 16.  On this see Herbert Darling Foster, “Geneva Before Calvin (1387–​1536): The Antecedants of a Puritan State,” The American Historical Review 8, no. 2 (1903): 217–​40. 17.  Edits et ordonnances … sur les crimes de paillardise et adultères, 2: “s’ensuit toute confusion de tout ordre politique, meslinge [=compromise] de sang transport d’heritages aux enfans bastards et illegitimes, infinies fraudes, dissipations de biens, empoisonnemens, et toutes especes de meurtres, outre les ignominies et deshonneurs des familles.”

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attacks from the friar Claude de Sainctes about Beza’s youthful days at Paris. De Sainctes had been Beza’s opponent in the third session of the Colloquy of Poissy and was trying to ingratiate himself to the Cardinal of Lorraine, who had been the main respondant at the colloquy, by reiterating the Cardinal’s position against Beza concerning the Eucharist. In doing so, he drudged up some old rumors of immorality and adultery in regard to Beza. To these accusations Beza retorted rhetorically, “Had I been seized with the love of lewd women, should I have betaken myself to that city which is almost the only one where licentious living is punished by public ignominy and by no insignificant fines, and adultery by death?”18 Beza appears to be misremembering, of course, because the death penalty was first applied for a case of adultery after he arrived in the city. Yet he definitely understood that Geneva was moving in that direction before he went there. So while he cannot be pegged as the cause of this increased severity, it is clear that he did agree with it. It was under his watch that the death penalty for adultery was finally codified. Furthermore, for many years to come he defended and encouraged the prosecution of it as one of the most destabilizing problems in the community. The letter to Gwalther that began this chapter illustrates his unwaivering position that adulterers should be executed. Every other punishment, to his mind, was but a corrupt compromise. He had already established this principle long before in a sustained and spirited defense in the aforementioned De repudiis et divortiis (On separation and divorce) which was first published in 1568.19 Beza develops in this work the Reformed position with a legal precision and depth of learning that befits his upbringing. He finds two, and only two, reasons ordained by God why someone should legitimately leave their spouse, specifically, desertion and adultery. In the course of his argument he responds systematically to the typical objections of those who do not allow divorce under any circumstances, and in those arguments we find his conception of adultery fully presented.20

18. Beza, Tractationes theologicae 2:360: “Ubi meretrices illae meae, quarum amore si captus essem, num in eam civitatem concessissem in qua pene sola scortationes publica ignominia et non exiguis mulctis, adulteria vero capitaliter etiam vindicantur?” See Henry M. Baird, Theodore Beza, Counsellor of the French Revolution (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1899), 283. 19.  Citations throughout refer to the edition found in Beza, Tractationes theologicae, 3:50–​109. 20. Beza, Tractationes theologicae, 2:87. His opponents follow canon law, however, and accept separation or “conjugal estrangement” as permissable. Beza does not accept the view that Jesus’s objection to the stoning of the adulterous woman at John 8 is an indication that he opposed the execution of adulterers, only that in that instance he was more interested in “cautioning the consciences of those about to stone her” (cavere … conscientiis voluit).

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According to him, opponents of divorce point to Matthew 5:32, where Jesus straightforwardly says, “Whosoever shall marry her that is divorced, commits adultery.” For them, this saying indicates that divorce does not dissolve the bonds of marriage. Beza counters by pointing to the prior statement of the same verse, where an exception is made for sexual infidelity, and maintains that the exception still holds for the latter statement. The same principle applies at Matthew 19:9—​the exception for infidelity is assumed in the phrase, “whosoever marries her who is divorced, does commit adultery.” Nevertheless, Beza adds, the Pharisees were not asking about divorces on account of adultery specifically, nor was Christ responding to that; they were asking whether divorced was permissable no matter what the reason. For their second objection they turn to Christ’s statement at Matthew 19:6, “Let not man therefore put asunder that which God has coupled together.” This, they argue, shows that it is not permitted for a person in any way to break the bond. Beza’s response is particularly revealing: I concede this whole argument, and therefore I do not agree with those who think that magistrates can create new divorce laws. Even so, I deny that people are the authors of divorce on account of adultery, since the Lord already long ago so expressly wished that marriages be dissolved because of adultery that he instituted the death penalty for it; and Christ, as he was discussing the fact that divorce is not permitted, made an exception for adultery, taking thought for their consciences because of the negligence of the magistrates.21 Beza is not saying that divorce on account of adultery is to be allowed because of human weakness. Rather, his point is this: magistrates should be executing adulterers, which would de facto end a given marriage and thus there would be no need for divorce.22 But since secular government

21. Beza, Tractationes theologicae, 2:87:  “quum Dominus iam olim adeo expresse voluerit adulterio matrimonia dissolvi, ut etiam adulteros morte punierit.” 22.  Beza also mentions the failure of the magistrates to properly punish adultery with death in his notes on I Cor. 7:11 (Annotationes 1598, pt. 2, 130), where Paul tells the Corinthians that a woman who has left her husband should either not remarry or be reconciled to her husband. Beza argues as follows: “He is not talking about legitimate divorces undertaken due to illicit sex (since that undoes the marriage), but about those that happen because of some discord and inability to get along, as in those days husbands were able to put off their wives easily and wives to leave their husbands. Therefore, the apostle says that the bond of

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has failed in its obligation to punish adultery with suitable severity, Jesus concedes divorce for this exception because an adulterer has in essence merited death. This is made unequivocally clear a few pages later when Beza spells out his position while discussing Martin Bucer’s assertion that spouses should always put away their unfaithful partners: I respond that magistrates are definitely doing the right thing when they inflict capital punishment on adulterers. Yet, it does not at all follow from this that it is morally wrong for husbands (if the magistrates leave it up to him), according to the rule of Christian charity, to take back their wives who are repentant. For that law recommends what the magistrates should do, not private individuals.23 At issue here is the distinction between the private and public exercise of moral authority over the adulterer. To Beza’s mind, in the private sphere a man is free to forgive, but in the public sphere, the danger posed to society by adulterers is of such gravity that capital punishment is warranted, even demanded. Finally, in the midst of a diatribe against the Catholic Church’s official and historical leniency against adulterers, Beza interjects that his purpose is not to enter into a long debate about the public punishment of adulterers, though he will say that it is better to kill (necare) an adulterer at once, as allowed by divine and civil law, than to prolong his or her life under the pretext of a preposterous clemency so that soul and body can face eternal destruction together. For a punishment such as this is the only thing that can compel and attract people, who are otherwise unwilling to comply, to be obedient. In other words, the threat must remain imminent and real to keep people from ruining themselves and society.24

marriage is not dissolved by these things. Nor should we be surprised that the apostle did not add the exception for sexual infidelity. For capital punishment was instituted against adulterers most everywhere, so there was no need to seek a divorce. And though, through the neglect of magistrates [per magistratuum neglegantiam], adulteries were not being punished, the Corinthians did not need to consult Paul about something Christ said plainly must be put in place.” 23. Beza, Tractationes theologicae, 2:91:  “Respondeo, recte omnino facere magistratos qui capitali poena adulteros puniant; sed hinc minime consequi nefas esse maritis (si cessent magistratus) uxores resipiscentes ex charitatis Christianae norma recipere. Lex enim illa quid facere magistratus, non quid facere privatos oporteat, praescribit.” 24. Beza, Tractationes theologicae, 2:93.

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Beza addresses a third argument of his opponents, based on the words of Paul at Romans 7:2–​3, that so long as a woman’s husband lives, she cannot remarry without being an adulterer. Therefore, they say, the bond remains intact even after divorce. Beza rejects this as a proof text because in his view the apostle is not dealing with the causes of divorce but is merely drawing a comparison from marriage for the argument he is making. Similarly, for a fourth argument in support of their view they distort another sentence of Paul at 1 Corinthians 7:39, when the apostle writes, “The wife is bound by the law, as long as her huband lives.” Beza responds that Paul is not dealing there with the causes of divorce, but only teaching that widows, once their marriage is dissolved through death, can in good conscience remarry; and, furthermore, that the apostle had in mind the normal way these matters work, since he presupposes that for his audience of believers “scarcley for any other reason would a marriage be dissolved than by a death.”25 God designed human beings to have fellowship with one another in symbiotic, interdependent, and self-​sacrificing ways, especially through marriage. No doubt such a design responds to the fellowship of the Trinity as well as the marriage of Christ to his Church. For Beza, these bonds among human beings can only be broken by death. Since adulterers deserve death, in God’s law, it follows that adultery can be used used to dissolve a marriage. Adulterers disrupt God’s harmonious plan with deceit, selfishness, and self-​reliance and thereby threaten the health of the community as a whole. Such is the warning that Beza’s Cato issues in the following poem addressed to adulterers: In adulteros26 Vis orbem exscindi? Subvertito funditus urbes. Vis urbes ipsas tollere? Tolle domos. Vis delere domos? Careat fac coniuge coniux, Vanaque sint sancti foedera coniugii. Ergo perire domos, urbes, orbemque necesse est,  5 Orbe vel expelli quisquis adulter erit.

25. Beza, Tractationes theologicae, 2:87:  “vix alia ratione quam morte matrimonia dissoluenda.” 26. Beza, Cato, 7; Poemata 1597, 273–​74; Poemata 1599, 137r.

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Against Adulterors Do you want the world to be destroyed? Undermine its cities. Do you want to ruin the cities themselves? Ruin their homes. To wipe out the homes? Break up husbands and wives, and render marriage contracts null and void. Therefore, either the homes, cities, and the world have to go, or all adulterers must be expelled from the world. Isaac Casaubon’s Greek version, which appears in various positions in the editions, reads as follows: Rotundissimum Dn. Bezae in adulteros hexastichum ita Graece vertebat Isaacus Casaubonus27 Εἰς μοιχούς Κόσμον ὅλον βούλει ὀλέσαι; πάρος ὄλλυ πόληας. Βούλει δ᾽ αὖ πόλιας; τοὺς καθ᾽ ἕν᾽ αἶρε δόμους. Ἀλλὰ δόμους ἐθέλεις; μή τῷ μέλοι ἔργα γάμοιο· Μήτε τὰ τῆς εὐνῆς πιστὰ γένοιτο βροτοῖς. Τοίνην σωζομένων οἷς μοιχικὰ λέκτρα μέμηλε, Πᾶς δόμος, ἡδὲ πόλις, κόσμος ὄλοιτο θ᾽ ὅλος. For Beza, the world as a whole draws its strength from cities, which themselves are composed of homes, which in turn are built on the contractual agreements (foedera) that form marriages between two people.28 Break up the foundation and the entire structure crumbles. Humanity has its brick and mortar, so to speak, in the covenants and compacts, mutual obligations and shared responsibilities that bind person to person and people to people. Adulterers, by this reasoning, undo order and render human existence impossible at its most fundamental level. To deal with them, Beza recommends the most potent tool of the Church, the same punishment reserved for obstinate and egregious sinners: they are to be removed from the community, or, in essence, excommunicated. The tone here is

27. Beza, Cato, 16 (as the final poem); Poemata 1597, 280 (immediately before the final poem on old age); Poemata 1599, 140v (also before the poem on old age). 28.  Casaubon introduces even more explicitly than Beza the central importance and sanctity of the marriage bed (εὐνῆς).

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different than that which we find in many of the other poems of the Cato. Often Beza warns his readers to flee or avoid the sinner that he is addressing, or sternly warns the sinner to go away as one would wish the plague to depart—​the poem on fornicators discussed later in this chapter, for example, closes out with Go away, plagues! (abite pestes!). In this particular case, however, readers are urged to expel adulterers from the world (orbe), the world being humanity in toto, as the beginning of the poem makes clear. Adultery represents a menacing presence in the world, not just making it sick and dysfunctional, but really threatening it with complete annihilation. It would seem, therefore, that Beza’s concluding line calls for the execution of adulterers as an extreme and final form of excommunication. There is another aspect to the poem that amplifies its meaning. Beza’s wording, tone, and central idea in this poem echo observations that Cicero makes in his De natura deorum on the interdependency of mankind’s existence, especially at the outset of the work, 1.3–​4, and in Cotta’s response to Velleius’s Epicurean ideas, 1.115–​118. At 1.3 Cicero is advancing the notion that if the gods are not providential, as the Epicureans hold, and if they do not watch out for human beings, then piety, which is an expression of the human race’s duty and devotion toward the gods, cannot exist. In other words, the gods and human beings must have a reciprocal relationship; otherwise, no relationship exists at all. The annulment of piety (duty or obligation) toward the gods leads in turn to the undermining (tollatur) of the bonds of the human race (societas generis humani), because no overarching organizing principle remains. Human beings no longer look together to the gods for their care. At 1.115, the topic again turns to the inactivity of the gods according to the Epicurean theory, and so Cotta charges Epicurus with fundamentally overturning religion (funditus religionem … everterit), as do all others who either deny their involvement in human affairs or their existence at all: “Surely they have fundamentally destroyed all religion (nonne omnem religionem funditus sustulerunt)?” The interlocuter Cotta asserts that it is the divine plan to work through relationships of obligation (for him termed pietas), both divine and human, to create harmony and order. Such arguments may have consciously or subconsciously reinforced Beza’s understanding of the marriage foedus (covenant) as a social agreement based on a sense of duty, oaths, and loyalty that stands at the heart of all existence. This poem on adultery was cited multiple times in literature since its first appearance. The most notable and perhaps most relevant came in the Hieroglyphicorum collectanea ex veteribus et neotericis descripta, a

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work that began to be bundled with the Hieroglyphica beginning with the 1610 edition of Lyon, published at the press of Paul Fellon.29 Although it is always attributed to Pierio Valeriano (author of the Hieroglyphica), it never stood alone and contains much neoteric content that postdates Valeriano’s death, including this poem of Beza on page  18 (the work is attached to the Hieroglyphica with its own pagination). Some editions also credit an “anonymous” as coauthor—​perhaps we should imagine that this unnamed person expanded some marginalia of Valeriano into a stand-​ alone commentary—​and thus must have at least contributed to the bit that includes this poem. In discussing the unnatural coitus of the viper and the eel as it appears in one of the hieroglyphs, the unknown author quotes a sermon of Chrysostom, where, using the analogy of a sailor who leaves his own safe harbor to enter a foreign port, the theologian warns adulterers against fallaciously appealing to nature as a pretext for their sin. He then attaches a “well-​turned and elegant epigram against adulterers” (in adulteros rotundum extat et elegans epigramma),30 which is the Latin version of the poem at hand, as a way of finishing off the point that adultery violates the natural order established by God. The poem resurfaces in the literature in Johannes Clauberg’s De cognitione Dei et nostri, published at Duisburg in 1656. In “Exercitatio LXVII” of that work, Clauberg is commenting on several axioms that he has drawn from Plato’s Parmenides. In section 4, for the axiom, “sublata unitate multitudinem tolli necesse est” (when unity is taken away, so must plurality be destroyed), Clauberg turns to a passage of Vossius and then Beza’s adultery poem from the Cato to show how plurality arises from and depends on unity. It should be noted that Clauberg himself was a Calvinist and so would naturally have an appreciation for Beza’s point of view. Another century and a half later the poem works its way into a “letter to the editor” in Sylvanus Urban’s The Gentleman’s Magazine and Historical Chronicle, 76.1 (1797), 278. A  previous correspondent ignited a firestorm by labeling the Iuvenilia of Beza as a forgery because of its loose morality. After one respondent gave a spirited defense of Beza in light of the remorse and repentence that he showed for his youthful production, a second

29.  I have used the following edition: Ioannis Ierii Valeriani Bellunensis Ieroglyphica, sive e sacris Aegyptiorum aliarumque gentium literis, commentariorum libri LVIII, cum duobus aliis ab eruditissimo viro annexis (Frankfurt am Main: Erasmus Kempffer, 1614). 30. For rotundum (well-​turned) he is borrowing from the title of Casaubon’s translation.

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respondent (278) calls attention to Beza’s condemnation of his Iuvenilia as it is spelled out in the prefatory epistle of the 1597 edition. He ends by referencing Isaac Casaubon’s translation of the current poem into Greek and quoting this Latin version as a sentiment especially recommended “for this adulterous age.”31 Ironically, then, this poem is singled out from all the others to defend Beza himself against immorality and to illustrate his demanding and principled mode of life.

The Christian Cato on Fornicators For Beza, to fornicate or to whoremonger (scortari) means something slightly different than to commit adultery (moechari), just as the title of the 1566 edict and his own translation of Hebrews 13:4 suggest.32 He highlights the difference between the two in his notes on Matthew 5:28, where Jesus tells his followers that looking lustfully at a woman equates with committing adultery with her in the heart.33 Beza explains that he decided to retain the literal translation to commit adultery because here Christ is referring to all lustful desire, whether directed at an unmarried woman or a married one, and adultery in both Latin and Hebrew authors often stands also for fornication. He adds, “It’s as if Christ were saying that the Law-​giver had labeled all sexual lewdness with the word adultery (thus censuring it as a very serious sin), in response to those who were making light of the crime of fornication.”34 Conversely, he interprets Paul’s admonition that “the body is

31.  In 1799 in the Magasin Encyclopédique, ou Journal des Sciences, des Lettres et des Arts (vol. 4), edited by A. L. Millin, a brief biographical sketch is provided on 315–​29 of a certain Léonard Philaris (d. 1673), a Greek scholar in the French court, ambassador from the Duke of Parma. According to the account, he left behind a few insignificant though elegant Greek and Latin poems of his own along with a Greek translation of this poem on adultery into elegiac couplets followed up at the base of the same page with a distich giving the sense of the poem. The Greek versions are provided on 328. 32. In his De Francicae linguae recta pronuntiatione tractatus (Geneva:  Eustache Vignon, 1584), 22, Beza glosses paillard with scortator (cf. the edict title: sur les crimes de paillardise et adultères). At Hebrews 13:4 (Annotationes 1598, pt. 2, 437), Beza has the phrase, “Scortatores autem et adulteros condemnabit Deus.” But in his notes on the passage he does not venture to define the two key words, only to argue that the apostle is urging marriage as the remedy for the “turpitude” of those sins. 33. Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 1, 24. Beza avoids the word fornicatio, which the Vulgate often employs. 34. Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 1, 24: “Acsi diceret Christus, legislatorem omnem impudicitiam verbo moechari (quo gravissimum scelus arguitur) notasse, adversus eos qui scortationis flagitium elevabant.” Calvin makes the same point in reverse when commenting on the

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not for fornication” at 1 Corinthians 6:13 to indicate, “not just wandering lusts, but also having a mistress (concubinage).”35 He comes to this conclusion because a few verses later at 1 Corinthians 7:2 Paul uses the same Greek word, πορνεία, to warn husbands and wives to be satisfied with their spouse and avoid fornication. In fact, he literally says fornications, which plural number Beza explains as “all forms of pollution in this business.”36 Fornication can even mean incest.37 The sum of all this complex dissecting by Beza is as follows: adultery, which reflects the Greek word μοιχεία, in its strictest sense equates with the double adultery mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, involving two married people; at times, however, the word encompasses more broadly all sexual sin. Fornication most narrowly indicates sexual sin between unmarried people, or couples whose union the Church has not sanctioned,38 but can be used in a wider sense to refer to cases of simple adultery, especially when a prostitute is involved. But while the two words overlap in many ways, adultery for Beza remains the more serious to the extent that it violates an institution ordained by God and bound by oaths for the flourishing of society as a whole. Although adultery was denounced in the strongest of terms and deemed worthy of capital punishment, fornication was not treated with indifference by any means. Beza considered fornication grievously heinous and disgraceful, and he fully recognized its destructive potential. This is easy enough to detect in the poem against fornicators that appears in the Cato collection: commandment against adultery at Exod. 20.14: It would be absurd to think that God is giving license to whoremongering (scortandi licentiam dare) while excepting adultery. 35. Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 2, 126: “non modo vagas libidines, sed concubinatum quoque.” Similarly, in his Latin translation of Matt. 5:32 Beza applies scortatio in reference to a wife’s sexual immorality, noting that the word in a looser sense covers adultery as well and that there is precedent for its application to a wife who is not content with one lover. He adds with some annoyance that the entire discussion of the passage would be moot if the Jews had not been negligent in stoning adulterers in the first place. On Matt. 19:9 scortatio is again defended as the appropriate translation for πορνεία, since the word is general enough to encompass both adultery and prostitution, as demanded by the passage. He adds that Christ would not have had to add this exception, namely, that a wife could be divorced for scortatio, had the Jews been obeying the Mosaic Law and executing adulterers, just as magistrates in his own day should. 36. Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 2, 128: “omnes pollutionis hoc in negotio species.” 37. Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 2, 120. 38. Beard, Theatre of God’s Judgments, 256 (chapter XXIV), follows Tertullian in defining fornication as “all secret and privy meeting which have not been allowed of, received, and blessed by the Church of God.”

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In Scortatores39 Vos o voluptas quos in hircos et canes Impura mutat, et meretricum iugo Turpi subactos, mutuis in sordibus Obire quaevis adigit impurissima: Et, coniugalis iura contra foederis,  5 Non serere, sed perdere hominum genus docet: Abite pestes, ira iusta Numinis, Naturaque ipsa quo fremens vos advocat. Against Fornicators You—​those whom impure pleasure turns into goats and dogs; whom she goads to engage in every pollution imaginable, broken beneath the unseemly yoke of prostitutes, sharing in their filth; whom, against the laws of the marriage contract, she teaches not to propagate the human race, but to destroy it; —​go away, plagues, to where the righteous anger of the Divine and loudly complaining Nature herself calls you. The poem rehearses several of the motifs that run throughout the rest of the Cato. Here a personified and impure Pleasure effects a dehumanizing transformation on her devotees, making them something less than what God intended for them, and something other than the noble creature endowed with his image and set to rule over creation. They degenerate shamefully into goats and dogs, those proverbially promiscuous, lecherous, and appetite-​driven animals.40 Rather than pledging themselves to conjugal relations or to the marital yoke as God commanded them, they allow themselves to be broken (subactos) beneath the prostitute’s “yoke”—​ here Beza plays on the iug-​root in Latin. Submitting to her like a beast of

39. Beza, Cato, 11; Poemata 1597, 277; Poemata 1599, 139r. 40.  In other words, they carry on as debauched Satyrs. The lechery of goats was proverbial in antiquity, and the idea carried on into the Renaissance; see, e.g., François Rabelais, Pantag. 3.12.66 (for the text of Rabelais I have depended on Oeuvres Complètes, eds. Jacques Boulenger and Lucien Scheler (Paris: Gallimard, 1955): “Paillard tousjours comme un verrat.” Dogs bore the same reputation: For example, when the drunken Trimalchio kisses the young slave boy, his wife Fortunata screams and calls him a “lecherous dog” (Petron. Sat. 74.12).

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burden they share in filth instead of godly love.41 All that was right and pure, degenerates for them into all sorts of unseemly (turpi) and impure things (impurissima). They are dangerous to the human race as a whole, because they ignore the institutional order and mutual faith through which God gives increase (serere), and instead squander and dissipate its potential. Since their presence threatens everyone, like an infectious disease (pestes), the censor bids them leave, pronouncing them excommunicated, as both God’s righteousness and the natural order of his creation demand.42

Lambert Daneau on Sexual Sins Beza’s annotative and poetic thoughts on sexual deviancy and its punishment, which we have seen echo current ecclesiastical and political realities in Geneva, is augmented by a more scholastic and subtle exposition in Lambert Daneau’s Ethices Christianae.43 As expected, Daneau treats sins of this nature under the heading of the seventh commandment, “You shall not commit adultery,” arguing at the outset that the Lord purposefully followed up his precept about the sanctity of life itself with one next in importance to human beings, the safeguarding of homes through loving marriages. Both in their own ways involve respect for the physical body. In his usual pattern, Daneau endeavors to explore the precept through the “threefold equity” (triplex aequitas) that informs it, which he identifies as divine, natural, and political. Several of his arguments provide valuable insights and rationales for the ethics of sexuality envisioned by the Genevan pastors and doctors. Daneau begins with the divine aspect of this commandment, which is the simple fact that the Lord God forbids “every kind of fornication and uncleanliness, whereby either the modesty or chastity of matrimony is

41. For subactos as a metaphor for the breaking and taming of animals, cf. Hor. Odes 2.51. The fact that it is masculine and passive gives it an especially derogatory sense. For more on the word in this context, one may consult J. N. Adams, The Latin Sexual Vocabulary (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982), 155–​56. 42.  For “loudly complaining Nature” one can compare Lucretius’s Nature who “barks” what she demands to be so at DRN 2.17:  “nihil aliud sibi naturam latrare, nisi ut.” This poem repeats the notion seen in other poems that the framework of the natural order points the way to correct behavior. 43. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 221v–​247v.

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violated.”44 Since naturally one who creates and builds also wants to nourish and protect what has been built, Daneau says, God instituted marriage as his tool for stabilizing the home and keeping it in good repair. Ordering the society of mankind through this arrangement is a central part of God’s plan. Thus chastity, the faithful maintenance of that marital union, functions as a pillar in God’s plan for humanity at the most basic level. It is also true, Daneau adds, that chastity is inherent to holiness itself, as can be ascertained from the fact that God commends it to us and hates all polluted unions (Hebrews 13:4), and because his salvific grace teaches this first (Titus 2:12). Next, Nature itself commends that the union of a man and a woman should be kept inviolate. Daneau argues that even profane peoples accept this as true, and quotes Stobaeus’s encomium on pudicitia and relates Plutarch’s story about the social upheaval (seditiones) that arose among the Syracusans because of their sexual excess. The harsh, though ultimately misguided, reaction of Judah to the news that his daughter-​in-​law Tamar became pregnant (Genesis 38:24) proves that even before Moses adultery was considered repugnant and worthy of death. Some peoples, it is true, permit themselves license in their laws and customs, influenced by their lusts, but their consciences know the truth even when they do not heed God’s righteousness. The French, he says, are this way:  they have accustomed themselves to accepting that adultery is not a crime. In contrast, Paul says that adultery is the worst crime (1 Corinthians 6:18) and Ambrose considered it an insult to nature. Augustine asked rhetorically, “What man, regardless of how impious he is, would want an adulterous wife?” The implication is that everyone understands how unnatural it is. Third, Daneau finds political injustice in adultery, “because public and private peace among the citizens is disturbed when marriages are violated.”45 Some object that the Scriptures bid us to be fruitful and multiply and thus encourage promiscuity. Daneau counters that they have drawn an illogical conclusion, because such commands have to be understood in the light of legitimate marriages; promiscuity should be left to the wild animals. Others object that the Fathers in the Old Testament had numerous wives, including Abraham, Jacob, and Solomon. The Church 44. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 222:  “omnem scortationem, omnemque immunditiem, qua vel pudicitia, vel castitas matrimonii violatur.” 45. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 221r: “Politica ratio, propterea quod pax publica privataque inter cives ob violata coniugia turbatur.”

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Fathers were vexed to try to explain this, but it cannot be explained away, Daneau argues. The Old Testament Fathers should be condemned for what they did, because God instituted marriage as between one man and one wife: “Therefore, since God expressly stated the number that constitutes a marriage, those persons outside that number violate it and are to be disregarded.”46 Such an arrangement goes against the nature of marriage, which is “the union of two people, male and female, forming a single and unique society of life.”47 In contrast, Plato taught that the ideal State would experience greater concord if wives are held in common. But Plato is refuted by the concord of the early Church, where all things were held in common except for wives (1 Corinthians 9:5). God established the marriage arrangement so that in that context the greatest love could flourish. It could also be argued, Daneau adds, that too much confusion would arise in the State if a clear line of progeny could not be determined. Daneau identifies and classifies various types of sexual crimes, which he maintains are all covered by this one commandment on adultery through synecdoche: from the part the whole is to be understood. The classification scheme turns out to be somewhat muddled, however, because certain terms at times reference carnal sin in a general way, and at other times narrowly define a particular type. Still others are never fully defined or seem to overlap. Daneau aims to align his own terminology with the five words used by Paul at 1 Corinthians 6:9, Hebrews 13:4, Ephesians 5:5, and 1 Timothy 1:10, all verses that he in fact cites at some point.48 Even so, some words prove difficult to pin down. For example, Beza translated Paul’s πόρνοι in those verses with scortatores (translated with fornicators in the Geneva Bible), or, in the abstract, πορνεία with scortatio (or fornication). Daneau in contrast understands this word more narrowly to signify scortatio meretricia (meaning whoremongering or consorting with a prostitute).49 He obscures this, however, when he interprets another word that Paul uses, μοιχεία, to mean “fornication and illicit sex, but not promiscuous and

46. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 224r: “Ergo cum Deus numerum expresserit, quae personae extra eum numerum sunt, violant coniugium, non tuentur.” 47. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 224r:  “Est enim coniugium seu nuptiae viri et foeminae coniunctio individuam vitae societatem retinens.” Daneau finds this definition among the jurisconsults and in Roman law. 48. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 225r and 229r. 49.  The Geneva Bible chooses whoremongers at Hebrews 13:4 where Beza had only used scortationes.

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vulgar, whether it is committed with an unmarried person or a married person.”50 He means to distinguish this from whoremongering, apparently, as evidenced by his use of the term scortatio (fornication) without an epithet. Beza, in contrast, translates Paul’s μοιχοί with moechi, which the Geneva Bible renders adulterers; Daneau avoids the word moechi and prefers instead to use the periphrastic scortatio in coniugem (illicit sex with a married person) and to use the noun “adultery” or the phrase “those who commit adultery.” He is clear that only the person who is married can be said to commit adultery.51 For Paul’s label μαλακοί Beza turns to the Latin molles, while the Geneva Bible renders it with the word wantons. As vague as the Geneva Bible’s rendering appears, it does seem to reflect Beza’s meaning. Although Beza could be thinking narrowly of pathics or catamites, his note on the abstract form of the word at Colossians 3:5 (mollitiem, translating Paul’s πάθος) seems to disprove that: “He uses this word to refer to those motions by which lust is enflamed and fostered, which the poets indicate with the word ‘love,’ and personify through those shameful divinities Venus and Cupid.”52 He reports that others consider it to be a specific reference to pathics, an interpretation that he doubts, but which would, in fact, be the natural sense of the word. Daneau himself does not use molles in the same way as Beza, and instead reserves it for Paul’s ἀρσενοκοῖται. Beza paraphrases that word with qui concumbunt cum masculis (literally, those who lie with males), while the Geneva Bible has simply buggerers. Beza’s paraphrase indicates that he imagines all types of homosexuals to be covered under this term, and Daneau himself uses the phrase likewise: “males in extremely foul coupling with males, and females with females, like Sappho” (mares cum maribus, foeminae cum foeminis, ut Sappho, concumbunt copulatione foedissima).53 Daneau, however, prefers the term sodomites for homosexuals, which for him more suitably serves as an umbrella term that includes catamites, pathics, molles, and effeminates.

50. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 225r: “Μοιχεία, fornicatio scortatioque illicita, sed non promiscua et vulgaris, sive ea in solutam committatur, sive in coniugem.” He goes on to admit that Augustine does not consider the word to encompass all fornication, but only adultery. 51. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 236r. 52. Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 2, 319: “Sic vocat motus illos quibus accenditur et fovetur libido, quos poetae Amoris nomine significant, et turpibus illis Veneris et Cupidinis fictitiis numinibus designant.” 53. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 237r.

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In other words, he does not seek to distinguish between passive and active homosexuals. Finally, Paul mentions the ἀκάθαρτοι, a word that Beza translates with impuri and the Geneva Bible with unclean persons. Daneau equates the abstract form of this word, however, with immunditia, which for him is broad enough to encompass coitus with demons, bestiality, sodomy, incest, adultery, rape, and simple fornication (stuprum).54 These divisions and labels matter to Daneau, because it is from the object of lust (ex materia) that the illicit copulation derives its own special name and the severity of the crime is determined. The precept itself makes a blanket condemnation about sexual misbehavior, but once the command is fully parsed, some sexual sins in this scheme turn out to be less weighty than others, even if all are greatly offensive. For example, Daneau defines stuprum (from the male perspective) as illicit sex (scortatio) with a maiden, a widow, or another man.55 The latter he gives special treatment elsewhere as a unique form of wickedness. In regard to the other two, he disagrees with the Scholastics, who make a further distinction between stuprum, which they say occurs when a married man deflowers a virgin, and simple fornication (simplex fornicatio), which refers to sexual relations between two unmarried people (soluti cum soluta). Daneau prefers the definition of the jurisconsults as it appears in the legal code: “They say that stuprum involves an unmarried person with a virgin or a widow, because each person must be unmarried.”56 He adds that the punishment for such a crime is diverse, but, so long as the act was not done forcibly, is certainly less severe than in some other cases. In most cultures, the penalty for deflowering a virgin involves what we would call a shotgun wedding, or the payment of some sort of fine or dowry, or both. The same holds true for cohabitation or concubinage.57 Augustine received the name Adeodatus from such a live-​in girlfriend, Daneau muses, but later condemned the practice, as he should have. “Why not marry the girl who lives with you?” Daneau asks, attributing the question to Ambrose.58 He then 54.  For Daneau’s definition of immunditia (ἀκαθαρσία), see Ethices Christianae, 359r; for a definition of stuprum, see Ethices Christianae, 232r–​v. 55. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 232r. 56. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 232v: “stuprum esse soluti, cum virgine et vidua aiunt, quia utraque debet soluta esse persona.” 57. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 232v–​233r. 58. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 233r: “quia ut ait Ambrosius, si diligas quam habes in consuetudine, cur non uxorem eam ducis?”

