ERASTUS, THOMAS, a learned physician and theologian, was b. at Baden in Switzer land, 7th Sept., 1524. His real name was Lieber, which, according to the fashion of his times, he translated into Greek. In 1540, he went to the university of Basel, where he studied divinity, philosophy, and literature. He subsequently visited Italy, where he betook himself to medicine, and obtained the degree of M.D. from the university of Bologna. After an absence of nine years, he returned to his own country, and lived for some time at the court of the princes of Henneberg, where he acquired a great reputa tion as a medical practitioner. The elector palatine, Frederick III., now invited him to his court, and appointed him first physician and councilor of state. He also conferred on him the chair of physic in the university of Heidelberg. In 1581, he was selected to fill a similar office at )lasel, where he died, Dec. 31, 1583, after establishing a liberal foundation for the provision and education of poor students in medicine, which was long called the Erastian foundation. Among E.'s medical works may be mentioned his Disputationum de .3fedicina _Nivea Philippi Paracel,si (Basel, 1572-73); Theses de Contagio (Heidelberg, 1574); and De Occult. Pharmaco. Potestatibus (Heidelberg, 1574). As a phy sician, E. is creditably characterized by his distrust of abstract and it priori theorizing, and his conviction that experimental investigation is the only road to knowledge. But his fame now rests chiefly on what he wrote in ecclesiastical controversy. In his book Dr Cana Domini, )se contended-for the figurative interpretation of. the passage, "This is my body," etc., and supported this view at the conference held at Mau]bron between the divines of the palatinate and those of 'Wittenberg. But his great work is his Eel)li catio Quastionis Grace ssinue dc Excommunicatione. Although this work was not published
till some years after his death, E. had published the same opinions as it contains in the form of theses, directed against Gaspar Olevianus, a refugee from Treves, and various other persons, who were anxious to confer on ecclesiastical tribunals the power of pun ishing vices and misdemeanors. E. denied the right of the church to excommunicate, exclude, absolve, censure—in short, to exercise discipline. Denying " the power of the keys," he compared a pastor to a professor of any science, who can merely instruct his students; he held that the ordinances of the gospel should be open and free to all, and that penalties being both in their nature and effect civil and not spiritual, ought to be inflicted only by the civil magistrate . E. formed no sect, neither did he wish to do so. His desire was, in fact, of an exactly contrary character—viz., to preserve an exter nal harmony at the expense even of the purity of the visible church. He would have let the wheat and tares grow together until the end of the world. „Many eminent men, especially in the church of England, have shared similar opinions both. before and after E., such as Crammer, Redmayn, Cox, 'Whitgift, Lightfoot, Selden, etc. The term Eras tian has long been a favorite epithet of reproach in Scotland, but has not been employed with any great precision. All persons who deny the power of an established church to alter her own laws without the consent of the state—as, for example, the law of patron age—are generally accused of Erastianisni, although the principles of E. have literally nothing to do with such a question. An English translation of the Etp/icatio was pub lished in 1669, and was re-edited by Dr. Robert Lee of Edinburgh in 1845.