ABSTRACT
On 5 June 1563, Theodore Beza wrote to Bullinger with some alarming news concerning Zurich’s Italian minister, Bernardino Ochino. Many good and learned persons, he reported, had taken offence at two volumes of Latin dialogues recently published by Ochino in Basle, in which ‘arguments for the worst heresies are put forward clearly and plainly, to be rebutted not at all or with reasoning of the weakest sort’. According to Beza’s anonymous informants, Ochino was guilty in many places of allowing himself ‘curious and vain speculations’ and of distorting the meaning of passages from scripture. Although Beza himself had not had an opportunity to examine the suspect volumes in detail, he was keen that the Zurich church should investigate the matter further, to damp down any potential scandal. 1
