“what is sought by means of free choice is to make room for merits.”

“Now I know from this very word and deed of yours what free choice is and is capable of, namely, madness.”

“I owe you a small thanks, for you have made me far more sure of my own position by letting me see the case for free choice put forward with all the energy of so distinguished and powerful a mind, but with no other effect than to make things worse than before.”

“For the kingdom is not being prepared, but has been prepared, while the sons of the Kingdom are being prepared, not preparing the Kingdom; that is to say, the Kingdom merits the sons, not the songs the Kingdom. So all hell merits and prepares its children rather than they it.”

“I frankly confess that even if it were possible I should not wish to have free choice given to me, or to have anything left in my own hands by which I might strive for salvation.”

“You see then, that Diatribe truly possesses a free choice in her handling of Scriptures, so that words of one and the same type are for her obliged to prove endeavor in one place and freedom in another, exactly as she pleases.”

“Jerome has merited hell rather than heaven for it-so little would I dare to recognize or call him a saint.”