Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/538

Rh 518 E R A E R A fail to make, an amusing farrago out of the life and writ ings of Erasmus, though not even superficially versed in the literary history of the i6th century. He rarely ventures beyond the text of Erasmus and Le Clerc without stumbling.&quot; Other lives are by Samuel Knight, 8vo, Cambr. 1726; Marsollier, 12 mo, Paris, 1713; Burigny, 2 vols. 12rno, Paris, 1752; Ad. Mliller, 8vo, Hamburg, 1828; Escher, in the Historisches Taschenbuch, 1843; Erhard, in Ersch and Gruber s Encyclopadie, 1841; D. Nisard, in Etudes sur la Renaissance, 8vo, Paris, 1855 ; Seebohm, in Oxford Reformers, 2ded. 1869 ; H. H. Mihnan, 8vo, Lond. 1870; Sticharfc, 8vo, Leipsic, 1870; Durand de Laur, 2 vols., 8vo, Par. 1872 ; R. B. Drummond, 2 vols. 8vo, Lond. 1873 ; Gaston Feugere, 8vo, Par. 1874; A. R. Pennington, 8vo, Lond. 1875; Kammel in Deutsche Bio- graphie, 1877; besides those which are contained in the various biographical dictionaries from Bayle downwards. With this abundance of choice, in which the same story is told by a score of writers in English, French, and German, and in every variety of style, we can hardly say, as Sydney Smith did in 1812, that &quot;a life of Erasmus is a desideratum&quot; (Life of 8. Smith, p. 207). The brochures on separate works of Erasmus, or single stages of his life, are too many to be here enumerated. His works were published after his death in a collected edition, 9 vols. fol., Basil. 1540. The only other edition is the magnificent one edited by Le Clerc, 10 vols. fol. Lugd. Bat. 1703-6, which includes the Greek Testament, the Paraphrasis, and the Adayia, as well as the JSpistolcc, and smaller writings. It is provided with a good general index in the last volume, and with an excellent special index to the volume containing the epistles. (M. P.) ERASTUS, THOMAS (1524-1583), was born at Baden in Switzerland on the 7th of September 1524. His family name was Liebler or Lieber, Erastus being the Greek equi valent. In 1540 he went to Basel, and in 1542 he entered the university there as student of philosophy and theology. An outbreak of the plague in 1544 drove him to Bologna, where he studied philosophy and medicine, taking his doctor s degree in the latter faculty. His residence in Italy lasted nine years, part of the time being spent at the uni versity of Padua. Returning northwards in 1553, he for some time held the post of physician to the counts of Henneberg. In 1558 he was appointed physician to the Elector Palatine Otto Heinrich, and at the same time he obtained the chair of medicine in the university of Heidel berg. By Frederick III., who succeeded Otto Heinrich in 1559, he was made privy-councillor and member of the church-consistory. Eminent both as a scientific and as a practical physician, he at the same time took a profound interest in the theological controversies of his day, and soon became deeply involved in them. While a student of theology at Basel he had heartily adopted the doctrines of Zwingli, and ever afterwards was prompt to avail himself of all the opportunities which his position afforded for ad vancing the views of the Zurich divines. At the instance of the elector he took an active part in the sacramentarian conferences held at Heidelberg in 1560 and at Maulbronn in 1564. In connexion with these conferences he published a statement and vindication of the Zwinglian doctrine of the Lord s Supper, which, on its being criticised on the Lutheran side by Dr John Marbach of Strasburg, he followed up with a second defence (1565). Shortly after the settlement of Erastus in Heidelberg, an effort was made to introduce into the church of the Palatinate a strict presbyterian constitu tion after the Genevan model. Erastus became the leader of an influential opposition to this attempt. He made it his business to counteract what he called the &quot; excommuni- catory fever&quot; of the advocates of rigid discipline. In 1568 he wrote and circulated in manuscript 100 theses on the subject of church censures, maintaining that exclusion from participation in the sacraments is not a legitimate punish ment for any offence whatsoever (ExpUcatio, ix., xxxi.). A copy of the theses was sent to Zurich, and received with some favour there, but from Geneva they elicited a vigorous rejoinder by Beza, which led to the preparation of a Con- firmatio Thesiiim. The efforts of Erastus and his friends at Heidelberg in this matter met with little success, the presbyterian discipline being finally set up in 1570, with hardly any modification of the Genevan strictness. Mean while Erastus had lost the favour of the elector, and by a correspondence with some of the Socinians of Transylvania had brought himself under suspicion of being favourable to their views. One of the first acts of the newly con stituted church court seems to have been a high-handed excommunication of Erastus, on the ground of his sup posed Unitarianism. The sentence was reconsidered and removed in 1575, Erastus formally declaring that no one could hold the doctrine of the Trinity more firmly than he. The court physician, however, found his position at Heidelberg to be one of increasing discomfort. He accord ingly returned in 1580 to Basel, where he received an appointment to the chair of ethics in 1583. He died on 31st December of the same year. Erastus seems to have been much esteemed by his friends for his amiability, candour, and probity. As an investi gator of nature, he was honourably distinguished by his adherence to a sound inductive method. Most of the works that appeared during his lifetime were directed against the fantastic notions of Paracelsus and his school (Disscrta- tionum de Medicina nova Phil. Paracdsi paries quatuor, Basel, 1572 ; De occultis pharmacorum potestatibus, Basel, 1574 ; De auro potabili, Basel, 1578, and other works). That he was not in advance of his age in regard to witch craft is shown by his treatise De lanuis et strigibus (Basel, 1578), in which he urges upon magistrates the duty of putting witches to death. The work by which he is best known, though originally written in 1568, and afterwards revised by himself, was first published six years after his death (1589), by Castelvetro, who had married his widow. Its full title is Exphcalio qutvstionis gravissimce ulrum ejccommunicatio, quatenus religionem intelligentes et amplexantes a sacramentoriim usu proptcr admissum f acinus arcet, mandato nitatur divino an excogitata sit ab hominibus. In 75 theses he seeks to show that excommunication is not a divine ordinance but a device of men, and that the sins of professing Christians are to be punished by the civil magistrate with civil penalties, not by pastors and elders denying access to the sacraments. The sacraments, being means of grace, ought not to be withheld from any one wishing to receive them. The punishment of all offences belongs to the civil magistrate exclusively. The church has no power to make laws or decrees, still less to inflict pains and penalties of any kind, Its function is simply to teach, exhort, convince, persuade. In Deut. iv. 8 it is implied that the laws and statutes of the Jewish people were the most perfect possible. That church there fore is most worthily and wisely ordered which comes nearest to the constitution of the Jewish church. But in the Jewish church we find no traces of two diverse judica- tories concerning manners, the one civil, .the other ecclesiastical. No reason can be alleged why the Christian magistrate at the present day should not possess the same power which God commanded the magistrate to exercise in the Jewish commonwealth. These views of Erastus were speedily adopted by various eminent divines in England. In the Westminster Assembly there was a distinct Erastian party, of which the most pro minent members were Sel den, Lightfoot, Coleman, and Whitelocke. After a controversy of many months, in