Erasmus and his position in Rhetoric

When I began reading Book I of "Ecclesiastes" by Erasmus, there was one point which struck me the most was that there seemed to be a connection to both the Platonist ideas and Sophistic viewpoints apparent in Erasmus and his thoughts. At one point on the first page he states "Of all traits of the preacher, the most important for persuasion is to love what you are preaching" (Erasmus 586), and as I have been focusing all of my papers on ethos this term, I realize I have not heard something so honest come from either the Platonist or Sophistic writing. There is much talk of good and moral creatures preaching to the people, there has bee argument between the two of who is more right, but this is the first time that I can remember when one has stated that either way, the preacher will be the most convincing when they love what it is they are speaking about. Does this make their ethos more believable, more trustworthy when a speaker truly believes in what they are saying? I know that the big question in terms of ethos is how to you know when someone is being honest with you about who they are, but my question is how do you judge someone as good or bad when they truly believe in what they are saying, whether it be termed just that in a certain society, who is to judge this? Thoughts?

Secondly, I also thought it amusing that women were not allowed to learn for fear that men might not be able to control them when they learned the true impact a well-thought out argument could have. I am reading about Margaret Fell and on Thursday I will be discussing more about this.