Page "Desiderius Erasmus" Paragraph 7

In 1492, poverty forced Erasmus into the consecrated life.

He took vows as a canon regular at the canonry of Stein, in South Holland, and was ordained to the Catholic priesthood at about the age of 25, but he never seemed to have actively worked as a priest for a longer time, and certain tenets of life in Religious Orders were among the chief objects of his attack in his lifelong assault upon Church excesses.