Swiss Calvinist theologian and physician (1524?1583)
Thomas Erastus
(original surname
Luber
,
Lieber
, or
Liebler
;
[2]
7 September 1524 – 31 December 1583) was a
Swiss
physician
and
Calvinist theologian
. He wrote 100 theses (later reduced to 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
.
[2]
Biography
[
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]
He was born of poor parents on 7 September 1524, probably at
Baden
,
canton of Aargau
, Switzerland. In 1540 he was studying theology at the
University of Basel
. The plague of 1544 drove him to the
University of Bologna
and from there to the
University of Padua
as student of philosophy and medicine. In 1553 he became physician to the count of
Henneberg
,
Saxe-Meiningen
, and in 1558 held the same post with the elector-palatine,
Otto Heinrich
, being at the same time professor of medicine and pharmacology at the
University of Heidelberg
until 1580 ;
Anselmus Boetius de Boodt
(1550-1632) was one of his student.
[3]
His patron's successor,
Frederick III
, made him a privy Councillor and member of the church consistory in 1559.
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 in 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 the University of Basel, where in 1583 he was made professor of ethics. He died on 31 December 1583.
Work
[
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]
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.
[5]
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.
The
Treatise of Erastus
(1589) was published by
Giacomo Castelvetro
, who had married Erastus's widow.
[7]
It consists of seventy-five
Theses
, followed by a
Confirmatio
in six books. An appendix of letters to Erastus by
Heinrich Bullinger
and
Rudolf Gwalther
, showed that the
Theses
, written in 1568, had been circulated in manuscript form. An English translation of the
Theses
, with a brief account of the life of Erastus (based on
Melchior Adam
's account), was issued in 1659, entitled
The Nullity of Church Censures;
it was reprinted as
A Treatise of Excommunication
(1682) and was revised by
Robert Lee
, D.D., in 1844.
Erastianism
[
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]
In his
Theses
, 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. This view is now known as
Erastianism
.
In his
Theses
, Erastus explained that sins of professing Christians are to be punished by civil authority, and not by the withholding of sacraments on the part of the clergy. Those holding this view in the
Westminster Assembly
included
John Selden
,
John Lightfoot
,
Thomas Coleman
and
Bulstrode Whitelocke
, whose speech in 1645 is appended to Lee's version of the
Theses
. However, after much controversy, the opposite view was carried, with Lightfoot alone dissenting. The consequent chapter of the
Westminster Confession of Faith
(
Of Church Censures
) was not ratified by the English parliament.
[9]
According to the
Catholic Encyclopedia
, "The
Theses
and
Confirmatio thesium
appeared together in 1589. The central question about which the "Theses" turned was that of excommunication. The term is not, however, used by Erastus in the Catholic sense as excluding the delinquent from the society or membership of the Church. The excommunication to which [it] alludes was the exclusion of those of bad life from participation in the sacraments."
[10]
Notes
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]
- ^
Charles Gunnoe,
Thomas Erastus and the Palatinate: A Renaissance Physician in the Second Reformation
, Brill, 2010 p. 41.
- ^
a
b
"Thomas Erastus | Swiss physician and theologian"
. Retrieved
2016-07-18
.
- ^
Zylberman, Nicolas (2022).
"Anselme Boece de Boodt, 1550 ? 1632, gemmologue praticien. De Bruges a Prague, itineraire europeen d'un humaniste - 1ere partie"
(pdf)
.
Ikuska
.
53
: 49-51.
- ^
Allen G. Debus
,
The English Paracelsians
(1965), pp. 37?39.
- ^
With the title
Explicatio gravissimae quaestionis utrum excommunicatio, quatenus religionem intelligentes et amplexantes, a sacramentorum usu, propter admissum facinus arcet, mandato nitatur divino, an excogitata sit ab hominibus
. The work bears the imprint Pesclavii (i.e. Poschiavo in the
Grisons
) but was printed by John Wolfe in London, where Castelvetri was staying; the name of the alleged printer is an anagram of "Jacobum Castelvetrum." In the
Stationers' Register
(June 20, 1589) the printing is said to have been allowed by
Archbishop Whitgift
.
- ^
Gunnoe, Charles D. (2010).
Thomas Erastus and the Palatinate: A Renaissance Physician in the Second ..
. pp. 100?110.
ISBN
978-9004187924
.
- ^
Ward, B.
"Erastus and Erastianism"
.
The Catholic Encyclopedia
. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909.
References
[
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]
Further reading
[
edit
]
- Veronika Feller-Vest:
Thomas Erastus
in
German
,
French
and
Italian
in the online
Historical Dictionary of Switzerland
.
- Ruth Wesel-Roth (1959),
"Erast, Thomas"
,
Neue Deutsche Biographie
(in German), vol. 4, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, p. 560
- Wilhelm Gaß, Albert Schumann (1877), "
Erast, Thomas
",
Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie
(in German), vol. 6, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 180?182
- Athenae Rauricae
(Basel, 1778) pp. 427?30.
- Auguste Bonnard,
Thomas Eraste et la discipline ecclesiastique
(1894)
- Charles Gunnoe,
Thomas Erastus and the Palatinate: A Renaissance Physician in the Second Reformation
. Leiden: Brill, 2011.
- G. V. Lechler
and R. Stahelin, in Albert Hauck's
Realencyklop. fur prot. Theol. u. Kirche
(1898)
- Ruth Wesel-Roth,
Thomas Erastus: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der reformierten Kirche und zur Lehre von der Staatssouveranitat
[Veroffentlichungen des Vereins fur Kirchengeschichte in der evang. Landeskirche Badens 15]. Lahr/Baden: Moritz Schauenberg, 1954.
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