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equates this disgraceful behavior with that of consorting with a prostitute and having intercourse with a slave girl, signs of an intemperate and self-​ indulgent character. The precept is straightforward and simple in that it does not distinguish whether the deed is done with a free person or a slave girl: “Certainly all coupling beyond what is permitted by the Word of God must be condemned, regardless of the label one gives it; even if one illicit coupling can be more foul or shameful than the other, nevertheless all that deviate from God’s command and occur outside the bond of marriage are shameful and abominable.”59 Yet as noted, the precept does allow for a diversity of punishment. Clearly, sex resulting from force is separated from consensual sex. And a few pages later Daneau applauds legal opinions that prescribe the death penalty for those who commit homosexual acts or who engage in bestiality.60 Capital punishment is also recommended for most adultery cases, and Daneau openly laments that sentences in his own day have become too lenient.61 The reason for the harsh response to some sexual sins in comparison with others lies in their relation to God’s created order. Sexual acts that are diametrically opposed to the original creation or that deviate dramatically from the norms of nature are seen as posing a serious threat to humanity. Spouses exist for the mutual conservation of one another and for the orderly propagation of children within the context of marriage, an institution in which “all natural and political virtue ought to shine forth.”62 Ideally, marriages create bonds between families and are maintained with purity of heart and body, and sober, modest qualities that are contrary to lust and extravagance. Coupling that takes place outside of the sanctioned marriage of a man and woman represents a surrender to all that is immoderate and unnatural. Thus sodomy is said to be a vice contrary to nature itself, and incest against the sense of nature.63 Bestiality, not surprisingly,

59. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 233r: “Certe omnis praeter Dei verbum copula damnanda est, quocunque nomine appelletur; etsi inter inhonestas copulas magis foeda et turpis esse una potest quam altera, omnes tamen, quae a Dei praecepto, et extra vinculum coniungii fiunt, sunt turpes et obscoenae.” 60. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 237r–​238r. 61. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 240v and 246v. 62. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 247v: “Commendatur sanciturque imprimis hoc praecepto coniugium, omnisque tum naturalis, tum politica, quae in eo elucere debet, honestas.” Daneau adds that in the current mores these ideals are not followed. 63. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 237r and 229v, respectively.

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is altogether contrary to nature.64 Adulterery, to the extent that it is violating what belongs to another, represents an unnatural appetite and gives affront (contumelia) to nature.65 For homosexuality he reserves his strongest disapproval, citing various authors and laws to support his view that it defies all sense of humanity and virtue, and that the practice of it contradicts reason and the very order of creation established by God.66 Daneau’s grading of the seriousness of sexual sins is grounded in a calculation, so to speak, of the vices involved. A sin that violates God’s precepts in multiple ways insults him more. For this reason Daneau singles out adultery and demonizes it with special vehemence. Adultery is greatly offensive because it violates one of the cardinal virtues of the Christian faith:  to be true to the image of God within, believers must cultivate a straightforward sincerity in all that they do. Married people have sworn an oath to the Lord, to the spouse, and before the whole Church. In treating adultery, therefore, Daneau constantly appeals to what he calls “the force of the promise” (promissionis vis). To define adultery, for example, he turns to the traditional etymological explanation that the word indicates “a going to another,” thus connecting the Latin adulterium with the word alter, meaning another. He emphasizes that the other in this case is “someone who has promised his or her fidelity to another.”67 He goes on to quote canon law, which defines adultery as the violation of another’s bed. Therefore, adultery is determined to occur when one or both of the parties involved are married, and is defined by the fact that in either case the act affects a promise that was made. On this principle, even betrothed or engaged couples can commit adultery, since what is most important is not the fact that the two have consumated their relationship, but that a promise has been exchanged between them.68 Additionally, individuals who knowingly and deceptively marry two spouses—​presumably Daneau imagines those who desert a spouse in one place and remarry in another without being granted a divorce—​deserve capital punishment even more than others,

64. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 238r. 65. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 236r. 66. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 237v. 67. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 236r: “Est enim adulterium cum ad alterum alteramve itur, quae iam fidem suam alii spopondit, ut ex etymi ratione facile intelligi potest.” 68. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 236r–​v.

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inasmuch they have cheated and broken trust with two people, not just one.69 For Daneau, concerning adultery it is the attitude of the mind during the act that matters most. He is able to deflect the charge of adultery in certain cases when there is no knowledge that a promise is being broken or that deception is taking place. Adultery, in other words, cannot be commited without evil deceit; the will and intent make fornication. Tamar was not considered guilty for this reason, just as a person who is raped cannot be held accountable. Thus it is not the act of sex per se that offends God, it is the act of sex knowingly committed outside the paramaters that God has ordained.70 “Marriage is commended and made holy by this precept,” he says, “and all honesty of character, both natural and political, which ought to shine forth in it.”71 Because sexual sin in his view begins with an inner attitude, Daneau is able to expand the reach of the sin by identifying what he calls a fornication of the heart.72 People fornicate, he says, in four different ways: with their heart, with their gestures and adornment, with their words, and with the deed itself. It is important to know that the Lord sees hidden sins and understands the secret intent behind certain actions, even if human beings miss it. Nevertheless, noteworthy indications of the inward fornication are apparent. An immodest bearing or fondness for make-​up and jewelry is to be condemned, because the habit of mind is discerned in the body. Natural beauty is to be preferred to adornment. The godly should avoid making jokes about fornication, since that suggests the thoughts in the mind. Theatrical spectacles encourage such thoughts and loosen morals by presenting examples of wicked lusts and representing immodest acts through gestures. Brothels all the more are to be denounced and shut down by the laws of Christian leaders because they embody these theatrical spectacles. Pictures that are lascivious and dishonest embolden lusts

69. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 240v. Here Daneau includes an entire section on desertion, which was, as we have seen, one of the justifications for a divorce among the Reformed. Among other things he argues that the abandoned spouse should try to follow the spouse who left if that spouse is pious. There can be no question of a “civil” death, that is, the notion that someone who is condemned to death but escapes is deemed dead by the State. Marriage is of natural law, not civil law. In the case of soldiers who have been gone a long time and not heard from, their wives cannot remarry unless they truly know their husband is dead. 70. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 239v. On rape, see 242v. 71. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 247v: “Commendatur sanciturque imprimis hoc praecepto coniugium, omnisque tum naturalis, tum politica, quae in eo elucere debet, honestas.” 72.  This entire section is based on Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 243v–​245v.

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and so are to be forbidden. Group dances have the potential to cause sin, as does banqueting (comessatio), drunkenness, immodest touch, and all kisses except those given as an indication of sincere and pure love.73 In his discussion of the seventh commandment, Daneau sets very specific parameters for dealing with sexual immorality within a godly society. The primary principle that guides him, however, is that all people fall under this precept, without exception and regardless of status. The conclusions that Monter draws from studying the archives at Geneva, that men were punished equally for such crimes, are bolstered and affirmed here by Daneau’s theological views. Women, Daneau stresses, are no more guilty than men when they engage in illicit intercourse, and so deserve the same punishment. Daneau supports this view with two contradictory opinions of Augustine, one, that men should be punished even more severely than women, and the other, that adulterers should suffer the same punishment regardless of their gender. In either case, however, there was the sense, at least, that punishments should be applied equally across the board, which is borne out by the statistics at Geneva. As for what those punishments should be, Daneau cites 1 Corinthians 6:9 as assurance that the spiritual punishment for adultery is eternal death, as it is for all illicit sex (scortatio). Even so, he goes on to argue, the Mosaic code and the laws and practices of all “right feeling” peoples endorse the use of bodily death in the case of adultery.74

Peter Martyr Vermigli During the course of his review of the various cultural and legal traditions for the punishment of adultery, Daneau invites his readers to read more in depth on the matter in Peter Martyr Vermigli’s commentary on 2

73. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 246v. At 357r–​v, Daneau connects comessatio to 1 Pet. 4:3 and the word κώμη there (usually meaning revelry or orgy), but defines it as the “excessive consumption of food for pleasure.” He likely is envisioning banqueting of some sort. Beza also uses com(m)essatio in his translation of the passage, which the Geneva Bible renders as “gluttony.” But it is not easy to see how gluttony is an easy inducement to sexual lewdness (was there a confusion created by the misspelling of comissatio?), and it should be noted that Beza entertains the idea that the next phrase, ἐν πότοις (compotationibus or drinking parties) is but a gloss of comessatio (see Beza, Annotationes 1582, pt. 2, 409). Cf. Beza’s and the Vulgate’s rendering of Rom. 13:13:  “Ut interdiu, decenter ambulemus; non in commessationibus et ebrietatibus, non cubilibus ac lasciviis, non lite et invidia.” 74. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 226r and 246v.

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Samuel 12.75 At first glance this could seem irrelevant to the present study. Vermigli died two years before Calvin after spending most of his career in England and Zurich, and therefore was not part of the consolidation and implementation of the reformer’s ethical views at Geneva. Yet Beza and his colleagues felt a great affinity with Vermigli. His views on the real presence in the Eucharist as well as his strong stance on double predestination aligned him more with Geneva than with the followers of Zwingli or Luther. Beza included him in his Icones of 1580 and attached to it an admiring epigram.76 Additionally, Beza wrote to Heinrich Bullinger in 1563 to say that “certain people here” think it would be useful for the churches if the commonplace passages from Vermigli’s commentaries were collected and arranged in one volume. Beza seeks Bullinger’s approval of the project so that it can be undertaken at Geneva.77 Given the tight control exercised by Beza and the Company of Pastors over printing in their city and their refusal to entertain a manuscript with which they were in theological disagreement, Vermigli’s thinking on adultery must have been sanctioned and can only add to our understanding of the ethical program underway at Geneva. Vermigli begins by establishing his main guiding principle: from the severity of a punishment, he says, we can judge the weight of a sin. States are held together by rewards and punishments, to be sure, but the penalties that are exacted must fit with the crime. Therefore, he announces his plan to arrange this topic of discussion (locus) along the following lines: first, he will consider the punishment for adultery in order to understand its gravity; second, he will debate whether male and female adulterers should be punished equally; and third, he will discuss what misfortune befalls States when those penalties are neglected or abolished.

75. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 247r. He is referring to Vermigli’s digression titled “De poenis adulterii,” in In duos libros Samuelis prophetae qui vulgo priores libri regum appellantur … commentarii doctissimi, cum rerum et locorum plurimorum tractatione perutili (Zurich:  Christoph Froschauer, 1564; I  have used the 1575 edition issued from the same press), 241r–​246v. 76. Beza, Icones, 1580, P.iir–​iiir. 77. Beza, Corr. IV (1563), 162 [no 274]; see also A Companion to Peter Martyr Vermigli, eds. Torrance Kirby, Emidio Campi, and Frank A James III (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 101. The final product came forth from the press of John Kyngston in London in 1576; the same section from the Samuel commentary on the punishment of adultery appears at 356–​68.

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He advances the first question systematically by looking at Scriptures on the punishment of adultery, followed by an enumeration of various cultural traditions and laws, then an in-​depth review of Roman laws, and finally canonical and ecclesiastical laws. Obviously, says Vermigli, the Scriptures on one level posit death as the proper punishment for any sin. Yet God is not so harsh that he does not allow human beings to continue to live even when they have committed sins, so long as they are not dangerous and socially subversive. In the case of grave sins that cannot be tolerated, the magistrate must use the power of the sword; but for lighter sins, capital punishment would not be appropriate. Adultery falls into the first group, the grave sins, because “by this wickedness is damaged that society, whence arise the fount of all human relations.”78 Even before the law was given to Moses, we can see a natural understanding that adultery deserves the death penalty. For example, when Joseph was falsely accused of adultery with the queen, he was handed over to the prefect in charge of capital crimes and bound in chains. Likewise, many of the laws given in the Old Testament and confirmed in the New show that God is one who fosters and supports marital fidelity. He is in no way indifferent to it. Vermigli then catalogues the various harsh ways that States and cities have handled adulterers whom they have apprehended, and he relates the views of several philosophers. In cases of marital infidelity, there is broad support for the death penalty among all humanity. He gives more attention to the laws of the Romans about adultery, because he considers them inconsistent and inconclusive until the time of Constantine, though he is able to marshal some evidence that even the Romans promoted chastity through strict sentencing of offenders, primarily with the support of the moral legislation introduced by Augustus. He laments the fact that with Justinian a new laxity took hold. Vermigli wants to make the point that the failure to enforce divine and natural law in regard to adulterers has caused significant confusion in the world, including the Church. He argues that the Fathers and Councils did not agree with civil laws calling for capital punishment for adultery and therefore made decisions to protect adulterers from secular authorities. It came to the point, he says, that bishops wanted to retain the power of trying adultery cases themselves so that there would be no chance that the

78. Vermigli, In duos libros Samuelis … commentarii, 241r–​v: “Nam ea societas hoc scelere laeditur, unde fons omnium humanarum necessitudinum oritur.”

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offenders would be executed. Instead, they punished them with fines or by separating them from the marital bed, a situation that “the rascals themselves took advantage of by abusing those wives who were separated.”79 They did all this on the basis of various examples of mercy and forgiveness related in Scriptures. Augustine himself wanted fathers and husbands in their private capacity to forgive adulterous spouses, reminding his readers that they themselves need mercy and so ought to extend it to those who sin, as the Lord’s Prayer teaches. God, asserted Augustine, does not want the death of a sinner; he wants them to come to repentance and life. Vermigli objects that these are weak rationales, since no evildoer will ever be punished if these same arguments are extended to public magistrates. Nor can husbands and fathers act as substitutes for magistrates, since they are neither authorized to do so (as a soldier is mandated by the State to kill), nor are they forced to do so (as a traveler who must defend himself on the spot). The magistrates have an obligation to carry out capital punishment for adultery. He adds too that the ecclesiastics and canonists oppose the rigidity of certain laws that inhibit reconciliation of spouses estranged because of adultery, nor did they think that a husband should necessarily take a wife to trial whom he has dismissed, especially if she is repentant. If she bears illegitimate children, he can abdicate responsibility for them by informing the Church of her adultery. Joseph’s initial response to Mary’s pregnancy is held up as an example. Regardless, says Vermigli, these are problematic questions that we fall into only because magistrates are failing to do their duty by punishing adultery with death. Vermigli addresses the second question, whether men and women sin equally when they commit adultery, by first reviewing the case for both sides.80 Those who say that men should receive more favorable treatment when they commit adultery cite numerous civil laws and traditions that assume a disparity. Cato the Elder bears witness to the fact that among the Romans a husband had the right to kill a wife caught in adultery, but the wife did not enjoy the same privilege against her husband. According to the later Julian Law a husband has the right to accuse his wife of adultery, as does a father his daughter, but the woman cannot accuse the man, even if she catches him in the act and has witnesses. In the Theodosian Code,

79. Vermigli, In duos libros Samuelis … commentarii, 243r: “Ipsi quoque interdum nebulones, abutuntur separatis istis uxoribus.” 80.  This section appears at Vermigli, In duos libros Samuelis … commentarii, 244r–​246r.

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a husband can divorce an adulterous wife, but a wife can never divorce her husband, even if he is a muliercularius, lover of women. Some jurisconsults point to the Orfician Decree, passed in the reign of the emperor Marcus Antonius, that did not recognize the extramarital children of a woman, but did recognize those of a man. They also point to Scriptural support in Ecclesiasticus 7:24–​26. Lastly, some jurisconsults bring up the fact that when Adam and Eve were unfaithful to God, Eve received punishments that were more severe than those of Adam. Others retort that men are more guilty and deserve greater punishment than women when adultery is committed. For the most part, their arguments revolve around the notion that women are “more imperfect and weaker” (imperfectior et debilior) and that men have greater responsibility as heads of their household. “Both sides can be argued,” Vermigli notes, “So what should we conclude?”81 He looks at several fine distinctions that the Scholastics make in regard to the aspect of the sin and how that affects the guilt of each party. So far as concerns the fidelity of the marriage (fides coniugii), both are equally guilty, since both have broken trust in the same way. If we are thinking about the condition or status of the person (conditio personae), then the man is more guilty (Nathan came to condemn David, not Bathsheba); but if it is a question of which party introduces the most confusion (confusio) into the family, the woman can be blamed more; and so on. Vermigli likes several of these distinctions, but insists that so long as the two are married, marriage law as defined by God in the Scriptures says that both are equally guilty and both are to be executed for their crime. Civil laws and popular sentiments may draw fine distinctions, but many times they are inconsistent, illogical, and derived from the perspective of men. “Why should lust in women be considered more despicable than that in men?” he asks. “This is a man’s opinion.”82 Vermigli then turns to the argument from etymology that we saw Daneau borrow above, as “going to the bed of another.” After looking at some ways that jurisconsults have tried to define adultery at its most basic level, Vermigli then uses the etymology as a starting point for his own more precise and more Scripturally true definition of it: “Adultery is a sexual act whereby an affair is had with that flesh which is

81. Vermigli, In duos libros Samuelis … commentarii, 244v: “Sunt ergo rationes ad utranque partem. Quid dicendum erit?” 82. Vermigli, In duos libros Samuelis … commentarii, 245r: “Sed addebatur libidinem semper habitam foediorem in mulieribus quam in viris. A quibus habita est? A viris.”

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bound by conjugal right, not to oneself, but to another.” He obviously narrows down adultery in its purest sense to refer to a sexual act with another married person, someone who belongs to someone else contractually. His real aim, however, is to underscore that the word adultery itself does not differentiate between the sexes; instead, it defines a specific act that God has declared is worthy of death. Everyone, men and women, know that Scriptures demand that husbands and wives remain faithful. There can be no difference between them as to the gravity of the crime of adultery. In regard to the third question, whether or not States risk incurring the wrath of God when they neglect to punish adulterers, Vermigli shows more flexibility than one might expect up to this point.83 At the outset he admits that he leans toward the view that magistrates are making the wrong choice by not carrying out capital punishment in clear cases of adultery. For his defense he stands on the direct commands of God to that effect as found in Deuteronomy and Leviticus. He also discerns in the very ordering of the Ten Commandments more support for this view. The first seven commandments, at least in the Protestant reckoning, carry the penalty of death for their violation. “The sword stops at the seventh commandment,” he observes, “and then lighter sins follow, with lighter punishments.”84 Adultery in this scheme is the last of the first seven commandments. But when States grant divorces and allow adulterers to go free, they raise many vexed questions for themselves and introduce filth into their midst. Some may object that at John 8 Jesus is found discouraging the Jewish religious leaders from stoning an adulterous woman. But, in fact, he was not. Whereas they expected to create a dilemma for him so that he either would lose popularity with the people by encouraging the enforcement of harsh laws against the pitiable woman, or would seem to be rebelling against the Mosaic law by recommending that she be freed, he took neither option. Vermigli points out that Jesus had not come to act in the capacity of a magistrate or a judge, but as a minister. As a minister, he did not see it as his calling to meddle in civil matters or make pronouncements on singular cases; instead, he considered it his duty to attend to the spiritual life of those around him, to “preach the Gospel and repentance.” Thus, argues Vermigli, far from saying to the Scribes, “If you have sins,

83.  This section is covered in Vermigli, In duos libros Samuelis … commentarii, 246r–​v. 84. Vermigli, In duos libros Samuelis … commentarii, 246r: “Sequitur adulterium, ibi gladius sistit suam actionem, neque progreditur ulterius.”

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spare others,” he tells them to repent of their sins, and then turns to the woman and tells her the same thing. The fact that the Scribes left absorbed in thoughts of their sins without carrying out the execution was not the fault of Jesus. Then, after what would seem a strong and sustained case for capital punishment, Vermigli ends with a compromise of sorts. He admits that magistrates today are not bound exactly by the civil and ceremonial laws of Israel, and so have some leeway in their handling of adultery cases in accord with their own circumstances. He reminds them, though, that they should pay attention to the justice embedded in those Jewish laws. They reflect God’s standards of right and wrong. Regardless of what the magistrates do, he goes on to say, the Church should excommunicate such adulterers, especially unrepentant ones, “for the crime is very grave and they might wound the consciences of the pious.”85

Conclusion The Reformed leaders read into the Scriptural mandates about adultery and fornication, along with the harsh punishments prescribed therein, even deeper and more fundamental principles about commitment and loyalty, mutual reliance, and institutional order. For a State to function at its best for everyone, all individuals must adhere faithfully to the structures that God in his wisdom set in place for interpersonal relationships. One of the most basic and essential structures on which society is built is the marriage union involving one woman and one man, created through the exchange of promises for shared love and unwaivering sexual fidelity. The sexual act within the marriage signals the allegiance to the institution and all the benefits and affection that result from it. But the sexual act undertaken without the publicly acknowledged exchange of a promise flaunts God’s order and sows the seeds of discord thoughout the community. As such, the most urgent issue for Beza and his colleagues was not the need for ascetic purity and physical self-​denial as a way to have a greater spiritual communion with God. Physical temperance of all kinds serves the sanctity of marriage, which is the end goal of the seventh commandment.86 Sex per se is not a matter of shame, just sex outside the confines of marriage. “God does not

85. Vermigli, In duos libros Samuelis … commentarii, 246v: “nam crimen gravissimum est; vulnerant conscientiam piorum.” 86.  For an expression of this idea, see Daneau, 355v.

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so much look at and condemn the doing of the deed,” says Daneau, “as he does the mindset of the one performing it.”87 We observed that Beza defended the execution of Susanne Fontaine to Gwalther at Zurich by citing the 1566 edict that spelled out plainly what would happen to fornicators and adulterers. He himself lobbied to have those rules placed on the books at Geneva, precisely because he felt that the only thing that could dissuade most citizens from following their every sexual inclination was the threat of severe punishments. Unchecked carnal pleasure invited the wrath of God upon Geneva. The successful petitioning on the part of Jean Sarasin and others to have their part in the affair largely forgiven alarmed Beza and the Company of Pastors and they sent a letter of protest to the Council of Two Hundred. Clearly they wanted Sarasin and his fellow fugitives to be dealt with harshly according to the letter of the edict. At times, it seems, even the edict did not go far enough for the ecclesiastical leaders. There was a fear that the laxity surrounding this case heralded a new spirit of tolerance for immoral behavior and the early demise of a social experiment just begun. Adultery is a multifaceted offense that typically involves the breaking of a number of commandments. Therefore, it has a unique place among sins committed against one’s fellow man. Before Calvin, Genevans had long resisted divorce among their citizens, even on grounds of adultery. In a city with such a small population, there were complex webs connecting citizens to citizens and families to families. When Calvin and his colleagues arrived, however, these material rationales were deemed insufficient, and, ironically, they themselves introduced moral grounds for divorce based on their understanding of relevant Scriptural mandates. This was more ominous than it may seem at first glance. For the Calvinists, divorce was often a concession to a spouse’s conscience when magistrates failed to carry out the extreme punishment for adultery. Ideally, no government should allow adulterers to roam free and remarry, since they introduce a deadly cancer into the community. If adulterers were routinely executed, then divorce would rarely be necessary. In his treatise on divorce and in two poems of the Cato, Beza lays out his thinking on sexual sin with unyielding dogmatism. He believes that divine and civil laws not only sanction the death penalty for adultery, but even require it. The wording that he uses in various places suggests that he sees 87. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 239r: “Deus enim non tam effectum, quam affectum animi nostri spectat damnatque.”

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such a punishment as an extreme and obviously permanent form of excommunication. Meanwhile, he brooks no quarter for leniency. To his mind, nothing undoes the fabric of society like the unraveling of compacts that bind its members in mutual obligation. Fornicators, however, have not broken a promise, but they too refuse to follow God’s rules for unions between the sexes, and thus sow chaos and instability. Therefore, Beza treats fornicators as plagues that must be isolated and driven out from society. Lambert Daneau’s extensive scholastic treatment of adultery and fornication in the Ethices Christianae provides another window for assessing how Beza and his fellow pastors wanted these sins to be handled at Geneva. For him, divine law, Nature, and political justice all warn of the dangers of sexual sin, especially adultery. Infidelity disturbs peace and confuses lines of progeny and inheritance. However, even for Daneau there are degrees of sexual impurity. He adopts the language of sexuality used by Paul in the New Testament to create fine distinctions based on the object of the lust. These are needed, in his opinion, to identify the implications of a specific type and to determine the suitable and just punishment. The punishments ideally are to be issued in proportion to the damage that they do to God’s design for mutual support and conservation. The dishonesty and insincerity inherent to adultery add to its repugnancy and increase the culpability. The digression of Peter Martyr Vermigli on adultery in his commentary on the book of Samuel generally speaking accords with the ideas of Beza and Daneau. Vermigli’s approach is to look at the entire gamut of material relevant to the questions that he raises. He reviews pagan traditions and laws on sex, philosophical reflections, the lessons of nature, canon law and ecclesiastical trends, and divine law. God’s standards in and of themselves trump human inventions and should need no validation, but the intellectual achievements of a fallen world can serve to bolster Scriptural claims and convince those who waver. The fact is, a general consensus exists that adultery is a serious matter that deserves grave punishment; any relaxing of those strict standards is not enlightenment or mercy but a deviation from obvious truth. Further, for Vermigli there is no support for the unequal application of the law about adultery on the basis of gender. He agrees that in regard to certain categories, one party or the other can do more harm, but in the end both do enough harm to merit capital punishment. Vermigli concludes with a warning to all magistrates that the trend toward laxity in dealing with adultery does not seem to reflect God’s wishes as related in the Scriptures, and most certainly in one way or another invites his wrath.

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Outliers

The Common Core Three of the poems in the Cato censure individuals with sins of a different nature than we have encountered heretofore. Most sinners oppose the divine will from within a generally accepted scheme that posits a supreme God above interacting with human beings subjected below. Individuals rebel against the heavenly deity just as they would the king or queen of the realm in which they live. They resist the ruler’s authority and assert themselves instead. There are other sinners for whom the scheme itself, in its fundamental assumptions, has no value whatsoever. Into this class fall those who abuse their bodies and dull their capacity for reason through the excess consumption of wine. They give themselves over to their appetites within, like animals or something even more monstrous and demeaning, and ignore their potential to share in the divine image. A more dangerous segment of this class is the Jesuit monks. In Beza’s imagination, these are but demons summoned up from Hell by Ignatius of Loyola and scattered across the earth to destroy the human race. They are the instruments of the primal enemy of the throne of God, bent on undoing the goodness and order that he offers mankind. A group labeled Epicureans figure here as well, insofar as they altogether deny a relationship between human and divine and thereby alter the essence and purpose of human existence. Their God is not providential and human beings are not created in his image. Thus Beza, in the guise of Cato, attacks all three of these groups—​ the drunks, the Jesuit monks, and the Epicureans—​as hostile outliers of sorts. Christians are warned to beware of these wolves wandering among the flock and sowing death and chaos.

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Drunks Drunkeness does not figure into the Ten Commandments per se, though in his Ethices Christianae, Lambert Daneau subsumes it under the prohibition against adultery (the Seventh Commandment), treating it as one of the enticements to sexual sin. Drinking “loosens the bond of reason,” he says, and gives sway to lusts and desires.1 The Puritan Thomas Beard warns that excessive drinking not only leads to the waste of time and resources, the “grievous diseases and pangs of the body,” and the dulling of one’s wits, but also spawns countless iniquities such as quarreling, murder, and whoring.2 For him, the thread that ties all these “disorders and mischiefes” together is an inability of self-​restraint that characterizes those who drink to excess. In a digression of his commentary on Judges 9:21, Peter Martyr Vermigli’s assessment of drunkenness corresponds to that of Daneau and Beard, but he develops his arguments with more precision in an effort to counter those who would defend their own heavy drinking using Scriptures.3 From Vermigli’s perspective, we must distinguish between an acceptable or proper use of wine (at one point he includes beer as well)4 and a misuse of it. God did, in fact, sanction the drinking of wine for medicinal purposes and for the easing of cares, so long as the one drinking can keep it under control. God wants his people to experience cheer, but they should never reach the point where the wine causes them to become delirious and forget divine things. Such excessive drinking leads to a host of other sins: “The one who is filled with the spirit has prudence, gentleness, modesty, and chastity; the one filled with wine has foolishness, rage, shamelessness, and lust.”5 Drunkenness, therefore, is the antithesis of spirituality; it leads those who engage in it to the mundane rather than the heavenly. Abraham’s nephew Lot is offered as a prime example of how alcohol can hurl people headlong into sin and impel them to concupiscence. Wine caused him to be seduced by his own virgin daughters. Cato, in contrast, is held up as a model of 1. Daneau, Ethices Christianae, 246r and 357r. 2. Beard, Theatre of God’s Judgements, 285. 3. Peter Martyr Vermigli, Loci communes (Heidelberg:  Aubrius and Schleichius, 1622), 261–​65. 4.  The word lupinus is used for hops; see Vermigli, Loci communes (1662), 262. 5. Vermigli, Loci communes (1662), 262: “Qui Spiritu impletur, habet prudentiam, mansuetudinem, verecundiam, et castitatem; qui vino, insipientiam, furorem, procacitatem et libidinem.”

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how one should properly handle wine: he drank a moderate amount at night to relax himself after an exhausting day of laboring on behalf of the commonwealth. In the same way, Vermigli says, Christians are permitted to be merry in opportune times by the right use of wine, but they should never allow its effects to unbridle their desires.6 He then provides a predictable list of the mental, physical, financial, and social harms that inebriation causes; drunks annoy their neighbors, waste their money, fall in ditches, and so on. Interestingly, though, he twice alludes in passing to an idea that becomes a major feature in Beza’s treatment of drunkenness, namely, that intemperate drinking of wine changes people into “gluttons and swine,” and makes them “begin to act as wild beasts, devoid of all rational thought.”7 Elsewhere Vermigli adds, “They become alienated from themselves.”8 By alienated he means that they become detatched from their rational selves. Beza himself is keen to underscore this brutalizing effect of drunkenness in his own treatment of the vice. For him, wine has the transformative power to debase and dehumanize individuals by erasing the image of God in them. Drunks give themselves over in toto to their earthly nature, without retaining anything godly or heavenly; they become mindless, lowly receptacles for alcohol. It is the grotesqueness of their image on which Beza focuses as his Cato censures drunks in the following poem: In Ebriosos9 Vos farciendo deditos abdomini, Mortem haurientes10 unde vitam caeteri, Quos mane primum, seraque videt vespera, Mensae assidentes, poculisque grandibus, Infame donec sitis intuentibus,  5

6. Vermigli, Loci communes, 262. 7. Vermigli, Loci communes, 262: “quid faciet helluonibus et porcis”; 264: “brutescunt, ita ut nihil intelligentiae videatur in eis reliquum.” 8. At Loci communes, 264, Vermigli says that by drunkenness, people forget themselves (ignorantionem sui), and 263, in reference to Lot, he says that the wine alienated Lot from himself (vinum ita Lothum a seipso alienavit). 9. Beza, Cato 1591, 10–​11; Beza, Poemata 1597, 176–​77; Beza, Poemata 1599, 138v. 10.  This phrase is referenced in the work of John le Coeur, the physician and Surgeon Major of the fourth regiment of Hussars, in his Essai sur l’Ivrognerie (Paris: Levrault, 1803), 36, as evidence that drunkenness can lead to hydropsy.

