ERASTO, Thomas. - A Swiss German theologian and physician who changed his original name, Lieber, to Erasto, the most beloved; born in Baden Dourlach (Switzerland) in 1524, died in Basel in 1583. After completing his studies in Basel and Bologna, he was appointed in 1557 by the Palatine Elector Otto Henry as professor of medicine at the University of Heidelberg. Upon the elector’s death in 1559, his successor banished both Catholicism and Lutheranism from his territories. The triumphant Calvinists immediately sought to impose Calvinist doctrine and governance. One of them, George Wither, an exiled Englishman, published several theses on excommunication, asserting that it was “of divine right” and independent of civil authority. Erasto, who professed Zwinglian doctrines, led the opposition and published the *Explicatio gravissima quaestionis*, in which he refuted Wither’s doctrine in 75 theses. The Calvinists prevailed, Erasto was excommunicated, left Heidelberg, and retired to Basel, where he died.
Erasto’s doctrine may be summarized as follows: the Church has no right or power to impose censures or excommunications. God has granted it the power of the keys, which consists solely in the preaching of the Word. The Church must be subject to the Christian state, from which it derives its authority. He therefore denied that civil authority is subject to the Church’s censure, allowed appeals from ecclesiastical courts to civil ones, since the latter are the supreme tribunals for all matters of the state.
This provoked struggles and dissensions, from which there arose: a strong current of religious individualism among the English (Quakers); the hardening of all sects opposed to any ecclesiastical authority (Baptists and Congregationalists); an exaggerated opinion of the supreme authority of civil tribunals and Parliament, condensed in the Erastian doctrine of Hobbes (1588–1679: *Leviathan*, III, 42), namely, that it is not obligatory to be a Christian unless sanctioned by an act of Parliament or some other competent secular authority.
Erastianism, which corresponds almost to what is commonly called caesaropapism, has in England today taken on a somewhat different turn from that of the early Erastians.
Originally, it arose and spread among nations that were almost entirely and officially Protestant, reserving coercive jurisdiction, even in ecclesiastical cases, solely to civil magistrates, who were presumed to be all Christian and members of a single sect, in order to avoid having two jurisdictions within the same state. It taught, in fact, that the civil magistrate, as the representative of state authority, was the only person authorized to punish crimes, and since excommunication involves some kind of punishment, it could not be imposed without his sanction.
But now civil authority, especially in the case of the Parliament of England, resides in men of various religions or none, with power in a nation that tolerates all religions; and Parliament has the right to judge even in matters of faith, but only with regard to the Church of England. Religious questions, at least the most important ones, are judged by civil tribunals (Privy Council, House of Lords, House of Commons), in which magistrates may be agnostic. With good reason, therefore, Benham says that
Erastianism signifies the doctrine of the supremacy of the state in ecclesiastical matters, and the incompetence of ecclesiastical power to alter its own laws without the consent of the state.
The Anglican bishops claim that their authority comes directly from God, since the king or queen of England cannot ordain new ministers or consecrate bishops. Yet in fact, Article 37 of Religion and ecclesiastical jurisdiction has passed from the king to the state (to Parliament), which makes itself felt in the election of bishops even more through its “veto” than when certain changes were made in the *Book of Common Prayer*.