Noël Béda

Syndic of the Faculty of Theology of Paris · c. 1470–1537 · France

Noël Béda came from Picardy, became principal of the austere Collège de Montaigu in 1504, and in 1520 was made syndic of the Faculty of Theology at Paris, the Sorbonne. For thirteen years he was its driving force. Under his leadership the faculty condemned Luther’s writings in 1521, attacked Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples, censured Erasmus, and opposed every attempt of King Francis I and his sister Marguerite of Navarre to shelter evangelical preachers.1

When the queen mother, as regent in 1525, asked the faculty how to stop the spread of heresy, Béda gave the answer:

All the writings of the heretics should be prohibited by a royal proclamation; and if this means does not suffice, we must employ force and constraint against the persons of these false doctors; for those who resist the light must be subdued by torture and by terror.2 Noël Bédaanswer to the regent, 1525, as reported by Merle d’Aubigné

Béda pursued the scholar Louis de Berquin, who translated Luther and Erasmus, until he was burned in Paris on April 17, 1529. When the king appointed royal lecturers in Greek and Hebrew, Béda had the Sorbonne condemn their claim that Scripture could not be rightly understood without the original languages.2 His attacks on the court finally went too far. He was banished in 1533, and in 1535 was condemned to public penance and confinement at Mont-Saint-Michel, where he died in 1537.

Catholic Opponents

Sources

  1. J. H. Merle d’Aubigné, History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century, trans. H. White, vol. 3, bk. 12, ch. 5, on Béda and Lefèvre. ↩
  2. J. H. Merle d’Aubigné, History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century, trans. H. White, vol. 3, bk. 12, ch. 14, with the quotation. ↩
  3. J. H. Merle d’Aubigné, History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin, trans. William L. R. Cates, vol. 2 (London: Longmans, Green), bk. 2, ch. 17, on the royal lecturers.