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Foedam vomentes crapulam, spectaculum: Homines quis esse credat istis vultibus? Liventibus tot fronte picta pustulis? Naso pyropis tot madente marcidis? Cingente limbo oculos rubentes coccino?  10 Oculis fluore turgidis vinaceo? Rictu madente? diffluentibus genis? Vos immo quisnam compararit bestis? Namque ebriosas nemo vidit bestias. Qua sorte dignos ergo vos censebimus?  15 Hac scilicet. Vivos ut ebrietas suos Afficere poenis quibus amatores solet, Vos usque et usque strenue distorqueat, Tumuloque stratos perpetua premat sitis. Against Drunkards You who are devoted to filling your belly, drinking down death whence others drink life, whom the early morning and late evening sees sitting at the banquet, before enormous wine goblets, until you become a disgraceful spectacle for those watching, as you vomit up your foul crapulence: Who believes that you are human beings with those faces? With the forehead stained by so many discolored pustules? The nose full of so many disgusting carbuncles? With a scarlet welt encircling red eyes? Eyes cloudy from a vinaceous flux? With drooling mouth? With cheeks wasting away? I take that back; Who would compare you to beasts? For no one has ever seen beasts inebriated. Therefore, what fate should we imagine you deserve? This: That while you live, drunkenness torment you relentlessly over and over again with the usual punishments it afflicts on its devotees, and that, as you lie in your tomb, a perpetual thirst crush you. This poem is cited in part by the Spanish Catholic writer Juan Caramuel de Lobkowitz (1606–​1682) in the second volume of his Theologiae moralis fundamentalis, to answer the question, “Should a drunk person be considered

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a human being?” (An ebrius inter homines haberi debeat).11 He attributes the origin of the idea that a drunk is something less than a human being, even less than a beast, to the Italian jurist Peter of Ravenna (c. 1448–​1508), who wrote, “Drunkeness is the mother of quarrels, the creator of madness, the teacher of petulance,” and thus concludes with straightforward frankness, “The person who suffers from it is not a human being.” (Hanc qui habet, homo non est). He adds that Beza (whom he calls disparagingly “Nesexius”)12 approves of the sentiment and made it a major point of emphasis, as evidenced both by the poem in the Cato13 and another one of his epigrams, which he cites as follows:14 You ask me to show you a drunken man? But I cannot: For the one who is drunk, Maevolus, is not a man. This poem is also quoted without attribution in a sermon of Thomas Adams delivered in the early 1600’s. The sermon is titled “Mystical Bedlam or The World of Madmen” and based on Ecclesiastes 9:3. Adams rails against the madness of inebriation and declares that beasts are superior to drunks because they at least know when to stop drinking.15 Adam’s reference to the poem, along with another by John Boys (1571–​1625), the Dean of Canterbury, was addressed by Anne Lake Prescott in her study of the influence of Beza’s epigrams on English writers.16 Boys, who wrote “an immense commentary on the Scriptural passages in the English liturgy and on the wealth of other

11. Juan Caramuel de Lobkowitz, Theologiae moralis fundamentalis liber 1et liber 2, vol. 2 (Rome: Ignatius de Lazaris, 16562), 844. 12. For an explanation of the derogatory term Nesexius, see Ètienne Moquot, La Guerre Ministrale (Poitiers: Main, Mesnier, Thoreau, 1619), 281–​82, who explains: “autre fois Beze s’appelle Nesexius, et ce à bon droict, de la morsure d’un serpent, parce qu’ à guise d’une vipere tres venimeuse ill aietté son poison contre la celeste verité. 13.  In his version, Caramuel reads infames for infame at the beginning of line 5, connecting it through punctuation to the previous phrase, but without authority; the word must look ahead to spectaculum. 14. Beza, Poematum editio secunda (Geneva:  Henri Étienne, 1569), 167:  “Quaeris, quis sit homo ebriosus? atqui | Nullus est homo, Maevole, ebriosus.” See also Beza, Poemata 1597, 178, and Beza, Poemata 1599, 90v. 15. See The Works of Thomas Adams (Edinburgh:  James Nichol, 1861 [originally published in 1841]), vol. 1, 283. 16.  Anne Lake Prescott, “English Writers and Beza’s Epigrams:  The Uses and Abuses of Poetry,” Studies in the Renaissance 21 (1974): 90–​91.

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matter which those passages suggested,” cites Beza’s poem addressed to Maevolus when discussing the ill effects of alcohol. Some of the imagery for the poem, including the ghastly and disheveled appearance of the reveler, corresponds to Prudentius’s portrayal of Indulgence in his poem on the battle for the soul, the Psychomachia. Beginning at 312, the poet describes a wanton goddess completely given over to the pursuit of pleasure (voluptas) and wine. Her hair is soaked with unguents, her eyes wander in delirium. She can barely form words. The wine has ennervated her and broken her powers of reason (fractos solvere sensus). Disoriented, disheveled, her excess knows no bounds: Even then exhausted Indulgence was belching up her night-​long dinner, where, by chance, still lying at her plates at the approach of dawn, she heard the raucous horns, and leaving there her lukewarm cups, she went slipping on spilt wine and balsam to war, crushing flowers under her feet.17 For both authors the addiction to the table and cups, the foul vomiting, and the around-​the-​clock excess create a caricature of unbridled debauchery. Undoubtedly they both draw inspiration for their image of disoriented, nonstop drinking from the curse offered up at Isaiah 5:11, “Woe to those who rise early in the morning to run after their drinks, who stay up late at night till they are inflamed with wine,” and the admonishments of Proverbs 23:35, “When will I wake up so I can find another drink?” The latter passage is referenced by Beza in his comments at Ephesians 5:18, where Paul admonishes the Ephesians not to become drunk with wine, “wherein lies excess” (ἀσωτία, luxus). Beza interprets wherein to refer to drunkenness, since, he argues, Paul does not condemn wine itself, rather the intemperate use of it. Furthermore, he offers the following explanation for his choice of luxus (excess or debauchery) to translate ἀσωτία: That is, every excess accompanied by the utmost depravity. Cicero, in his De finibus, writes, “I do not want to imagine in my head

17. Prudentius, Psych. 316–​20: “Ac tunc pervigilem ructabat marcida cenam, | sub lucem qua forte iacens ad fercula raucos | audierat lituos atque inde tepentia linquens | pocula lapsanti per vina et balsama gressu | ebria calcatis ad bellum floribus ibat.” For the correct understanding of the text see Kirk Summers, “Prudentius Psychomachia 317,” Vigiliae Christianae 66 (2012): 426–​29.

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debauchees, as you usually do, who vomit onto the table and are carried away from dinner parties, and later gorge themselves again while still hung over.” The Vulgate has luxury. On this see Prov. 23:29, where one finds a very vivid word-​picture of that sort of excess.18 Beza certainly would not deny the point of Vermigli, Beard, and Goulart that heavy drinking is a gateway to sexual immorality. Nor would he refute the other associations that Beard and Vermigli make to drunkenness, such as the fact that drunks annoy their neighbors by their disorderliness. Yet Beza chooses not follow that line of attack in his treatment of drunkenness. Instead, we find him satirizing and lampooning both how sordidly drunks behave when they are in the cups, so to speak, and how their very appearance and humanity recedes and disintegrates with their drinking. This emphasis on the carnival-​like grotesqueness of drunks is on full display in the Cato poem directed against them. He presents them as players in a kind of theatrical performance, a “disgraceful spectacle” (infame spectaculum) putting on a farcical show for an audience of mesmerized onlookers (intuentibus). Their physical appearance is something straight out of comedy; the disfigurement brought about by the heavy drinking, as signaled by the verb distorqueat in the second-​to-​last verse, is visibly represented by the disortion and hyperbaton inextricably woven into the very wording of the lines.19 The Latin verses themselves reflect their twisted, scarred bodies. Their portrayal likewise is less than flattering. Not only do their foreheads seem stained (picta) from blistering, their faces are unnaturally ablaze with fiery-​red carbuncles.20 It is as if they are actors wearing

18. Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 2, 282–​83: “id est, omnis profusio, eaque summa cum turpitudine coniuncta. Cic. lib. de finibus Nolim (inquit) mihi fingere asotos, ut soletis, qui in mensam vomant, et de conviviis auferantur, crudique postea rursus sese ingurgitent. Vulgata, Luxuria. Vide hac de re Prov. 23.29, ubi divinissima hypotyposi ista ἀσωτία ab effectis describitur.” 19.  For example, in line 16, vivos stands outside the ut-​clause by hyperbaton; and in line 7, homines comes before the interrogative. 20.  Pyropus (or pyropum) in antiquity referred to an alloy of precious metals, mostly gold and bronze (see Ov. Met. 2.2, on the house of the sun), which exhibited a fiery color (Isid. 20.6, “Pyropum igneus color vocavit”). In the Renaissance it was used to describe the color of any number of fire-​colored gemstones (ruby, garnet, etc.), called, generically, carbuncles. The latter word also could be used of tumors having the color of burning coal (carbon-​). On the confusion of the term pyropus between antiquity and the Renaissance, see Davis P. Harding, Milton and the Renaissance Ovid (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1946): 90.

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ludicrously grotesque costumes. In addition, their mouths are said to drool, another carnival caricature that Catullus once applied to a provincial girl who thought her canine features could rival those of his Lesbia.21 Beza follows this string of invectives with the kind of exaggerated absurdity and metamorphizing typical of burlesque comedy. Like animals, drunks lack the rational faculties to temper their appetites and thus consume more than they can hold, followed by a regurgitation of the wine with which they are bloated.22 Beza is not content, however, merely to transform them into animals; he imagines them as something even less than animals, as lower than the low. They outstrip and outdo even the animals themselves in their irrational brutishness. Then Beza concludes by borrowing yet another feature of old comedy and farce; he turns the tables on the drunks in the closing lines. As they spent their entire lives satisfying their desire to imbibe, so in their dusty graves their fortunes will be reversed and they will suffer an unquenchable thirst forever. The farcical metamorphizing of the bodies of drunks into other objects, inanimate objects, in fact, carries over into two other poems from Beza’s pen. Both poems appear in the 1597 collection, one among the epigrams, the other among the emblems. The epigram reads as follows: About a very drunk wine flask of an old woman, who accidentally drowned when crossing Lake Leman23

21. Cat. 43.3; the poem should be read as a follow up to the one that precedes it. See J. K. Newman, Roman Catullus and the Modification of the Alexandrian Sensibility (Hildesheim: Weidmann, 1990), 192. 22.  Crapulence, which, according to Jeffrey Kacirk, Forgotten English (New  York:  William Morrow, 1997), 207–​08, is intestinal (and mental) nausea stemming from overdrinking and often leading to vomiting. The ancients associate it with staggering (titubatio), dizziness (vertigo), and a heaviness in the head (gravedo). It is also possible to be “bloated with crapulence,” as at Apul., Met. 2.31: “iam et ipse crapula distentus … titubante vestigio domuitionem capesso”; cf. Apul., Met. 1.18: “cibo et crapula distentes.” The former phrase of Apuleius was borrowed by Luther for the preface to the 1538 edition of his Propositiones (edited by Melanchthon), where, referring to popes and cardinals, he writes, “Ita enim crapula et ebrietate doctrinae ipsorum eram distentus, ut nec me dormientem, nec vigilantem sentirem.” 23. Beza, Poemata 1597, 213:  In amphoram anum ebriosissimam, casu, quum lacu Lemanno veheretur, submersam | Amphora quae meruit parto cognomine dici, | Plena mero semper, nec satiata mero, | Ebria forte parans tumidum sulcare Lemannum, | In mediis vitam lapsa reliquit aquis. | Atque illam sane quanvis insueta bibentem | Pocula, quum mediis immoreretur aquis, | | Credibile est hilarem tamen interiisse bibentem, | Cui mage non placuit Vivere quam Bibere.

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By chance a drunk woman—​she really deserved the nickname “wine flask,” since she could never get enough wine—​ was preparing to cross the swollen Leman when she slipped and lost her life in the depths. These were not her usual swigs, but, given the way that she lingered down in the water, I could believe that she died happy. After all, she was drinking, and living meant less to this woman than drinking. This vignette of the drunken woman allows Beza to play with several comic elements. First, through the nickname (cognomen), he signals the transformation of the woman into an inanimate object. The amphora, as the Latin has it, would be the usual instrument for transporting wine across the lake, but here the receptacle is her very body, metamorphisized and dehumanized. Second, when she topples like an unstable amphora into the lake, she now falls out of her element. In the topsy-​turvy carnival world, fish fly through the sky, cats chase dogs, and birds hang from trees upside down. The woman takes her own carnival turn through her displacement: she is transported out of her natural environment. But once there, she does not do the expected thing, which would be to struggle to return to the familiar. Absurdly, she continues to do what she always did in her other environment: she continues to drink. Thus, at the very moment and place where any normal human being would feel the least happy, drowning in the cold Lake Leman, this woman finds something familiar and comforting for herself. A second poem from Beza’s collection of emblems depicts a different kind of transformation: Water Is Being Poured into Leaky Pots24 The poets claim that the Danaids always pour water into leaky pots, but the water quickly drains away. Change the names, and the story is told about you, drunkard: you endlessly drink what you piss away. This also fits you, drunken crowd, because what had been your bodies have become your pots.

24. Beza, Icones (Geneva: Joannes Laonius, 1580), Pp.iir; Beza, Poemata, 1597, 187: Aqua in dolia pertusa infunditur | Belidas fingunt pertusa in dolia vates | Mox effundendas fundere semper aquas. | Nomine mutato, narratur fabula de te, | Ebrie, quae meias qui sine fine bibis. | Quin etiam hoc in te quadrat turba ebria, quod sint | Corpora quae fuerant, dolia facta tibi.

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The woodcut associated with this poem depicts the Danaid sisters dutifully pouring water into a barrel that is perforated with holes. [Figure 9] This is a variation on the usual story, which has the sisters trying to fill a bathtub with pots that leak. But this allows Beza to render their plight more vividly to that of the drunkard. In the foreground of the picture a man is seen standing with a barrel taking the place of his normal body. As he drinks, his body, now the barrel, leaks out from various holes in the side. His body has, in essence, been carnivalized. The choice of the Danaid sisters is interesting in and of itself. As mentioned in ­chapter 1, the Greco-​Roman myths about the punishments of notorious criminals in Hades often involve the offenders’ reversal of fortune. Their actions on earth are turned upside down in the world below. Tantalus defiled the banquets of the gods to which he was graciously invited, and therefore lives in hunger and thirst for eternity. Ixion held in contempt the attempts of Zeus to purify him from the sin of murder, and now undergoes an eternal purification ritual of spinning, burning, and confessing to his tormenter. The Danaid sisters themselves unendingly attempt to complete the bathing ritual (loutrophoria) of their wedding night in the underworld because in the world above they killed their new husbands. Similarly, as we saw, Beza imagines that drunkards will be eternally thirsty in their earthen graves. Beza’s strong denunciation of drunkards in his poetry manifests itself in the disciplinary activities of the Consistory. Manetsch indicates that 4 percent of suspension offenses at Geneva between the years 1542 and 1609 were due to drunkenness; a slightly larger percentage involved cases within the city than in the countryside.25 The Consistory’s fervor for barring heavy drinkers from communion, however, gradually increased through that time range, so that between 1570 and 1609 drunkenness accounted for 7 percent of suspensions.26 Some of this increase can be explained by the expansion of influence and power that the Consistory saw in the years immediately following the expulsion of the Perrinist party, which resisted their right to discipline. Undoubtedly population growth played a role too, as did improved efficiency in policing. It is also true, though, that the Consistory was taking a greater interest in the specific kinds of behavioral sins represented in Beza’s Cato after 1555. Manetsch draws attention to this phenomenon: “During this

25. Manetsch, Calvin’s Company of Pastors, 200–​08. 26. Manetsch, Calvin’s Company of Pastors, 209.

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period of rapid expansion, the Consistory widened its disciplinary net to excommunicate persons guilty of forms of misbehavior that had previously been ignored or had merited only consistorial admonition. In the decade of the 1560s, sins such as business fraud and usury, confessional infidelity, illicit dancing and singing, drunkenness, folk religion, absence from the sermons, and neglect of the Lord’s Supper became important targets of consistorial discipline.”27 He notes that after a spike in consistorial activity immediately following Calvin’s death (in the period from 1564–​1569), the amount of people summoned before the morals court and subsequently excommunicated declined. Manetsch speculates as to possible reasons, but more importantly he underscores the shift in the primary objectives of the Consistory. Whereas initially in reformed Geneva the cases that the court dealt with were primarily sexual or doctrinal in nature, in later periods they progressively involved instances of disorderly conduct. This began around 1570 and included “such popular activities as illicit dancing and singing, gambling, banquetting, and heavy drinking.” He concludes, From a broader perspective, the ministers’ commitment to peacemaking and their campaign against worldly amusements reflected a general pattern witnessed elsewhere in reformed Europe, as Calvinist communities attempted to promote social holiness and establish their moral identity in distinction from their Catholic neighbors. By the dawn of the new century, corrective discipline in the hands of Beza and his colleagues had become a tool for fashioning a peaceful, well-​ordered community in which men and women understood the central message of (reformed) Christianity and conducted their daily affairs with moral seriousness.28 The writings of Beza and his colleagues confirm this assertion, as the evidence previously examined indicates. Activities that did not square with God’s original intent for human beings to have tidy, regimented lives that foster mutual support and communion with God were to be suppressed and the offenders sequestered until they submit. If mankind’s primary purpose is to worship and glorify God, then nothing about the social order should be allowed to interfere with that.

27. Manetsch, Calvin’s Company of Pastors, 210. 28. Manetsch, Calvin’s Company of Pastors, 2011–​12.

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An interesting case brought before the Consistory on September 14, 1559, illustrates clearly and in practical terms how drunkenness fared as it encountered this worldview.29 In this case, a certain gravedigger (enterreur) named Claude Furjod was accused of failing to appear at a funeral in order to attend to the burial of the corpse. After several dignitaries, including the presiding syndic, along with numerous families, waited for an hour for him to arrive, the magistrates sent out officers to ascertain what happened to him. One of the officers discovered him, but instead of hastening to his task once reminded, Furjod reportedly “strolled along, nibbling on a piece of cheese that he held in his hand, being very drunk” (ains alloyt rongeant ung morceau de fromaige qu’il tenoyt en sa main, estant bien yvre). The officer noted that his disinterest in the matter was decidedly pronounced. In the Consistory, he was charged with only wanting to carry out the duties of interment when it fancied him and as directed by the families, which, according to him, was ordinarily during the sermons. When the court asked him about this story, he admitted that it was true, but claimed that he had since mended his ways. This repentance did not save him, however. The court voted to send a recommendation to the Small Council to punish him, either by finding another to take his place, or by chastizing him in such a way that he would be sure to remember his responsibility in the future. The registry ends with the additional note that he was suspended from participation in the Lord’s Supper “mainly for his drunkenness” (mesmes pour son yvroignerie). This last statement is important, because it shows that his drunkenness by itself earned him the suspension from the communion. Even so, Furjod’s drunkenness was the impetus to numerous disruptive actions impacting the even keel of the community, and for this reason the Consistory felt he should face the civil authorities as well. His drunkenness caused a crowd of people to waste their time and disrupted the orderly process of burial rites. It also created in him an irrational and cavalier attitude about his duties and revealed a willful defiance for authority. His drunkenness led to arrogance, nonconformity, idleness, and a selfish disregard for his fellow citizens. His wine turned him into something of a monster in the community.

29.  R. Consist. 15, f. 178v. I am indebted to Prof. Jeffrey Watt for alerting me to this passage and providing me with the text.

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Pseudo-​Monks On March 25, 1577, Beza wrote to Landgrave William of Hesse and expressed his dismay that the Jesuits throughout Europe were feeling confident about their potential to triumph over the fractured Protestants. He laments, especially now when the so-​called followers of Jesus everywhere are shouting and writing that the Catholics should have high hopes of defeating their adversaries soon, given that they have been quarreling among themselves for so long.30 Beza long recognized that the doctrinal dissent and constant bickering among Protestant groups was weakening their cause and opening the way for Satan to overwhelm them. By the late 1570s, however, he was beginning to peg the Jesuits as the instrument that Satan would employ to further the discord. For him, it is evident that they are not authentic followers of Jesus, they are Jesuastres, in the same way he held that some intellectuals are really philosophastres, or, pretenders to wisdom (see ­chapter 2). It is possible that when Beza wrote to William, his opposition to Jesuits had not yet fully matured. This is the conclusion to be drawn prima facie from an account given by the Jesuit Luca Pinelli concerning his chance visit to Geneva in 1580.31 Pinelli had been teaching theology for three years at the University of Pont-​à-​Mousson in France, but health concerns led him to take leave of his post and return to the more favorable climate in his native Italy. On his journey, he was forced by Huguenot troop movements near Lyon to detour through Geneva. He recounts how, as he approached the city, he disguised himself as a layman and was able to make it safely

30. Beza, Corr. XVIII (1577), 60: “praesertim hoc tempore, quo Jesuastres passim clamitant et scriptitant, papistis bene sperandum esse de suis adversariis mox expugnandis, inter quos tantae dissentiones tam diu vigeant.” 31.  Pinelli recorded these events in a handwritten memoir dating from 1596 titled “Alcune cose più notabili e pericoli accaduti a me Luca Pinelli della Compagnia di Giesù” (Some of the more notable incidents and dangers that happened to me, Luca Pinelli of the Society of Jesus). An edited version of the text, at least the part relating to the Geneva portion of his travels, is provided in the appendix of the following:  M. Mario Scaduto, “La Ginevra di Teodoro Beza nei ricordi di un Gesuita lucano Luca Pinelli (1542–​1607),” Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu 20 (1951): 117–​42. A. Lynn Martin, The Jesuit Mind: The Mentality of an Elite in Early Modern France (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988), 84–​88, translates parts of it. For a brief analysis, see Scott Manetsch, Theodore Beza and the Quest for Peace in France, 1572–​1598 (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 123–​25.

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past the guards at the gate. At the inn where he was lodging, he met an Italian compatriot who in turn introduced him to Galeazzo Caracciolo, the marchese of Vico who was converted to Protestantism at Naples around 1541 through Peter Martyr Vermigli. Caracciolo was somewhat of a celebrity already at Geneva (see the discussion of his marital problems and subsequent divorce in ­chapter 6).32 Pinelli was hoping to slip out of the city unnoticed, but Caracciolo, recognizing that he was a Jesuit, assured him that the Genevans would treat him courteously even though they feel enmity toward the Jesuits. Their exchange became increasingly antagonistic, however, with each accusing the other of following the path of the Devil. When the situation was finally defused, Caracciolo encouraged Pinelli to pay a visit to Theodore Beza, who “is like a pope among the Calvinists.”33 Pinelli describes an unexpectedly pleasant encounter with the reformer, an indication, perhaps, of Beza’s noble upbringing, but quite possibly a sign of Pinelli’s own obliviousness to the visceral disdain that Beza was keeping veiled. Perhaps, too, Pinelli had some literary motive for the scope of his memoir. He describes how Beza invited him into his home and expressed his satisfaction that he was able to meet a Jesuit before he died. In the course of their conversation, Pinelli writes, Beza conceded to the Jesuits an admirable competency in philosophy—​this contradicts his negative opinion of their academic training and knowledge of logic expressed in a letter to André Dudith just three years later34—​but also underscored their irreconciliable differences in theology: “So far as theology is concerned, however, either you err, or we do.”35 Pinelli recalls that

32. On Caracciolo, see esp. Emidio Campi, Shifting Patterns of Reformed Tradition (Göttingen:  Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2014), esp. the section titled “The Italian Convert: The Marquis Galeazzo Caracciolo and the English Puritans,” 285–​95. Beza translated a biography written shortly after his death into Latin, as indicated by the title of an English version: Niccolò Balbani, The Italian convert: news from Italy of a second Moses; or The life of Galeacius Caracciolus, the noble marquess of Vico. Containing the story of his admirable conversion from popery, and forsaking of a rich marquesdom for the Gospels sake. Illustrated with several figures. Written first in Italian, thence translated into Latin by Reverend Beza; and for the benefit of our people put into English (London: A. Roper, 1677). See also Jeannine Olson, “An Example from the Diaspora of the Italian Evangelicals:  Galeazzo Caracciolo and his Biographies,” Reformation 10 (2005): 45–​76; and Machiel A. van den Berg, Friends of Calvin (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009), 196–​205. 33. Martin, The Jesuit Mind, 85. 34. Beza, Corr. XXIV (1583), no 1608; here Beza calls them Pseudojesuitae, false disciples of Jesus. 35.  Scaduto, “La Ginevra,” 137: “quo ad teologiam autem vel vos, vel nos erramus.”

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Beza expressed his distaste for disputation, despite their disagreements, because such disputes tend to obfuscate the truth. He preferred instead to depend on “illumination.” Pinelli seems to interpret this to mean an understanding of the truth derived from the teaching of authoritative individuals illumined by the Spirit, or perhaps the tranquility of mind that each person has in his or her own interpretation when illumined by the Spirit. In either case, he does not record a counter to this interpretation on the part of Beza. Here, certainly, we have good reason to pause. First, Beza himself was involved in almost endless theological disputes, both through tracts, with his correspondence, and in colloquies.36 He desired a quiet life of study and pastoral care, certainly, but felt it his duty to aggressively refute theological error.37 Why would he repudiate such open debates to Pinelli? Second, part of the conversation between the two revolved around a theology lecture that Pinelli claims to have attended at the Academy the same morning. Olivier Fatio has shown that the lecturer must have been Lambert Daneau, since only he and Beza were lecturing in theology at the time.38 Pinelli tells Beza that he was upset to hear Daneau attacking papal succession through an exegesis of John 13, where Peter is said to have refused to allow Jesus to wash his feet. Reportedly, Daneau denounced this refusal to accept Christ’s gifts as a sin worthy of a thousand Hells and asserted that this proves that the Pope is the successor of the worst sinner. Fatio is correct to suggest that this recollection undermines Pinelli’s credibility, since it is based on the false notion that Protestants held Peter in disrepute. Whatever Daneau

36. Jeffrey Mallinson (Faith, Reason, and Revelation in Theodore Beza [Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2003], 88–​89) believes that this interaction shows that Beza has grown weary of such polemicizing, and recognizes, with Calvin, “the practical futility of setting evidence before obstinate men.” He adds that Pinelli argues that there will always be doubt about the source of one’s personal illumination, whether truly from the Spirit, or instead from Satan; individuals should rely on the authority of the Church as a whole. This may be, but would Beza defend personal interpretation against the authority of the Church, or would he rather question whether the Church has remained true to the Word? The latter would be more consistent with Beza’s arguments in other places. Additionally, in 1598 Beza had been a party to the open disputations with the Cappucin monk Père Chérubin at Thonon and only recommended their cessation because he feared the political ramifications for the citizens. On this see the editors’ comments at Beza, Corr. XXXIX (1598), xii–​xiii. 37.  On this, and the numerous controversial works that Beza wrote between 1576 and 1584, see Manetsch, Theodore Beza and the Quest for Peace, 138. 38.  Olivier Fatio, Nihil Pulchrius Ordine: contribution à l’étude de l’établissement de la discipline ecclésiastique aux Pay-​Bas, ou Lambert Daneau aux Pays-​Bas (1581–​1583) (Leiden: Brill, 1971), 161–​62, fn. 20.

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may have said, Pinelli’s version does not ring true. In his conversation with Beza, Pinelli also added that hearing such attacks made his blood boil. He wanted to dispute Daneau, but was afraid to do so since he was not sure that the Protestants allowed open dissent. This is a recurrent theme in Pinelli’s story. Third, nowhere else does Beza defend the Reformation by an appeal to the interpretation provided by a single illuminated person. Certainly, as we have seen in previous chapters, Beza believed that God called certain individuals such as Luther and Calvin to challenge the Church gone astray, but in his view theological doctrines are established by synods of doctors and ministers building a consensus about the correct interpretation of Scriptures. These leaders must be members of the true Church, marked primarily by submission to the Word, and be ordained for the task. Given his opinion about Anabaptists and his response to Morèly’s stance on congregational “prophesying,” Beza would not have defended individualistic interpretations in this context where larger doctrinal issues were at stake.39 Finally, in 1573 Heinrich Bullinger wrote to Beza to voice his frustration about Lutheran theologian Jakob Andreae, Beza’s future disputant at the Colloquy of Montbéliard (1586). Referencing two letters included with his correspondence, Bullinger explains, “I want you to see how great the impudence and malitiousness of this lying, haughty and ranting Jacob Andreas is. The Lord will not endure his insolence lightly, when at last he punishes the man and his arrogance. Only the Jesuits do more harm than he.”40 Bullinger’s passing jab at the Jesuits seven years before Pinelli came to Geneva is meant to underscore the danger posed by Andreas, but it can only work as a rhetorical device if Beza already shares the same opinion.41 There are other reasons to wonder if Pinelli completely comprehended Beza’s sentiments or reported them accurately. He admits that several times Genevan citizens accosted him on the street and accused

39. For Morély’s ideas on prophesying in the Church and the refutation of Chandieu, see Philippe Denis and Jean Rott, Jean Morély et l’utopie d’une démocratie dans l’Église (Geneva: Droz, 1993), 80–​85. For Beza’s view, see Beza, Corr. VIII (1567), no 541. 40. Beza, Corr. XIV (1573), 206–​07: “Mitto his inclusas literas cuiusdam mei amici et fratris ex Germania, et in hoc tantum mitto, ut videas quanta sit impudentia et malitia hominis illius vanissimi et superbissimi loquacissimique Jacobi Andreae Schmidelini. Impune non feret suam illam insolentiam, quandocumque tandem Dominus hominem, quo iam post Jesuitas nocentior non est, [et] ip[s]‌ius fastum visitet.” 41.  The editors comment that it was in the year 1573 that the Jesuits first began to make inroads into Germany.

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him along with all Jesuits of being Satan’s agents on earth. Caracciolo did so even before Pinelli met Beza. Later, when Pinelli left Beza and returned to the marchese, he found himself surrounded by an astonished crowd who saw him as some sort of incarnate Devil. “The pastors, doctors, and some others formed a circle around Pinelli and took turns asking him questions. One venerable senator asked about the origins of the Society of Jesus, which he asserted was established by the Devil to fight the Church of Christ.”42 Pinelli responded to the magistrate’s assertion, saying that to the contrary, God had raised up the Jesuits “to oppose the strategems of the Devil.”43 The magistrate and citizens of Geneva were expressing a view about the origin of Jesuits that would become a mantra to Beza for many years to come. Did Pinelli not sense the same opinion in Beza when they met? It is certainly possible that Pinelli is simply embellishing his story to impress the reader with the spectacular nature of his adventure: the reformed “pope” admired him, while at the same time he faced a real threat from the simpler citizens. Mention of this encounter with Pinelli is noticeably absent from Beza’s correspondance that year (1580). Also, it seems counterintuitive that Beza would extend such effusive courtesies to a Jesuit professor in his home when just three years earlier he was warning William of the Jesuit threat to the very survival of the Reformed movement. In the same year that Pinelli visited Geneva, John Hay, a Jesuit of Scottish descent, published a book challenging the doctrines and authority of the Presbyterian leadership in his native land. On a visit to Scotland in 1579, ostensibly for his health, but more likely to survey the religious landscape for future missionary work, Hay had such rancorous encounters with Reformed ministers that he was forced to return to France for his own safety.44 The Scottish General Assembly in the summer of that same year petitioned the king to deal with “some Jesuits in the country,” of which Hay himself seems to be the only one.45 The experience led Hay to publish Certaine Demandes concerning the Christian Religion and Discipline, in

42. Martin, The Jesuit Mind, 86. 43. Martin, The Jesuit Mind, 87. 44. On this see Catholic Tractates of the Sixteenth Century, ed. Thomas Graves Law (Edinburgh: Wm Blackwood and Sons, 1901), xxii, and Hay’s own preface to his work. Law provides Hay’s text on 30–​70. 45. Law, Catholic Tractates, xiv.

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English, which he issued from a press in Paris.46 He viewed this polemical endeavor as part of a larger program to reintroduce Scotland to Catholicism. He was answered in force by Jean de Serres, a former theology student at Geneva, who at the time of Hay’s writing was working to reform the college at Nîmes. Serres wrote four books against Hay and in doing so garnered the praise of Beza for the level of harshness with which he assailed the Jesuits.47 This did not deter Beza from making his own response to Hay in 1586 through a work titled Response aux cinq premieres et principales demandes de F. Jean Hay, moine Jesuite aux ministres Écossois.48 Beza answers Hay’s questions point by point, rehearsing what he sees as the Devil’s influence on the development of Roman Catholic doctrine and hierarchy, and in particular hurling vicious invectives at the newly formed Jesuits. Hay’s primary concern in the early part of his work is with the source of the authority on which Protestants based their doctrines and ministry. Basically, he was asking what gave these followers of Calvin and Knox the authority to establish churches and issue doctrinal statements outside the authority of the Pope at Rome or the bishops of their native land. To Hay’s mind, they seemed to be sanctioning the right of individual interpretation. This spurs Beza to a detailed explanation of ordinary and extraordinary callings, according to the Reformed understanding, and in the course of the 191 pages to defend with great vigor the sola scriptura principle. As part of his argument, Beza reminds Hay that the early reformers, Martin Luther in Germany, Matthias Zellius and Martin Bucer at Strasbourg, Ulrich Zwingli at Zurich, Peter Martyr Vermigli in Italy, and so on had their ordinary calling within the Catholic Church, but when the Spirit convinced them that the established Church had strayed from the Word and become corrupt, they were obligated to defend the truth against tradition. The true and “ordinary” succession of the Church’s ministry, he says over and over again, lies in the hands of those who want to maintain the purity of the Church and submit to the Word. Those reformers were called by God to reestablish order amid

46. The full title is John Hay, Certain Demandes concerning the Christian Religion and Discipline, Proponed to the Ministers of the New Pretended Kirk of Scotland (Paris:  Thomas Brumen, 1580). 47. Beza, Corr. XXXVI (1595), no 2419, esp. 142–​43 and fn. 7. 48.  Published at Geneva at the press of Jean le Preux (=Gardy no 358). Although the author is not given, the Consistory records for April 15, 1586, indicate that Beza requested permission to publish a book by this title.

