The Instructor 2.10.93

It is not shameful for us, for the benefit of our hearers, to name the organs of childbearing, whose creation God was not ashamed of. The womb, then, thirsting for childbearing, receives the seed and refuses the blameworthy part of intercourse, shutting out licentiousness entirely after the sowing by closing its mouth. Its appetites, formerly stirred by loving embraces, turn away and, occupied within with bearing the child, cooperate with the Creator. It is not right to disturb nature further when it is already at work, going to excess in insolence. Insolence, which has many names and many forms, when it turns aside in this part of disorder, that concerned with sexual love, is called lagneia (“lust”), the common, vulgar, and impure. The proneness to mating, as the name shows: from these, when they increase, comes the great multitude of diseases: love of delicacies, love of wine, love of women, and indeed profligacy and every love of pleasure, over which desire tyrannizes. Countless kindred passions grow with these, from which the licentious character comes to its height. Scripture says: “Scourges are prepared for the licentious, and punishments for the shoulders of fools,” calling the strength of licentiousness and its vigorous endurance “the shoulders of fools.” That is why: “Remove from your servants vain hopes,” it says, “and turn away from me unseemly desires; let not the appetite of the belly and sexual lust take hold of me.” We must keep far off the great villainy of those who plot against us. For not only into the wallet of Crates, but also into our city, “sails no foolish parasite, nor dainty lecher glorying in his buttocks, nor deceitful harlot,” nor any other such beast of pleasure. Let great dignity of conduct be sown in us throughout our whole life.