BEZA, THEODORE (1519–1605), Reformed theologian and successor to John Calvin as moderator of the Venerable Company of Pastors in Geneva, Switzerland. Born Théodore de Bèze and raised in Paris, he was trained as a lawyer (at Orléans) but preferred the company of humanists. His first publication, Poemata, evidenced considerable poetic talent. Upon his conversion from Catholicism to Protestantism in 1548, Beza fled France and, as a professor of Greek, joined Pierre Viret at the academy in Lausanne, Switzerland. Meanwhile, the French Parlement declared Beza an outlaw, confiscated his goods, and burned his effigy in Paris. It was at Lausanne that Beza wrote A Tragedie of Abraham's Sacrifice (1559; Eng. trans., 1575), the first biblical tragedy (a genre later utilized by Racine), as well as his theologically significant Tabula praedestinationis (1555), translated the following year as A Briefe Declaraccion of the Chiefe Poyntes of the Christian Religion, Set Forth...