The position that the Church was a department of and, therefore, subject to the control of the State. The Church of England, e.g., is said to be Erastian in that its bishops are appointed by the Crown and major changes in church polity must be made with the approval of Parliament.
Though supposedly named after the Swiss physician Thomas Erastus (1524-83), Erastus's view was, in fact, more restrained; he simply denied the Church the right to impose excommunication and other disciplinary actions on Christians. When he died, his widow remarried G. Castelvetro who, from the papers left behind by Erastus, wrote up a work which propounded the view we now associate with Erastus.
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