ABSTRACT
Erasmus and Rabelais are held in high honour. They taught first Europe and then the world to laugh afresh. Both were Christian Humanists, both loved and studied the literature of Greece and Rome and both were evangelical Christians, not only in their writings but in their lives. Nicholas of Lyra and Geronimo of Santa Fe made a deep impact on their Christian brethren. So too did a converted friend of Erasmus, Paulus Israelita, surnamed Riccius. As Christian Humanists they went back to what were for Renaissance thinkers the very springs of truth and wisdom: the Bible and the Ancients. For Christians of all persuasions the Bible was the book of books. The earliest Christians may well have been predominantly Jewish, but once the Church began to spread throughout the Roman Empire it had to come to terms with Greek and Latin thought in all its forms.
