Erastus and Erastianism
The name "Erastianism" is often used in a somewhat loose sense as
denoting an undue subservience of the Church to the State. This
was not, however, the principal question on which the system of
Erastus turned, but rather a subsidiary one and a deduction from
it. This can be explained by a short account of his life and
works.
The real name of Erastus was Thomas Lieber or Liebler. He used the
latinized form in his works, and accordingly has become known by
that name. He was born at Baden, in Switzerland, of humble
parents, 7 September, 1524; and died 31 December, 1583. For his
education be went to Basle in 1540, and two years later, he found
a patron by whose assistance he was able to enter the university.
His zeal for learning may be estimated from the fact that although
by disease he lost the use of his right arm, he learnt to write
with his left hand, and is said to have been able to take down his
notes more fluently than others who had no similar impediment.
During his residence at Basle there was an outbreak of plague.
Erastus was one of the victims; but he did not suffer severely,
and on his recovery, schools having been suspended, he left Basle
and proceeded to Bologna, where he studied philosophy and
medicine. He was afterwards for a time also at the University of
Padua. In 1553 he went to Germany and obtained an appointment as
court physician to the Prince of Hennenberg. We next find him in
1558 as court physician to the elector Palatine, Otho Heinrich,
and occupying at the same time the chair of medicine in the
University of Heidelberg.
Although his work and lectureship were both connected with
medicine, the chief interest of Erastus had always been in
theology. Heidelberg was at that time the scene of severe
controversial strife. Erastus, who was himself a follower of
Zwingli, threw himself heart and soul into the conflict against
the Lutherans. The Elector Frederick III (who had succeeded Otho
Heinrich in 1559) was then enforcing the teaching of Calvinistic
doctrines, and Beza was actively defending them as against Breny
in Stuttgart. A conference was arranged to take place at the
monastery of Maulbronn in 1564, and by request of the elector,
Erastus took a prominent part therein. He published a statement
defending the doctrine of Zwingli, and on its being attacked, he
wrote a second defence the following year. The conference was far
from successful in settling the dispute, which continued in an
aggravated form. In 1568, Erastus wrote his celebrated "Theses"
against what he called the "excommunicatory fever", which we shall
discuss presently. They were violently attacked by Beza, and
Erastus answered the following year by his "Confirmatio Thesium".
Notwithstanding his efforts, a full presbyterian system was set up
in 1570 at Heidelberg, and the council proceeded to excommunicate
Erastus on the ground of his alleged Unitarianism. After a long
further controversy, he succeeded in convincing them that this
allegation was false; and the excommunication was removed in 1575;
but his position had become a difficult one, and five years later
he resigned his office. He returned to Basle, where he taught
ethics for a short time, until his death. On his tomb in St.
Martin's church he is described as "an acute philosopher, a clever
physician, and a sincere theologian". He left behind him the
reputation of an upright life, with great amiability of character,
coupled with an absorbing zeal for learning. He took an active
part in combating the superstitions of astrology; but he showed
that he was not free from the prejudices of his day by advocating
the killing of witches.
The great work by which Erastus is known is his "Seventy-five
Theses", to which we have already alluded. They were never printed
in his lifetime, but during his last illness he expressed a desire
that they should be published, and Castelvetro, who married his
widow, carried out his wishes. The "Theses" and "Confirmatio
thesium" appeared together in 1589, the printer's name and place
being suppressed from motives of prudence. 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 alludes was the exclusion of
those of bad life from participation in the sacraments. He
explains what he means in the introduction to the Theses" which he
wrote at the end of his life. "It is about sixteen years ago", he
writes, "since some men were seized on by a certain
excommunicatory fever, which they did adorn with the title of
ecclesiastical discipline. . . . They affirmed the manner thereof
to be this; that some certain presbyters should sit in the name of
the whole Church and should judge who were worthy or unworthy to
come unto the Lord's Supper." The first eight theses are devoted
to a detailed explanation of the various senses in which the word
excommunication is used, and in the ninth Erastus defines the
issue with which he is concerned: "This, then, is the question,
whether any command or any example can be produced from Holy
Scriptures requiring or intimating that such persons [i.e.
sinners] should be excluded from the sacraments." In the following
thesis (x) he says: "Our answer is that none such can be found,
but rather that many, as well examples as precepts, of an opposite
tendency, occur everywhere in the Bible." The following twenty-
eight theses are devoted to developing and maintaining his
conclusions, before proceeding in the last half of his work to
answer possible objections.
