Erasmus, Desiderius. One of the greatest scholars of the Renaissance. Erasmus was born in 1467 at Rotterdam. On his parents' death, he entered a monastery, which he left to become a teacher at Paris. At the invitation of his pupil, Lord Mountjoy, came to England. Erasmus settled at Oxford, where he became the friend of More, and studied divinity under Colet, and Greek under Grocyn and Linacre. In 1506 he visited Italy, staying at Bologna and Rome, where he was warmly received, but returned to England, and was made Margaret professor of divinity and professor of Greek at Cambridge. He returned to the Continent, and after a journey to the Low Countries, settled at Basel, where he published his edition of the New Testament. Desiderius Erasmus was in favor of moderate reform in the church, as is shown by his "Enchiridion Militis Christiani" and "Encomium Moriae," but he gave little support to Luther, although he refused to write against him. Died 1536.

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