Thomas Erastus
| Thomas Erastus | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
September 7, 1524 Baden (in present-day Aargau) |
| Died | December 31, 1583 (aged 59) Basel |
| Nationality | Swiss |
| Fields | Medicine, theology |
| Alma mater | University of Basel and University of Bologna |
| Known for | Opposition to Paracelsus; Views of Church and State |
Thomas Erastus (September 7, 1524 – December 31, 1583) was a Swiss physician and theologian. He wrote 100 theses (later 75) in which he argued that the sins committed by Christians should be punished by the State, and that the Church should not withhold Sacraments as a form of punishment. They were published in 1589, after his death, with the title Explicatio gravissimae quaestionis. His name was later applied to Erastianism.
He was born of poor parents on 7 September 1524, probably at Baden, canton of Aargau, Switzerland. In 1540 he was studying theology at Basel. The plague of 1544 drove him to Bologna and from there to Padua as student of Philosophy and medicine. In 1553 he became physician to the count of Henneberg, Thuringia, Saxe-Meiningen, and in 1558 held the same post with the elector-palatine, Otto Heinrich, being at the same time professor of Medicine at Heidelberg. His patron's successor, Frederick III, made him (1559) a privy Councillor and member of the church consistory. In theology he followed Huldrych Zwingli, and at the sacramentarian conferences of Heidelberg (1560) and Maulbronn (1564) he advocated by voice and pen the Zwinglian doctrine of the Lord's Supper, replying (1565) to the counter arguments of the Lutheran Johann Marbach, of Strasbourg. He ineffectually resisted the efforts of the Calvinists, led by Caspar Olevian, to introduce the Presbyterian polity and discipline, which were established at Heidelberg in 1570, on the Geneva model. One of the first acts of the new church system was to excommunicate Erastus on a charge of Socinianism, founded on his correspondence with Transylvania. The ban was not removed until 1575, Erastus declaring his firm adhesion to the doctrine of the Trinity. His position, however, was uncomfortable, and in 1580 he returned to Basel, where in 1583 he was made professor of ethics. He died on 31 December 1583.
Erastus published several pieces focused on medicine, astrology, alchemy, and attacked in his publications the system of Paracelsus. In doing so, he defended medieval tradition in general, and Galen in particular, while conceding some merit to specific points in Paracelsus. His name is permanently associated with a posthumous publication, written in 1568. Its immediate occasion was the disputation at Heidelberg in 1568 for the doctorate of theology by George Withers, an English Puritan (subsequently Archdeacon of Colchester), silenced in 1565 at Bury St Edmunds by Archbishop Parker. Withers had proposed a disputation against vestments, which the university would not allow; his thesis affirming the excommunicating power of the presbytery was sustained.
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