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the confusion and to restore his Church to its original state.49 The validity of their ministry is proven by the calling that they receive from the churches that they serve and by the spiritual growth of the congregations, who more and more abide in the Word. The popes and bishops, in contrast, have usurped the house of God, he says, and introduced disorder and horrible confusion to the Church’s ministry.50 The Jesuits themselves, “false usurpers of the name of Jesus,” support the decrees of the Pope and the new order imposed by the Lateran Council of 1215 against the truth contained in the Scriptures.51 “You have the utmost impudence to call your vocation ordinary,” he continues, “given that you have overturned order; or even less extraordinary, when you have no relation to God or his Spirit. We would do well to call your office contraordinary, usurpative, illegitimate, and mere forgery.”52 In the years that followed this sustained attack, Beza unleashed a plethora of anti-​Jesuit poems that display, with all the rhetorical venom that he can muster, an utter contempt for the society. One of those poems appears in the Cato itself: In Pseudomonachos53 Quis Christum simulans, Epicuri est de grege porcus? Cui scelus est Pietas, relligioque iocus? Nomine quis caelebs implet genitricibus urbes: Quis specie pauper, re sua cuncta facit? Hi sunt infernis quos postquam fovit in antris,  5 Nequitiae instructos qualibet arte suae, Paulatim, iusta poscente hoc Numinis ira, Eductos toto sparsit in orbe Satan, Quos olim monachos, certo nimis omine, dixit Graecia, cunctorum sunt quia μοῦνον ἄχος. 10

49. Beza, Response, 14. 50. Beza, Response, 17–​21. 51. Beza, Response, 24 and 29. 52. Beza, Response, 27. 53. Beza, Cato 1591, 13–​14 [here the title reads In monachos]; Beza, Poemata 1597, 279; Beza, Poemata 1599, 140r. The poem is in elegiac couplet, with the Greek in the last line integrated into the meter.

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Against Pseudomonks Who feigns Christ while being a porker from Epicurus’ sty? And to whom is piety a crime, religion a joke? Who goes by the name “celebate” and yet fills the cities with mothers? Who pretends to be a pauper, but in reality claims everything for himself? These are the ones whom Satan, after fostering them in infernal caves, and instructing them in every art of his wickedness, gradually leads out and scatters in the whole world, since the righteous anger of God demands this. Greece used to call them “monachi,” very prophetically, since they are the mono-​aches of every one. For his title Beza borrows a favorite term of invective from Erasmus, which he in turn took from Jerome, pseudomonachi, or, pseudomonks; it is a label that allows him to cast a wide net against monastic corruption.54 However, Erasmus had in mind specifically the mendicant monks. The content of Beza’s poem suggests that he is focusing his attack on the Jesuits. The phrase emulates Christ revives a common complaint about the name of the Jesuits and their corporate title, “The Society of Jesus,” as if they deserved some special status in the kingdom of God. In the same way, Beza accused them in the tract against John Hay of falsely laying claim to the name of Jesus. There also, as in this poem, he makes them out to be enemies of Jesus and agents of Satan: “You are not Jesuits [sc. Disciples of Jesus] and true lovers of peace, but AntiJesuits [sc. Anti-​ Disciples of Jesus] and bellows of Satan.”55 Beza had, in fact, called them Pseudo-​Jesuits in the letter to André Dudith in 1583 to which we have already alluded.56 The pun at the end of the Cato poem, where the suffix of monachi is cleverly derived from the Greek word meaning pain or distress, recalls the grief that the Jesuits were inflicting on the Protestants. Furthermore, just as here he rails against their greed and lusts in contradiction to their vows of poverty and chastity, in the tract he described

54.  See Erasmus, Collected Works of Erasmus, ed. Nelson Minnich, trans. Daniel Shereen (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), 13 and n. 52. In the 1591 Cato, Beza had titled the poem In monachos, but later editions have In pseudomonachos. 55. Beza, Réponse aux cinq premieres et principales demandes, 29: “vous non pas Jesuites et vrais amateurs de paix, mais AntiJesuites et soufflets de Satan.” 56. Beza, Corr. XXIV (1583), no 1608.

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their cruel disregard for the poor and an extravagant lifestyle aimed at satisfying their appetites.57 Beza casts a dark and ominous shadow over his characterization by borrowing this phrase directly from Ovid’s risqué and gruesome narrative about Procne and Tereus and the defilement of familial duty (pietas): “You are unworthy of your father!” Procne exclaims to herself; “Piety is a crime in the wife of Tereus.”58 For Beza to say that the Jesuits consider piety a crime is to invoke the darkness and miasma underlying Ovid’s narrative. Finally, the phrase “scattered in the whole world” completes the characterization. While other monastic orders remained relatively isolated from secular society and tied down by strict rules of spiritual service, the Jesuits saw it as their mission to live among the people, without ritual restrictions, as well as to extend the Catholic religion into the emerging New World. Thus, Beza could complain in his paraphrases on Job that these “Jebusites,” these ancient enemies of God’s people, were stirring up trouble in the whole Christian world.59 Some of these same themes are picked up again with even more force in a poem that appears in the 1599 edition of Beza’s poetry and which contains an extended, sardonic explanation of the title “Jesuit”: The true origin of the most foul excrement of Satan, that is, that new sect of super monks,60 founded by Ignatius Marrano,61 who feign the holy name of Jesus, forsaking the designation “Christian”62 57. Beza, Réponse, 27–​29. 58. Ovid, Metamorphoses 6.635: “Degeneras! Scelus est pietas in coniuge Terei.” For the reading Terei instead of the Tereo of the mss, see D. R. Shackleton Bailey, Phoenix 35 (1981): 332–​ 37, esp. 332–​33. 59. Beza, Iobus … partim commentariis partim paraphrasi illustratus (Geneva: Jean le Preux, 1589), 17: “denique in orbe Christiano universo classicum canunt alazores illi Iebusitae.” 60.  Sesquimonachi as a term appears to be an invention of Beza; it means literally, “one and a half monks,” perhaps referring to their extended education and training as compared to other monks, but more likely to the fact that they cause trouble the equivalent of one and a half monks. 61.  Marranus was a pejorative term in Spain for a converted Jew, or even a crypto-​Jew, one who has only superficially converted. 62. Beza, Poemata, 1599 ed., 102r; Beza, Corr. XXXVIII (1597), 188–​89 [ from the text of Beza redivivus; the editors note that this poem appeared in the 1597 Poemata beforehand and that it was reprised in this pamphlet to fill a blank page]; quoted in Melchior Adam, Dignorum laude virorum, quos musa vetat mori, immortalitas, seu Vitae theologorum, jure-​consultorum et politicorum, medicorum, atque philosophorum (Frankfurt am Main:  Johann Maximilian a Sande, 1706), 117. Foedissimi Sathanae excrementi, id est, novae illius sesquimonachorum sectae, auctore IGNATIO MARRANO, sacrosanctum Iesu nomen, abdicato Christianorum cognomento, ementitae, vera γένεσις. | Christus homo, Iesusque Deus, sunt unus et idem,

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The man is Christ; God is Jesus; They are one and the same person, and one holy catholic Church acknowledges him as its head. But the assembly of saints derives its noble name from the title Christ rather than the name Jesus. For, inasmuch as only Jesus is God and saviour, he lays claim to this name as all his own. But inasmuch as Christ is a man, he deems his brothers worthy of that name, as many pious as there are on earth. Learn, reader, how it happened that this group adopted their name from Jesus recently: The wrath of God who punishes sin had ordered that dreadful, tormenting demons be summoned into the world from the depths of Hell. While sending them from the darkness, Satan cried out and said three and four times, “Far from Jesus go, wicked ones!” About that time their father Ignatius, whom Delusion named from the fire mingled within, came rushing up to them and said, “I hear an omen, ‘Far from Jesus go,’ a breed worthy of their father; far from Jesus go, my children!” “Ab Iesu ite”—​the phrase became instantly known everywhere, and so it came about that this group took its name from it. And certainly among the many hordes of Christian imposters, no group goes further from Jesus. Here Beza first establishes that the name Jesus, as “the one who saves,” looks specifically to the divine nature of the son of God, since it is through his divinity alone that he has the power to forgive sins; and that the name Christ refers to the son’s human nature, as the promised anointed king for a lost humanity. God’s people have always referred to themselves as Christians, therefore, and respect Jesus as a title uniquely appropriate to the savior. The Jesuits’ choice of a name flies in the face of this tradition, Beza asserts, but he can explain how this came to be. He then develops his satirical etiology using certain Protestant stereotypes about Jesuits and by devising some clever etymologies. He derives the name of Ignatius from the Latin word for fire (ignis), which in turn associates him with the fires of Hell. The illogic of his doctrines and the speciousness of his teaching demonstrate that Satan the deceiver, through his agent Delusion, brought him to life and sent him to arouse the other demons. As he goads them on with the battle cry, “Go far from Jesus!” which he

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heard from Satan, their name is born, derived from Iesu (from Jesus) and ite (go away!). They rush from the depths like an evil army (cohors), prepared to wreak havoc and destruction everywhere. Notably, they are in fact the punishment sent by an intolerant and avenging God (vindex) on a sinful world. Whereas Cato warned his readers in the other poems to drive away sinners from their community, in this poem he warns them of demonic machinations bent on throwing their ordered world into chaos. When God’s people are not diligent about moral purity, they open the way to their own destruction. Beza revisits this last point in a poem directed against a former student named Pierre Victor Cayet La Palme (often called Palma Cayet), a reformed minister in the court of Catherine of Bourbon. Cayet reconverted from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism in 1595 and immediately began attacking his former colleagues in numerous treatises.63 The poem originally appeared in a letter that Beza had written to Jean-​Jacques Grynaeus in late January of 1596 and was reprised in the subsequent editions of his poetry. It reads as follows:

| una suum agnoscit quem sacra turba caput. | Non tamen ex Iesu, sed Christi ex nomine ductum, | sanctorum coetus nobile nomen habet; | Qua Deus est etenim et solus servator Iesus, | hoc soli nomen vendicat ipse sibi; | Sed qua Christus homo est, tot eo cognomine fratres | dignatur toto sunt quot in orbe pii. | Disce igitur, Lector, quanam ratione recenter, | ista sit ex Iesu nomen adepta cohors, | horribiles furias ex imo iusserat Orco, | in mundum acciri vindicis ira Dei; | quas Erebo emittens, procul ab Iesu ite, scelestae, | dixerat inclamans terque quaterque Sathan, | quum pater illarum accurens Ignatius ille, | ate cui admixto nomen ab igne dedit, | accipio omen ait, procul ab Iesu ite, propago | digna patre, ab Iesu vos procul ite meae. | AB IESU ITE dehinc hominum volitante per ora, | hinc factum ut nomen duxerit ista cohors. | Et certe falsorum inter tanta agmina fratrum, | tam procul ab Iesu non iit ulla cohors. 63. On the defection of Cayet and others, see Alain Dufour, “La conversion de Palma Cayet et la réaction de Théodore de Bèze,” Mélanges en l’honneur de Jean-​Pierre Babelon, eds. Isabelle Pébay-​Clottes et Jacques Perot (Château de Pau:  Société Henri IV, 2014), 83–​92; Manetsch, Theodore Beza and the Quest for Peace, 272–​80. For a fuller biography and bibliography, consult La France protestante, 10 vols, eds. Eugène Haag and Emile Haag (Paris: Joël Cherbuliez, 1846–​1859), 3:293–​99; Jacques Pannier, L’Église Reformée de Paris sous Henri IV (Paris: Librairie Ancienne Honoré Champion, 1911), 52–​66 (NB: Pannier prefers to call him Cayer). Cayet defended his conversion in two main works: Copie d’une lettre de Maistre Victor Pierre Cayer cy devant ministre, à présent ferme Catholique, Apostolique et Romain, à un gentilhomme sien amy le Sr. Dam. encores à présent ministre. Contenant les causes et raisons de sa conversion à l’Église Catholique, Apostolique et Romain (Paris: Jean Richer, 1595); and Responce de Maistre Victor Pierre Cayer au livret intitulé, Advertissement au fidelles, etc., Où sont réfutée les calomnies qu’on cuide mettre sur sa vraye et volontaire conversion à la vraye Église Catholique, Apostolique et Romaine (Paris:  Jean Richer, 1595). For more on the tracts of Cayet and the Protestant responses to them, see Beza, Corr. XXXVII, 36 and fn. 12.

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Against Double Apostates, That Is, Repeat PseudoCatholics64 Once Cayet had come over from Rome to our side; now, Cayet, you abandon us for Rome. Dogs return to their vomit in this way, the swine to their beloved mud; neither are fit sacrifices for the worship of God. But you, Satan, under whose influence the sheep recently thought to belong to the holy flock of Christ become pigs and dogs—​since a twice Roman Catholic becomes a double apostate, and the punishment ought to fit the crime, and you have a new crew of workmen, a perfidous lot going under the name of Jesus—​carry on, until there are a pair of infernal Hells for your twice Catholics, constructed by your workmen’s wretched labor. In this way, once the dogs and pigs are driven away, the pure flock can keep its purity safe. Beza finds what Cayet has done especially odious. He is someone who knew the truth and even confessed it, but his heart harbored a disdain for the wisdom of God and a preference for the excrement of Satan. Although Cayet himself never became a Jesuit, Beza imagines that Satan has a legion of demons “going under the name of Jesus” and suited for building two Hells for defectors such as Cayet, one for each time he was a Catholic. Why the Jesuits in particular? The implication seems to be that Jesuit sophistry has the power to confuse the minds of hypocritical Christians and lure them to false teachings. Just as God sent the flood in Noah’s day and imposed the Babylonian captivity in order to create a remnant of faithful, so God uses their sophistry to expose nonbelievers so that the true and purified flock can enjoy its peace. Beza confided to his friends that he was concerned Cayet’s apostasy was a great stumbling block (offendiculum) for some in France.65 The

64. Beza, Corr. XXXVII (1596), 12 (with minor variants noted); Beza, Poemata 1597, 201–​02; Beza, Poemata 1599, 102v: “In duplices apostatas, id est, repetitos Romanos Pseudocatholicos | Ad nostros Roma Cahierus venerat olim, | A nostris Romam nunc, Cahiere, redis. | Sic vomitum canis, et repetit lutum amica luto sus: | Cognita divinis victima neutra sacris. | At tu, quo fiunt porcique canesque magistro, | Christi habitae sancto de grege nuper oves, | Quum bis Romanus sic fiat Apostata duplex, | Poema et par sceleri debeat esse suo, | Et nova fabrorum tibi turba accesserit, illa | Perfida sub Iesu nomine tecta cohors, | Perge, Satan, donec damnato structa labore, | Sint bis Romanis tartara bina tuis; | Scilicet ut, Romam porcis canibusque fugatis, | Mundities mundo sit sua salva gregi.” 65. Beza, Corr. XXXVII (1596), 10–​11 and 36–​38.

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relentlessness and virulence with which he conducted his campaign against his former Protestant brothers and sisters shook many to the core. Many Protestants tried to counteract the damage through published and unpublished responses. Beza himself translated an unpublished one into Latin and sent it to his friend Constantin Fabricius at Nuremberg.66 Still, many in France wondered how a Reformed minister, one who served in the court of the king’s sister, became reconvinced of the truth of the Roman faith. What did he find unconvincing or distasteful in Reformed doctrine? Beza hastened to point out in his letters that Catherine, suspecting Cayet was not what he purported to be, dismissed him even before he made public his conversion. Beza admires the constancy and strength of this “heroine” among the royals. The Church, on the other hand, should consider the trouble caused by this defector as a warning that it must actively root out crypto-​Catholics and discipline those who hold false beliefs. Otherwise, the Protestants themselves will face God’s displeasure: “For a considerable time some brothers have tolerated his faithlessness and frequent misdeeds too patiently; now their lethargy and indifference has its just reward.”67 Beza is pleased that God has already taken away two other apostates, Jean de Sponde and Jean de Morlas, and he hopes that Cayet will soon follow. Regardless, as the poem against Cayet concludes, the Church must proactively defend its purity by driving out such “dogs and pigs.” Beza has faith that eventually God will not allow the demonic hordes to harrass his flock, but will remove them as well and exalt the name of the true Jesus to whom his own are given. Such is the thinkng behind another poem addressed to the Spanish Jesuit Jean (or Juan) Maldonat (1534–​1583), who won renown as a lecturer at the College of Clermont and for being a passionate advocate of Catholic triumphalism in France.68 Even as late as 1599, the Genevan Company of Pastors felt that Calvin needed to be vindicated against the relentless attacks of former students who continued to be inspired by his lectures and writings. Maldonat made it his mission

66. Beza, Corr. XXXVII (1596), 36–​38. 67. Beza, Corr. XXXVII (1596), 10–​11: “cuius perfidiam et cognitam multis in rebus improbitatem nimium patienter alii fratres aliquandiu tulerunt, cuius lentitudinis iustum nunc praemium ferunt.” 68. Maldonat’s biography can be gleaned from the following:  J. M. Prat, Maldonat et l’université de Paris au XVIe siècle (Paris:  Julien, Lanier, 1856); Paul Schmitt, La réforme catholique: Le combat de Maldonat (1534–​1583) (Paris: Beauchesne, 1985).

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to eradicate Calvinism from France, and now his students were taking up the charge. For the task of defending Calvin’s doctrines they chose Charles Perrot, a French immigrant and long-​time pastor at Geneva. Beza also joined the fray with the following poetic contribution: Against Jean Maldonat of Spain, notorious sophist of that society usurping the holy name of Jesus69 Wicked Maldonas, when the wrath of an offended God sends to earth the one who will punish so many, and points out you and those who share your title, you whom he himself warned his own people flee—​ he even uses you as a prime example of the character of that group who deceitfully adopts the name Jesus, and, instead of simply assuming the common name from Christ, claims for itself what he alone possesses. But you, truly Jesus, now pity yours, and let not those whom the Father gave you perish. No, destroy the evil ones, so that the true honor owed to the true Jesus be thus conceded by all. The poem repeats a criticism of the name Jesuit seen in the response to Hay and the poem addressed to Ignatius Marranus:  the society deceitfully adopts (ementito) the name of Jesus for its title and under the false pretense of being divinely sanctioned attempts to add credibility to its sophistry. The Jesuits’ true origin lies not in the Father’s desire to save his people—​this is especially underscored by the juxtaposition of the word ementitae to verus in the title of the Ignatius poem (see above)—​but in Satan’s designs to sow confusion among Christians.70 They have the ability to manipulate people and lead them away from the truth by their clever

69. Beza, Poemata 1599, 102v–​103r: “In Ioannem Maldonatum Hispanum, insignem factionis Sacrosanctum Iesu nomen ementitae Sophistam | Quum mala tam multis, male Maldonate, daturum | Offensi in terras mitteret ira Dei, | Teque tibique pares isto cognomine signans, | Quos fugerent monuit scilicet ipse suos, | Nempe vel in te uno monstrans qualis foret illa | Iesu ementito nomine tecta cohors, | Commune eiurans quae Christi ex nomine nomen, | Ille quod unus habet vendicat ipsa sibi. | At tu vere tuos o nunc miseratus Iesu, | Fac tibi ne pereant quos pater ipse dedit. | Immo perde malos, ut vero verus Iesu | Debitus a cunctis sic tribuatur honos.” 70.  Ementitus as an adjective has a passive sense (deceitfully adopted), but as a participle has an active sense (deceitfully adopting).

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use of words. Beza prays that Jesus will remove their evil influence so that God’s people can live sincerely and have a relationship with him that is grounded in the truth. To say that Beza and the Jesuits disliked one another is an understatement. They were in a life-​and-​death struggle for the hearts and minds of Christians everywhere, including France, where Beza especially wanted to see the reformed movement flourish. The primary tactic of Maldonat and his colleagues was to infiltrate the education system so that they could influence the minds of the youth and win them back to Catholicism.71 The Jesuits’ intentional tactic was to educate select young men and send them out into society like a Trojan Horse to instruct others in turn about the papal religion.72 Maldonat contributed to this end through his lectures at the Jesuit school at Paris, the College of Clermont. At its opening in 1564, he was assigned to the school’s chair of philosophy, and in the next year assumed a professorship in theology. His lectures became so popular among Parisians at large that scarcely any room could contain the crowds attending. He hammered away at Protestants with a combative tone, referring to them consistently as heretics and calling on his students to wrest the hearts and minds of their French compatriots from them. In 1570 he spent time in Poitiers after the defeat of Protestants there, lecturing to large crowds and converting whole families to Catholicism. Returning to Paris, he fanned the flames of discord between Catholics and Protestants through 1571 and 1572, leading up to the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in August of 1572. Some 3,000 Protestants in Paris lost their lives as a result.73 In light of such tribulations perpetrated under the influence of Maldonat’s eloquence, or sophistry, as Beza deems it, the poem against Maldonat takes the form of an earnest prayer. Beza pleads with God to protect his children against the machinations and persuasive powers of one of Satan’s chief henchmen. The Jesuits also tried to tarnish the character of Protestant leaders and undermine their credibility. It pleased them to no end, for example, to sully Beza’s reputation by dredging up the indiscretions found in his 1548 edition of poetry. A  new low was reached in 1597, moreover, when

71. Jonathan Pearl, The Crime of Crimes:  Demonology and Politics in France, 1560–​ 1620 (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1999), 61. 72. Martin, The Jesuit Mind, 19. 73. Pearl, The Crime of Crimes, 68.

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Clément Depuy, Provincial of Paris, began to spread rumors of the death of Beza. He embellished his already fabricated story with the claim that in the last hours, Beza had converted back to Catholicism and convinced other Genevan leaders to do the same. This slander moved Beza, Antoine de La Faye, and the Company of Pastors to counter with a pamphlet titled Theodorus Beza redivivus, proclaiming that Beza is in fact alive and attacking the Jesuits in turn.74 The pamphlet includes a letter to Zurich theologian Johann Stucki and the poem against Ignatius cited above. In the edition of poetry that issued from the press the same year, Beza included the following poem against Depuy himself, playing on the Latinized version of his name, Puteanus, with cognates of putere (to be putrid or to stink from rotting): Against Clément Depuy, Father of the Society Falsely Named Jesuits in the Gutter of Dol75 Puteanus, the Beza whom you claim to be rotten because he broke faith and abandoned the truth, whom you claim lies now rotting in his tomb, is, in fact, alive and well, and is presently measuring out the last year of his seventh decade, remaining steadfast in his faith. You, in contrast, vilely stink from your rotting lie, and have transformed from Clement to Demented the Great. Either you reek of rotten stench now to your friends, or nothing is rotten stench to those brazen dogs. Rest assured, when Beza flies away from here and a thousand soon take his place, the truth that you hate will show you exactly how vain your hope was.

74.  The entire text is provided at Beza, Corr. XXXVIII (1597), no 2535. For other correspondence mentioning Depuy’s treachery, see also nos 2520 and 2521. 75. Beza, Poemata 1597, 359; Beza, Poemata 1599, 111v–​112r:  In Clementem Puteanum sectae a Pseudo Iesu cognominatae patrem, in Dolensi gurgustio | Putere tibi qui, Puteane, dicitur | Beza abnegata veritate perfidus, | Velutque tumulo iam suo putris iacens, | Et vivit, et valet, ultimum iam septimae | Istius aevi decadis annum metiens, | Idemque semper olim qui fuit manens. | At putido tu foetidus mendacio, | Et factus ex Clemente Dementissimus, | Putes vel ipsis iam tuis sodalibus, | Vel putet istis iam nihil, quos nil pudet. | Hinc ipse vero Beza ut evolaverit, | Mille unius mox pro deuntibus loco, | Quam vestra vana fuerit expectatio, | Exosa vobis vos docebit veritas.

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Once again the stress of the poem is on the handling of the truth. Beza would have to deny the truth for Depuy’s claims to be true. In contrast to the false report that Beza’s body rots within the grave, Depuy stinks from his rotting lie. Additionally, Beza turns to carnivalizing devices to satirize Depuy in the same way he did with drunks. Not only does Depuy exude an odor so foul that he will likely repulse even his doglike colleagues, he himself undergoes a metamorphosis that reflects his true character.76 Nothing in the case of Depuy is at it seems on the surface. Even Depuy’s groundless expectations are overturned in the final analysis as the truth (veritas) triumphantly appears to round off the poem. Triumphantly is an important word here. Without a doubt, Beza feels frustrated by the crafty maneuvering of Satan in the world; he worries over the successes of the Jesuits. He is confident, however, that even though his own life is drawing to a close, God will continue to shelter his people by raising up a thousand defenders of the truth to follow. They will take up the banner and continue the battle. These Jesuit outsiders, who pretend by their name to be disciples of Jesus for purposes of moving freely among God’s people, will eventually be exposed as demons from Hell and driven away.

Epicureans In the Cato, Beza derides drunks for having no control over their appetites. Even wild beasts know when they have had enough and can stop drinking. He also scorns the Jesuits for masking their true intentions as they disperse throughout the world. They claim to be disciples of Jesus but in truth have instructions from the Devil himself to keep far from the principles that the savior taught. In the respective poems, Beza carnivalizes and dehumanizes both to most effectively expose the threat that they represent. They are purveyors of disorder and ungodliness, opposed in every way to the self-​control and straightforward honesty that binds the Christian community. In short, they fail to submit to God and his plan with respect to their passions (particularly drunks) and their will (particularly the Jesuits).

76.  In a similar vein, Beza has another poem (Poemata 1597, 213) about a grubby stablehand who is suddenly appointed to the position of abbot. Beza figures this illustrates the old proverb, “to graduate from the horses to the asses” (ab equis ad asinos quempiam transcendere; see Erasmus’s Adagia 1.7.29).

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A third group of sinners opposes God through their intellect. Beza’s Cato addressess these under the label Epicureans, an obtuse and disingenuous group that ignores the clear truths conveyed in nature: In Epicureos77 Hominem ore praeferens, sed intus bestia, Quavis stolidior bestia, Tene intueri posse syderum faces, Tanto meantes ordine? Calcare terrae tene non pudet solum,  5 Et tot soli miracula? Spectare tene reciproci aestus aequoris, Et tot manantes bellvas? Et, ista Numen Optimum atque Maximum Quum cuncta cunctis nuntient,  10 Oppedere istis velle te tot testibus, Ut nota cunctis nescias? At, inquis, ista si Deus sic condidit, Nutuque dirigit suo, Cur esse miseros tot bonos sinens, malos  15 Florere contra cernimus? Immo bonis quum cuncta cedant optime, Quum cuncta pessime malis, Malis quod esse bene putas: illis male est: Bonis quod esse male, bene est.  20 Immo fateri sane oportet optimum, Toties pepercit qui tibi. Against the Epicureans Looking like a man in the face, but a beast within, even duller than any beast, Aren’t you ashamed that you can behold the starry lights that wander in such great array? Aren’t you ashamed to tread on earth’s soil and its many wonders?

77. Beza, Cato 1591, 8–​9; Beza, Poemata 1597, 275–​76; Beza, Poemata 1599, 138r. In the 1591 version, line 11 reads as follows: “Sic oppedere te velle tantis testibus.” The meter is iambic distichs.

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To see the ebb and flow of the tide, and the many swimming creatures? And though all those things proclaim to all a providential God, the Best and the Greatest, do you stubbornly resist so many witnesses, so as not to know what everyone knows? But, you say, if God made these things so, and guides them with his will, why does He permit so many good people to suffer? Why do we see the evil flourish instead? No, since for good people all things turn out for the best, and all things turn out badly for evil people, that which you consider to be positive for the evil is really negative, and what you consider negative for the good is really positive. No, you should by all means confess that he is best, who has spared you so many times. Beza would seem at first glance to be guilty of a curious anachronism. The Epicurean school had long since faded with antiquity and no longer existed as a formal entity. No one called himself or herself an Epicurean in the sixteenth century. Consequently, the poem appears to be lashing out at mere phantoms. Even so, these phantoms had become thoroughly ensconced in the polemical literature of the time. Theologians of every persuasion frequently hurled Epicurean back and forth at their rivals like a sharp spear. Any hint of ethical or theological assumptions resembling those of this philosophy could summon its deployment. The word suggested that the recipient harbored some belief antithetical to well-​established Christian doctrine.78 The precise coloring of the term Epicurean depended on the one using it and the context of the debate. Quite often it was invoked as a moral slur;

78. For the revival of certain Epicurean tenets in the Early Modern period, see the following:  Ada Palmer, Reading Lucretius in the Renaissance (Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press, 2014); Ada Palmer, “Reading Lucretius in the Renaissance,” Journal of the History of Ideas 73 (2012):  395–​416; Alison Brown, “Lucretius and the Epicureans in the Social and Political Context of Renaissance Florence,” I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance 9 (2001): 11–​62; Simone Fraisse, L’influence de Lucrèce en France au Seizième Siècle (Paris:  Librairie A.  G. Nize, 1962); Clemens Zintzen, “Epikur in der Renaissance,” in Epikureismus in der Späten Republik und der Kaiserzeit, ed. Michael Erler (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2000), 252–​72; Lynn Joy, “Epicureanism in Renaissance Moral and Natural Philosophy,” Journal of the History of Ideas 53 (1992): 573–​83; Catherine Wilson, Epicureanism at the Origins of Modernity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); Stephen Greenblatt, The Swerve: How the World Became Modern (New York: Norton, 2011).

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it portrayed the opponent as a hedonist who cares more for the pleasures available in the physical world than for spiritual blessings for the soul. Renaissance historian Jacob Burckhardt describes this as the “conventional use” of the term, and cites the case of Giovanni Villani, who attributed the Florentine fires of the twelfth century as divine judgment on “the luxurious and gluttonous sect of Epicureans.”79 At times, the Calvinists would also associate “Epicureanism” with such riotous living, though usually viewed as the consequence of indifference toward God. For example, the anonymous author of the Réveille-​matin of 1574, which was published together with Simon Goulart’s three volume Mémoires de l’état de France sous Charles neufiesme, complains that France descended into atheism and all kinds of sexual lewdness with the suppression of the Reformed churches: “The majority of France, after the example of the court, is full of blasphemies and atheism, and among them exists Epicureanism, incest, sodomy, and every other sort of wantonness” (la plus grande partie de France à l’exemple de la court est pleine de blasphèmes, d’athéisme, & parmi eux l’epicureisme, l’inceste, la sodomie, et toute autre sorte de lubricité).80 The statement first and foremost connects Epicureanism to atheism, then adroitly transitions to sexual immoralities and excesses of every kind. The author sees a logical association between the school’s philosophy and a complete lack of restraint. This emphasis on pleasure and self-​gratification often distorted the real teaching of Epicurus, who did not consider unbridled indulgence in pleasures as a way to inner peace (ataraxia), but nonetheless provided an effective way to sully reputations. In other instances, the label indicated a deviance that was more theological in nature. Luther trotted out the term, along with others such as atheists, skeptics, and humanists, to attack those who denied the immortality of the soul or set limits to God’s power, thereby undermining faith. He singled out the philosopher Conrad Muth and even Erasmus in this regard.81 Catholics and Protestants alike detected a latent Epicureanism

79.  Jacob Burkhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, trans. S.G.C. Middlemore (London, 19045), 496. 80.  Quoted from Manetsch, Theodore Beza and the Quest for Peace, 60–​61; Manetsch sees the hand of Nicolas Barnaud in the writing of this piece. 81. William J. Wright Martin, Luther’s Understanding of God’s Two Kingdoms (Grand Rapids, MI:  Baker Academic, 2010), 92–​ 93, 162–​ 63; Peter Bietenhotz, Encounters with a Radical Erasmus:  Erasmus’ Work as a Source of Radical Thought in Early Modern Europe (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), esp. 137–​40.

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in the writings of Étienne Dolet. In 1541, Catholic educator Francesco Florido accused him of belonging to the school “of Epicurus, Aristotle, and Lucretius,” because of his tendency toward materialism that extended even to the soul.82 Calvin also mentions Dolet in his De scandalis when naming some prominent contemporary “Epicureans”; these heretics believe that God is a construct of the human imagination born out of ignorance and a desire to deceive the simple.83 It did not help that a poem of Dolet to his son echoed lines of Lucretius attributing to Nature the power to dissolve all things at will.84 In the early 1530s, Martin Bucer at Strassbourg charged the ministers Anthony Englebrecht and Wolfgang Schultheiss with being Epicureans. They represented a municipal contingent who balked at the ecclesiastical oversight of dogma and discipline, favoring instead a spiritual Libertinism. Their espousal of open doctrinal inquiry and dissent without the threat of governmental punishment intersected variously with the thinking of the Anabaptists, the Humanists, and the Erastians and stood at odds with Bucer’s magisterial vision for the Church.85 Conversely, Jean Morély, whose views on discipline and democracy caused great consternation in Reformed churches (see ­chapter 2), compared “contemptors of God, atheists, and Epicureans, infinite in number” with contemporary disciplinarians. Both, he says, are guilty of trying to corrupt pure apostolic religion.86 Calvinist polemics alluded to another serious theological threat inherent in the Epicurean worldview. This was a threat more fundamentally subversive to Reformed doctrine and ethics than any other originating from the philosophy. It was a tenet summed up most succinctly in lines of

82. Fraisse, L’influence de Lucrèce en France au Seizième Siècle, 44–​47. No doubt Florido already despised Dolet because of his position in the Ciceronian controversy: Izora Scott, Controversies over the Imitation of Cicero as a Model for Style (New  York:  Teachers College, Columbia University, 1910), 89–​97. On the life of Florido, see Richard Copely Christie, Étienne Dolet, the Martyr of the Renaissance, 281–​86 (London:  MacMillan, 18892); Remigio Sabbadini, “Vita e opere di Francesco Florido Sabino,” Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 8 (1886): 333–​63. 83.  CO 8, 44. 84.  Étienne Dolet, Genethliacum Claudii Doleti (Paris: Étienne Dolet, 1539), 10. 85.  On this see George Hunston Williams, The Radical Reformation (Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 19923), 414–​15. 86.  Jean Morély, Traicté de la discipline et police chrestienne (Lyon:  Jean de Tournes, 1562), 11: “Des contempteurs de Dieu, Athees, et Epicuriens, desquels il y a un nombre infini?” See also 52.

