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Why did Denis Diderot not enter the church after being tonsured?
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Denis Diderot
Portrait of Denis Diderot, oil on canvas by Dimitry Levitzky, 18th century.
Although Denis Diderot was tonsured in 1726—a rite marking admission to the clerical state—the available historical record does not specify a single reason why he ultimately chose not to enter the church.1
While he briefly entertained the idea of an ecclesiastical career, he never entered a seminary. Instead, his interests shifted toward languages, literature, philosophy, and mathematics. Over time, Diderot underwent a religious crisis that led him to progress from Roman Catholicism to deism, and eventually to atheism and rationalism. During his early adulthood, he lived a bohemian life in Paris, working as a teacher and a writer, even penning sermons for missionaries to support himself.23