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.”[521] 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 of intercourse and nuptial embraces, 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 secret parts of man 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. “For,” it is said, “in much speaking thou shalt not escape sin.”[522] “Sins of the tongue, therefore, shall be punished.” “There is he who is silent, and is found wise; and there is that is hated for much speech.”[523] But still more, the prater makes himself the object of disgust. “For he that multiplieth speech abominates his own soul.”[524] CHAPTER VII. DIRECTIONS FOR THOSE WHO LIVE TOGETHER.