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the poet Lucretius and through the words of Cicero’s interlocuter Velleius in the De natura deorum:  the gods, while they exist, did not create the world nor are they involved in its maintenance or renewal. They do not send punishments to human beings nor do they answer prayers. They live in a perfectly contented, self-​sufficient and blessed state in the “between worlds” (intermundia), undisturbed and without want. Human beings are free to worship the gods if this helps them to better emulate their bliss, but they must avoid all fear of them.87 It riled both Calvin and Beza that in their own day so many were embracing the Epicurean notion that God is indifferent to human affairs and the world is left to chance. Beza alludes to the widespread influence of this idea while refuting the skeptical tenets of the New Academy (the same Greek school of thought that Cicero favored) that he detects in Sebastian Castellio (see c­ hapter 3). To Beza, Castellio’s criticism of the execution of Servetus proves that he does not trust Scriptures with absolute certainty as the final arbiter of truth. If Scriptures do not reveal the truth unequivocally, Beza asks Castellio, how is that you know that there is one omnipotent and omniscient God? Beza answers for him:  you think Nature demonstrates this and you say that all nations agree. To this Beza retorts, “But today an entire nation of Epicureans, spread across the globe, shout that there is no God, that he is not taking care of the world.” Beza challenges the idea that Nature has definitively settled any controversy in and of itself, since some people in the world believe in an unthinkable absentee God.88 Calvin calls out the Epicureans numerous times in his Institutes while asserting and defending his belief in God’s dynamic intervention. At 1.2.2 he writes, “What good is it to profess with Epicurus some sort of God who has cast aside the care of the world only to amuse himself in idleness?” At 1.5.5 he criticizes the “industry” of the Epicurean atoms that carry out various tasks in our bodies without the direction of the divine. Further, while discussing providence at 1.16.4, he writes, “I say nothing of the Epicureans (a pestilence that has always filled the world) who imagine that God is idle and indolent.”

87. Lucretius DRN 1.44–​49; 2.646–​51; Cicero, DND 1.51; See Kirk Summers, “Lucretius and the Epicuran Tradition of Piety,” Classical Philology 90 (1995): 32–​57. 88. Beza, Tractationes Theologicae, I, 104 (originally De haereticis a civili magistratu puniendis libellus [Geneva: R. Étienne, 1554]).

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In Calvin’s view, the Scriptures reveal a God who intervenes in history and actively manages every aspect of creation, down to the minutest details.89 “He is in Heaven doing whatever he wants,” the psalmist responds to those idol-​worshipers asking where the God of Israel has gone (Psalms 115:3). Calvin’s comment on these words is instructive: If God is depicted as taking up the middle ground between passivity and activity, such that he allows things to happen against his will, then he is idle, as the Epicureans imagine. But if we acknowledge that God is resolved to care for and govern the world that he created, and neglects no part of it, then it will follow that whatever happens does so because he wills it.90 Calvin reads the psalmist’s rebuttal as one of confidence in God’s providential care. Even when the affairs of his people go badly, he remains in control. The presence of evil in the world, a favorite objection of some, in no way precludes God’s complete control. God wills “whatever happens,” good or bad, Calvin insists, else God is not God. For Beza, this is also a matter of God’s justice: “For good people all things turn out for the best,” he says in his poem against the Epicureans, alluding to Romans 8:28; but, he adds, they end badly for the impious. There is nothing unjust about God’s providential care. This distinction between the Scriptural portrayal of God as an active, involved creator exercising an all-​ encompassing providence and the Epicurean gods as inactive, indifferent beings seeking their own pleasure

89.  Studies on Calvinist interactions with contemporary “Epicureanism” limits itself to passages of Calvin himself. Such is the case with Nicolaas H. Gootjes, “Calvin on Epicurus and the Epicureans: Background to a Remark in Article 13 of the Belgic Confession,” CTJ 40 (2005): 33–​48; and Charles Partee, Calvin and Classical Philosophy (Leiden: Brill, 1977), esp.  121–​22. Serene Jones, in Calvin and the Rhetoric of Piety (Louisville, KY:  Westminster John Knox Press, 1995), 127–​29, emphasizing the rhetorical purpose behind the term, identifies a range of meanings, from political to theological. Melanchthon, like Calvin, frequently reserved the term for those who denied God’s providence; see James Estes, Peace, Order and the Glory of God: Secular Authority and the Church in the Thought of Luther and Melanchthon, 1518–​1559 (Leiden: Brill, 2005), c­ hapter 5; David Steinmetz, Calvin in Context (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 27. 90.  CO 32, 184: “Si medius fingitur inter actionem et passionem, ut tolerat quae fieri non vult, erit igitur otiosus in caelo, ut Epicurei somniant. Quodsi fatemur Deum consilio praeditum esse, ut mundum, cuius est opifex, curet ac gubernet, nullamque negligat eius partem: inde sequetur, quidquid fit, ipso volente fieri.”

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enters into the theological language of the Reformed Church. It is on this one specific point that the criticism of Epicureanism turns in most instances in Reformed literature. For example, the Huguenot François de la Noue’s voices similar criticisms in his discourse titled Contre ceux qui pensent que la pieté prive l’homme de tous plaisirs. There he challenges the libertine outlook of contemporary Epicureans not with moralizing lecturing about their love of pleasure, but with a careful consideration of the faulty premise that leads them to conclude that pleasure is the highest end, namely, their failure to appreciate God’s direct providential control over His creation.91 Thomas Beard’s portrayal of “Epicures” in The Theatre of Gods Judgements follows the same contours as that of other Reformed theologians. Beard calls them “voluptuous Epicures” and lumps them with “cursed Atheists” under one heading.92 The epithet voluptuous echoes Lucretius’s use of voluptas to describe a complex Epicurean ethos in which freedom from disturbance (ataraxia) was most prized. Beard calls the Epicures “hogs” and “swine,” common terms of abuse hurled at the adherents to the school even in antiquity. Horace had even called himself a “porker from Epicurus’ sty.” The Atheists he names “dogs,” perhaps to associate them with the Cynics, whose name is derived from the Greek word for dog. He has one overarching complaint in regard to both groups: they “deny the providence of God” and believe that the world lacks a “guider and a governour.”93 Then, employing the same ancient teleological argument as Beza did in his poem—​the Epicureans resist the witnesses (testibus) in nature—​ he berates them both for being blind to the evident testimonies of God’s power and direction over creation, even though all people and nations can see it clearly. No substance in this world exists, he says, but that there is some cause of its subsistence. Fruit needs trees, rain needs clouds, and a house needs a carpenter. Guido de Brès, a former student of Calvin and Beza, alludes to the Epicurean gods in Article XIII (On the Providence of God) in the Belgic Confession that he composed. After a discussion of God’s active

91.  Ian R. Morrison, “The Dignity of Man and the Followers of Epicurus: The View of the Huguenot François de La Noue,” BHR 37 (1975): 421–​29. 92. Beard, Theatre of Gods Judgments, 87–​93. 93. Beard, Theatre of Gods Judgments, 88.

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involvement in the governance of the world down to the minutest detail comes the following text: And here we reject the damnable opinion of the Epicureans, who have imagined that God is at leisure and doing nothing, leaving everything to chance.94 The phrase “doing nothing” (nihil agentem) echoes Velleius’s description of the Epicurean gods in Cicero’s De natura deorum, 1.51. Velleius responds there to questions from Stoic philosophers on how the gods of Epicurean belief pass their time. He describes them as beings who, unlike the hardworking (laboriosissimum) Stoic divinities, “do absolutely nothing” (nihil enim agit); they are implicated in no occupations and never exert themselves. They especially have no interest in actively directing the events of the world. From the Reformed standpoint, this opinion or “error,” as later editions of the Belgic Confession describe it, undermines and overturns piety from the roots. Even Cicero himself says as much in the same work (1.3). They explained their fear by drawing an inference from the Epicureans’ rationale for their theology: Velleius, like Lucretius, makes the gods’ detachment a condition of their uninterrupted bliss. If this is so, it implies that human beings need no longer try to discover God’s will and submit to it; they need to strive to become gods themselves. Indeed, some of Beza’s contemporaries did sympathize with this conception. In his essay on leisure, for example, Michel de Montaigne quotes Lucretius’s description of the gods and, with some degree of envy and longing, noted of it in the margin, “The gods are copiously idle.” (Dii otiosi prolixe) Montaigne felt that it was the self-​sufficiency and plentitude of the gods, as compared with human insufficiency and need, that allowed for their perfect peace (otium).95 It was this very “atheistic” way of thinking that Reformed theologians were trying to combat. Even for Reformed scholars, the Epicurean depiction of the gods contained some elements of truth, but they disagreed vehemently with the conclusions being drawn. They maintained that God is both self-​sufficient,

94.  I have used the text from the 1581 Harmonia confessionum fidei, 64 (on the composition of the Harmonia, see “Introduction,” nn. 46 and 47): “Et hoc loco detestandam Epicureorum opinionem reiicimus, qui Deum otiosum, et nihil agentem, omniaque sorti committentem, finxerunt.” 95.  On this see Virginia Krause, Idle Pursuits: Literature and Oisiveté in the French Renaissance (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2003), 155.

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needing no properties outside of Himself to exercise His attributes, and simultaneously engaged providentially and covenantly with His creation. For them, the first premise does not rule out the second. Not only is God self-​ sufficient in all aspects and persons of his trinitarian self, he is all-​sufficient for His creation.96 For Scriptural proof of God’s aseity (self-​sufficiency), these theologians primarily appealed to Exodus 3:14–​15, where God establishes His name as YHWH, existence itself. They also cited Acts 17:25, where, in speaking of the altar inscribed to the unknown God, Paul tells the Athenians that God does not need anything of humans, yet they need Him. On the Exodus passage, Calvin writes that the name YHWH means that God alone is self-​ existent and eternal, his attributes are his alone and not shared with anyone else; from His being all other creatures derive their power and subsistence.97 Beza follows the same reasoning in his remarks on the Acts passage: God is not in need of anything from anywhere, but instead is the one who supplies life and all things to all things.98 Therefore, while the unpredicated simplicity of God is maintained, so is his connection to creation. While the Epicureans would agree that the gods need nothing from humans, in their view they stand as individuals apart from other essences in a self-​absorbed and blissful state, uninvolved in human affairs. For Calvin and his followers, YHWH subsumes and absorbs all other essences in himself. In regard to David’s encomium on the omnipresence and omnipotence of God at Psalms 139, Calvin reiterates his opposition to the Epicureans by rejecting their view of God living in isolation: God has not shut himself up in Heaven so that he can enjoy himself (as the Epicureans depict him) while neglecting human

96.  See Brannon Ellis, Calvin, Classical Trinitarianism, and the Aseity of the Son (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 212 and following, using Isaiah 44 and Exodus 3.14–​15; also, Matthew Levering’s discussion of Thomas’s view in Scripture and Metaphysics: Aquinas and the Renewal of Trinitarian Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 61–​62. This is also what J. Brenz has in mind at homil. XCVII on Acts. 20.29–​38, when he writes, “Quid enim hi aliud agunt, quam quod omnibus dent vitam et halitum, atque adeo gratis conferant omnibus credentibus perpetuam felicitatem? Nihil autem a quoquam hominum accipiunt, nec quisquam hominum aliquid ipsis praestare potest. Unde et soli ipsi una cum spiritu sancto beatissimi sunt (For, what else do they do but give life and breath to all, and so graciously bestow everlasting bliss to all believers? But they receive nothing from any person, nor is any person able to offer anything to them. For this reason they themselves, together with the Holy Spirit, are most blessed).” 97.  CO 24, 43–​44. 98. Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 1, 532.

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affairs. However far we may wander from him, he is not far absent from us.99 People wander from God when they believe false things about him.100 This is a key driver in Calvin’s thought. The reformers aspired to recapture the truth lost through centuries of human neglect and corruption so that mankind can be restored to the right path. The struggle for the minds of individuals is also a struggle for their soul. In his commentary on 1 Timothy 1:19, Calvin bemoans the fact that modern-​day Epicureans draw off many from the faith by offering them the hope that God is not watching and that they are free to follow their own inclinations. Fewer and fewer are left, he adds, who appreciate the true doctrine as set forth in the Scriptures; he has reason to fear for the continued success of the Reformation.101 It is only in the De scandalis, however, where we learn specific names of some contemporary “Epicureans”: among them are heretics such as the anti-​Trinitarian Michael Servetus, and humanists who entertain philosophical theologies, such as António de Gouveia and François Rabelais.102 Calvin not only calls them Epicureans, he also adds atheists to the charge. However, this is not atheism in the modern sense that they would knowingly deny the existence of God ontologically. As Ada Palmer puts it, this is the “intellectual habitat capable of supporting [atheism].”103 It is enough for Calvin that they diminish the power and majesty of God.104 In other words, Epicureans are any individuals who teach doctrines contrary to the ancient creeds of the Church. The subversion of sound doctrine, it was assumed, has a corrupting influence on the life of the Christian. Reformers found precedent for this

99.  CO 32, 377:  “[Sed illud alterum quod sequutus sum magis placet,] Deum non esse coelo inclusum, ut se otio oblectans (sicut Epicurei fingunt) res humanas negligat; sed quamvis longe ab eo peregrinemur, eum tamen non longe abesse.” For a discussion of this passage, see Herman Selderhuis, Calvin’s Theology of the Psalms, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007), esp. the section “Calvin Contra Epicurus and Aristotle” in c­ hapter 4. See also Steinmetz, Calvin in Context, 238–​40. 100. See Elsie McKee, John Calvin:  Writings on Pastoral Piety (New  York:  Paulist Press, 2001), 71. 101.  CO 52, 264. 102.  CO 8, 43–​45. 103. Palmer, Reading Lucretius in the Renaissance, 24. 104. Jones, Calvin and the Rhetoric of Piety, 170–​75.

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assumption in the apostles’ dealings with the followers of the school when it was still organized and had active adherents. Beza, for one, interpreted 2 Peter 3:3–​9 as a passage directed against the followers of the philosophical sect.105 According to his interpretation, Peter is berating the Epicureans for deriding the Christian belief that God will one day end the world and bring it to judgment. The Epicureans mock with incredulity the notion that God created the world, has been watching and guiding it closely, and has promised to come soon to end it. In reality, the say, the so-​called creation continues on as it always has, and God never comes; he is not paying attention to it at all. Peter warns those who think this way that God always keeps his promise, even if he is slow to execute it for the sake of his elect. “What you consider negative for the good is really positive,” Beza has Cato say at the end of the poem, echoing the admonition of the apostle; “You should by all means confess that he is best, who has spared you so many times.” This passage signaled for the Reformed the primary philosophical position of the Epicureans that threatened the Christian way of life, much more so than their belief in pleasure as the highest good. If God is not providentially involved in the world, the entire exercise of salvation and the need for restoration to God’s plan becomes irrelevant. Furthermore, the Epicurean goal to mimic the disinterested and self-​involved gods as they imagined them runs counter to the communal nature of Reformed ethics as we have described it. Beza’s Cato, therefore, follows a familiar path when he accuses these modern-​day Epicureans of obstinacy in the face of the clockwork mechanisms of nature. Everyone should be able to extrapolate from these operations a providential God, and from this understand how to live.

Conclusion In this chapter we examined three poems of the Cato directed against three distinct groups, drunks, pseudo-​monks, and Epicureans, each representing a unique threat to the kingdom of God. Unlike the other poems we

105. Beza, Corr. 1598, pt. 2, 487. In reference to 2 Pet. 3.3, “following after their own lusts,” Beza rejects the Vulgate translation, which suggests that these lusts are those that are innate to human nature, and with his own translation interprets the phrase to mean that this group follows their own wishes, or confirms as certain “whatever their mad lust has brought to mind” (quicquid illis insana sua libido suggessit) for how the world should be instead of listening to the authority of Moses, the prophets, the apostles, and even Jesus Himself. This is used figuratively, he says, to portray the Epicureans.

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have studied, these contain no threat of banishment or excommunication, no call for the sinner to depart. Beza merely describes them, reviles them, and warns other Christians to be on the watch for them. The Jesuits and Epicureans in particular are treated not so much as wayward Christians who can be threatened with punishment and returned to the fold, but as enemies of God’s kingdom, bent on its destruction. These are not individuals who can be restored to their rightful place. We may be prone to think of a drunk as someone who can be rehabilitated; the Consistory itself often attempted to bring them back into good order through reprimands and punishments. In Calvinist literature, however, the emphasis in regard to intoxication is on the loss of the basic faculty that allows human beings to know God and submit to his will. Daneau complains that drinking loosens reason’s grip on the baser lusts of the mind and body, opening the way to countless iniquities. This is what Beard means too when he warns that excessive drinking can dull the wits which in turn leads to a loss of restraint and self-​discipline. Vermigli appreciates the power of alcohol to bring cheer to weary minds, but he cautions against drinking to a point where the mind can no longer contemplate divine things. For a man or woman to be lost in the mundane without the guidance of heavenly wisdom is to be altogether bereft of humanity. The animals of the field are like this, simple-​minded, driven by their appetites, unable to think on the wisdom revealed from above. Beza captures the essence of all these ideas in his several poems about drunks. What better way to indicate that drunks lose their ability to exercise their rational faculties than to metamorphosize them into monstrous, subhuman, even inanimate objects? Drunks lack the heavenly gift that allows for communication between God and mankind and so are no better or different than a barrel, a pig, or a clay pot. Beza treats pseudo-​monks as individuals even more dangerous to the Christian community than drunks. Instead of abandoning reason and joining the lower stratum of creation, these pseudo-​monks, or Jesuits, to be more precise, enter into society feigning to be representatives of Jesus on earth. From this position of authority, and armed with sophistic skills taught to them by Satan, they confuse the minds of the weak and draw them away from the truth. There is some question as to when Beza fully adopted this extreme view of the Jesuits. When Pinelli came to visit in 1580, he had already corresponded about the Jesuits with friends and understood them to be a mortal enemy of the Reformed movement. It would be surprising if Beza was as cordial with Pinelli as Pinelli himself

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claims years later in his memoir. During the 1580s, without a doubt, Beza’s opposition to them became solidified, even fierce. His published reponse to the demandes of Jean Hay contains bitter invective and charges of intentional deception. The same ideas in turn are crystalized in various poems against the pseudo-​monks: Satan himself sent them from his infernal cave and spread them throughout the world to sow discord among the people of God. The apostasy of Cayet, occurring later in the decade of the 1590s, symbolized to Beza the danger posed by Jesuit rhetoric. Satan endowed Jesuits with clever words and a passion for their mission to deceive, miseducate, and misdirect those who are young or insecure in their beliefs. Beza, for one, was glad to see the chaff separated from the grain. In his poem against the pseudo-​monks, Beza describes the Jesuits as porkers from Epicurus’s sty. As it turns out, Beza thought that a group labeled Epicureans deserved their own remonstrances from Cato. The poem reveals that these were individuals who reject the teachings of Scriptures and the indications from nature about the providential care of God. They completely remove God from life’s equation. Mankind passes through life without divine intervention and therefore must discover a mode of living that does not take God into account. This mode of living could manifest itself in various ways, through the pursuit of self-​gratification, or the elevation of human reason and achievement, but in the end it was always man-​ centered. Human beings alone become the measuring stick of the highest good. They owe God nothing. Epicureanism, therefore, was ultimately an ethical choice: the path to happiness did not follow the signposts of justification, adoption, and sanctification, with the heavenly reward as its ultimate goal; rather, it looked to transitory markers focused only on the self in the here and now.

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A Retrospective View of Life’s Journey

A Principled Life In 1598, with less than seven years to live, Beza published the final work of his long life.1 This was the fifth edition of his New Testament and major annotations, arguably his most enduring contribution to Protestantism. The work includes a letter addressed to the reader, similar in content to those appearing in the previous four editions, where he explains in broad terms his method and intent. He touches on the collation of Greek manuscripts, his aspiration to improve upon the Latin versions of the Vulgate and Erasmus, and the purpose of the annotations. He credits those who read and commented on earlier versions of the work and expresses the hope that at some point, through continued collaborative effort, consensus can be reached on a new standard Latin edition. The letter then concludes with a remarkable paragraph not found in the earlier editions. Responding to critics who were accusing him of faltering in his resolve during his old age, Beza delivers a concise, impassioned defense grounded upon precisely the same ethical principles which underly the Cato and all his works. The philosophy of life and action that we have observed him championing throughout his career now vindicate the authenticity of his calling and walk with God. He writes as follows:2

1.  According to Gardy, the only other work of Beza which can be assigned to 1598 is his Response à la lettre d’un gentilhomme savoisien (no x); the Poemata edition of 1599 includes a few minor additions and alterations to the 1597 edition (no 12). 2. Beza, Corr. XXXIX (1598), 265: “Sed et Huic senectam meam, adversus illorum perditissimorum nebulorum sacrosanctum etiam I  E S U nomen ementitorum impudentissime confictas calumnias, commendes velim:  quibus [emend to qui] ausi nuper sunt per totam Europam tum voce, tum scriptis, non mihi modo (quem etiam ita mortuum esse confinxerunt) verum etiam toti huic inclytae et vere per Dei gratiam orthodoxae Civitati,

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I also pray that you commend to God my old age against the most shamefully fabricated slanders of those incorrigible wretches who feign, no less, the holy name of Jesus. They dared to brand with the mark of apostasy, not only me (whom they even pretended had died), but also this whole renowned and, by God’s grace, truly orthodox city, church and Genevan Academy. By God’s kindness, however, I still live. I have entered my eightieth year and am still sufficiently sound of mind and body. I am occupied for my forty-​ eighth year in this service (militia) of sacred ministry; as my condition allows I continue to teach the holy truth of the true God purely from his sacred Word. To my very last breath, also with God’s favor, I  will always remain steadfast in opposition to that accursed harlot residing in the city of the seven hills. Christian reader, so that we can decide about those things in which you deem that I  have been dim-​sighted, please exercise a kind and frank disposition that is consistent with Christian charity and corresponds to my sincerity and diligence in carrying out this task. We recall how Clément Depuy, “father of the Society falsely named Jesuits in the gutter of Dol,” spread rumors that Beza reconverted to Catholicism on his deathbed while convincing the leaders of Geneva to do the same.3 Beza alludes to this incident and repeats the charge that the Jesuits falsely and impudently claim to be genuine followers of Jesus when they in no way walk in obedience to him. What galls Beza most about the slanders spread by the Society is the implication that he himself and his fellow Genevans have reversed course and repented of their former convictions. Such inconstancy would put them in company with the likes of Judas Iscariot, the false disciple who could not finish the race: “We each have a calling [vocatio],” Beza says in his notes on Acts

Ecclesiae et Scholae Genevensi, horrendam illam Apostasiae notam inurere. At ego, Dei beneficio, adhuc vivo: adhuc, satis recte et mente et corpore, octuagesimum annum ingressus, valeo; adhuc quadragesimum iam octavum anum agens in hac sacri Ministerii militia, sacrosanctam illam veri Dei veritatem, pure, ex sacro Dei verbo pro meo modulo, docere pergo, ad extremum usque halitum adversus execrandam illam urbi septicolli insidentem meretricem, eundem me semper, eodem favente Deo, praestiturus. Ad ea vero diiudicanda, Christiane lector, in quibus coecutivisse me existimaveris, eum, quaeso, candorem adfer, qui Christianae charitati conveniat, et sinceritati ac diligentiae in his observandis meae respondeat.” 3.  See ­chapter 7.

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1:25, “a kind of road or stadium in which we must run if we wish to attain our goal [metam]. Judas deviated from this road, which was his apostleship; no, he completely abandoned it and took another road going the opposite direction.”4 Judas’s reversal, Beza concludes, led to his predetermined destruction. Beza himself had witnessed such apostasy firsthand. After hearing the clear truth expounded from Scripture and experiencing the reformation of the Church, his former student Palma Cayet returned to the enemy’s camp where, to Beza’s mind, human invention replaces the Word of God and falsehood passes for truth.5 In the poem written against Cayet, Beza calls upon Satan’s army of Jesuits to build for him a double Hell to accommodate his two reversals. He himself, in contrast, declares his intent to suppress his pride and submit to God. He tells his reader to ignore the lies being promulgated by the Jesuits. He lives still and has reached the age of eighty; for forty-​eight uninterrupted years he has remained steadfast at his station, carrying out the calling that God has given him. To the very end, to his last breath, he insists, he intends to stand firm in his convictions and resist the apostate Church of Rome. Old age challenges his determined spirit. He asks the reader to pray that God will give him the ability to press on even as the passage of time weakens and impairs him. Nonetheless, he refuses to use his failing health as an excuse for idleness, as would be easy to do. He possesses enough physical and mental faculties to stay busy in service to Christ and to accomplish at least something useful on behalf of the kingdom. He values above all sincerity, assenting to the Word alone as his guide and standard: thus he continues “to teach the holy truth of the true God purely from his sacred Word.” In the same vein, he wants his reader to know that he carried out his study of the Scriptures with sincerity, meaning, he has attempted to suppress his own inclinations and stay within the confines of the clear truth that God has revealed. For this reason he asks the reader not to flatter him, but to speak frankly if it seems that his own opinions have led him astray. If this is done in Christian love, together they can understand God’s Word more clearly.

4. Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 1, 455: “Est enim cuiusvis vocatio, quasi via et stadium in quo currere nos oportet, si metam volumus contingere. Ab hac igitur via, id est ab Apostolatu, dicitur Iudas digressus; imo vero ea prorsus relicta, in contrarium latus deflexisse.” 5.  See ­chapter 7.

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The preface alludes to another conviction of Beza, the idea that Geneva has a special function in God’s plan to redeem the world. He is appalled by the audacious lies of the Jesuits not only for himself, but also for renowned Geneva and her institutions, which he describes as orthodox by the grace of God. God appears to be uniquely blessing and cultivating the city of Geneva because it is grounded on the same principles by which Beza himself lives. The Academy carefully and conscientiously teaches God’s revelation. The city’s laws foster conduct which corresponds to the Word and the natural order of things. People are encouraged to listen and submit to those ordained to guide them. The ministers’ sermons and the remonstrances of the Consistory assist them in bridling their sinful inclinations. In essence, God has set up Geneva as a new Jerusalem and specially chosen her people out of a rebellious world.6 Through them he is restoring the faithful to his kingdom. The implication to his fellow Genevans is that they must also stay the course as he does and abide by Scriptural principles for living. Otherwise they too, like the Israelites of old, will face the wrath of God. In a few brief sentences, then, Beza presents a summation of his Christian faith and the principles by which he lives: he is submissive to the Word, loving the truth, always accounting for his time, resisting ambition, pride, and the snares of flattery, focused on living sincerely, and actively employing his gifts from God for the good of others. These are the principles that mark the path on which he walks and prove that he has not apostasized. These are the principles that he advocates for his fellow Genevans. He may waiver on occasion, but he never falters in his direction or fails to keep his eyes fixed on the ultimate goal. When read against the backdrop of the arguments of this book, therefore, the closing paragraph of the preface to the reader invites a deeper reading. In it, Beza does more than invoke the usual platitudes expected in such a context. He reveals the moral roadmap that he follows, the chart that faith tells him will lead to his spiritual reward. He accomplishes this subconsciously and effortlessly, no doubt, because these ethical principles have become so profoundly and thoroughly ingrained within his soul that they shape his every thought and action. They inform everything that he writes. At his very core he is committed to conformity, calling, mutuality, steadfastness, and honesty. Beza believes in these principles so deeply that he himself embodies them.

6.  On the comparison with Jerusalem, see c­ hapter 5.

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Facing Mortality Beza’s correspondence for 1595 includes a short note or billet to Jean-​ Jacques Grynaeus, antistès at Basel, dated to July 6.7 The editors of his letters observe that a declining Beza dictated the body of the note to his former student Samuel Perrot,8 contributing only the signature with his own hand. The text comprises an untitled original poem of five elegiac couplets that is preceded by a few introductory sentences describing its occasion, an event that took place on his seventy-​sixth birthday (June 24) and gave Beza cause for reflection. In their notes on this piece to Grynaeus, the editors draw our attention to a letter that Beza sent on the same day to his neighbor Isaac Casaubon.9 In it, Beza describes the same vignette set forth here, but with slightly different wording, and incorporates the same poem without the fourth distich and the addition of some light alterations. Unresolved textual and interpretive problems have prevented modern readers from fully appreciating the significance of this poem. Properly construed, however, and read together with other poems Beza wrote about old age, it adds significantly to our understanding of how the reformer coped spiritually with the waning years of his life. At the beginning of the Grynaeus note, Beza sets the stage for the poem in this way:10 With the arrival of my seventy-​sixth birthday, which is the twenty-​ fourth of June, feast day of John the Baptist, my handmaid, on my waking up, announced to me (see how I  treat you as one of the family) that a hen that we had bought one month before, and thought we had lost immediately, appeared unexpectedly in the

7. Beza, Corr. XXXVI (1595), 75 (the Gregorian date is July 16). 8.  Samuel Perrot (1559–​1618) was from Langeais and studied at the Genevan Academy. He was pastor in Satigny from 1595–​1609 and in Geneva from 1609–​1618. On this see Manetsch, Calvin’s Company of Pastors, 315 (Appendix), entry 107. 9.  The letter to Casaubon appears at Beza, Corr. XXXVI (1595), 70–​71. 10. Beza, Corr. XXXVI (1595), 75: “Illuscente die meo natali septuagies sexies reverso, qui est Junii vicesimus quartus Johanni Baptistae sacer, mihi evigilanti nuntiavit ancilla (vide quam familiariter tecum agam) gallinam uno prius mense emptam, et quam statim amissam credidimus, ex insperato cum quindecim vegetis pullis in corte apparere. Egi de hoc etiam fructu gratias Deo bonorum omnium auctori, immo omen alicuius in annum venturum boni, et quidem sine superstitione, accepi: immo etiam epigrammatis occasionem inde arripui, quod ad te mitto, ut te mearum quoque nugarum participem faciam.”

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coup with fifteen lively chicks. I gave thanks to God, the author of all good things, for this bounty too; in fact, I regarded it as an omen that something good would happen over the next year, yet without superstition. And yes, I also took the opportunity for an epigram, which I send to you so that you can share in my small good fortune as well. The version of this story which was sent to Casaubon does not add any significant information, except to allow us to see that Perrot could make mistakes in his recording—​in both instances sexies is written sexcies—​ and to clarify that Beza intended to qualify the phrase without superstition with yet (et quidem is replaced by tamen). Basically, we are to understand that Beza purchased a hen and placed it in a coup. Immediately the hen disappeared, and, since Beza and his handmaid were unaware that it was incubating eggs that it had laid, was taken for lost. On June 24, Beza’s birthday, the handmaid greeted him with the welcome news that the hen had appeared in the coup together with fifteen chicks. Beza’s financial difficulties in these years were rather acute, and thus he gave thanks to God for a simple blessing and took it as a sign that the year to come would be a good one. This incident inspired him to compose the poem. Although the text contains difficulties, perhaps due to the process of dictation, it can be translated with confidence in the following way:11 A hen that I purchased but a month ago has already given to me fifteen chicks. But what fruits have I, after seventy years plus six, given in return to you, kindly Christ? Ah, not nearly the sort that a field, bought so dearly and cultivated over such a time, ought to yield to you! But these fruits are not completely worthless nor belying that they were brought forth by God’s inspiration.

11. Beza, Corr. XXXVI (1595), 75: “Ter quinos gallina mihi dedit unica pullos, | Mense uno, denis assibus empta prius. | Ast ego septenis decies, sexque insuper annis, | Quos retuli fructus, Christe benigne, tibi? | Ah! quam non quales tibi reddere debuit emptus | Tam care, et tanto tempore cultus ager? | At non degeneres prorsus, seseque negantes | Divini afflatu numinis esse satos. | sed quorsum haec? Unum hoc tribuas, peto, Christe, roganti: | Sis gallina mihi, sim tibi pullus ego.”

