or more properly EROSTRATUS, an Ephesian who fired the famous temple of Diana the same night on which Alexander was born (B.C. 356), the watchful care of the goddess being withdrawn to attend the labour of Olympias. Having confessed that the desire to immortalize his name instigated him to the deed, Eratostratus was condemned by the Ephesians to eternal oblivion.

ERASTUS, or LIEBER, THOMAS, a German physician, who was the formal originator of the opinions now generally denominated Erastian. He was born at Baden in Switzerland in 1523; studied at Basle; and was professor of medicine at Heidelberg. He was afterwards professor of ethics at Basle, where he died in 1584. Erastus was the author of several medical works, but that for which he is chiefly known is the work on Excommunication, in which he promulgated his peculiar opinions; which are known under the name of Erastianism. He taught that the church had no right to refuse participation in the Lord's Supper, baptism, or other ordinances of the gospel, to any one, that it had no right to inflict excommunication or any kind of censure, and that the punishment of all offences, religious as well as civil, should be left in the hands of the civil magistrate.