Explicatio gravissimae quaestionis utrum excommunicatio (1589) contributed an important defense of the right of ecclesiastical authorities (rather than civil authorities) to excommunicate. Beza's Greek New Testament Of no less importance are the contributions of Beza to Biblical scholarship. In 1565 he issued an edition of the Greek New Testament, accompanied in parallel columns by the text of the Vulgate and a translation of his own (already published as early as 1556, though our earliest extant edition dates to 1559). Annotations were added, also previously published, but now he greatly enriched and enlarged them. In the preparation of this edition of the Greek text, but much more in the preparation of the second edition which he brought out in 1582, Beza may have availed himself of the help of two very valuable manuscripts. One is known as the Codex Bezae or Cantabrigensis, and was later presented by Beza to the University of Cambridge, where it remains in the Cambridge University Library; the second is the Codex Claromontanus, which Beza had found in Clermont (now in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris). It was not, however, to these sources that Beza was chiefly indebted, but rather to the previous edition of the eminent Robert Estienne (1550), itself based in great measure upon one of the later editions of Erasmus. Beza's labours in this direction were exceedingly helpful to those who came after. The same thing may be asserted with equal truth of his Latin version and of the copious notes with which it was accompanied. The former is said to have been published over a hundred times. Although some contend that Beza's view of the doctrine of predestination exercised an overly dominant influence upon his interpretation of the Scriptures, there is no question that he added much to a clear understanding of the New Testament. In fiction Theodore Beza appears as a character in the Colloqui di Poissy, an historical novel by Agostino di Bondeno (Rome, 2018). See also Franciscus Junius (the elder) Immanuel Tremellius Monarchomachs Supralapsarianism Notes References External links Publications by and about Theodore Beza in the catalogue Helveticat of the Swiss National Library "The Two Parts of the Word of God: Law & Gospel" from The Christian Faith by Beza "Faith and Justification" from The Christian Faith by Beza "Jesus Christ the Son of God" from The Christian Faith by Beza Concerning the Rights of Rulers Over Their