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7. And I sought "whence is evil?" And sought in an evil way;
nor saw I the evil in my very search. And I set in order before the
view of my spirit the whole creation, and whatever we can discern in
it, such as earth, sea, air, stars, trees, living creatures;
yea, and whatever in it we do not see, as the firmament of heaven,
all the angels, too, and all the spiritual inhabitants thereof. But
these very beings, as though they were bodies, did my fancy dispose in
such and such places, and I made one huge mass of all Thy creatures,
distinguished according to the kinds of bodies, some of them being
real bodies, some what I myself had feigned for spirits. And this
mass I made huge, not as it was, which I could not know, but
as large as I thought well, yet every way finite. But Thee, O
Lord, I imagined on every part environing and penetrating it, though
every way infinite; as if there were a sea everywhere, and on every
side through immensity nothing but an infinite sea; and it contained
within itself some sponge, huge, though finite, so that the sponge
would in all its parts be filled from the immeasurable sea. So
conceived I Thy Creation to be itself finite, and filled by Thee,
the Infinite. And I said, Behold God, and behold what God hath
created; and God is good, yea, most mightily and incomparably better
than all these; but yet He, who is good, hath created them good,
and behold how He encircleth and filleth them. Where, then, is
evil, and whence, and how crept it in hither? What is its root, and
what its seed? Or hath it no being at all? Why, then, do we fear
and shun that which hath no being? Or if we fear it needlessly, then
surely: is that fear evil whereby the heart is unnecessarily pricked
and tormented, and so much a greater evil, as we have naught to
fear, and yet do fear. Therefore either that is evil which we fear,
or the act of fearing is in itself evil. Whence, therefore, is it,
seeing that God, who is good, hath made all these things good? He,
indeed, the greatest and chiefest Good, hath created these lesser
goods; but both Creator and created are all good. Whence is evil?
Or was there some evil matter of which He made and formed and ordered
it, but left something in it which He did not convert into good? But
why was this? Was He powerless to change the whole lump, so that no
evil should remain in it, seeing that He is omnipotent? Lastly, why
would He make anything at all of it, and not rather by the same
omnipotency cause it not to be at all? Or could it indeed exist
contrary to His will? Or if it were from eternity, why did He
permit it so to be for infinite spaces of times in the past, and was
pleased so long after to make something out of it? Or if He wished
now all of a sudden to do something, this rather should the Omnipotent
have accomplished, that this evil matter should not be at all, and
that He only should be the whole, true, chief, and infinite Good.
Or if it were not good that He, who was good, should not also be the
framer and creator of what was good, then that matter which was evil
being removed, and brought to nothing, He might form good matter,
whereof He might create all things. For He would not be omnipotent
were He not able to create something good without being assisted by
that matter which had not been created by Himself.x Such like things
did I revolve in my miserable breast, overwhelmed with most gnawing
cares lest I should die ere I discovered the truth; yet was the faith
of Thy Christ, our Lord and Saviour, as held in the Catholic
Church, fixed firmly in my heart, unformed, indeed, as yet upon
many points, and diverging from doctrinal rules, but yet my mind did
not utterly leave it, but every day rather drank in more and more of
it.
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