Thomas Erastus

Thomas Erastus (1524 to 1583), born with the surname Lüber, Lieber or Liebler, was a Swiss physician and Calvinist theologian. He wrote 100 theses, later reduced to 75, arguing that the sins of Christians should be punished by the State and that the Church should not withhold sacraments as a punishment; they were published in 1589, after his death, and his name was later attached to Erastianism. Born to poor parents, probably at Baden bei Zürich, he studied theology at Basel in 1540, fled the plague of 1544 to Bologna and then studied philosophy and medicine at Padua. In 1553 he became physician to the count of Henneberg, and in 1558 physician to the elector palatine Otto Heinrich while professor of medicine and pharmacology at the University of Heidelberg until 1580. In theology he followed Zwingli and advocated the Zwinglian doctrine of the Lord Supper at the conferences of Heidelberg and Maulbronn.