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What then? I pray, Christ, that you grant this one request of mine: May you be a hen to me, and I a chick to you.12 The first two couplets together with the last are fairly straightforward. The third and fourth couplets, however, have caused some consternation. The editors point to a French translation made by Jules Bonet, who first stumbled upon the letter in the mid-​nineteenth century.13 Bonet’s attempt highlights certain difficulties present in the central lines that he was not able to solve. Bonet tried to make sense of the third and fourth stanzas by combining them into one continuous sentence, delaying the translation of the Latin ah! until the fourth, and introducing a word not suggested by the Lain text, âme, with the sense of heart or soul.14 He also ignores the question mark of the third stanza while adding an exclamation point in the fourth. Additionally, his translation does not reflect the fact that the words degeneres and negantes refer back to fructus, a plural accusative, in line 4. There is nothing else in the poem to which they can or should be attached, as is proven by the slight alteration in the Casaubon version, where Sed quorsum haec becomes Sed quorsum hos fructus. Furthermore, the quam of the phrase Ah! quam that begins the third stanza does not represent a continuation of the exclamation (“how!”), nor does it introduce an interrogative (“how?”). It is also not a relative pronoun (“which”) because it lacks an antecedant. A  parallel construction appears in one of Beza’s own emblems, which assists in unraveling its sense. The 12.  The last lines relate to Matt. 23.37 (cf. 4 Ezra 1.30), which in Beza’s Latin version reads, “Ierusalem, Ierusalem, interemptrix prophetarum, et lapidatrix eorum qui ad te missi sunt, quoties volui aggregare liberos tuos quemadmodum gallina aggregat pullos suos sub alas, et noluistis?” See Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 1, 112–​13. 13. In Bulletin de la Société de l’histoire du protestantisme Français 3 (1855): 146–​47: “Une poule achetée au prix de dix sols | Me donne en un mois quinze petits poulets. | Et moi, ô Christ plein de bénignité, quels fruits t’ai-​je donnés, | Pendant les soixante et dix sept années que j’ai vécues jusqu’à ce jour? | Et pourtant, quel tribut ne devait pas te rapporter ce champ | Que tu as payé si cher, et cultivé de tes mains depuis un si long temps, | Cette âme, hélas! dégénérée, mais non à ce point | De renier son divin Auteur et sa céleste origine!… | Pardonne, Seigneur, et accorde une seule grâce à mon humble prière: | Sois pour moi comme la poule, et que je sois comme un de tes poussins!” Scott Manetsch (“Songs Before Sonnets: Theodore Beza and the Studia Humanitatis,” in Continuity and Change: The Harvest of Late Medieval and Reformation History, eds. Robert J. Blast and Andrew Gow [Leiden: Brill, 2000], 400–​16, esp. 415) also references this poem and Bonet’s translation; he himself translates the first two stanzas and the last, but not the central portion. 14.  In referencing this translation in the notes on the Casaubon version of the poem, the correspondence editors remark only that Bonnet should have used the plural, âmes, to match the adjective and participle; see Beza, Corr. XXXVI (1595), 71, n. 4.

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woodcut of the relevant emblem depicts a sinking ship with sailors on board, one of whom wields an awl with which he drills a hole through the deck; the ship in this case is meant to be an image of the Catholic Church. [Figure 1] The beginning of the third line reads, “Ah, quam vera vides!”15 The obvious meaning, given the context, is, “Ah, you are looking at things precisely as they are!” with the quam serving as an intensifier equivalent to valde (“very true,” or “exactly true”).16 When the same construction is transferred to the poem about the hen, it becomes clear that Beza means for quam to give color to the phrase non quales which follows it: “not really the sort” or “not nearly the sort.” This brings us to another point: there is no need for a question mark to close out the third stanza. One does not appear in the Casaubon version—​ there we find an exclamation point after ager—​and the quam does not signal that an interrogative is intended. A question mark followed by the strong contrastive at (beginning of the fourth couplet) does not seem very likely, either. Furthermore, if we remove the fourth stanza, as the Casaubon version does, we are left with three successive questions, none of which fit together logically. This philological reconstruction of the poem clarifies the gist of it and permits the following paraphrase: “The hen has produced a large brood for me, but have I produced such abundant fruit for you, Christ? No, I have not yielded a sufficient amount to compensate for the high price you paid for me, your field. Still, I have not been completely barren, since the Holy Spirit has worked through me. I only pray, Christ, that you consider me one of your own.” Beza recognizes Christ as the source of all good fruits (he is the hen, not Beza), but feels that those fruits have been exhibited in him enough to hope and pray, by the grace of God, that he belongs among the children of Christ. The structural and rhetorical technique that Beza employs, developing his theme through an initial illustration taken from from a vignette of real life, occurs frequently in his poetry. He is fond of drawing simple moral

15. Beza, Poemata 1597, 262. 16.  The rendering, “what true things you see!” does not properly convey the sense (for that interpretation see Alison Adams, Webs of Allusion:  French Protestant Emblem Books of the Sixteenth Century [Geneva: Droz, 2003], 145). Coupled with the exclamation, the construction gives a hint of incredulous surprise over the self-​destructive action depicted in the emblem’s image: “Can you believe this is happening!” or, “Your eyes are not deceiving you at all.” A comparative construction (without the exclamation) can be found in Cicero, Verr. 4.25:  “Sunt vestrum, iudices, quam multi, qui Pisonem cognoverunt,” where the phrase “quam multi vestrum” means “very many of you.” Cf. Caesar, BG 6.26:  “rami quam late diffiduntur.”

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lessons from simple experiences. In a previous chapter, for example, we reviewed the poem about the fast-​growing mulberry tree that led into a reflection on pride.17 Beza derives a different kind of moral from the hen and her chicks, one that speaks to the disposition required in the waning years of life. In this case, the matter is of a much more personal and introspective sort. How does God want me to face my own mortality? The vision that he has for himself as the perceived end draws near remains consistent across all the poems that he wrote about his passing birthdays, the onset of old age, and his coming death. Each of these very personal and heartfelt poems projects the same message in different guises. When read intertextually, as we will do in the remaining part of this chapter, they form a coherent picture as to how Beza was grappling with and processing the end of his life. As we will see, what comforted Beza spiritually in these years was 1) the knowledge that Christ shed His blood on the cross for his salvation, 2) an assurance that he has been united to Christ through the Holy Spirit, and 3) faith in the protection that Christ continues to afford him as he faces the future.

Retrospection The trepidation Beza feels about the onset of old age becomes noticeable in his writings starting from the early 1580s. At the beginning of the introduction to this book we quoted a poem from letter written in 1582 to Laurent Dürnhoffer, pastor at Nuremberg and which appears in later editions of Beza’s poetry. The poem marks Beza’s sixty-​third birthday, the special “climacteric” year of life, according to ancient astrological traditions, a kind of peak or goal when many could expect to die: Hail, birthday, repeated now six times ten years, plus another three, during which, though in sin I strayed from the straight path, even so I did not completely lose my way, etc.18

17. Beza, Poemata 1597, 186: “In superbos, argumento ex moro domestica sumpto, quae intra quinquennium mirabiliter excrevit.” For a discussion of this poem as it relates to pride, see ­chapter 2. 18. For the bibliography see the Introduction, fn. 1.  See also the comment by R. M. Kingdon, “Calvin’s Last Years,” Calvinus Praeceptor Ecclesiae (Geneva: Droz, 2004), 179–​87, esp. 186: “Théodore de Bèze, Calvin’s younger colleague and successor in Geneva, was sure that he would die in 1581, when he reached the age of 63. He had taken too seriously an ancient theory that 63 was the ‘climacteric’ year in a man’s life, and that no one should expect

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The pythiambic strophes that Beza chooses for the poem strike the uneasy, somber tone of one awaiting an impending death.19 Beza’s colleague Simon Goulart also knew of the mystical importance of this year and devoted a chapter of his work Le sage vieillard to it.20 There, relying on Censorinus’s De die natali, he reviews the tradition that holds that the sixty-​third year, as a compound of nine times seven (in medical lore the latter number signals a time of bodily transformation and decay), is a particularly fatal one for many people; the year forty-​nine is also deemed perilous. Goulart himself expresses doubt about the astrologers’ art and points out that the number seven in the Bible has a mystical application, but not an astrological (i.e., natural) one. He encourages his readers to consider every day a climacteric one, because the Lord can take a person at any time. Beza wrote the climacteric poem some fifteen years before the preface to the fifth edition of his New Testament and twelve years before the one about the hen. Nevertheless, in all three Beza approaches the matter of his mortality with remarkable uniformity. The climacteric poem exhibits the same concern with moving steadily forward along a path (the devius/​avius dichotomy), the resolute focus on a goal (meta), and the readiness to submit humbly to God’s will that is evident in the other two texts. The abiding importance of devius for Beza’s thinking about the Christian journey is also illustrated by a poem written to accompany the second edition of his paraphrases of Ecclesiastes. This volume appeared in the same year as the New Testament edition, 1598: To the Christian Reader21 If you seek to discover the sure path of life, and avoid a thousand crooked by-​ways, to live beyond that. He said as much in letters he wrote in 1581, as to his friend Dürnhoffer in Nuremberg.” For this Kingdon cites not our poem, but a letter of June 20 in Beza, Corr. XXII (1581), no 1481, esp. 118 and n. 15. 19.  More precisely, here, and in several of the other poems on old age, Beza’s employs the first Pythiambic strophe acatalectic, that is, a dactylic hexameter followed by the iambic dimeter. Horace used the meter for two of his epodes, but Beza’s lines exhibit variations that belong to later Latin poets, such as admitting anapaests at the beginning of the dimeter (e.g., Mart. 1.49). One may compare the several poems of Erasmus written in the same Pythiambic meter listed at The Collected Works of Erasmus (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993), vol. 85/​ 86, 415 (notes to poem 2). There the commentator (Harry Vredveld) remarks that the meter perhaps suggests the passage of time (the dactylic hexameter line) and its abrupt end with old age and death (the iambic dimeter line), which, of course, coincides well with Beza’s usage. 20.  Simon Goulart, Le sage vieillard chapter VI (Lyon: Antoine de Harsy, 1606), 79–​85. 21. Beza, Corr. XXXIX (1598), 272: “Christiano Lectori | Quicunque certum vitae nosse tramitem | Et mille quaeris fugere calles devios, | Hunc ne pigeat certum sequi viae ducem

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do not despise this trusty guide [sc. Solomon] for your way. No one has ever commenced his life the wiser, nor has anyone been taught more by his mistakes. The poem references the auscipicious beginnings of Solomon as one blessed by God with wisdom, but in the end tempted to idolatry by his wives. The book of Ecclesiastes represents Solomon’s cumulative wisdom learned the hard way by his wandering off on “a thousand crooked by-​ ways.” The latter phrase almost certainly alludes to the Vulgate rendering of Judges 5:6, where we find identical wording: per calles devios. The phrase suggests to Beza the image of a wrong turn or deviation from the “sure path of life,” a missing of the mark, though not the kind of reversal which the apostasizing Judas Iscariot or Palma Cayet chose. The word avius best describes such lost souls as these who forsake the goal altogether to travel another path headed in the opposite direction. It is one thing to need prodding to return to the straight and narrow road and another to turn from God with one’s entire being. The difference is the same as between minor and major excommunication. Despite an evident resolve, Beza’s climacteric poem shows him waivering nonetheless between fear and resignation. Exhaustion brought about by the struggles inherent to his ministry and position weigh upon him. He knows that he made mistakes (devius) but he continued to fight the good fight and never lost his faith (avius). The old traditions nag at him, however, telling him that sixty-​three marks the finish line (meta) and now he has to endure the pains of mortality (duriora). He gathers himself: only a fool believes such fantasies, given that only God decides and knows the fate of each person. He ends with a prayer of submission and acquiescence in which he acknowledges God’s providential power over the future and his extension of mercy and grace into the past. Several more significant convergences occur between this poem and the one about the hen. In the climacteric poem, Beza greets his birthday and then muses whether he has truly reached that climactic year of old age, or if he still has some good years left. As he looks back from this vantage point to his life gone by, he reminisces about the journey itself and wonders how he has done. He assesses his life with a measure of ambivalence: he has, as we have noted, deviated from the path, but he has not wandered so far as to become completely lost. In other words, despite the mistakes and sins committed over the years, he feels that the

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Holy Spirit has been working in him to keep him growing in obedience to Christ. This is the same sentiment expressed in the second to last couplet written to Grynaeus (the very couplet missing from the Casaubon version), which shows why an exact rendering is so critical. There Beza confessed that while the hen has shown her gratitude to the one who purchased her by bearing many offspring, he himself has not in his long lifetime adequately repaid the one who purchased him at such a high cost. He then follows with two lines that qualify this concession: he has, thanks to the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit within him, produced some fruits for Christ, and had some successes along the way. The fitting fruits owed to Christ are obedience and imitation of him, but, at the same time, inadequacy in yielding those fruits does not equate with total moral turpitude. Beza looks back over the journey of life and sees an ongoing process of regeneration that tells him that he does indeed belong to Christ and is headed in the right direction, despite the many shortcomings and missteps. His growth in righteousness assures him of the validity of his faith. In his debate with the Lutheran Jakob Andreae at Montbéliard in 1586 over, among other topics, the Lord’s Supper, baptism, and predestination, Beza describes the advice and comfort which he gives to those who come to him as a pastor doubting their own salvation.22 The counsel offered follows the same line of reasoning as we find in the poems. Reminding his doubting and disgruntled parishioners (those who have been reprimanded by God for their sins) that the sign of their adoption lies in the very anxiety they feel about their relationship to God, and not in external rituals, he comforts them that they have in themselves testimony that a resolution will come. They have, in short, displeasure over their own sin and a desire for reconciliation.23 “Keep praying,” he urges them, and then adds pointedly, “He also is a sheep who has wandered for a time away

| Quo nemo vixit initio sapientior, | Vitiis nec ullus eruditior suis.” The word is also used similarly in a letter attached to both editions of this work, for which see Corr. XXIX (1588), 256. Likewise, note its use in the poem of Louis des Masures to Beza at Corr. X (1569), 284, line 140. 22. Beza, Ad acta colloquii Montisbelgardensis Tubingae edita, Theodori Bezae responsionis pars altera (Geneva: Jean le Preux, 15893 [first published in 1587 at the same press]), 67 (in the discussion on baptism). 23. Beza, Ad acta colloquii Montisbelgardensis, 67: “displicentiae nimirum peccati, et reconciliationis desiderium.”

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from the flock.”24 The point that he wants to make to those in distress over their waywardness is the same consolation which he gives to himself in old age: Christians, like sheep, sometimes deviate from the flock, but that does not equate to abandoning it. Internally they know that they want to return. The doctrinal position behind these statements is particularly interesting, because it marks one of the places where some have argued that Beza diverges from his mentor Calvin in regard to a theological matter. In his study on the doctrine of the assurance of one’s faith in Calvin’s theology, for example, Randall Zachman argues that Beza and Calvin had two different answers for those concerned about whether or not they belonged among the elect.25 For Calvin, people can be assured that they are indeed adopted because the Holy Spirit, working through the promises of the Gospel, eases their fears in regard to their own sinfulness and gives them confidence to approach God. The Holy Spirit witnesses to them internally that they are children of God, that the Father loves them, and that the Father’s promises apply to them through Christ. Thus instead of despairing in times of trouble, they boldly cry out to God to save them, as David once did. For Beza, the argument goes, a good conscience holds more importance in building that level of confidence; assurance is built upon the process of sanctification. Zachman sees this as a holdover from the “moral conjecture” teaching of the Roman Catholic Church and utterly rejected by Calvin: “Hence, when Beza attempts to deal with exactly the

24. Beza, Ad acta colloquii Montisbelgardensis, 67: “Ovis est etiam quae extra gregem ad tempus aberravit. 25. Randall Zachman, “Crying to God on the Brink of Despair:  The Assurance of Faith Revisited,” in Calvinus Praeceptor Ecclesiae:  Papers of the International Congress on Calvin Research, ed. Herman J. Selderhuis (Geneva:  Droz 2004), 351–​58. Zachman is defending one of the arguments of his book (The Assurance of Faith: Conscience in the Theology of Martin Luther and John Calvin [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993]) against Joel Beeke, Assurance of Faith: Calvin, English Puritanism, and the Dutch Second Reformation (New York: Peter Lang, 1991). Zachman sees a “fundamental agreement between Luther and Calvin on assurance,” and that there is a divide on the issue between Calvin and Beza. It should be noted, though, that some Lutherans too shared Beza’s emphasis on sanctification. Johannes Brenz, for example, in hom. XCI of In Acta Apostolica homiliae centumvigintiduae (Haguenau, 1536), speaking of energy for his calling, writes, “The conclusion we are left with is that, if we wish to be certain about our faith, we should not give ourselves over to idleness and wickedness, but everyone should serve their vocation diligently and piously, without regard to hard work or peril, and do their duty (Reliquum nunc est, ut si voluerimus de fide nostra certificari, non ignaviae, neque sceleribus nos tradamus, sed suae quisque vocationi diligenter et pie nullo laboris aut periculi respectu serviat, et officium suum faciat).” Here there is no reference to material prosperity as a grounds of assurance, only the pursuit of hard work itself.

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same pastoral question by directing those suffering from doubt about their election to the internal testimony to their own holiness of life, he is not simply differing in emphasis or method, he is directly contradicting the pastoral advice of Calvin.”26 In his book on the same subject, Zachman holds Beza responsible for the reversal of Calvin’s position that placed the fundamentum of assurance in Christ’s reckoned righteousness; with Beza, he says, came the emergence of the syllogismus practicus, that is, the basing of assurance on the presence of good works.27 This may be an overstatement of Beza’s position. Beza without a doubt believed that Christians render themselves “daily more certain of their calling and election the more they resist sin.”28 Even so, Beza also embraced the importance of the inner testimony of the Spirit leading true Christians to call upon God as their Father. For example, at Confessio Christianae fidei 4.13 he sees two remedies against Satan’s attempts to undermine assurance, the first of which involves an internal recognition of dependency, while only the second relies on outward effects:29 First, the Holy Spirit testifies to our spirit that we are sons of God so that without fear we may exclaim “Abba Father!” Second, we must also confirm that, when we talk about our union with

26.  Zachman, “Crying to God,” 357–​58. 27. Zachman, The Assurance of Faith, 6–​7. Zachman distinguishes between what is the fundamentum of faith and what are testimonies that confirm faith (211), which are, for Calvin, secondary signs. On p. 208 he states, “The foundation of our faith in God as our Father in Jesus Christ is not the testimony of a good conscience within us, but the testimony of forgiveness and imputed righteousness in Jesus Christ.” Zachman’s basic argument (192–​213) is that faith engrafts God’s children to Christ, from whom flows for the Christian a twofold grace of repentance and forgiveness, which in turn leads to sanctification, which involves mortification and revivification. Therefore, a good conscience confirms that faith is sincere (200), but it is not the foundation of confidence in adoption. The foundation is only the forgiveness of sins. 28. Beza, Tractationes theologicae, 11: “illi magis ac magis obsistere, ut sese electionis ac vocationis suae quotidie magis ac magis reddat certiorem.” 29. Beza, Tractationes theologicae, 10: “Primum enim Spiritus sanctus testimonium reddit spiritui nostro nos esse filios Dei, adeo ut intrepide clamemus Abba Pater. Deinde hoc quoque constituendum est, quando nobis Christum per fidem applicamus, id non fieri vana quadam et inani opinione sive imaginatione; sed re ipsa et plane efficaciter, quamvis totum hoc mysterium sit spirituale, adeo ut quemadmodum anima physico modo corpori adiuncta effectus suos edit, ita Christus Iesus per fidem intra nos habitans spirituali modo ac virtute, vires suas in nobis exerat, quae quidem in sacris literis intelliguntur regenerationis et sanctificationis nomine, quoniam per illas novi prorsus homines evadimus, quod ad qualitates attinet.”

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Christ through faith, we are not engaging in empty fantasy or imagination; it happens really and quite efficaciously, although the whole thing is a spiritual mystery. Just as the soul conjoined in a physical mode to the body produces its own effects, so Christ Jesus living within us through faith in a spiritual mode and virtue projects his power in us. In the Scriptures, this power is known by the names regeneration and sanctification, since through it we emerge completely new people, at least in terms of what sort of people we are. Also, at 4.19 of the same work, Beza is clear that God’s children should seek testimony of their election partly in good works, not solely through them:30 Fourth, since good works are testimonies of our faith, it also follows that in part we should seek verification of our eternal election, for a faith apprehending Christ necessarily follows election, through which we are justified and sanctified. Likewise, in his twenty-​eighth prayer of Maister Beza’s Household Prayers (London, 1603), titled “For him that feeleth his death at hand,” he writes, For of all these benefites doe I feel thy promise sealed in my heart by thy spirit, which maketh me to crie unto thee ‘Abba Father’ and assureth me, that thou wilt of thy free mercy, in the name of thy Sonne, and for his sake, give mee remission of my sinnes, and eternal life. We can agree with Richard Muller’s assessment, therefore, that just as Calvin gives some attention to works, so Beza makes reference to the internal witness of the Spirit.31 Still, it is true that on the pastoral level

30. Beza, Tractationes theologicae, 15: “Quarto, quum bona opera sint fidei nostra testimonia, consequitur etiam inde petendam aliqua ex parte testificationem aeternae nostrae electionis, quoniam electionem necessario consequitur fides Christum apprehendens, per quem iustificati et sanctificati.” 31.  See especially his chapter titled “Calvin, Beza, and the Later Reformed on Assurance of Salvation and the ‘Practical Syllogism,’” in Calvin and the Reformed Tradition: On the Work of Christ and the Order of Salvation (Grand Rapids, MI:  Baker Academic, 2012), 244–​76. This stance has to be qualified by reference to his work Christ and the Decree:  Christology

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Beza placed a heavy emphasis on growth in morality to deal with waivering assurance. He says as much in the debate with the Lutheran Jakob Andreae at Montbéliard. Furthermore, both the Grynaeus poem and this climacteric poem show him surveying his life to ascertain whether he was always moving in the right direction. In both of those poems we see Beza comforting himself primarily with the thought that he has made continual progress on the path of obedience. The end of the climacteric poem, “Cover what was, and what will be, govern,” expresses the reformer’s total resignation to and reliance on God for his personal fate. He looks to the blood of Christ to atone for his past mistakes, while at the same time surrendering his future to God’s providential care. He himself can not know or control the future, but God can. In the Grynaeus poem this is couched as the field that was bought so dearly and cultivated for so long, together with the prayer at the end that God hide him under his protective care: “May you be a hen to me, and I a chick to you.” Beza is well-​known for his exacting and, at times, syllogistic arguments concerning the doctrine of predestination, often portrayed by his detractors as overly curious and completely unnecessary. Beza once in a heated moment called predestination the “the foundation of our faith.”32 In the case of the poems, however, the concept is applied in a pastoral way meant to give comfort and equip the saints against the vicissitudes of life: it is true God’s children cannot know the future, but they can take courage by trusting that the Father has control of it. Shawn Wright in his study of Beza’s pastoral ministry identifies the essence of the poem’s closing prayer, beseeching God to forgive and to guide, as a constant refrain in his sermons and treatises.33 Wright divides God’s sovereignty into his providential governance of the events in the world and his complete control of individual human fate as worked out in the plan of salvation. Wright looks at Beza’s Household Prayers, his sermons and lectures on Job, Psalms, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon,

and Predestination in Reformed Theology from Calvin to Perkins (Grand Rapids, MI:  Baker Academic, 2008, 85, where he sees a “tension between the spiritual and the empirical grounds of assurance” in Beza, and holds that the latter “more pointedly even than Calvin demands that good work follow.” 32. Beza, Corr. VIII (1567), 44: “le fondement de toute nostre foy.” 33.  Shawn Wright, Our Sovereign Refuge:  The Pastoral Theology of Theodore Beza (Carlisle, PA: Paternoster, 2004), esp. 134–​86.

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his treatise on the plague, and several works on predestination, and concludes the following about the reformer’s thought: in the face of disease, warfare, political strife, in personal attacks by Satan and his demons, in all moments of weakness, the knowledge and recognition of God’s sovereignty eases fears. God is watching over his children and guiding them to their ultimate rest and refuge in Heaven (what Wright calls Beza’s “eschatological vision”).34 Commenting on Job 1.21, for example, Beza writes, They that are rightly persuaded of the providence of God, and by the example of Job do acknowledge God to be the most just and wise governor of all things, not only in general, but in particular, they of all others do find out that most quiet and safe haven, wherein, having been tossed with never so violent storms of afflictions, they do quietly remain.35 Concerning Ecclesiastes he encourages his readers, “Falling down before the majesty of God, which we cannot comprehend, rest wholly in his will.”36 In his prayer titled “That we may well use afflictions,” Beza asks God, “that I learn in whatever my estate, cheerfully to submit myself to the conduct of your providence.”37 Thus Wright concludes that Beza used providence and predestination pastorally: “As we turn to Beza’s pastoral treatises, we will see clearly that for Beza predestination was meant to be a comforting doctrine for Christians. It was the anchor for their souls in the raging sea of this life. God’s sovereignty should give them certainty in this life and a hope of a better life to come.”38 Beza applies the same remedy to

34. Wright, Our Sovereign Refuge, 165. Note also the sentiment of Girolamo Zanchi, who called the doctrine of predestination “solacium ineffabile”; on this see E. Fiume, “Decretium Dei, solatium ineffabile: il contributo di Girolamo Zanchi (1516–​1590) alla dottrina della doppia predestinazione e della perseveranza dei credenti,” in Bollettino della Società di Studi Valdesi, 181 (1997): 67–​78. 35. Wright, Our Sovereign Refuge, 160 (from the translation published at Cambridge in 1589). 36. Wright, Our Sovereign Refuge, 164 (from the translation published at Cambridge, n.d.). 37. Wright, Our Sovereign Refuge, 166, from Maister Beza’s Household Prayers. On this text see Scott Manetsch, “A Mystery Solved? Maister Beza’s Household Prayers,” BHR 65 (2003): 275–​88. 38. Wright, Our Sovereign Refuge, 179; see also Richard Muller, “The Use and Abuse of a Document:  Beza’s Tabula Praedestinationis, The Bolsec Controversy, and the Origins of Reformed Orthodoxy,” in Protestant Scholasticism: Essays in Reassessment, ed. Carl R. Trueman and R. S. Clark (Carlisle, PA: Paternoster, 1999), 33–​61, esp. 35.

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himself: “I am a fool for demanding these things,” he says in the climacteric poem, referring to his own anxiety about the future. He recognizes that he must relent and put his trust in God even though he cannot understand all the inscrutable mysteries of his counsel. The same predominate themes in the poems about the hen and the climacteric year also figure in a poem (again in Pythiambic strophes) marking his seventieth birthday. Beza writes: Self-​examination on his seventieth birthday39 I have passed through seventy years, my God, and as I analyze them and examine the seasons of so long a life according to the standard of righteousness, as one should—​alas!—​I am not able to calculate the number and weight of my transgressions. If, by chance, you were to calculate them—​oh!—​how much more desirable would it be not to have been born, or soon to die? I know there is some limit to my failure, though I am unable to count it. But the terrible suffering, and drops of blood, which your innocent son poured forth for those who are wretched and have confessed their sins, are incalculable in their number and weight. Therefore, this hope alone encourages me in my misery, that it will be (as you yourself bid me hope) that innumerable sufferings have atoned for numerous crimes, and that you do not demand payment for debts forgiven.

39. Beza, Poemata, 1597, 209; Beza, Poemata, 1599, 107r–​v. This poem is included in Corr. XXX (1589), 333. The “variants” listed by the editors are simply typographical errors of later editions (for example, the form Deos in the first line of the 1599 and 1614 editions was influenced by the ending on annos and should not be taken as a Greek variant). The text runs as follows: “Theodorus Beza, in annum suum septuagesimum exactum | Septenos decies transegi, mi Deus, annos, | quos dum seco in minutias, | et recti ad normam tam longae tempora vitae, | ut factum oportet, exigo; | Heu, delictorum numerum pondusque meorum |inire nec ego sum potis. | Quem si forte ineas, vah, quanto optatius esset | non esse natum, aut mox mori? | Finitum tamen est deliqui, Maxime, quidquid, | numerare quamvis nesciam. | Horrendae sed enim poenae, guttaeque cruoris, | quas ille fudit innocens, | servandis natus miseris, et crimina fassis, | numero carent et pondere. | Spes igitur miserum fovet haec me sola, futurum | (sperare ut ipse me iubes) | innumerae luerint numerosa ut crimina poenae, | soluta nec, Deus, exigas.”

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Again we find the matter of the assurance of his adoption weighing heavily on the reformer’s mind. Here anew he looks back over the span of his life and feels ashamed for the seemingly endless number of sins that he has committed. He finds comfort in knowing, despite appearances, that there is indeed a limit to his sins, that in essence he has been devius (one who deviates) but not avius (one who abandons), and that his fruits have not been completely degenerate and unreflective of the influence of the Holy Spirit. Thankfully, he continues, the punishments that Christ endured to pay for those sins, at least for the sins of those who truly trust in Him, are beyond measure. Therefore he can look to his future with confidence, knowing that at the judgment throne God will not demand of him eternal recompense.

The Cato on Old Age The final poem appearing in the Cato comprises thirty lines of iambic trimeters in which the poet examines his own old age. Its inclusion among the other poems of the Cato is in itself curious and requires an explanation. The Cato, as we have argued, focuses on sins that merited remonstrances from the Consistory or by some other means. It is easy to understand how someone could be confronted for adultery or greed, but not how one could be admonished simply for being old. Such was not the intent. The purpose of the poem instead aligns with its position at the end of the work.40 Max Engammare in his work on the management and importance of time at Geneva points out that the reformers considered it an integral part of their sanctification to continuously review and evaluate their lives. The end of a day, a year, or a life offered the opportunity to the faithful to account for how they spent their time. Did they use every minute engaged in their calling, helping those in need, or praying and worshiping God?41 The old age poem in the Cato assumes this same role. Standing at the end it functions as a kind of appraisal of the moral battlefield of life, where over the course of time the sins of the Cato were met and resisted. The final poem, like the old age it addresses, provides a vantage point from which one can see successes and setbacks in the pursuit of holiness. The coming of old age

40.  In the 1591 edition of the Cato, the poem on old age is followed by Casaubon’s Greek which translates Beza’s poem against adulterers. In the later versions of the Cato the Greek poem is moved in front of the poem on old age, which in turn takes its logical place at the end. 41. Engammare, On Time, 98–​99.

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means that the race to which Beza so often alludes is almost finished, the goal almost reached. Thus old age does not bear the censuring of Cato; it represents an occasion of self-​evaluation. For this reason Beza considered it a fitting conclusion to his book: In senectam42 Sperata cunctis, grata sed paucissimis, Senecta praesens, qui fit ut te abborreant Quibus beatae patefacis vitae fores, Huius miserias aevitatis finiens? Terrena praeter nempe quod nil cogitent  5 Plerique rerum nescii caelestium. Hinc tot querelae, hinc eiulatus irriti, Dum tristis iste mortuus vivens senex, Cervice tremula, lippientibus oculis, Rugis arata fronte, terram contuens,  10 Fallente gressu vix inambulat tripes: At ille clamat sapere iam nihil sibi: Noctes diesque tussiens hic pervigil, Perustus alius febrium caloribus, Saevis podagrae vinctus hic angoribus  15 Carnifice tortus alius calculo miser, Inanibus caelum fatigant questibus: Alia malorum ut multa omittam millia. Sed illa quid si non Senectae, sed sibi Suoque accepta ferre debent luxui,  20 Haec iusta cuius poena sic persolvitur? Immo ut senectae mille adhaereant cruces, Cruces quis illas iure dixerit malas, Nosse unde Numen, nos et ipsos, discimus? Sane ergo, quicquid hic vel ille dictitet,  25 Magnum Senecta est optimi donum Dei: Sive illa mitis sit, ut mihi, sive aspera, Bono bene uti nempe si quibus datur: Quod Beza gratus hoc fatetur carmine, Tantum eadem ut esse porro pergat obsecrans.  30

42. Beza, Cato 1591, 14–​15; Beza, Poemata 1597, 280–​81; Beza, Poemata 1599, 240v–​241r.

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About Old Age Hoped for by all, but pleasing to very few, old age now at hand, how does it happen that they abhor you for whom you open the gates of a blessed life, putting an end to the afflictions of this existence? Surely because most people, ignorant of heavenly things, think of nothing beyond this earthly realm. This is the source of so many complaints, the useless lamenting, as that gloomy fellow, a living corpse, with quivering neck and bleary eyes, the face furrowed with wrinkles, gazing at the ground, with failing gait barely walks with a cane; another exclaims that he has become confused about things; this one lies awake day and night coughing, while another is burned up with fevers, and this fellow is overcome with the torments of cruel gout, and some other is tortured wretchedly by a murderous kidney stone; they all wear out Heaven with their empty protests.—​ I pass over a thousand other ills that I could mention. But what if they ought to bear them as received not for old age, but for themselves and their own excess, for which this just punishment is paid? Yes, although a thousand crosses cling to old age, can anyone really call them evils, since from them we learn to know God and ourselves? Clearly then, whatever this person or that person will say, old age is a great gift from God on high, whether it is mild, as it is to me, or rough, provided it is granted to anyone to use a blessing well; Beza gratefully acknowledges this gift with this poem and prays only that it continue on in the same way hereafter. The poem begins by drawing upon stereotypical characterizations about old age from the well-​known works of antiquity, including Cicero’s De senectute, a work that Simon Goulart relied upon for his own treatise titled Le sage vieillard. Old age brings a hosts of ills along with it. It makes a person impaired in vision (Goulart devotes a chapter to eyesight), wrinkled and bent over, decrepit, sickly, racked by gout, full of stones,

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plagued with trembling and the sorts of afflictions that make one call out in despair to God. In the latter part of the poem, beginning with line 19, Beza returns to the themes familiar from the other poems about old age. The elderly tend to contemplate their present condition while reckoning with the life that they have lived. “What if,” Beza wonders, “the ailments faced in old age are in direct proportion and even a direct result of the moral choices that we made in life?” According to the paradigm established in the other poems of the Cato, sin is a rebellion against the natural order that God has established and so brings disharmony and chaos. The punishment of sin, from this point of view, stems from the natural consequences of it in creation. To remember one’s rebelliousness against God’s plan and the suffering that followed teaches wisdom in the context of old age. For Beza, this turns out to be one of the greatest blessings for this time of life: the person who has made it this far and struggled to remain on the path of righteousness now comprehends God and all his intentions for mankind better. “Can we really call them evils,” Beza asks, “since from them we learn to know God and ourselves?” Some happen not to suffer so badly and can continue in their calling—​to follow the logic of the previous thought, their sins must not have been so spectacular or so many—​and it is among these that Beza counts himself. Again we see him mitigating the severity of his sins, or at least calculating them in his mind, weighing them against his own morality, and looking for peace of mind. It is important for him to see a pattern of growth and success, a process of sanctification. Whether old age brings terrible afflictions (and therefore a deeper understanding of God) or only a dulling of one’s senses (allowing for one to continue to function in one’s calling, albeit at a slower pace), it always benefits the faithful. Beza ends the poem in gratitude to God for not allowing him to stray too far in his life so that now he can experience more of the advantages of old age than the pains. As in the other poems on old age, he acknowledges that God has mercifully not made him pay the price owed for the sins he did commit. God has covered the past. Consequently, Beza offers the poem itself as a token of his appreciation for this gift of grace. Furthermore, as he looks to the future, he cannot but throw himself humbly and prayerfully on God’s providential care with the hope that this gift will continue in the future.

