Andreae and Beza at the Colloquy of Montbéliard

Abstract

This chapter describes the debate between Jakob Andreae and Theodore Beza at the Colloquy of Montbéliard (1586). Andreae defends a Brenzian account of the hypostatic union, and modifies his view so that it conforms more closely to Brenz’s own view that the divine powers themselves are in some sense possessed by the human nature. Beza accepts the supposital union. He outlines the ways in which Andreae’s account of the distinction between concrete and abstract nouns might lead to theological difficulties, and shows that a Brenzian view of the communicatio, coupled with a restriction on the set of divine attributes that can be communicated to the Son of Man, results in a Christology that is inconsistent with Chalcedon.