By abusing free choice, man diverted his love from the changeless good, God, and, blinded by his own self-centeredness, he directed his love to what was inferior. Thus withdrawing from the true good and deviating toward what of itself was not good, where he anticipated gain he found loss, and by perversely loving himself he lost both himself and God.
Thus it very justly came about that someone who sought the likeness of God in defiance of God, the more he wanted to become similar to God out of curiosity, the more dissimilar he became through self-centeredness.
Therefore, the image of God became disfigured in man without becoming wholly destroyed. Consequently man has memory-but it is subject to forgetfulness, understanding-but it is open to error, and love which is prone to self-centeredness.
Aelred of Rievaulx
On ]esus at the Age of Twelve 3; CF 2:6-7.
