The "good-for-nothing speech" of chapter iv. 29 comes up once more for condemnation in the _foolish speech_ and _jesting_ of this passage. The former is the idle talk of a stupid, the latter of a clever man. Both, under the conditions of heathen society, were tainted with foulness. Loose speech easily becomes low speech. Wit, unchastened by reverence, finds a tempting field for its exercise in the delicate relations of life, and displays its skill in veiled indecencies and jests that desecrate the purer feelings, while they avoid open grossness.
St Paul's word for "jesting" is one of the singular terms of this epistle. By etymology it denotes a _well-turned_ style of expression, the versatile speech of one who can touch lightly on many themes and aptly blend the grave and gay. This social gift was prized amongst the polished Greeks. But it was a faculty so commonly abused, that the word describing it fell into bad odour: it came to signify banter and persiflage; and then, still worse, the kind of talk here indicated,--the wit whose zest lies in its flavour of impurity. "The very profligate old man in the _Miles Gloriosus_ of Plautus (iii. I. 42-52), who prides himself, and not without reason, upon his wit, his elegance and refinement [_cavillator lepidus_, _facetus_], is exactly the =eutrapelos=. And keeping in mind that =eutrapelia=, being only once expressly and by name forbidden in Scripture, is forbidden to Ephesians, it is not a little notable to find him urging that all this was to be expected from him, being as he was an Ephesian by birth:--
Post _Ephesi sum natus_; non enim in Apulia, non Animulae."[130]
In place of senseless prating and wanton jests--things unbefitting to a rational creature, much more to a saint--the Asian Greeks are to find in _thanksgiving_ employment for their ready tongue. St Paul's rule is not one of mere prohibition. The versatile tongue that disported itself in unhallowed and frivolous utterance, may be turned into a precious instrument for God's service. Let the fire of Divine love touch the jester's lips, and that mouth will show forth His praise which once poured out dishonour to its Maker and shame to His image in man.
7. At the end of the Ephesian catalogue of vices, as at the beginning (iv. 19), uncleanness is joined with _covetousness_, or _greed_.