RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Erasmus Erbkam
P. W. Crowther, ib. (1816); the Apothegms of Erasmus Transl. into Eng. by Nicolas Udall, 1564 was reprinted, Boston, England, 1877; there is a school ed. of the Conviviale conloquiis, by V S. Clark, Boston, 1896. The most complete bibliography js found in Bibliotheca Erasmiana, repertoire des ozuvres d'Erasme, Ghent, 1893. Consult also Bibliotheca Erasmiana, Ghent, 1903, J. M. Baldwin, Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, III. i. 194-196.
On the life consult: F. O. Sti chart, Erasmus, Leipsic, 1870; H. Durand de Laur, Erasme, precurseur et initiateur de Vesprit moderne, 2 vols., Paris, 1872; R. B. Drummond, Erasmus, his Life and Character, 2 vols., London, 1873; G. Feugere, Erasmus; etude sur sa vie et ses ouvrages, Paris, 1874; J. Meiklejohn, The Reformers, Glasgow, 1885; F. Seebohm, The Oxford Reformers, London, 1887; M. Dods, Erasmus and Other Essays, ib. 1891; J. A. Froude, Lifejind Letters of Erasmus, New York, 1896; P. de Nolhac, Erasme en Italie. Etude sur un episode de la renaissance, . douze lettres inedites d'Erasme, Paris, 1898; E. Emerton, Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam, New York, 1899; A. R. Pennington, The Life and Character of Erasmus, London, 1901; E. F. H. Capey, Erasmus, New York, 1903; W. H. Woodward, Desiderius Erasmus concerning the Aim and Method of Education, Cambridge, 1904; J. A. Faulkner, Erasmus the Scholar, Cincinnati, 1907.
ERASMUS, SAINT. See Helpers in Need, the Fourteen.
ERASTUS, THOMAS, ERASTIANISM : Swiss Reformed physician and theologian; b. probably at Baden (14 m. n.w. of Zurich), Switzerland, Sept. 7, 1524; d. at Basel Jan. 1, 1583. The name is Grecised from Luber or Lieber. He studied theology at Basel and philosophy and medicine for nine years at Bologna and Padua. In 1558 he became physician in ordinary to the elector Palatine, Otto Henry, and professor of medicine at Heidelberg. In 1580 he went to Basel as professor of medicine and became also professor of ethics shortly before his death. He was considered a good physician and upright man, and established a foundation for the education of poor students in medicine at Basel and Heidelberg. As a student of nature he strenuously opposed the astrology, alchemy, and magic of Paracelsus and his school, though he approved of the death penalty for witches. It is as a theologian, however, that he is known and remembered. He was a follower of Zwingli, took an active part in the conferences at Heidelberg (1560) and at Maulbronn (1564), and defended the Swiss view of the Lord's Supper in a book Vom Verstand der Wort Christi : Das ist mein Leib, and again in a vindication of this work against Johann Marbach, a Lutheran minister of Strasburg (Heidelberg, 1565). Some years later he had occasion to defend his master's ideas against the Calvinists in a question of church polity. There was a Calvinist party in Heidelberg, headed by Caspar Olevianus (q.v.), which wanted to introduce a purely Presbyterian constitution, with a corresponding church discipline. Erastus strongly opposed the movement, but in vain. He was himself the first victim of the established discipline, being excommunicated on a charge of latent Unitarianism ; after five years, however, he was restored.
Six years after his death G. Castelvetro, who had married his widow, published a work, written in 1568 and found among his papers, Explicatio gravissimas quoestionis utrum excommunicatio mandato nitatur divino an excogitata sit ab hominibus (Poschiavo, 1589). The book,, written after the
fashion of the time in the form of theses, denies that excommunication is a divine ordinance, or that the Church has any power to make laws or decrees; and asserts that to inflict pains and penalties and to punish the sins of professing Christians belongs to the civil magistrates, not to pastors and elders. It attracted much attention and was attacked by Beza. English translations appeared at London in 1659 and 1682, and again, by R. Lee, at Edinburgh, 1844. Its views were adopted by a distinct party in the Westminster Assembly, headed by Selden, Lightfoot, Coleman, and Whitelocke. Since that time the doctrine of state supremacy in ecclesiastical causes generally goes under the name of Erastianism; though in its broad sense and wide application this doctrine is by no means due to Erastus or in accord with his views.
Bibliography: C. F. Vierordt, Geschichte der Reformation im Grossherzogthum Baden, pp. 456 sqq., Carlsruhe, 1847; A. Bonnard, Thomas Eraste et la discipline ecclesiastique, Lausanne, 1894. For Erastianism consult: J. Selden's Table Talk, reprinted Oxford, 1892, and his Hist, of Tythes, London, 1629. The extreme form of the doctrine is found in T. Hobbes, Leviathan, iii. 42, good edition, Oxford, 1881. Consult also R. I. Wilberforce, Sketch of the Hist, of Erastianism, London, 1851.
ERBKAM, erb'kom, WILHELM HEINRICH:
Councilor of the consistory and professor of theology at Konigsberg, Prussia; b. at Glogau (35 m. n.n.w. of Liegnitz), Silesia, July 8, 1810; d. at Konigsberg Jan. 9, 1884. He studied at Bonn, where he was chiefly influenced by Nitzsch and Bleek, and at Berlin where he was still more strongly and decisively influenced by Schleiermacher, with whom he was fortunate enough to come into close personal contact. Under Neander's guidance he devoted himself to the study of church history, and Marheineke introduced him to a closer study of systematic theology. In 1834 he went to the theological seminary at Wittenberg, where he made further progress in practical theology under the guidance of Rothe, at that time director of the seminary. Rothe guided his theological activity by directing his attention especially to Protestant mysticism and the sects proceeding from it. In 1838 Erbkam established himself as privat-docent in theology at Berlin, where he finally became professor and remained ten years, lecturing at first chiefly on the history of dogma and later on church history and systematic disciplines. During these years he was active also in the practical life of the Church, especially in preaching. He defended the full and whole truth of the revelation of the Gospel against the rationalistic unbelief and the half-believing theology of the Friends of Light (see Free Congregations in Germany, § 1), who about 1840 protested against faithfulness to the Bible and the confession in the church as orthodox darkness, and attacked especially the Evangelische Kirchenzeitung and its editor, E. W. Hengstenberg. In 1847 Erbkam followed a call to Konigsberg, where he taught church history and history of dogma, and subsequently exegesis, dogmatics, ethics, and symbolics. In 1857 he became councilor of the consistory of Konigsberg and was also chosen representative of the theological faculty at the general synods of 1875 and
Erdmann Ernest I.