ERASTUS

ERASTUS (1534-1583), an eminent physician, born at Baden, in Switzerland, whose fame rests mainly on the attitude he assumed in the theological and ecclesiastical questions of the day; he defended Zwingli's view of the Eucharist as a merely symbolical ordinance, and denied the right of the Church to inflict civil penalties, or to exercise discipline - the power of the keys - that belonging, he maintained, to the province of the civil magistrate and not to the Church.