Whatever it was, I
realized that the question must be so analyzed as not to constrain
me by any answer to believe that the immutable God was mutable,
lest I should myself become the thing that I was seeking out. And
so I pursued the search with a quiet mind, now in a confident
feeling that what had been said by the Manicheans -- and I shrank
from them with my whole heart -- could not be true. I now
realized that when they asked what was the origin of evil their
answer was dictated by a wicked pride, which would rather affirm
that thy nature is capable of suffering evil than that their own
nature is capable of doing it.
5. And I directed my attention to understand what I now was
told, that free will is the cause of our doing evil and that thy
just judgment is the cause of our having to suffer from its
consequences. But I could not see this clearly. So then, trying
to draw the eye of my mind up out of that pit, I was plunged back
into it again, and trying often was just as often plunged back
down. But one thing lifted me up toward thy light: it was that I
had come to know that I had a will as certainly as I knew that I
had life.
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