The Instructor 2.6.52

For he is skilled at always cutting out the roots of sins: “You shall not commit adultery” through “You shall not covet”; for adultery is the fruit of desire, the evil root. So here too the Instructor has condemned the fearless use of words, cutting out fearless intercourse with licentiousness. For disorder in words produces practice in misbehaving in deeds too, while self-control in speech is training in resisting lust. We have explained in a deeper discussion that neither in the words, nor in the organs of intercourse, nor in the union of marriage, for which words not worn by common use are appointed, is the name of what is truly shameful to be applied. For knee and shin are not shameful as members, nor are the names for them or their activity; and the private parts of the human being are members too, worthy of modesty, not of shame. What is shameful is their unlawful activity, which therefore deserves shame, reproach, and punishment; for only vice is truly shameful, and what is done according to it. Correspondingly, foul speech would rightly be the name for talk about the works of vice, such as talking about adultery or pederasty and the like. And idle chatter must be silenced too. “For from much talking,” it says, “you will not escape sin”; so the idle tongue will pay the penalty. “There is one who keeps silent and is found wise, and one who is hated for much talk.” The chatterer is already wearisome to himself: “For one who multiplies words makes himself abhorred.”