 For Erasmus, monasticism typified the superstitious observance of external rites and the reliance on human works instead of divine grace. In a notorious phrase, he declared: Monachatus non est pietas, being a member of a religious order does not amount to piety. “I advise you to identify piety not with diet, or dress, or any visible thing, but with what I have taught here [in the Enchiridion]”—the priority of soul over body and of the inner over the outer person (CWE 66: 127).