1. Justin Martyr – Dialogue with Trypho, Chapter 23
2. Augustine of Hippo – Confessions, Book V, Chapter 3
3. Thomas Aquinas – Summa Theologica, Part I, Question 46, Article 1

Today’s readings lead us deep into the question of the origin of evil and the beginning of creation. Justin Martyr, in Dialogue with Trypho, Chapter 23, argues that rituals like circumcision and the Sabbath were never meant to be eternal moral laws but were given temporarily for a sinful people. Augustine, in Confessions, Book V, Chapter 3, wrestles with the origin of evil and comes to recognize that the will—not God—is its cause. And in Summa Theologica, Part I, Question 46, Article 1, Aquinas affirms that the world had a beginning, not as a nece ...