admonishes the prince that "among the countless distinctions which under God your merit will win for you, it will be no small part of your reputation that Charles was a prince to whom a man need hesitate to offer the picture of a true and upright Christian prince without flattery, knowing that he would either gladly accept it as an excellent prince already, or wisely imitate it as a young man always in search of self-improvement." Throughout the Christian Prince, Erasmus deftly invokes the knowledge, wisdom and ultimately, truth, to be gleaned from other great thinkers of antiquity such as Plato, Seneca, and Plutarch who seems to have influenced Erasmus most, who will point the prince to Truth. Its opening sentence begins with Erasmus positing that "wisdom in itself is a wonderful thing ..., and no kind of wisdom is rated more excellent by Aristotle than that which teaches how to be a beneficent prince; for Xenophon ..., rightly considers that there is something beyond human nature, something wholly divine, in absolute rule over free and willing subjects." However, Erasmus never recommends the pagan authors or their works singularly or in isolation because in the next breath, he makes a seamless rhetorical move to remind the prince that of all the requests King Solomon could have made when God told him he would grant whatever he asked, Solomon's prayer was for wisdom to lead God's people. A similar rhetorical move in reverse can be found in a most noteworthy chapter of the treatise, "The Prince Must Avoid Flatterers." As Erasmus offers the pedagogue a recommended list of readings for the prince as student, he first lists the proverbs of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, and the Book of Wisdom then next the Gospels. The total number of biblical references here is seven. He then recommends works from pagan authors: three from Plutarch the Apophthegms, Moralia, and Lives; writings from Seneca (no specific titles provided, but he does pluralize the suggestion); from Aristotle, the Politics; from Cicero the Offices and Laws; and from Plato, the Republic, but because the work was lost at the time, he recommends his Laws. The pagan number of works surpasses the number of biblical works. Erasmus justifies his approach of dissoi logoi, arguing from two contrary accounts, by persuading the prince to always apply the following caveat: "This writer whom you are reading is a pagan and you are