But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becomes saints;
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Ambrosiaster
AD 400
What a grave sin is covetousness, though we gloss over it when compared with fornication and uncleanness. We treat covetousness as a minor fault when in fact it is a grave matter. No one can be a saint in whom is found any of these things that he forbids.
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.".
Impudicorum vero verborum, et turpium figurarum, meretriciorumque osculomm, et hujusmodi lasciviarum nomina ne sunt quidem memoranda, beatum sequent bus Apostolum, qui aperte dicit: "Fornicatio autem et omnis immunditia, vel plura habendi cupiditas, ne nominetur quidem in vobis, sicut decet saneros."
The name, the mind and the conscience of the saints demand that the tongue itself should be an agent of holiness. If a person who is holy in his ways speaks unnecessarily of abominable behaviors, he may harbor sin. Even speaking of them may show how well acquainted he is with vices better left unspoken. .
Even one who is in fact free of fornication is not holy if he remains mentally preoccupied with some uncleanness or with the avaricious pursuit of the pleasures that have once delighted him. –.
He has already spoken of the bitterest affection, which is wrath. Next he passes on to lust, which comes after wrath, as we see in the law of Moses, who first says “You shall not murder,” which springs from wrath, and then “You shall not commit adultery,” which springs from lust. For just as bitterness, clamor and every evil, including blasphemy and the like, belong to the angerprone, passionate nature, so do fornication, impurity and covetousness belong to the lustprone, appetitive nature. Just as he earlier prohibited clamorous disorder because it is a vehicle of anger, so he now prohibits filthy and loose talk, because it is a vehicle of lust. .
He has spoken of the bitter passion, of wrath; he now comes to the lesser evil: for that lust is the lesser evil, hear how Moses also in the law says, first, You shall do no murder Exodus 20:13, which is the work of wrath, and then, You shall not commit adultery Exodus 20:14, which is of lust. For as bitterness, and clamor, and all malice, and railing, and the like, are the works of the passionate man, so likewise are fornication, uncleanness, covetousness, those of the lustful; since avarice and sensuality spring from the same passion. But just as in the former case he took away clamor as being the vehicle of anger, so now does he filthy talking and jesting as being the vehicle of lust; for he proceeds,
