Thomas Erastus

Thomas Erastus (September 7, 1524 - December 31, 1583) was a Swiss theologian best known for a posthumously published work in which he argued that the sins of Christians should be punished by the state, and not by the church withholding the sacraments. A generalization of this idea, that the state is supreme in church matters, is known somewhat misleadingly as "Erastianism".

References

• A. Bonnard, Thomas Eraste et la discipline ecclésiastique (1894)
• Gass, in Allgemeine deutsche Biog. (1877)
• G.V. Lechler and R. Sthelin, in A Hauck's Realencykiop. für prot. Theol. u. Kirche (1898).