Commentary on Sirach

Prosper of Aquitaine

God in truth has created the body and the spirit of every single human being. Besides the diversity each person may choose to pursue, there is an infinite variety created by God beyond what could be voluntarily achieved by everyone in what each person receives at the beginning of his or her existence. But there are those who would upset us and many who would lead us astray with their vain sayings and false opinions among those who presume to be in the know about unknowable things, having attributed these original differences to fate (even if it does not exist) and to the stars. But we are firmly convinced that God the creator forms all the different types and models of things according to his will from the original elements, and although the nature of the spirit is of one kind and the body another, he deals with them according to the methods most agreeable to him. And surely these acts of God would not have been withdrawn from human knowing if there was a reason for them to be known; or it would be clearly revealed why everything happens the way it does, if it were not sufficient to know that it happens in this way. The Lord said to Moses, "Who has given speech to humankind and…

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