Contents

Chapter VI. On the Last Judgment

Theodore Beza · The Christian Faith

Signature passages, the lines readers know this work by, are set in a pale wash.

Article 1. What is to be believed and held by us concerning the coming Last Judgment.

We believe, out of the Word of God, that at the time appointed (which not even the angels know), Jesus Christ, after the number of the Elect has been completed, and the frame of this world has been purged by fire, will come from the heavens, just as he is, endowed with his visible and true human body, yet joined with the Divine majesty; and that before him will appear all men whomsoever, from the founding of the world.

For those who have happened to die before will rise again, namely with the same bodies which rested for a time, joined again, and that inseparably, with the same souls; but those who shall be found surviving at the very coming of Christ will in one moment be changed, that is, will pass into that condition in which the nature of men is to be after the resurrection.

Then the Lord will judge all, without exception, from his Word. Whoever, therefore, shall have believed (as will be plain from the fruits of faith), being co-heirs of Christ, shall enjoy full felicity, not only as concerns the soul (which at its departure from the body entered into the joy of its Lord, and then at last, the body being resumed, shall enjoy full felicity), but in that body also, which, all infirmity being laid aside, shall put on that incorruption and glory which Christ now shows us in himself.

But on the contrary, the wicked and the unbelieving, convicted by the testimony of their own conscience, shall indeed put on a perennial nature, but one full of all ignominy, and to this end only, that they may be tormented perpetually with the Devil and his angels.

These are, in sum, the things which we have learned from the Word of God concerning the coming judgment.

But those who think they can define when that day is to come, and those old-wives’ speculations about a certain feigned Antichrist, about the joys of paradise and the punishments of hell, we not only despise but even oppose with our whole heart. For we think it wicked to scrutinize hidden things, and to mingle our own inventions with the truth of God. Finally, we prefer to keep perpetual watch, lest he who is to come should surprise us sleeping, as in the days of Noah, and as in the night; and it is enough for us to understand that the joy which we hope for is incomprehensible, and that an infinite torment awaits all the unbelieving.

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A note on this translation. This English text was prepared for Reformed Dogmatika directly from Beza’s Latin (Confessio Christianae Fidei, London: Thomas Vautrollier, 1575; first published in French, 1558) with the help of AI (Anthropic’s Claude); no copyrighted English translation was consulted, and in particular nothing is drawn from James Clark’s 1992 version.

It is offered for unhurried reading rather than scholarly citation; for academic work, cite that published edition. The Fathers, councils, and liturgy that Beza quotes are translated from his own sixteenth-century Latin and identified as his citations; Scripture is given in the ESV; and difficulties in the Latin are flagged in the footnotes rather than smoothed over. Corrections from readers of the Latin are warmly welcomed.

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