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| Chapter VI.—On Filthy Speaking.
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Chapter VI.—On Filthy Speaking.
From filthy speaking we ourselves must entirely
abstain, and stop the mouths of those who practice it by stern
looks and averting the face, and by what we call making a mock
of one: often also by a harsher mode of speech. “For what
proceedeth out of the mouth,” He says, “defileth
a man,”1421
—shows him to be unclean, and heathenish,
and untrained, and licentious, and not select, and proper, and honourable,
and temperate.1422
And as a similar rule holds with regard to hearing
and seeing in the case of what is obscene, the divine Instructor,
following the same course with both, arrays those children who are
engaged in the struggle in words of modesty, as ear-guards, so that the
pulsation of fornication may not penetrate to the bruising of the soul;
and He directs the eyes to the sight of what is honourable, saying that
it is better to make a slip with the feet than with the eyes. This
filthy speaking the apostle beats off, saying, “Let no corrupt
communication proceed out of your mouth, but what is good.”1423
And again,
“As becometh saints, let not filthiness be named among you, nor
foolish talking, nor jesting, which things are not seemly, but rather
giving of thanks.”1424
And if “he that calls his brother a fool
be in danger of the judgment,” what shall we pronounce regarding
him who speaks what is foolish? Is it not written respecting such:
“Whosoever shall speak an idle word, shall give an account to
the Lord in the day of judgment?”1425
And again, “By
thy speech thou
shalt be justified,” He
says, “and by thy speech thou shalt be condemned.”1426
What,
then, are the salutary ear-guards, and what the regulations for slippery
eyes? Conversations with the righteous, preoccupying and forearming the
ears against those that would lead away from the truth.
“Evil communications corrupt good manners,”
says Poetry. More nobly the apostle
says, “Be haters of the evil; cleave to the good.”1427
For
he who associates with the saints shall be sanctified. From shameful
things addressed to the ears, and words and sights, we must entirely
abstain.1428
And much more must we keep pure from shameful deeds:
on the one hand, from exhibiting and exposing parts of the body which
we ought not; and on the other, from beholding what is forbidden. For
the modest son could not bear to look on the shameful exposure of the
righteous man; and modesty covered what intoxication exposed—the
spectacle of the transgression of ignorance.1429
No less ought we to keep pure
from calumnious reports, to which the ears of those who have believed
in Christ ought to be inaccessible.
It is on this account, as appears to me, that the
Instructor does not permit us to give utterance to aught unseemly,
fortifying us at an early stage against licentiousness. For He
is admirable always at cutting out the roots of sins, such as,
“Thou shalt not commit adultery,” by “Thou shalt not
lust.”1430
For adultery is the fruit of lust, which is the evil
root. And so likewise also in this instance the Instructor censures
licence in names, and thus cuts off the licentious intercourse of
excess. For licence in names produces the desire of being indecorous
in conduct; and the observance of modesty in names is a training in
resistance to lasciviousness. We have shown in a more exhaustive treatise,
that neither in the names nor in the members to which appellations not
in common use are applied, is there the designation of what is really
obscene.
For neither are knee and leg, and such other members,
nor are the names applied to them, and the activity put forth by them,
obscene. And even the pudenda are to be regarded as objects
suggestive of modesty, not shame. It is their unlawful activity that is
shameful, and deserving ignominy, and reproach, and punishment. For the
only thing that is in reality shameful is wickedness, and what is done
through it. In accordance with these remarks, conversation about deeds of
wickedness is appropriately termed filthy [shameful] speaking, as talk
about adultery and pæderasty and the like. Frivolous prating, too,
is to be put to silence.1431
| 1431 [An
example may not be out of place, as teaching how we may put such things
to silence. “Since the ladies have withdrawn,” said one,
“I will tell a little anecdote.” “But,” interposed
a dignified person, “let me ask you to count me as representing
the ladies; for I am the husband of one of them, and should be sorry
to hear what would degrade me in her estimation.”] |
“For,” it is said, “in much speaking thou shalt
not escape sin.”1432
“Sins of the tongue, therefore, shall
be punished.” “There is he who is silent, and is found
wise; and there is he that is hated for much speech.”1433
But
still more, the prater makes himself the object of disgust. “For
he that multiplieth speech abominates his own soul.”1434
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