writes: "If elephants can be trained to dance, lions to play and leopards to hunt, surely priests can be taught to preach." Influence It is difficult to gauge exactly how influential the Ecclesiastes was in the reform of preaching. It was certainly a popular text, going through four editions in the year between its first publishing and the death of Erasmus in 1536. Erasmus proposed in the Ecclesiastes that the Church institute a competence training program. Bishops would train priests in the arts of rhetoric, weeding out the poor speakers and instilling the proper tools and traits needed to speak effectively. Erasmus was not the only figure at the time to voice similar concerns, but the Council of Trent did refer to the Ecclesiastes while implementing reforms. The Ecclesiastes was never finished. References 1535 books 16th-century Christian texts Books by Desiderius Erasmus Christian sermons 16th-century Latin books