The chief argument on which Erastus bases his whole system is an
analogy between the Jewish and Christian Dispensations, and it is
exactly here that the fallacy of his conclusions becomes manifest.
A Catholic, indeed, would be less likely to fall into the error of
looking upon the Sacrament of the Eucharist and the Sacrifice of
the Mass as in any close way analogous to the Sacrifices of the
Old Law, and the slaying of the paschal lamb; or the relation of
the ceremonial law to the political law of the Jews as in any way
realized or realizable in the most Christian of states. To a
Protestant who looked upon the Bible as the sole source of
Revelation this was different. Erastus argued that by the Law of
Moses no one was excluded from the offering of the paschal
sacrifice, but every male was commanded to observe it under pain
of death; and with respect to the ordinary sacrifices in the
Temple, not only was no one excluded from them, but there was a
positive command for all to assist at least three times a year, on
the chief feasts, viz. Pasch, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. In
illustration of the Jewish tradition, he also pointed to the
conduct of St. John, who administered his baptism to all, good and
bad indifferently. He laid great stress also on Christ Himself
having admitted Judas to the participation of the Holy Communion
at its institution; though he grants that this is not certain, as
some commentators are of opinion that the traitor had already gone
out, at any rate Judas was never publicly or even privately
excluded; and, in any case, he shared in the celebration of the
pasch, showing that Christ promulgated no law of exclusion.
A further argument is drawn from the nature of the sacraments
themselves, again bringing into prominence the different of view
between Protestants and Catholics; for Erastus looked upon the
"preaching of the Word" as equal in sacredness with the
sacraments. "I ask", he said, "are the sacraments superior in
authority and dignity to the Word? Are they more useful and
necessary? None of those who have been saved were saved without
the Word; but without sacraments, especially without the Lord's
Supper, there doubtless might be, and there have been many saved
who, however, did not despise these ordinances. So seems the
Apostle to have judged when he wrote that he was sent not to
baptize but to preach the Word. Do not almost all divines hold the
sacraments to be visible words and to exhibit to the eyes what
words express to the ear? Why, then, do we go about to exclude
nobody from the word, while from the sacraments, especially the
Lord's Supper, we would exclude some, and that contrary to, or
without, the express command of God?" (thesis xxxviii).
He deals at some length (thesis xv) with the Jewish law as to the
"unclean", contending that uncleanness was by no means intended to
typify sin; for, in that case, he argues, since the unclean were
excluded from sacrifice while the sinful were not, it would follow
that those who were blameless -- for legal uncleanness was
incurred by such acts as contact with the dead, etc. -- were, from
being types of sinners, punished more severely than sinners
themselves; this he considers a reductio ad absurdum. He contended
that uncleanness was a figure, "not of a work, but of a quality --
even our depraved nature ; and he adds, "neither did it prefigure
in what manner this ought to be punished [in the Church on earth],
for Moses taught this in plain and explicit terms, but what should
be our condition in a future life. In meeting the question of the
expulsion from the synagogues alluded to by Christ, Erastus
contended (thesis xxii) that this was a merely civil act: for the
synagogues were also law courts; and, in fact, those who were
expelled from the synagogues were not excluded from the Temple. He
added also that he would see no difficulty, even otherwise, in
admitting that abuses might have crept into the Jewish as into the
Christian Church, and that the Pharisees might have acted in a
spirit out of keeping with the true and proper interpretation of
the Law.
Out of the seventy-five theses of Erastus, the first seventy-two
are devoted to the question of excommunication: it is only in the
last three that the general relation of the Church to the State,
which comes as a corollary to his theory, is discussed. This can
be given in his own words. "I see no reason", he says, "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. Do we imagine that we are able to continue a
better constitution of Church and State than that?" (thesis
lxxiii). He then proceeds to discuss the position of the
magistrate in the Jewish nation, and argues in the following
thesis (lxxiv) that "if that Church and State were most wisely
founded, arranged, and appointed, any other must merit approbation
which approaches to its form as nearly as present times and
circumstances will permit. So that wherever the magistrate is
godly, there is no need of any other authority under any other
pretension or title to rule or punish the people -- as if the
Christian magistrate differed nothing from the heathen . . . I
allow indeed the magistrate ought to consult, when doctrine is
concerned, those who have particularly studied it; but that there
should be any such ecclesiastical tribunal to take cognizance of
men's conduct, we find no such thing anywhere appointed in the
Holy Scriptures! It may reasonably be asked how the system of
Erastus could work in a state which is professedly un-Christian,
and the last thesis is devoted to answering that question. "But in
those church the members of which live under an ungodly government
(for example Popish or Mohammedan), grave and pious men should be
chosen according to the precept of the Apostle, to settle disputes
by arbitration, compose quarrels, and do other offices of that
sort. These men ought also, in conjunction with the ministers, to
admonish and reprove them who live unholy and impure lives; and if
they do not succeed, they may also punish, or rather recall them
to virtue, either by refusing to hold private intercourse with
them or by a public rebuke, or by any other such mark of
disapprobation. But from the sacraments which God has instituted,
they may not debar any who desire to partake."