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Conclusion In this chapter we examined a preface and four poems that Beza wrote about the waning years of his life. We began with the preface and noted that the principles on which Beza rests the defense of his faithfulness are the same ones that the censuring in the Cato advocates. Beza insists that he never abandoned those principles, but remained devoted to them throughout his ministry. His constancy in them and the progress of his sanctification are the very mark of his regeneration. We then turned to a poem, composed for his seventy-​sixth birthday and sent to Simon Grynaeus and Isaac Casaubon, in which he celebrates the appearance of fifteen chicks from a single hen. Beza acknowledges that God has continued to bless him even though he has not produced fruits equal to the sacrifice made by Christ on his behalf. He does, however, see the work of the Holy Spirit in his life and feels assured that he belongs among the elect. He ends with a prayer asking God to shelter him and receive him as one of his own. Next we recalled the poem discussed in the introduction that Beza wrote to commemorate his sixty-​third birthday, in which the reformer references the climacteric nature of the year and expresses initial trepidation about its significance. As he reminisces about how he spent his life, he determines that he has been wayward at times (devius), but never reversed his course or apostasized (avius). He therefore throws himself on the mercy of the omnipotent, omniscent God, praying that he will forgive his mistakes and direct his future. In the third poem Beza marks his seventieth birthday. Again, we find him making a reckoning of his past sins. He realizes that he has not maintained the lofty standard of righteousness owed to God, just as in the poem about the hen he recognized that he produced inadequate fruit. For this reason he makes no claim before God, but throws himself totally on his mercy through the blood of Christ. He adds the interesting qualification about the limit of his sin primarily to contrast his smallness with the immensity of the price that Christ paid on the cross. Nevertheless, there is an echo of the devius-​avius dichotomy as well. He has not lived a life totally immersed in sin and devoid of righteousness; his sins are numerous, not innumerable. He has hope, therefore, not because he has earned something by the way he has lived, but because he experiences Christ’s mercy within him. Finally, we analyzed the poem about old age from the Cato, which, it should be noted, was published in Beza’s seventy-​second year. There we

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again find Beza contemplating his life in terms of sins and moral victories. Now as the race has been run and the journey nears its end, he can understand old age as a gift from God. It offers a chance to know God from a mature perspective, as one has gained wisdom and knowledge along the way. It also allows him to experience even before death some of the benefits reaped from a life of fidelity and obedience. From these various texts emerges a composite picture of how Beza was facing his own impending death. The fact that he had lived a life marred by sin and insufficient to the demands of God could not crush him or leave him in despair. He took comfort in the work of Christ on his behalf. Christ’s blood in payment for his mistakes meant that he would not have to stand before God on his own merit. He had sinned, as all the sinners in the Cato, but he hid himself in the righteousness of Christ and that alone. He became assured that Christ’s salvific and regenerative power was applied to himself when he saw the signs that the Holy Spirit was working to sanctify him and conform him to Christ’s image. Upon a critical reflection of his life he could perceive that his journey was not always straight but constantly headed in one direction with one goal in view. Human frailty and impending death caused him to feel fear. He comes to understand, however, that the future rests in the hands of God, and with the confidence in his election he submits to God’s plan and infinite wisdom. As a sinner, as a mortal, he can do nothing else.

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The Ethical Aims of the Cato Five years before the appearance of the Cato Censorius Christianus, Beza published a volume containing a series of sermons that he had preached on the Song of Songs.1 While expounding on verses 10 and 11 of the first chapter, where Solomon describes the jewels and precious metals adorning his beloved bride, Beza draws a connection between the ornamentations of the bride and the ethical life of the Church. The bride, in his view, is a type for the Church itself, while the jewels and other adornments worn are the various gifts bestowed on the Church by Christ the bridegroom. Beza divides these gifts into two different kinds. On the one hand, Christ distributes a variety of gifts specially, according to his good pleasure, which are the vocations whereby his people glorify him and support one another. These vocations, however, are not wholly unique to Christians and thus do not set them apart. On the other hand, Christ universally distributes to every member of his body wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. Unbelievers have no share in these. They are jewels of inestimable value, so to speak, and without them none can claim to belong in the Church. Beza then asks his congregation pointedly: have we truly been jewels sparkling and shining in the darkness of the world? Or are we ourselves lovers of darkness? Is Christ’s bride faithfully reflecting his image? For

1. Beza, Sermons sur les trois premiers chapitres du Cantique des Cantiques de Solomon (Geneva: Jean le Preux, 1586). I have used the Latin edition published the next year: Beza, In Canticum Canticorum Solomonis homiliae … in quibus praecipuae de vero Christo et vera

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Beza, the answer to these questions is clear: the people of Geneva are not living in the world as if they possess Christ’s jewels, but instead practice the same fleshly indulgences infecting the lost. “We have issued remonstrances (admonitiones) time and time again,” he complains; “we have decreed laws against adulterers and fornicators and made an example of so many men and women, but do these punishments succeed in bridling us? Not in the least.”2 He notes also that there are some who try to whittle away at the laws and punishments until they are abolished altogether. This moral state of affairs frustrates him, and so he follows with a powerful diatribe against sinners that anticipates in many ways the message of the Cato. At the same time, it underscores the central place that ethics occupies in his thought:3 You greedy (avari), robbers, usurers (foeneratores), who observe the need of your poor brothers and cunningly profit (lucrum captatis) from their calamaties, more detestable than any thieves, creators of famine, cyclopes devouring men alive with the utmost cruelty, how long will you dwell in the bosom of the Church? You who frequent taverns, drunks (ebriosi), slaves to gluttony, will you never turn to another god besides your belly? You monopolizers, falsifiers of weights and measures, worshipers of mammon, the worst sort of idolaters, will you never learn to be content with fair and moderate gain? You quarrelsome, reproachful, envious (invidi), merciless and Ecclesia controversiae nostris temporibus agitatae ex Dei verbo exponuntur (Geneva:  Jean le Preux, 1587). 2. Beza, In Canticum canticorum Solomonis homiliae, 262:  “Tot admonitiones ex hoc ipso loco auditae; tot iustae leges in scortatores et adulteros in hac repub. sancitae, tot exempla in viros et foeminas edita; num haec flagitia coercere inter nos potuerunt? Minime.” 3. Beza, In Canticum canticorum Solomonis homiliae, 262–​63: “Avari, raptores, foeneratores, qui miserorum fratrum vestrorum egestatem observatis, et ex eorum calamitatibus versute lucrum captatis, quibusvis praedonibus detestabiliores, famis artifices, cyclopes vivos homines crudelissime devorantes, quousque tandem in Ecclesiae sinu versabimini? Vos ganeones, ebriosi, gulae mancipia, nunquamne ad alium Deum quam vestrum ventrem convertemini? Vos monopolae, ponderum et mensurarum falsatores cultores mammonae, perditissimi idololatrae, nunquamne discetis aequo et moderato lucro acquiescere? Rixosi, contumeliosi, invidi, implacabiles, litigiosi, quandiu vos feret Deus in illa sua pacis et charitatis domo? Vos litium forensium fomites ab imis inferis excitati, ex aliorum contentionibus lucrum aucupantes, lites ex litibus serentes, semperne per vos sacrosanctum iustitiae nomen inquinabitur? Dissoluti, inertes, otiosi, hypocritae, concionum sacrarum dicis causa auditores, vel ut eo suavius in templo stertaris, quando tandem quorsum nati sitis serio cogitabitis, antequam ex hac vita evocemini? Aleatores, vestrarum alienarumque fortunarum decoctores, adeone cito obliti estis funestae illius concionis a quodam non ita pridem sub manu carnificis habitae? …

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litigious, how long will God bear you (quandiu vos feret Deus) in his house of peace and love? You fomenters of trials, stirred up from the depths of Hell, hunting gain from the disputes of others, sowing law suits from law suits, will you always defile the holy name of justice? Self-​indulgent, indolent, idle (otiosi), hypocrites, attending sermons for the sake of appearance, or so that you might sleep the sweeter in the temple, when finally will you think more seriously (serio) to what end you were born before you are called from this life? You game-​players and bankrupters of your fortune and that of others, have you so quickly forgotten the speech given recently by the fellow who was about to be executed? … May God grant that at long last you cast away those filthy rags once and for all, and appear before him pure and resplendent with those precious ornaments which are described here. The parade of reprobates contains familiar faces: adulterers and fornicators, biting usurers, the greedy and envious, those who conspire to deceive and those who seek profit from the misery of others, the lazy and frivolous, those who do not love to hear the Word, troublemakers drawn from Hell, and drunks. Several times he alludes to the publication of edicts, the issuance of remonstrances, and the severe punishments that have been meted out. Sinners persist in their rebellion, even when those facing punishment warn them. He questions how long God will tolerate them among his people who embrace order, peace, and charity. How long before the Church itself drives these sinners away? Beza’s moral indignation is unambiguous and profound. This book has sought to uncover the ideas giving shape to it. What ethical theory organizes and sustains this indignation? What gives it internal cohesion? As we noted in the introduction, the editors of Beza’s correspondence describe his ethics as a “delicate and little known subject.”4 Their statement assumes that a set of guiding principles, or what Beza called “heavenly wisdom,” lies behind the flurry of disciplinary and moralizing activity at Geneva in this period. Numerous studies have demonstrated the practical mechanisms at work: they have examined, among other things,

Deus faxit ut tandem aliquando sordibus illis semel abiectis, coram ipso mundi et pretiosis istis quae hic commemorantur ornamentis splendentes compareatis.” 4. Beza, Corr. XXXVIII (1597), x: “sujet délicat et peu connu.”

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the functioning of the Reformed consistories, the sociological and political forces behind discipline at Geneva and elsewhere, and the struggles between ecclesiastical and civil authorities throughout the latter half of the sixteenth century.5 These studies have provided a valuable foundation for our own. Our investigation into the theological and ethical underpinnings of the disciplinary activities of Beza and his colleagues have led us to ask a different set of questions of the evidence available to us. Driving their discussions about discipline and morality are not political theory per se, but a well-​conceived theoretical rationale based on their reading of God’s Word. This rationale informs everything these Reformed leaders do. If they harbored other motives for what they were trying to accomplish, they never expressed them, either openly or by implication. We chose to approach Beza’s ethical thought through a close reading of the poems comprising his Cato Censorius Christianus of 1591. This could seem at first glance an inconvenient way to flesh out something so complex, given that poetic language conveys ideas elusively and imprecisely. Lambert Daneau’s Ethices Christianae, with its detailed scholastic analysis, would seem a better place to start. However, poetry does offer certain advantages. The nature of the poetry enables us to discover patterns and emphases that in another genre might be obscured by the complexity or details of the argument. The ethical principles that guide the writing surface as recurring themes, succinctly expressed and stripped of excess verbiage. Furthermore, the rhetorical arrangement of poetry focuses our attention on the key words and concepts, which in turn shows us more clearly how to appreciate the same ideas in Beza’s other works. The Cato derives its moral authority from evoking the title of the Disticha Catonis, a work of obscure antiquity which was being widely employed in the schools to inculcate righteous principles for living while at the same time teaching the basics of Latin grammar. The Protestants did not shy away from including it in the curriculum just because the Catholics were using it. For example, Reformed pedagogue Mathurin Cordier, who taught Calvin rhetoric at Paris and followed Beza to Geneva from Lausanne in 1559, promoted it through the publication of editions and French translations. There were Catholics and Protestants alike, however, who challenged the appropriateness of the Disticha for grounding

5.  For example, Sous l’oeil du consistoire: sources consistoriales et histoires du contrôle social sous l’Ancien Régime, eds. Danièle Tosato-​Rigo and Nicole Staremberg Goy (Lausanne: Études de lettres, 2004).

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young minds in morals. At least three attempts were made in Beza’s lifetime to update the Disticha with strictly Scriptural themes. Étienne Dolet, Antoine de Meyer, and Richard Mulcaster all reimagined Cato as a Christian censor who, while keeping to the poetic form, espoused more recognizably Christian values. The title of Beza’s own work indicates that he too intended to reimagine Cato as a Christian moral critic. Even so, the content suggests a different readership is in view. The rhetorical complexity of the Latinity together with the mature subject matter—​adultery and whoremongering, to name two examples—​point to an educated elite, not young school children, as the intended audience. Beza obviously meant to influence the thinking of those who wielded the most power over public conduct and policy. We have suggested that Beza’s Cato can fruitfully be read in close conjunction with another one of his works, the Emblemata, which first appeared as a complement to his Icones in 1580. The Emblemata followed in a tradition begun by Andrea Alciato whereby short poems were appended to woodcut images from which they drew a moral lesson. The genre became a popular way to disseminate practical wisdom. Generally speaking, Beza’s emblems have a very violent tone to them and run the gamut of the Christian’s struggle against despair, the power of Satan, and the machinations of the Roman Catholic Church. Beza exhorts his readers to press on in the journey of sanctification through life’s various obstacles and pitfalls. Just as the great heroes of the faith celebrated in the Icones persevered and won their heavenly reward, so too ordinary Christians must trust that God’s way is the only way to peace and happiness. The same lapses and dangers that the faithful are urged to avoid in the Emblemata find their parallel in the Cato. There, though, the tone is less one of exhortation than of censureship. Cato rebukes those who have fallen into sins and warns them of their impending doom. Impurity deprives one of God’s peace and has no place in his kingdom. Christians are reminded that they should remove these offenders from their midst lest they undermine the entire community. This latter point, which manifests itself in the Cato through such phrases as Go away from here, words such as expel and exile, and imagery of isolation, recalls one of the primary functions of the Reformed Consistory: to discipline and coerce to morality through the threat of excommunication. The Cato has much in common with the Consistory and at times seems to mimic certain aspects of its mission. The poems on the whole echo the

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characteristic remonstrances given in the Consistory chamber. Typically at the end of a proceeding in which someone was determined to be guilty, one of the ministers or elders, speaking for the tribunal, would deliver a tongue-​lashing to the undoubtedly terrified offenders, reminding them of their error and delineating the ways in which it causes harm within the community. Such a remonstrance ended with the threat of excommunication or the actual issuance of it, not to mention a possible recommendation of civil punishment sent to the Council. The poems of the Cato follow a similar pattern. For example, in the poem against adulterers, Cato warns married people who break their promises by engaging in sexual indiscretions that they are undercutting the stability of homes and cities and ultimately the entire world. Readers are advised to expect their world to be thrown into chaos if they are not willing to expel adulterers from it. In another poem, Cato rebukes fornicators for surrendering themselves to their animal appetites, putting on the yoke of prostitutes rather than joining with another in the bonds of marriage. Their actions, he says, do not build up families but instead destroy the human race. He calls them plagues and commands them to go away to their punishment. He also calls usurers plagues, unwelcome in this world, while reviewing their self-​ serving, predatory practices which do great harm to the poor. They are warned to stop immediately or expect to pay a penalty much greater than they can bear. The Consistory proceedings and remonstrances, therefore, help to explain the content and structure of the Cato. In turn, the Cato itself sheds light on the thinking that lay behind these activities. Remonstrances, however, came in many guises and contexts at Geneva, and all of them to some degree are reflected in the Cato. On numerous occasions the Company of Pastors delivered ecclesiastical remonstrances to the magistrates, scolding them for allowing sins such as excessive displays of luxury to go unpunished, or expressing alarm that published laws were not being enforced. The ministers (and professors) saw it as their function and duty to constantly remind the civil authorities of their duty to maintain order. They also regularly censured each other in the meetings of the Company of Pastors, especially in quarterly private ones called “Ordinary Censures” (Censura Morum Pastorum) designed for this purpose. These internal exhortations and admonitions were meant to foster a high standard of morality among the pastors so as not to scandalize the congregations and encourage rebellion; in cases of egregious violations of the moral code,

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even pastors and professors could expect to be dismissed.6 Additionally, in sermons preached before the quarterly administration of the Eucharist (Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, and September), pastors would recite a catalogue of vices that they had observed among the congregation. Their aim was to call attention to sins so that the faithful would repent of them before approaching the Table. Colladon, we recall from ­chapter 5, found himself in trouble when he became too vocal about high interest rates while delivering one of these sermons.7 Thus, the Cato functions as something more than simply a random book about vices. It both mirrors and explains, from Beza’s point of view, the ethical program in place at Geneva during this period. It also attempts to influence it. The ethical program itself does not have to be understood merely as an attempt on the part of the ecclesiastical and civil elite of Geneva to exercise social control over its population. By reading Beza’s Cato in light of his other works, be it theological treatises, Scriptural annotations, poems, or even letters, it is clear that Beza had a genuine concern for the spiritual health of his flock. He wanted them to understand that the ethical component of the Christian life is part of a process in which they were becoming prepared for their place in God’s kingdom. It not only gives them assurance that they belong in the kingdom; it also gives them a taste of the peace associated with being adopted as a child of God. Ethics profit the faithful spiritually, psychologically, and physically while at the same time allowing for the establishment of a semblance of the heavenly kingdom here on earth. One of the reasons why ethics fulfills these functions is because its principles are built into creation itself. The Ten Commandments, for their part, merely codify the original order in which God established for human beings to live and thrive. When Adam and Eve fell, they lost sight of these principles and experienced the natural anxiety and torment that comes with being out of sync with them. Nonetheless, as the Cato insists at every turn, Nature itself “barks” the proper way for human beings to conduct themselves if they want to enjoy peace and harmony as God intended. If pagan wisdom can assist Christians in discerning certain truths about justice or strengthening their confidence in God’s Law, it is because they have derived their wisdom, albeit imperfectly, from the laws evident in nature. 6.  Robert M. Kingdon, Geneva and the Coming of the Wars of Religion in France, 1555–​1563 (Geneva: Droz, 1956), 20; Jennifer Powell McNutt, Calvin Meets Voltaire: The Clergy of Geneva in the Age of Enlightenment, 1685–​1798 (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2013), 92. 7. Kingdon, Geneva and the Coming of the Wars, 26.

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The Cato also makes clear that the natural punishment that comes with being at odds with God’s order and human society anticipates the much more significant and permanent punishment awaiting sinners once they are face to face with their creator. Christian Grosse’s observation that a noticeable relaxing or weakening of the rigor of the Genevan Consistory was taking place beginning about 1572 has bearing on our interpretation of the Cato.8 The realization of Calvin’s vision for discipline, which exhibited itself in an active Consistory and the publication of ordinances such as the 1566 one on adultery, began to gain momentum as early as 1555 after the expulsion of the Perinnist party, which opposed the consistorial right of excommunication. In the peak year of 1570, about four hundred cases were heard by the Consistory. By 1575, however, that number drops to two hundred. At the same time, the Consistory is forced to admit that it has gone too far in its exercise of moral supervision. By 1589 the number of cases again decreases by half, with only a hundred cases being heard. Spiritual power was in the process of submitting to temporal power. Grosse argues that this mellowing of the Consistory is compensated by an increase in moral discourse. He cites, for example, Lambert Daneau’s Traité de l’estat honneste des Chrestiens en leur accoustrement, published at Geneva in 1580 at the press of Jean de Laon. Moralizing sermons and public remonstrances were also on the rise.9 Beza’s Cato should be viewed within this larger trend. The Cato, however, not only functions as a moral sermon or remonstrance; by virtue of its sophisticated presentation, it inserts itself into the debate about the validity and extent of discipline. If the Church was going to relinquish what Beza himself saw as one of its true marks, he wanted both ecclesiastical and civil leaders to understand that certain principles still stood. Individuals and communities would still face the consequences of sin, even if it did not come directly at the hands of the Consistory.

The Ethical Principles of the Cato To fulfill the purpose of this book we must now spell out clearly the ethical principles promoted in the Cato and explain the rationale for each of 8.  Christian Grosse, “ ‘Il y avoit eu trop grande rigueur par cy-​devant.’ La discipline ecclésiastique à Genève à l’époque de Théodore de Bèze,” in Théodore de Bèze (1519–​1605), ed. Irena Backus, 55–​68. 9.  Grosse lists some of the major public grand remonstrances on 63, fn. 40.

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them. In the intersection between the principles and the rationale lies Beza’s ethical thought. His moral ideas are inseparably practical and theological, prescriptive and logically coherent. The Cato, in other words, censures behavior that runs counter to a tightly conceived system of belief about mankind’s original state and God’s plan to restore the elect to his kingdom. There is no confusion as to why certain behaviors are required. For Beza, the nature of God’s relationship to his creation was established from the beginning and never changed. Mankind rebelled against God’s blueprint for human existence, but the original blueprint itself remains constant. Accordingly, in the preface that he contributed to Jean Mercier’s commentary on Genesis, Beza likens the content of the first book of the Bible to an alphabet, the fundamental building blocks needed for properly comprehending both the world and the essence of God.10 The very principles of true religion are established in the first chapters of his Word. An honest explication of this book forms “the whole system of religious doctrine,” Beza argues, and when arranged into commonplaces, provides the basis for Christian “disputations, exhortations, and consolations.”11 This appreciation for the rudimentary functioning of the Genesis story illustrates what we have observed in Beza’s thought: to his mind, ethics is bound up closely with the creation story and expresses who God intended us to be from the very beginning. Adam and Eve, the earliest representatives of the human race, did not want to hear what God intended for them. They lacked submissiveness and a willingness to conform, and so they were susceptible to the serpent’s suggestion that they should question God and attempt to command themselves. Beza reflects this initial impulse to sin in human beings by placing the poem “Against the Proud” at the beginning of the Cato. The censor rebukes the haughty for exhibiting a demeanor of unwarranted self-​confidence and superiority. They boast their own accomplishments and good fortune, much like peacocks displaying their magnificence; they stride about in regal fashion to suggest their weight and authority, while at the same time scoffing contemptuously at others. The censor enlightens them, however, that they have a misplaced sense of their position within

10. Beza, Corr. XXXIX (1598), 249. 11. Beza, Corr. XXXIX (1598), 249: “Pendet enim certe a vera conveniente ipsius contextus explicatione tota Theologiae δογματικῆς inde eruendae ratio, et quae inde, adhibitis locis, quos vocant, communibus, disputationes, exhortationes, consolationes usurpantur.”

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the hierarchy: they are in reality nothing (nihil). It is God who rightfully sits on high and looks down, and he will not tolerate those who ignore his supremacy. This, for Beza, is the primary ethical ideal. Christians who hope to be restored to God’s kingdom must first and foremost cultivate an ethos of listening. In part this ethos requires that they recognize the mercy God has extended to them and feel gratitude. Furthermore, it means they realize that they do not command themselves, but see the need to conform to the structure and order created by God for their own benefit. They must submit to the rules which he has set forth to guide them. Christians will also replace the impulse to assert themselves with a servant’s attitude. They are to portray the goodness of God and glorify him by lending aid to others. Christians are not Adam and Eve, however. They do not experience the Garden and the special communion with God that was available there. Instead they have the Church and its institutions, which serve to communicate God to them on earth. Therefore, the ethos of listening takes its place in the modern world within an ecclesiastical context. Gifted people, who are specially called by God seek to understand his revealed Word with honesty and integrity, together create a consensus as to true doctrine and church government. Christians who have suppressed pride and humbled themselves have a heart willing to conform to the Church’s teaching and discipline. They are not looking to introduce their own interpretations or follow their own opinions. Individuals who refuse to submit to the Church and instead demonstrate gross arrogance and rebellion, such as Philibert Berthelier, Jean-​Philibert Bonna, and Jean Morély, will find themselves excommunicated in a similar fashion to the way that Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden: “Who in this present life will endure you,” Beza’s Cato asks, “who cannot endure others?” The answer is that the Church will not. A second principle of Beza’s ethics, summed up neatly in the word sincerity, is closely tied to the first one. Beza viewed creation as an expression of the nature and character of God. It exhibits an inherent order and balance reflecting the symmetry and harmony of the one who created it. God could not and would not create a world that contradicted his essence and attributes. Therefore, the world can be described as “chained to the truth,” because God in his perfect righteousness and abiding faithfulness authored it. God also placed humanity in the world and bestowed it with certain institutions and rules for living that promised peace of mind. Some of these were spelled out clearly (marriage, for example), while

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others were apparent from Nature itself. When the first humans rebelled, however, they were really refuting God and asserting their own version of how things should be. They were led to this by Satan, the great deceiver. Therefore, they lost their moral compass and could no longer will to do what God required of them. Falsehood began to characterize everything they did. Even though they had a vague sense of right and wrong from the signs that were all around them, they completely missed the truth about the Supreme Being who stood behind it all. Their feeble attempts at defining morality, therefore, while sometimes hitting on the justice built into Nature, nonetheless miss the mark by not knowing the author of that justice nor the correct rationale for it. The Holy Spirit corrects this state of affairs by working in the elect to gradually loosen falsehood’s grip on them and enlighten them as to the truth. Christians no longer rely on their own sense of right and wrong, but instead rejoice in discovering God’s right and wrong. This, for Beza, is the only proper attitude of an ethical person and the basis for real love. Falsehood, Cato complains, reins supreme in the government, the market, the courts, and even the churches, but since Falsehood is antithetical to the orderliness and harmony of creation, it and all who follow it will descend into chaos and ruin. Truth, in contrast, as God’s steadying hand within the world, protects the faithful from the world’s collapse and gently guides them to their heavenly reward. Beza believed that one of the functions of the Church was to act as guardian of the truth. This, not surprisingly, included the policing of lying within the community on the part of the Consistory. There was the recognition that the fabric of society would come undone if people were allowed to misrepresent and deceive. The policing of lying, however, proved difficult, so we find that most cases on record involved lies that were told before the Consistory in reference to other offenses. Someone might deny being in a certain place or wearing a certain piece of jewelry while standing before the ministers and elders. The Genevan Consistory and Company of Pastors had more success in supervising and controlling blasphemy and perjury. According to the rebuke given by the censor in the Cato, perjurers either swear by false gods, thereby replacing God as the defender and guardian of the truth, or swear a falsehood by the one God, exposing the false beliefs that they harbor about the character of God. To deny the truth is to invite chaos; naturally the world of these repudiators of the truth crashes down around them and their foundation collapses.

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Blasphemy or blasphemous heresy for Beza and his colleagues refers to the public and persistent espousal of doctrines that threatened to lead the community away from the truth about God. Michael Servetus and Valentino Gentile exemplify this kind of offense. Blasphemers attempt to strip God of his due honor, misrepresent who he really is, or demean his majesty. When blasphemy originates in a person from ignorance or sudden emotions, it can be remedied through teaching and patient discipline, but the willful and considered distortion of the truth is a wound to be cauterized lest the infection spread. Additionally, Beza interprets the phrase to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit as equivalent to the rejection of truth, because it is the Holy Spirit who is working to join the faithful to the truth. Therefore, the Christian’s ethical life and the ability to demonstrate genuine love of any kind depends upon a commitment to the truth. This very commitment would not be possible if not for the grace of God, who sent his son as an embodiment of the truth for mankind and his Spirit as the means for human beings to grasp it. Christians are called to drive out blasphemers for being like the devils who see Christ but deny the truth about him. Not only should Christians have a heart willing to listen to God’s Word and a commitment to learn and follow the truth, they should also work hard on behalf of the kingdom. Beza and his colleagues followed Calvin in demanding that all Christians be constantly engaged in their trade or some other edifying activity as opposed to wasting time in leisure. All time should be accounted for, while instances of garrulity, frivolity, curiosity, or wastefulness are to be condemned. Beza’s Cato shames the idle by pointing to the unrelenting industry of Nature, and the reformers in general found the mandate for work throughout the Scriptures. When the Calvinists complained about idleness, however, they were thinking less about complete inaction and more about the neglect of one’s calling or vocation. Since all legitimate occupations contribute to the commerce of humanity and help the community meet its needs, hard work can be tied to the virtue of loving one’s neighbor. Thus Genevan ecclesiastical leaders employed remonstrances, specially appointed censors, sermons, excommunication, and treatises to keep the people busy about their tasks. In his Ethices Christianae, Daneau went so far as to equate an unwillingness to work with stealing. The Calvinists did not consider the contemplative life to be superior to hard work as some of the early Fathers had. Early monastic life had been characterized by spiritual reflection, prayer, and meditation on the Word.

