Erastus, 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 (1534-1583).