When the Christian communities emerge into the clearer light of the fourth century, the influence of the rhetorical schools upon them begins to be visible on a large scale and with permanent effects. The voice of the prophet had ceased, and the voice of the preacher had begun. The greatest Christian preachers of the fourth century had been trained to rhetorical methods, and had themselves taught rhetoric. Basil and Gregory Nazianzen studied at Athens under the famous professors Himerius and Prohæresius: Chrysostom studied under the still more famous Libanius, who on his death-bed said of him that he would have been his worthiest successor “if the Christians had not stolen him.”[196] The discourses came to be called by the same names as those of the Greek professors. They had originally been called _homilies_—a word which was unknown in this sense in pre-Christian times, and which denoted the familiar intercourse and direct personal addresses of common life. They came to be called by the technical terms of the schools—discourses, disputations, or speeches.[197] The distinction between the two kinds of terms is clearly shown by a later writer, who, speaking of a particular volume of Chrysostom’s addresses, says, “They are called ‘speeches’ (λόγοι), but they are more like homilies, for this reason, above others, that he again and again addresses his hearers as actually present before his eyes.”[198] The form of the discourses tended to be the same: if you examine side by side a discourse of Himerius or Themistius or Libanius, and one of Basil or Chrysostom or Ambrose, you will find a similar artificiality of structure, and a similar elaboration of phraseology. They were delivered under analogous circumstances. The preacher sat in his official chair: it was an exceptional thing for him to ascend the reader’s _ambo_, the modern “pulpit:”[199] the audience crowded in front of him, and frequently interrupted him with shouts of acclamation. The greater preachers tried to stem the tide of applause which surged round them: again and again Chrysostom begs his hearers to be silent: what he wants is, not their acclamations, but the fruits of his preaching in their lives.[200] There is one passage which not only illustrates this point, but also affords a singular analogy to the remonstrance of Epictetus which was quoted just now: