Here it might be possible for some one to speak thus: Then, is that man to be called obedient who shall follow evil guidance as well as he who shall believe the good?
I reply that this would not be obedience, but transgression.

For if the King should issue a command in one way and the servant give forth the command in another, it would not be right to obey the servant, for that would be to disobey the King; and thus it would be transgression.

And therefore Solomon says, when he intends to correct his son, and this is his first commandment: "Listen, my son, to the instruction of thy father." And then he seeks to remove him immediately from the counsel and teaching of the wicked man, saying, "My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not." Wherefore, as soon as he is born, the son clings to the breast of the mother; even so soon as some light of the Mind appears in him, he ought to turn to the correction of the father, and the father to instruction.

And let the father take heed that he himself does not set him an example in work or action that is contrary to the words of the correction; for naturally we see each son look more to the footprints of the paternal feet than to those of other men.

And therefore the Law, which provides for this, says and commands that the life of the father should appear to his sons always honourable and upright.