 Although Erasmus’ curriculum focused on the authors of classical antiquity, the philosophy of Christ required the adaption of pagan ideas to Christian thought and their application to Christian ideals, a process Erasmus called (after Augustine) “spoiling the Egyptians”. Accordingly he urges the preacher in the Ecclesiastes to select suitable material from classical writers but inject a Christian perspective. Erasmus himself edited and translated a number of pagan writers whose teachings he considered germane to the philosophy of Christ. Among them, he singled out Plutarch: “I have read nothing outside of Scripture with such a high moral tone” (Ep. 1341A: 259–60; CWE 9). He had high praise also for the Platonists, “because in much of their thinking as well as in their mode of expression they are the closest to the spirit of the prophets and the gospel” ( CWE 66: 33).