The Civil Covenant: Theodore Beza’s Theory of Rights and Resistance
27 March 2025
By Dr Adi Schlebusch
Contrary to the post-Enlightenment liberal narratives upon which the Postwar consensus is based, the West actually enjoyed liberty long before liberalism and had established fundamental rights pertaining to individuals, families, and peoples in place long before the advent of modern democratic revolutions. Early modern Protestants, especially Calvinists in France, developed a theory of fundamental rights as part of a broader constitutional theory of resistance and to tyranny. These ideas were particularly significant in countering the political absolutism of the liberal political philosopher Jean Bodin (1530-1596) and his followers, which laid the groundwork for the revolutionary theories of the French Enlightenment.
The St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in 1572 proved to be a pivotal event for Calvinists in France, permanently halting their rapid expansion and forcing them to rethink and reconceptualize Calvinist theories on law and politics. Calvin’s early teachings assumed that each local community would have a single faith and that church and state would cooperate in maintaining a godly polity. But how could Calvinists reconcile this with a new reality where they were now forced to demand for toleration as a religious minority in their own country? Moreover, what if church, state or both together collided against the practice of true religion? In response, French Reformed Christians, led by Theodore Beza, launched a wave of writings that transformed Calvinist theories on law, religion, authority, liberty, rights, and resistance. Beza, Calvin’s protégé and successor, played a central role in this development, especially with his 1574 tract, De jure magistratum sive de jure regni apud populum. This work, known in English as Concerning the Rights of Rulers Over Their Subjects and the Duty of Subjects Toward Their Rulers, outlines Beza's views on political authority, the relationship between rulers and subjects, and the right of resistance against tyranny. His work went beyond what the first generation of Reformers had said on the matter and laid the foundation for a new Calvinist theory and practice of rights and resistance.
In Germany on the other had, it had been the Lutherans of Magdeburg who led the resistance. The 1550 Magdeburg Confession was drafted in response to the Holy Roman Emperor's decree imposing Catholic doctrines and suppress Lutheranism. The city, under siege by imperial forces, stood firm and defended its refusal to obey the new imperial laws. The Confession argued that when rulers exceed their authority, they forfeit their office and become like any other criminal, allowing their subjects to resist them.
The 1550 Magdeburg Confession’s arguments—rooted in the Bible, history, and the law of self-defense—also became commonplace in Calvinist theories of resistance. Beza would integrate these arguments into a coherent political theory wherein he advocated as central idea that political authority was rooted in a covenant between God, rulers, and the people. Whereas the Lutheran position argued from the right to self-defense as basic principle for rights and resistance, Beza based his view in the threefold civil covenant. Beza understood this idea of a threefold civil covenant as God protecting and blessing nations for their obedience to divine law, with rulers being bound to honor God's laws and protect the people's rights anchored therein. The people were expected to elect and petition their rulers and obey them, provided the rulers upheld God's law and protected their rights. If rulers violated the covenant and became tyrants, they could be resisted and removed, but this power lay not with the people as individuals directly, but with their representatives, the lower magistrates, who had the constitutional duty to organize resistance to tyranny, including warfare and revolution if necessary. Beza emphasized that true authority was distinguished from tyranny by adherence to the laws of God. He noted: "It is the characteristic of magistrates to issue commands and to exercise authority. I myself also agree with that, but I add that this power is limited by laws both divine and human."1
Beza’s theory of a threefold civil covenant largely shaped the Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos, which was published shortly after his work. The threefold covenant entails that rulers derive their authority from God, but their office itself from the free and lawful consent of the people, signaled through an oath sworn by rulers before taking office. Beza referred to this as the “liturgy” of the political covenant, echoing the covenant-swearing ceremonies of ancient Israel. The political covenant also maintained multiple rulers, such as aristocratic and democratic lower magistrates, who would help maintain the “rule of law” and “constitutional order.”2 This covenant imposed mutual obligations both rulers and the people, as well as their obligations towards God. Beza argued that rulers were bound to uphold "the law of God and the law of nature," thus participating in the civil covenant. To protect the people, rulers were required to safeguard basic rights such as the rights to life, property, marital integrity, reputation, and privacy. Beza also supported the right “free exercise of religion,” which he understood not in the liberal sense of pluralisme, but as the right of Christians to gather, hear God’s word, and partake in the sacraments. He extended this to include the right of congregations to govern themselves without state interference. Beza further advocated the “freedom to educate,” arguing that parental rights over children must be maintained over against state interference, as well as the “freedom to emigrate,” i.e. the right to move to a place where religious rights were more respected. Beza also argued for the right peaceful and orderly secession, suggesting that while private marital contracts required formal dissolution procedures, so too should the civil covenant. This was a constitutional matter to be judged and authorized by lower magistrates, not individuals. In this regard the doctrine of the civil covenant is very much at odds with the liberal idea of the social contract, as the latter sees the contract as absolutely binding. In exceptional circumstances, Beza even justified tyrannicide as a last resort if all else failed.
Beza’s work systematically outlined and theoretically underpinned the Calvinist doctrines of rights and resistance, thereby greatly contributing to laying the foundation not only for the sixteenth and seventeenth-century Dutch Revolt against Spain, but also influencing the eighteenth-century American Revolution. His covenantal approach to resistance and rights gave rise to a coherent theory of political authority, liberty, and the right to resist tyranny.
1. Beza, De jure, p. 34.
2. Beza, De jure, p. 41-64.
3. Beza, De jure, p. 27-29.