The errors multiply. Irenaeus now shows how heresy breeds heresy—Encratites rejecting marriage and food, Tatian denying Adam’s salvation, and the Gnostics of the Barbelo tradition spinning wild origin myths with endless Aeons. But alongside that distortion of memory and meaning, Augustine (in Confessions 10.21) probes how we remember the happy life. He argues that even though we’ve never seen it, we remember it as we remember joy: not by the senses, but by inward experience. Everyone desires happiness—and that common desire points to a shared memory. Meanwhile, Aquinas in Question 83, Article 4 explains that free will is not a separate power from the will—it is the will, acting through reason when we choose. Free will isn’t a second bow. It’s the will itself, drawn back and aimed by rational deliberation.

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