Colloquies is one of the many works of the "Prince of Christian Humanists", Desiderius Erasmus. First published in 1518 as Latin dialogues for schoolboy exercises, the work expanded over the following decades with witty but more serious and controversial content. Among other things, the pages "...held up contemporary religious practices for examination in a more serious but still pervasively ironic tone".

Christian humanism regards humanist principles like universal human dignity, individual freedom, and the importance of happiness as essential and principal or even exclusive components of the teachings of Jesus. Proponents of the term trace the concept to the Renaissance or patristic period, linking their beliefs to the scholarly movement also called 'humanism'.