The full system of Erastus was never accepted or promulgated by
any definite sect or band of followers; but the influence of his
opinions was very considerable; both in Germany and in Great
Britain. The Presbyterians of course have always vigorously
repudiated his doctrines; but in the Westminster Assembly (1643-7)
there was a strong Erastian party. After a long controversy, a
definite resolution, affirming that the Church has its own
government distinct from the civil power, was carried almost
unanimously, the sole dissentient being the well-known divine,
John Lightfoot. On the general questions of the relation between
Church and State, it must be admitted that the opinions popularly
denoted by the word Erastian have unmistakable influence on the
Established Church of England, though there has always been a
party resisting the encroachments of civil power. We can, perhaps,
take Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity" as an authoritative
exposition of this phase of Anglicanism. Hooker was a contemporary
of Erastus, and in his preface he gives an account of the
controversy of the latter with Beza. The eighth volume, however,
in which he deals with the question before us did not appear until
1648, many years after his death. Its authenticity has been
questioned; but it is now generally conceded that it is based on
rough notes made during his lifetime. He adopts the analogy of
Erastus between the Jewish nation and a Christian state. Starting
from the truism that a good monarch should look to the spiritual
good of his subjects no less than to the temporal, he defends at
once the title of the king to be head of the Church. He considers
that the consent of the laity is required before an ecclesiastical
law can be binding, and looks upon Parliament as their mouthpiece,
and accordingly defends the right of Parliament to legislate on
ecclesiastical matters. He defends the king's power of appointing
bishops and his jurisdiction over ecclesiastical courts.
We may contrast with this the Catholic system of the union of
Church and State which has always been the Church's ideal, and has
often been in great measure realized, and in our own days has been
brought into prominence by the solemn pronouncements of Pius IX
The power of the State is maintained to be of God, either
immediately, or mediately through the will of the people; and the
civil government exists side by side with the ecclesiastical
government. Each is complete in its own sphere. The pope has
"temporal power, using the term in its true sense, i.e. of his
right to certain interference with the temporal government of
states when the principles of religion are at stake. On the other
hand, any interference on part of the State with ecclesiastical
appointments, as, for example, by nomination of bishops or by veto
on such nomination, or even on the election f the pope, such as
has sometimes existed in the case of some Catholic powers, is
conceded by courtesy, in consideration of services rendered and by
no means acknowledged as a right. The Theses of Erastus and the
Confirmatio Thesium were reprinted at Amsterdam in 1649. An
English translation of the Theses, without the Confirmatio,
appeared in London in 1659 -- a very literal rendering, in places
hardly intelligible. A new translation of the Theses, by Dr.
Robert Lee, with a valuable preface, was published at Edinburgh in
1844.
BERNARD WARD
Transcribed by Michael C. Tinkler
From the Catholic Encyclopedia, copyright � 1913 by the
Encyclopedia Press, Inc. Electronic version copyright � 1996 by
New Advent, Inc.
Taken from the New Advent Web Page (www.knight.org/advent).
This article is part of the Catholic Encyclopedia Project, an
effort aimed at placing the entire Catholic Encyclopedia 1913
edition on the World Wide Web. The coordinator is Kevin Knight,
editor of the New Advent Catholic Website. If you would like to
contribute to this worthwhile project, you can contact him by e-
mail at (knight.org/advent). For more information please download
the file cathen.txt/.zip.
-------------------------------------------------------
Provided courtesy of:
Eternal Word Television Network
PO Box 3610
Manassas, VA 22110
Voice: 703-791-2576
Fax: 703-791-4250
Data: 703-791-4336
Web:
http://www.ewtn.com
FTP: ewtn.com
Telnet: ewtn.com
Email address: sysop@ ewtn.com
EWTN provides a Catholic online
information and service system.
-------------------------------------------------------
