ERASTIANISM. Although more or less full control of the English Church by the Crown began with Henry VIII and increased under Edward and Elizabeth I, the philosophical/theological encouragement of ascendancy of the State over the Church in ecclesiastical matters was formally defended by the Swiss physician and theologian, Thomas Erastus (German name: Lieber or Lüber; 1524–83).

Born at Baden in Switzerland, Erastus studied philosophy and medicine and was appointed professor of medicine at Heidelberg in 1558. When the extreme Calvinists endeavoured to introduce their ‘Holy Discipline’ in the Palatinate, Erastus wrote against them his Explicatio Gravissimae Quaestionis, which, however, was not published until 1589 in London.

In Erastus’ view, the civil authorities in a state which professes but one religion have the right and the duty to exercise jurisdiction in all matters whether civil or ecclesiastical, and to punish all offences; and even such purely ecclesiastical sanctions as excommunication are subject to their approval.

The book was translated into English under the title The Nullity of Church Censures in 1659, but its ideas had begun to take root in England from the end of the 16th cent. Erastian tenets influenced R. Hooker (1554-1600), who defended the supremacy of the secular power in his Ecclesiastical Polity (1594), and they came to the fore in the Westminster Assembly (1643).

They were somewhat modified when applied to the modern secularized state as visualized, e.g., by T. Hobbes. In this case the representatives of the state, though themselves professing any or no religion, assert their right to legislate on religious matters concerning the Established Church, e.g., when, in 1928, the revised Prayer Book was rejected by Parliament. In this modified sense the term is now generally understood. See also establishment.

J. N. Figgis, ‘Erastus and Erastianism’, JTS 2 (1901), pp. 66–101. A. Bonnard, Thomas Éraste, 1524–1583, et la discipline ecclésiastique (thesis, Lausanne, 1894); R. Wessel-Roth, Thomas Erastus: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der reformierten Kirche und zur Lehre der Staatssouveränität (Veröffentlichungen des Vereins für Kirchengeschichte in der evang. Landeskirche Badens, 15; 1954). J. N. Figgis in DECH, pp. 206 f., s.v.

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