ERASTUS. 177 ERE. ERAS'TTJS (Lat., from Gk. /pacrros, lovely ; a translation of his German name Lieber or Lieb lor). Thomas ( 1524-83). A Swiss physician and theologian. Me was born in the Canl fAargau, September 7, 1524. He studied theology al Basel (1540 Hi ami adopted the doctrines of Zwingli. In 1544 lie wen! in Italy and studied medicine at Padua and Bologna. After nine years lie re- turned to his own country') and became physician to the Count of Henneberg. lie acquired a great reputation as a physician. In 1558 he went, by invitation, to the Court of the Elector Palatine, and became first physician and Privy Councilor and professor of medicine at the University of Heidelberg. In 1580 he accepted a similar ap pointmen! al Basel, and in 1583 undertook also the professorship of ethies. He died at Basil, December 31.. 1583. Before his death he estab- lished a foundation for the education of poor students in medicine, which was long known as the Erastian Foundation. As a physician Kras- tus opposed the astrology and magic of Para- celsus and his school, and held that experimental investigation is the true road to knowledge. He approved of prosecutions fur witchcraft. A col- lected edition of his medical works appeared at Zurich in 1595. He is now remembered, how- ever, chiefly for his theological writings. In 1504 he had taken part in the conference at Maulbronn between theologians from the Pala- tinate and Wittenberg, and had contended for the Zwinglian doctrine of the Lord's Supper. In defense of this view he published his Vom Yer- stand der Wort I'hristi, "Das ist mein Leib," in 1505. His great work is the Explicatio Chravis- simw Questionis ufrum Excommunicato Man- dato Nitatur Divino an Excogitata Hit ab Eonii- nibus. In this book Erastus maintains that, while the Church may decide who are its mem- bers, it should do so upon doctrinal grounds alone, and not exclude for vice or immorality; and that in no case should the Church inflict punishment, to do which properly belongs to the civil magis- trate alone. He denies the right of excommuni- cation altogether, and compares a pastor to a professor of any science, who can merely instruct his students. The work was written in 1568, but not published until six years after Erastus's death. He had expressed similar views, how- ever, during his lifetime in a controversy at Heidelberg with certain refugees from the Nether- lands, and particularly one Caspar Olevianus, of Treves, who were zealous for censures and excom- munications and stirred up in the Palatinate what Erastus called a febris excommunicatoria. He was opposed at that time by Datnenus and Beza. Consult: Lee, The Theses of Erastus Touching Excommunication (Edinburgh, 1844) ; Bonnard. Thomas Eraste et la discipline eccle- siastique (Lausanne, 1894). ER'ATO ( Lat., from Gk. 'Eporii). One of the nine Muses, daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne. She presided over amatory and nuptial poetry. See Muses. ER'ATOS'THENES (Lat., from Gk. 'Eparo- sdivns) (c. 275-195 B.C.). An eminent Greek as- tronomer and geometer, who was the first to adopt the name philologist, 'lover of learning.' Eratosthenes was horn at Cyrene; for a time he enjoyed the teaching of Lysanias and Callima- chus. and then went to Athens, wdiere he heard the Stoic Ariston of Chios and the Academic Ar- <iesilaus. Ptolemy Euergetes recalled him to Alexandria, and aboul B.C. 241) installed him as Callimachus's successor in the office of librarian. i i In- age "1 eighty or upward, having become totally blind, he died "f voluntary starvation. Eratosthenes's interests covered an enor - range. lie unite a commentary to Plato's /< mttus, and also composed popular philosophical dialogues; in literary history lie produced a great work. On the Old ('tinicdy, in at least twelvi books. His chronological researches also were important, while in the held of pure mathematics he wrote on the doubling of the sphere and on a method of distinguishing prime and composite numbers. His astronomical views he set forth in part in the poems Hermes, Erigone, and prob- ably Anterinys. The extant work Katasterismoi (Ka.Ta<TTepia/j.oi), in which an account is given of the constellations in their relations to the popu lar mythology, is only a summary of a work by Eratosthenes which was apparently entitled The I'uliilogues, and in its present form has been worked over to follow the order of Aratus's Phcenomena. It was, however, by his attempt to measure the size of the earth and by his geographical studies that Eratosthenes won most renown. He en- deavored to determine the obliquity of the ecliptic by measuring the distance between the tropics; this he found to be 47° 42' 39". which gave 23° 51' 19.5" for the obliquity of the ecliptic. Con- sidering the means of observation available and the state of knowledge at the time, the degree of error in his result — a trifle more than 23' — is re- markably small. To measure the circumference of the earth he adopted the means employed at the present day. He found that the difference between Syene and Alexandria was one-fiftieth of a circumference, about 7° 13', and on this basis computed the circumference of the earth to be 250,000 stadia ; as we do not know the length of the stadium Eratosthenes used as his unit we cannot determine the degree of error in his re- sult. His greatest scientific publication was prob- ably his Geography (Yewypa.<piK&), in three books, the first scientific treatise on the subject which gave the history of the sciences and embodied the results of his own investigations. In his re- searches Eratosthenes was greatly assisted by his patron, Ptolemy Euergetes. and he had the resources of the Alexandrian Library at his com- mand. He was undoubtedly first among the Alexandrians for great and wide learning, although in the special fields of poetry and philosophy others surpassed him. The extant fragments of his writings are collected and dis- cussed in the following works: Bernhardy, Era- tosthenica (Berlin. 1822) ; Stiehle, "Zu den Fragmenten des Eratosthenes." in Philologus, supplementary vol. ii. (Gdttingen, 1863); Berger, Die geographisclu „ Fragmi nte des Era- tosthenes (Leipzig, 1880): lliller. Eratosthenis Oarminum Reliquice (Leipzig, 1872); Maass, "Eratosthenica," in Philologische Vntersuchun- gen, vol vi. edited by Kiessling and Wilamowitz- Mollendorff I Berlin,' 1883) ; Robert, Eratosth Catasterismorum Reliquice (Berlin, 1878): Oli- vieri, "Pseudo-Eratosthenis Catasterismi," in Mythogratphi Grwci, iii. (Leipzig, 1897): Su- semihl, Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur in der Alexandriner 7.' it, vol. i. (Leipzig, 1892). ERB, erp, Wilhelm Heinrich (1840 — ). A German neuro pathologist. He was born at Winnwciler. Bavaria, and was educated at