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Even so, for Beza and his colleagues studying and reading should only be undertaken as preparation for one’s calling, be it preaching, teaching, or writing. They reproach contemporary monks, a different breed than the earlier ones, for withdrawing from society and living lives of leisure. Their lack of communal contribution and dependency on the work of others constitutes one of their greatest offenses. There is no excuse. Even Sabbath rest (which Beza renders in Latin with quies in order to avoid the negative connotations of otium) indicates an activity: it is a time for spiritual renewal, not self-​indulgence. Beza lays great stress on vocation as a creative act of God. Through callings, God shows himself to be involved in the management of the world, giving shape to its order. Work, in essence, functions to establish harmony and peace. Vermigli, as we noted in ­chapter 4, treated work as a weapon on the battlefield for the supremacy of the world, with the Devil fighting back with leisure. Therefore a calling is seen as an intervention of God whereby he indicates to us our station in the world, a kind of sentry post that we must keep. “There is no one whom the Lord created in vain,” Beza writes on 2 Thessalonians 3:11–​12, “and in fact whom the Lord has not placed in a fixed station, as it were. Leisure … disturbs the order established by God, which is indeed the greatest wickedness.”12 Because he imposes a calling, all obedience in the carrying out of an occupation is precious in his sight, and no work takes precedence over another. A vocation contributes to the health of the community. Conversely, moneylending or usury has the potential to do great harm within society. Beza has Cato denounce usurers universally with arguments drawn from philosophers, the Church Fathers, and the Medieval schoolmen. His poetic remonstrance does not make exceptions for differing forms of usury nor does it take into account the recipient of the loan or the purpose of the loan. Usurers violate the laws of nature by forcing something that is sterile—​money—​to produce children, interest. They transgress against God’s command that we should selflessly help neighbors in need. They also contravene the universal law of justice and fair exchange. The community should treat them as a plague to be driven out and kept away. God in the end will demand back from them more than they can pay. In the poem against usurers, Beza focuses on protecting the poor and reinforcing an ethos of brotherly love. Scriptural references to lending,

12. Beza, Annotationes 1598, pt. 2, 340.

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such as Jesus’s words at Luke 6:35, remind the faithful of their duty to exhibit Christ in themselves by giving of their own bounty to those less fortunate. The precise sense of the term usury within the context of an international market economy, however, could be somewhat elusive. No doubt some reformers, such as Musculus, ideally wanted to do away with all forms of lending at interest because the practice finds no support in Scriptures. Musculus was not inclined to entertain any exceptions to the rule, even if he recognized the difficulty of removing every vestige of the practice from a fallen world. Calvin and Beza, in contrast, wanted Geneva to thrive financially, seeing that a strong Geneva meant protection for the Reformed Church from surrounding enemies. Businesses and individuals alike needed capital to move the economy forward. Therefore, Beza followed Calvin by directing his moral indignation against predatory lending, that is, lending at unreasonably high rates or any lending at interest to the poor. Both attempt to take advantage of someone else’s need. However, Calvin and Beza did not find Scriptural mandates against venture capital or lending to the rich when the transaction does not “bite.” Anyone who did claim such a mandate, such as Nicolas Colladon, was driven out of town. Beza considered it of the utmost importance that the community cultivate mutual love, with neighbor supporting neighbor by spiritual exhortations, contribution through work, and assistance with financial needs. If Genevans could achieve these ideals, they could begin to experience life as God intended it to be. Yet Beza believed that Satan had a stratagem to undermine and destroy this well-​ordered society:  the introduction of rivalry. If some people are prone to greedily accumulate as much wealth and as many resources for themselves as they can, beyond their needs and to the detriment of others, then they are loving themselves more than others and even God. In this way the ideal community is brought to ruin. Social chaos ensues too when some look at what others have and feel envy. This is not the proper attitude of the pious. People should be rejoicing at the good fortune of neighbors while feeling contentment about the station and condition in which God has placed them. Because of Satan’s scheming, however, this attitude is not easy for most to achieve; thus the sumptuary laws were put into place at Geneva as a way to combat them. In creating the world and placing mankind in it, God created various means whereby human beings could interact in peace and lend support to one another. One of those means was the institution of marriage. God created the union of a man and woman, bound by the force of a promise and

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sealed with sexual fidelity, for their mutual benefit and the establishment of the family. Through the family God in turn builds the communities necessary for commerce and the maintenance of life. Marital infidelity, in this view, strikes at the core of communal stability, inasmuch as it undercuts promises and introduces subterfuge, enmity, and uncertainty. The promiscuous, or unmarried people engaging in sexual acts, similarly threaten the peace by evading the institution altogether, carrying on outside the structure which God has created for human relationships. They seek the pleasure of physical relations without providing the social benefits and blessings of God that come through the commitment. Fornicators act more like animals in following the inclinations of their lusts as opposed to obeying the commands of God. Beza’s letter to Gwalther (1582) and the Avis sent by the Company of Pastors to the Council of Two Hundred (1581) show ecclesiastical leaders defending the harsh penalties for adultery codified in the city’s ordinances by warning of the social confusion that would occur if they are ignored. The execution of Susane Fontaine reminded Genevans of the fundamental importance of marriage as a divinely ordained institution. Likewise, Beza’s poems against adulterers and fornicators stress how inimical these sins are to the community and suggest that such offenders should be driven out or killed. The contributions of Lambert Daneau and Peter Martyr Vermigli, while examining sexual vices from different perspectives, come to the same conclusion: adultery and fornication are unnatural, unjust, and impious acts that if allowed to go unpunished, invite divine retribution on the entire community. The fact that Calvin and his followers allowed for the granting of divorces under certain extreme circumstances (adultery and abandonment) does not suggest a softening of their commitment to the institution of marriage. As Beza’s treatise on the subject shows quite clearly, they viewed the allowance for divorce as a concession to consciences in the face of human weakness: when magistrates fail to fulfill their charge by executing adulterers, as often happens, God provides another means for spouses to nullify the marriage contract. Human beings should have the ability within themselves, without the aid of laws and punishments, to find their proper place in the world. At creation God endowed them with reason so that they could bridle their unnatural impulses, form helpful associations among themselves, and achieve a state of inner peace and contentment. Vermigli stressed the role this rational faculty plays in guiding people to heavenly wisdom, inasmuch

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as it allows them to contemplate not just the immediate concerns of the world, but matters of a loftier nature. Christians, of course, with their minds renewed by the Holy Spirit, have the capacity to rightly comprehend God’s revelation and appreciate the orderly arrangement of creation. Drunkenness destroys this capacity and undermines self-​restraint. Human beings, who were meant to be masters of creation, through excessive drinking lose the ability to communicate with God and understand the purpose and structure of the world. This opens the door to all kinds of sins, including the sexual ones just described. Accordingly, Beza’s Cato rebukes drunks with extraordinary severity and consigns them to a status lower even than the animals. They are mishapen, hideous monsters who will suffer a carnivalesque reversal when God punishes them with eternal thirst. Beza continues the carnivalizing turn in other poems by reimagining them as various inanimate objects such as flasks and barrels. Drunks live among the human race, but they do not participate in it, and, in fact actually disrupt it. Satan, as the enemy of the ethical life, loves to sow discord and confusion among mankind. His most effective strategem to achieve this end, he thought, was the creation of a horde of demons who spread throughout the world portraying themselves as followers of Jesus when in reality serving their master Satan. Too much has been made of the Society’s Luca Pinelli’s description of a cordial and benign meeting that he had with Beza at his house. In his writings Beza consistently treats the Jesuits as the most dangerous enemies of the Church. His treatise responding bitterly to the “demands” of the Scottish Jesuit John Hay characterizes the Society as a “usurper of the name of Jesus” and describes the calling of Hay himself as a forgery and “contraordinary.” It depicts an order bent on supporting a Catholic hierarchy that has succeeded in throwing the Church into chaos since the Lateran Council of 1215. Beza and the rest of the Reformed leadership recognized how the Jesuits spread their disruptive influence in the world and won recruits. They saw that the battle for the hearts and minds of the people was being waged in the educational system. The Jesuits made it their goal to permeate the schools, offering themselves up as models of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. Through their clever use of sophistry and false reasoning, Beza thought, they were confusing the minds of the youth, thereby winning converts to Satan’s camp. This strategy had no better proponent than Spanish Jesuit Juan Maldonat. A  gifted educator, he trained scores of students at Paris who later became formidable enemies of the Reformed cause in France.

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Beza’s poem against Maldonat, written years after the latter’s death, in which he appeals to Jesus for protection against Jesuit incursions, shows the lasting legacy of his instruction. Additionally, the Jesuits tried to cause more confusion by spreading rumors about Beza’s death and conversion back to the Roman papal religion, along with the conversion of the entire Genevan leadership. Beza warns Clément Depuy, identified as the source of the rumor, not to imagine that the Reform movement would end with his death, but that hundreds of defenders of the truth would rise up in his place. He perceived, in other words, that the spiritual battle was to be waged through the intellect. Righteous living begins in the intellect. In order for people to live as God intended, they first have to have a correct understanding of the nature of God. The Jesuits on behalf of Satan distorted the reality of God, according to Beza; therefore their converts exchanged the path of holiness, born of right doctrine, for corruption and disorder. His censor Cato likewise rebukes the Epicureans for perverting God’s revelation of himself. They ignore the guiding hand of the creator in the world and teach a God who is detached and uninvolved. Without the correct understanding of God’s providential care of his creation, mankind is left to drift without a moral compass. People begin to imagine that they are free to choose lifestyles as it suits them, living for themselves, unconcerned with obeying God’s law, and pursuing pleasure as the highest end of life. The last poem of the Cato looks back at the moral journey of life from the perspective of old age. It is one of several poems Beza devotes to the topic of his waning years. Senility brought him much trepidation and turmoil with its declining health and the uncertainty of death. Still, it also caused him to reflect on the spiritual course that he followed, mapping out in his mind how he fared in his walk with God. He could see that when he was lost and cast out from God’s kingdom, in rebellion against the creator of all things, Christ mercifully shed his blood to save him. He recognized too that from that point onward the Holy Spirit began to guide him in the pursuit of becoming more and more as God would have him be. The moments when he resisted that guidance and struggled against his own sanctification were all too evident to him. His deviations were easy to chart. Even so, he could observe a pattern in the seemingly aimless journey: he never abandoned the path completely and always moved forward. This perseverance comforted and reassured him, because it indicated to him that the Holy Spirit was pulling him back, correcting him, and exhorting him along the way. Old age meant for him that the goal was near. What

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would come, he told himself, he need not fear; he only had to commend himself to God’s providential care.

Morality After Calvin Beza variously describes the Christian life as a journey or a race. The metaphor implies both that the faithful have in view an ultimate goal of receiving a heavenly reward and that they are expected to exert as much effort as possible to reach it. While they may be justified in Christ alone, they also have the responsibility to become more like him by zealously pursuing righteousness. This is precisely how Beza interprets Paul’s well-​ known exhortation to the Philippians (2:12) to “work out” their salvation. Discussing his choice of conficite to translate Paul’s κατεργάζεσθε (work out), he explains:13 Thus they say in Latin, “to work out one’s business.” But surely our salvation does not depend on our works, does it? Not at all, since not even Abraham had reason in himself to boast before God. A person is said to “work out salvation,” however, who runs in the stadium of righteousness. Although it is true that we are saved by grace in Christ alone, apprehended through faith, nevertheless we must struggle along the road of righteousness to salvation. For the children of God are led by his Spirit, through whom they have been justified, to walk in good works. The apparent paradox of a salvation that is at once bestowed by grace and necessarily worked out was not lost on Beza, but to his mind the two operate in tandem: the Holy Spirit justifies the elect in order to begin the process of renewal and restoration in them. This means that someone who is truly elect will want to experience a proper relationship to God by becoming more Christlike. Good works, therefore, naturally and necessarily follow the grace of justification and effect the restoration to order.

13. Beza, Annotationes 1598, 2, 296:  “Sic Latini dicunt conficere negotium. At vero num a nostris operibus pendet salus nostra? Minime id quidem, quum ne Abraham quidem in se habeat de quo glorietur apud Deum. Conficere tamen salutem dicitur qui in iustitiae stadio currit. Quamvis enim gratis in uno Christo per fidem apprehenso servemur, tamen per viam iustitiae ad salutem contendere nos oportet; quum filii Dei eius Spiritu ducantur, per quem sunt iustificati, ut in bonis operibus ambulent.”

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Beza reads in the Scriptures several basic principles, present since God created the world, which the faithful must learn and adopt if they want to live in a peaceful way that glorifies him. The creation story of Genesis explains them, as does the Law that comes after the Fall. Additionally, Nature itself proclaims these principles, since in its formation and functioning it is consistent with the character of God. Christ embodies them perfectly. The Holy Spirit, by uniting the faithful to Christ and conforming them to his image, leads them to work out these saving principles within themselves, though gradually, as if they were on a journey. The Church, as the body of Christ, points the way through its preaching, teaching, and discipline. Together they tell Christians that to live in God’s kingdom and enjoy its blessings they must suppress the inclination to assert themselves and instead listen to God. Their hearts must love the truth as revealed by God and oppose the deception and falsehood of Satan. They must dutifully carry out the calling that God places on them, accepting that he did so according to his wisdom and for the good of all. In the commerce of humanity they are to exercise charity and fairness. In the structuring of society they should observe the hierarchy and institutions God established, striving for order and constancy in all things. Beza’s ethical thought exhibits a remarkable consistency over the roughly fifty-​ seven years of his ministry. What he says to Sebastian Castellio in the 1550s about the need to punish heretics, for example, does not change or soften in the 1590s when he writes a poem against blasphemers in the Cato. His views on ordinary and extraordinary vocation as expressed in the lectures on Romans along with his letter to Ludovico Alamanni in 1566 recur in arguments against the Jesuits in the tract responding to John Hay. Without question Beza had a set of principles, an ethos, logically and coherently arranged in his mind, which guided his decision-​making throughout his entire career. The ruminations of his old age do not betray them. Through the years some have characterized him as a sort of Reformed pope, a self-​appointed tyrant of mores, the scowling, judgmental face on the Genevan landscape. This reading of Beza seems superficial, however, when we take into account the richness of his ethical convictions. His confident belief in the possibility of mankind’s renewal through the recovery of a certain divinely sanctioned mode of life shaped every facet of his ministry:  the controversies, the correspondence and scholarship, the sermons and poems, the daily interactions in Geneva are all expressions of this one central hope.

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  405

Index

Academic Skepticism, 4, 118, 325, 327 Adam and Eve, 72, 81–​82, 89, 117, 121, 176, 197–​98, 252, 289, 366, 368–​69 Adams, Thomas, 298 adultery, 28–​29, 64, 248–​93 addressed by the 1566 edict, 259–​61, 266, 268–​70 capital punishment for, 259–​60, 264, 267, 290 cause of David’s, 181 etymology of , 283 Joseph falsely accused of, 287 Alamanni, Ludovico, 104, 206, 378 Albert the Great, 224, 226 Alexander Alexandrinus, 96 Alexander of Ales, 227 ambition, the ambitious, 65, 81–​82, 91–​111, 117, 121, 184 Ambrose of Milan, 179–​80, 220–​21, 232–​33, 237–​38, 278 and De Tobia, 220 Anabaptists, 147, 264, 309, 326 Andreae, Jakob, 309, 347, 351 Anti-​Trinitarians, 147, 157–​58, 332 anxiety over death, 353 apostasy, 41, 317, 335, 337–​39, 346, 358 Apostles’ Creed, 20, 52 Aquinas, Thomas, 86, 135, 139, 147, 185 on usury, 228

Arianism, 157 Aristotle, 13–​15, 68, 119–​20, 170, 216–​19, 255 atheism, 53–​54, 62, 325, 332 Augustine, 36, 67–​68, 81, 86, 118, 152 on the contemplative life, 169–​70 on frivolity, 187 on God as a borrower, 239 and his live-​in girlfriend, 281 on monks, 199–​200 on punishing women, 285, 288 avarice, 237–​39, 248–​50 as a form of idolatry, 245 and a dropsy metaphor, 236 avius, 2, 345–​46, 354, 358 Babylonian captivity, 317 Basil of Caesarea, 217–​19, 238 Beard, Thomas, viii-​ix on blasphemy, 148 on drunkenness , 295, 334 on Epicureanism, 329 on idleness, 184 on perjury, 144–​45 on pride, 89, 91 begging, 171, 176, 184 Belgic Confession, 21, 329–​30 Bernard of Clairvaux, 80–​81, 96, 121

406

406

Index

Berthelier, Philibert, 98–​102, 369 Beza, Theodore and Annotationes, 1, 6 called a pope among the Protestants, 307 called Nesexius, 298 and Cato Censorius Christianus and Confessio Christianae fidei, 36, 68, 74, 349 and De praedestinationis doctrina, 1 on divorce, 267–​70 Dolet in the opinion of, 51–​52 emblems of, 53–​62, 78, 364 and his response to Jean Hay, 311–​12 and his taxonomy of blasphemy, 149–​51 and Icones, 41 and Iobus, partim commentariis partim paraphrasi illustratus, 141 and Lex Dei moralis, ceremonialis, et politica, 73–​74 and Maister Beza’s Household Prayers, 350, 352 and Poemata, 6 and Quaestiones et responsiones, 4, 76–​77, 117–​18 and sermons on Song of Songs, 360 and Summa totius Christianismi, 88 and Tractatus … de vera excommunicatione, 26–​30 Bienvenu, Humberte, 101–​02 birthdays, poems about, 1–​3, 340–​44 blasphemy, 146–​62 Bohemian Confession, 22, 25 Bonna, Jean-​Philibert, 101–​02 Boys, John, 298 Brenz, Johannes, 91, 174–​75, 331, 348 Brenz, Johannes, 91, 174–​75, 331, 348 Bruno, Giordano, 84 Brunsfel, Otto, 200–​01 Bucer, Martin, 210, 269, 311, 326 Bullinger, Heinrich, 258–​59, 386, 309

Cajetan, Thomas, 85–​86, 135 calling, 10, 37, 104, 165, 170–​71, 203, 337–​38, 349, 372 of Beza, 336–​37, 357 of David, 202 of Jean Hay, 312, 375 and moneylending, 232 neglect of one’s, 177, 198, 207 ordinary and extraordinary, 103, 311–​12 of Paul, 175 remaining in one’s, 81, 182–​83, 190, 203, 338 theology of, 185–​93, 203–​07 calumny. See slander Calvin, John criticized by Gentile, 158 criticized by Servetus, 154 versus Calvinists, 3 and De scandalis, 326, 332 on discipline, 24 on Epicureanism, 327 guiding hermeneutical principle of, 213 and Institutes, 8, 12, 154 on Jews, 244 meaning of the motto of, 123–​24 and natural law, 67 and the Ten Commandments, 35 on the true Church, 137 Camerarius, Joachim, 117 Canaye, Philippe, 39 Caracciolo, Galeazzo, 264, 307 Cardinal of Lorraine, 267 carnifex, 249 carnivalesque depiction, 300–​03, 322, 375 Casaubon, Isaac, 16, 48, 62, 210, 217, 271, 340–​41 Castellio, Sebastian, 149–​50, 154, 327, 378 Castelvetri, Giacomo, 26

  407

Index Catherine of Bourbon, 316, 318 Cato the Censor, Marcus Porcius, 43 Catullus, 301 Cayet, Palma, 316–​18, 335, 338, 346 censor, Roman, 13 censure, 18–​22 Chandieu, Antoine de la Roche, 21, 105–06, 120, 206 Charles III, Duke of Savoy, 98 Chrysostom, John, 231, 237, 273 Cicero, 14, 42, 47, 74, 185, 272, 299, 327, 330 aped by Dolet, 51 and Academic Skepticism, 118 use of the word spinosus by, 113 Clauberg, Johannes, 273 Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus, 35 climacteric year, 1–​2, 344–​46, 351, 353, 358 Colladon, Nicholas, 241–​42, 366, 373 College of Clermont, 318, 320 Colloquy of Montbéliard, 309, 347, 351 Colloquy of Poissy, 115, 267 commutative justice, 178, 224 Company of Pastors, 3, 19–​20, 101, 106, 108, 122, 174, 247, 260, 365 against Depuy, 321 against Maldonat, 318 and usury, 241 confessionalization, 6 Consistory of Geneva, 17–​30 shifting emphases of, 304 weakening of, 15–​16, 367 contemplative life, 169–​70, 200, 371 contracts undermined by lying, 133, 136 Cordier, Mathurin, 48–​9, 210 Cornelius a Lapide, 238, 250 Costanus, 106 Council of Sixty, 18, 99 Council of Two Hundred, 18, 99, 259–​60, 292

407

crypto-​Catholics, 318 curiosity, 4, 118, 182–​84, 192 D’Albret, Jeanne, 106 Daneau, Lambert on ambition, 96 on dancing, 181 on drunkeness, 295 and Ethices Christianae, 13–​4 on ethics, 12, 15, 34 on flattery, 139 on frugality, 198–​99 on gambling, 19, 177 on idleness, 177–​78 on lying, 132–​36 and monks, 199 on pride, 87 on sexual sins, 277–​85 on the threefold equity, 133 Dante, 234 David sin with Bathsheba, 82, 179, 289 De Billy, Jacques, 95 De Brès, Guido, 329–​30 De Cortean, Jean, 102 De La Faye, Antoine, 321 De Lobkowitz, Juan Caramuel, 297–​98 De Morlas, Jean, 318 De Sainctes, Claude, 267 De Serres, Jean, 311 De Sponde, Jean, 318 Decalogue. See Ten Commandments Depuy, Clément, 321–​22, 337, 376 Des Gallars, Nicolas, 106–​07 Devil, the, 82, 91, 126, 145, 153, 155, 180, 252–​53 as the cause of disorder in the world, 29, 96, 156, 158, 200, 209, 306, 319, 149 compared to a crocodile, 57 and Epicureans, 322

408

408

Index

Devil, the (Cont.) and Jesuits, 310–​11, 313–​17, 320, 322, 334 as a usurer or supporter of usury, 220, 234–​35, 238–​39 and vocations, 203 devius, 2, 345–​46, 348, 354 Diet of Nuremberg, 230, 318 Disticha Catonis, 45 and Antoine Meyer, 49–​51 and its authorship, 48 and Étienne Dolet, 51–​53 and Richard Mulcaster, 45–​48 divorce, 263, 270 doctrina coelestis, 11 double apostates, 317 drunkards and drunkenness, 64–​66, 295–​305 as a cause of sexual sin, 285 and the example of Lot, 295–​96 and luxus, 299 as a major cause of idleness, 184 and a poem comparing a woman to a wine flask, 301–​02 and a poem concerning the Danaid sisters, 58, 302–​03 as portrayed by Prudentius, 299 Dürnhoffer, Laurent, 1, 344

Étienne, François, 19, 131 Étienne, Henri, 39–​40, 106 Eucharist, 18–​19, 23, 116–​17, 212, 286, 304, 366 euthymia (εὐθυμία), 35, 50, 248–​49 Eutyches, 159 Eve. See Adam and Eve excommunication, 19–​29, 85, 99, 105, 196, 212

Erastian model of discipline, 26, 105 Ecclesiastical Ordinances, 17, 101 Edict of Nantes, 3 Edict of Parczów, 158 election anxiety about, 347 assurance of, 348–​51 and reprobation, 87–​88 envy, 251–​53 Epicureanism, 322–​333 Erasmus, 48, 114, 124, 182, 186, 193, 313, 325, 336 ethics, field of, 8–​16

garrulity, 135, 193–​96, 371 Genesis as containing the rudimentary principles of faith, 368, 378 Geneva compared to Israel and Jerusalem, 247, 261, 339 Geneva Bible, 70 Genevan Academy, 44, 48, 209–​10, 308, 339 Gentile, Valentino, 157–​58 glory, the pursuit of, 49, 95–​98 Glossa ordinaria, 226

Fabricius, Constantin, 318 Fall, the, 8, 36, 67, 76, 81, 378 Farel, Guilluame, 109, 205 feast days. See holidays Ficino, 186 final judgment, 29, 63, 151, 237 flattery and sycophancy, 134, 139–​143 Fontaine, Susanne, 259, 374 force of the promise, 283 fornication, 274–​77 frankness Philodemus on, 142 in Job, 141–​42 frivolity, 63, 196–​97 frugality, 197–​99 Fuggers, the, 230 fungibles, 226

  409

Index God the aseity of, 331 as the champion of the poor, 215, 237, 243 providence of, 2, 9 as the ultimate usurer, 215, 238 as witness and vindicator of oaths, 145–​46 goel, 238 golden mean,15. See also sophrosyne good works, 74–​75, 163–​64, 349–​50, 377 gossiping. See garrulity Goulart, Simon, 34, 40–​42, 173 censures Henri IV, 41 on the climacteric year, 345 on idleness, 180–​81, 210 on old age, 356–​57 on pride, 80–​81, 96 Gratian and the Concordia discordantium canonum, 225 greed. See avarice Gregorian Calendar, 38 Gregory Nazianzus, 219 Gruter, Jan, 42–​43 Grynaeus, Jean-​Jacques, 38–​39, 316, 340, 347, 351 Grynaeus, Simon, 2, 358 Gwalther, Rudolf, 258–​62, 292 Harmonia confessionum fidei, 21–​22 Hay, John, 310–​12, 375 heavenly doctrine. See doctrina coelestis heavenly speech, 115 Heidelberg Catechism, 7 Hell, 64, 251–​52, 294, 308, 315, 317, 362 Henri IV, 41 heresy, 147–​62, 371 Heshusius, Tileman, 117 Hieroglyphicorum collectanea, 272–​73 holidays, 199–​200

Holy Spirit, 11, 15, 32, 36–​37, 59–​60, 69, 343, 347–​49, 358–​59, 370, 375–​76, 377–​78 blasphemy against, 151–​53 seven gifts of, 185 Horace, 15, 94, 197, 236–​37, 329 Huguccio, 226 humility, 37, 41, 80–​81, 86–​89, 92, 97–101, 104, 111 Iacobipetae, 162 idleness, 165–​85 and the youth, 174 Ignatius of Loyola, 294, 314–​16, 319, 321 image of God, 8–​9, 34, 36–​37, 139, 283, 296 inner peace, 29, 325, 374 Inquisition, 147, 154 interest rate, 5, 240–​41, 366 Jacquemot, Jean, 42, 103 Jerome, 180, 230, 313 Jerusalem, 247, 339 Jesuits, 306–​22, 337–​39, 375–​76 called Jesuastres, 306 and Luca Pinelli, 306–​10, 375 satirical etymology of the name, 315–​16 Jesus, 72, 74–​75, 97, 350 and the appellation Christ, 315 on divorce, 268–​69 on usury, 256–​57 rebukes Peter, 182–​83 Job, 141–​42, 352 Judas Iscariot, 155, 387–​38, 346 Julian Law, 288 Justinian, 287 Kempis, Thomas à, 168 Knox, John, 311 Koller, Johann Jakob, 262

409

410

410

Index

Lactantius, 73–​74 Latimerus, Bishop of Vigornia, 180 Le Fert, Anne, wife of Calvin’s brother, 264 Le Gaigneux, Jean, 241 les enfants de Genève, 102 Libertine party, 99, 102, 249, 266 Liffort, Antoine, 247 Lily’s Latin Grammar, 46 Livy, 95 locatio, 226 Lord’s Prayer, 20, 52, 288 Lord’s Supper. See Eucharist love of neighbor, 9, 69, 98, 164, 213, 255 Lucretius, 55, 75, 179, 195, 277, 326–​27, 329–​30 Luther, Martin, 15, 46, 103, 205–​06, 229, 239, 309, 311, 325 and beruf, 186 and Zinskauf, 234 lying, 127–​30 in the Church, 136–​38 in Daneau, 132–​36 and its discipline, 130–​32 dutiful, 134–​35 mischievous, 134–​35 Madeleine Church, 34 Maldonat, Jean, 318–​20, 375–​76 marks of the Church, 21 Marranus, 314, 319 Megander, Gaspard (Kaspar), 52–​53 Melanchthon, Philipp, 14, 47, 138, 231, 328 Mercier, Pierre, 211, 368 mirth,134. See also frivolity moderation. See sophrosyne monks, 29, 170, 199–​202, 208–​10, 372 called pseudo-​monks, 306, 313, 334–​35 super, 314 Montaigne, Michel de, 95, 210, 330 moral law, 9, 67, 71, 73–​74

Morély, Jean, 104–​11, 309, 326, 369 Moses, 71–​72, 75, 78, 110, 287 mundus, 14, 129 Muret, Marc-​Antoine, 95–​96 Musculus, Wolfgang, 230–​31, 234, 237, 239, 373 Muth, Conrad, 325 mutuum, 225–​28 naturae ordo. See order of nature natural law, 9, 33, 66–​77, 229, 231, 287, 278, 282–​83, 293, 366, 370, 378 Beza on, 69–​77 Calvin on, 66–​69 engraven on the heart, 36, 67, 69, 71, 74 nature barking, 75, 277, 366 and money, 216, 222, 229, 231, 235, 254 as teacher, 90, 166–​67, 323, 327, 335 Nebuchadnezzar, 89, 180 negotium, 168–​71, 208, 377 Nestorius, 159 Nicodemism, 33 Noah, 317 nugae, 38, 197 order of creation, 9–​10, 75, 212, 283 order of nature, 36, 67, 72, 78, 176 Ordinary Censures, 19, 365 Orfician Decree, 289 orthodoxy (doctrinal conformity), 104, 109, 111, 147, 156, 158, 337, 339 otium, 168–​69, 207, 330, 372 Ovid, 167, 314 palea Eiciens, 225–​26 Paludius, Johannes, 33, 50, 56 Paucapalea, 225–​26 penitence, 9 perjury, 131, 143–​46

  411

Index Perkins, William, 187–​88 Perrinists, the, 99, 102, 131, 303 Perrot, Charles, 319 Perrot, Samuel, 340–​41 Peter of Ravenna, 298 philosophaster, 113 philosophy, 13–​15, 29, 33–​35, 44, 68, 112–​21 and philosophical virtues, 76 and truthfulness, 163 Picot, Suzanne, 34 Pighius, Albertus, 116 Pinelli, Luca, 306–​11, 334, 375 accuses Protestants of holding Peter in disrepute, 308 Pithou, Pierre, 38 plague, 63, 94, 134, 139, 156, 160, 208, 215–​16, 237, 242–​43, 272, 276, 293, 365, 372 Plato, 76, 149, 216–​17, 273, 279 Polanus, Amandus, 10–​12 presbyterium, 26–​27 pride, 80–​91, 369 disciplinary action in regard to, 93–​11 punishment in Greco-​Roman myth, 64–​65 Pythagoreans, 194 Quintilian, 47, 83 Rabelais, François, 197, 276, 332 reason, 76–​77, 96, 283, 294–​95, 299, 334, 374 heavenly vs earthly, 68 Reformed Orthodoxy, 3–​4, 7 regeneration, 15, 76–​77, 212, 347, 350, 358–​59 regimentation of life, 14, 304 remonstrances, 18–​20, 101, 247, 260, 339, 361–​62, 367, 371 the poems of the Cato functioning as, 23, 242, 354, 364–​65, 372

411

renewal, 9, 15, 35–​37, 69, 74, 123, 212–​14, 247, 312, 332–​34, 339, 368–​69, 377 restoration. See renewal Rilliet, Jean, 103–​04, 122 Robert of Courçon, 227 Sabbath rest, 169, 372 Salvard, Jean-​François, 21 sanctification, 9, 12, 15, 29, 36, 59, 98, 123–​24, 185, 348–​50, 354, 357 as a journey, 11, 58–​60, 73–​74, 78, 123, 126, 345–​47, 350, 364, 377–​78 Santiago de Compostela, 162 Sarasin, Jean, 259–​60, 292 Scaliger, Joseph, 42, 48 Scholasticism, 3–​4 Schwytzer, Johann Heinrich, 262 Scotland, 54, 310–​11 Seneca, 41–​42, 179 Servetus, Michael, 149–​50, 153–​55, 157, 159, 327, 332, 371 sexual sins, 258–​93 and bestiality, 281–​83 Edict of 1566 on, 259–​61, 264, 266 homosexuality, 280–​83 various distinctions made regarding, 279–​81 views of Lambert Daneau on, 277–​85 views of Peter Martyr Vermigli on, 285–​91 sins forgiveness of, 151–​52, 241 isolating consequences of , 21–​23, 29, 35, 78, 160–​61, 237, 272, 293, 364 venial, 115, 152 slander, 130–​32, 135, 149. See also blasphemy Small Council, 18, 99, 246–​47, 249, 260–​61, 264, 305 and dependency on jurisconsults, 263 Socrates Scholasticus, 202

412

412

Index

sola scriptura, 154, 311 sophistry, sophists, 112–​17 sophrosyne, 15, 76 speculation, 112–​17, 119, 122 St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, 40, 320 stealing and idleness, 177–​78, 181, 199, 209, 371 and usury, 223, 227–​28, 231, 239 sterility of money, 215–​18, 222, 229, 372 and Calvin, 231–​32, 240 Stoer, Jacob, 39–​40 Stoicism, 15, 34, 65, 75, 113, 330 Strigelius, Victorinus, 138 Stucki, Johann, 321 submissiveness. See humility sumptuary laws, 16, 246–​47, 250, 373 syllogismus practicus, 349 Tamar, 278, 284 Ten Commandments, 9, 35–​36, 42, 66–​67, 69, 72, 77, 133, 290, 366 third of the, 136 fifth of the, 87 seventh of the, 181, 232, 239, 277, 285, 290, 291, 295 eighth of the, 177–​78, 181, 223, 254 ninth of the, 133, 135, 141 tenth of the, 252–​53 Theodoret, 96 Theodosian Code, 288–​89 time management, 209–​10 Turretin, Francis, 11 union with Christ, 8, 30–​32, 75, 163–​64, 349–​50 Ursinus, 12 usury, 5, 211–​44 biting metaphor for, 234–​35 Fifth Lateran Council on, 256 and the Hebrew word nashak, 234–​35

hare metaphor for, 218, 233 Plutarch on, 217–​19, 233, 235, 237 and the poor, 215, 218–​20, 232, 237–​39, 241, 243 the scholastic view on, 223–​24 sowing-​without-​reaping metaphor for, 218–​19, 233–​34 and tokos (τόκος), 217–​19, 221, 229 viper metaphor for, 218, 221 Valeriano, Pierio, 273 Varro, Ami Vassy massacre, 56 Vergil, 50–​83, 167, 234 Vermigli, Peter Martyr, 14, 115, 188, 307, 311, 374–​75 on adultery, 285–​91 on callings, 187, 202–​03 on drunkenness , 295–​96 on idleness, 179–​82, 199–​200 on not listening to God’s Word, 82 Viret, Pierre, 105, 109, 200, 210 vocation. See calling Von Grimmelshausen, Jakob Christoph, 168–​69 Weber, Max, 189–​90, 211 Widler, Marcus, 203 William of Auxerre, 223, 227 William of Hesse, Landgrave, 306 work, 165–​93 man born for, 165, 168–​71, 199 in Paul’s example, 175 wrath, 65, 160, 219, 239, 290, 292–​93, 315, 319, 339 delayed by God, 57, 83–​85, 194 Zanchius, 12 Zastriselius the Elder, Venceslas, 6 Zastriselius the Younger, Venceslas, 6 Zellius, Matthias, 311 Zwingli, Ulrich, 205, 286, 311