7-3-5
Et intendebam, ut cernerem quod audiebam, liberum voluntatis arbitrium causam esse, ut male faceremus, et rectum iudicium tuum ut pateremur, et eam liquidam cernere non valebam.
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.
itaque aciem mentis de profundo educere conatus, mergebar iterum, et saepe conatus mergebar iterum atque iterum. sublevabat enim me in lucem tuam, quod tam sciebam me habere voluntatem quam me vivere.
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.
itaque cum aliquid vellem aut nollem, non alium quam me velle ac nolle certissimus eram, et ibi esse causam peccati mei iam iamque advertebam.
When, therefore, I willed or was unwilling to do something, I was utterly certain that it was none but myself who willed or was unwilling—and immediately I realized that there was the cause of my sin.
quod autem invitus facerem, pati me potius quam facere videbam, et id non culpam, sed poenam esse iudicabam, qua me non iniuste plecti te iustum cogitans cito fatebar.
I could see that what I did against my will I suffered rather than did; and I did not regard such actions as faults, but rather as punishments in which I might quickly confess that I was not unjustly punished, since I believed thee to be most just.
sed rursus dicebam: quis fecit me? nonne deus meus, non tantum bonus, sed ipsum bonum? unde igitur mihi male velle et bene nolle? ut esset, cur iuste poenas luerem?
[P]But again I said, Who made me? Did not my God, Who is not only good, but goodness itself? Whence then came I to will evil and nill good, so that I am thus justly punished?
quis in me hoc posuit et insevit mihi plantarium amaritudinis, cum totus fierem a dulcissimo deo meo? si diabolus auctor, unde ipse diabolus?
Who was it that put this in me, and implanted in me the root of bitterness, in spite of the fact that I was altogether the handiwork of my most sweet God? If the devil is to blame, who made the devil himself?
quod si et ipse perversa voluntate ex bono angelo diabolus factus est, unde et in ipso voluntas mala, qua diabolus fieret, quando totus angelus a conditore optimo factus esset?
If the devil is to blame, who made the devil himself? And if he was a good angel who by his own wicked will became the devil, how did there happen to be in him that wicked will by which he became a devil, since a good Creator made him wholly a good angel?
his cogitationibus deprimebar iterum et suffocabar, sed non usque ad illum infernum subducebar erroris, ubi nemo tibi confitetur, dum tu potius mala pati quam homo facere putatur.
By these reflections was I again cast down and stultified. Yet I was not plunged into that hell of error–where no man confesses to thee—where I thought that thou didst suffer evil, rather than that men do it.