Which Renaissance idea does this passage support? I sometimes find some things said or written by the ancients, nay, even by the heathens, nay, by the poets themselves, so chastely, so holily, and so divinely, that I cannot persuade myself but that when they wrote them they were divinely inspired; and perhaps the spirit of Christ diffuses itself farther than we imagine; and that there are more saints than we have in our catalogue. . . . And on the contrary, when I read some of our modern authors, treating of politics, economics, and ethics, good God! how cold they are in comparison of these?3 —Desiderius Erasmus