Erasmus Praise Of Folly Analysis

In his work Praise of Folly, Erasmus criticized the corrupt practices that were rampant in the church. Erasmus used humor to poke fun at the clergy’s abuses. He found it amusing that monks worked so hard following the church traditions only to break them at some point in time. For example, one of his monks had fasted so many times, but erased his hard works by revealing that “his fasts have always been broken by a single meal.” (Erasmus) This is one of the instances where the pretense of following church traditions made a complete mockery of church tradition. Erasmus outlined the fact that the monks insisted on following church doctrines carefully when they themselves aren’t even doing the same thing.