a French Protestant Christian theologian and scholar who played an important role in the Reformation. A member of the monarchomaque movement who opposed absolute monarchy, he was a disciple of John Calvin and lived most of his life in Switzerland. Combining his pastoral and literary gifts, Beza wrote the first drama produced in French, Abrahm Sacrifiant; a play that is an antecedent to the work of Jean Racine and is still occasionally produced today. But all these humanistic and historical studies are surpassed by his theological productions (contained in Tractationes theologicae).
