Who comes to the faith, and why

He supposes that we say such things to exhort sinners because we are unable to win over any man who is truly good and just, and that for this reason we open our gates to the most unholy and abandoned. But if anyone would consider our assembly fairly, we can point to more who have turned from a life that was not very bad than who have turned from the most abandoned sins.

For those who are conscious of better things in themselves, and who pray that what is preached about God's reward to the better may be true, are naturally readier to assent to what is said than those who have lived very wickedly. These are kept by their very conscience from accepting that they will be punished by the Judge of all with a punishment that would befit one who has sinned so greatly, and that the Judge of all would inflict without going against right reason. Sometimes, too, even if the utterly abandoned wish to accept the teaching about punishment because of the hope set on repentance, they are held back by their habit of sinning. Long steeped in it, and stained fast by vice, as it were, they can no longer easily turn away from it to a settled life, a life according to right reason.

Celsus too grasped this, I do not know how, and in what follows he says: "And yet it is surely plain to everyone that no one could completely change those who are naturally inclined to sin and accustomed to it, not even by punishing them, much less by showing mercy. For to change nature completely is exceedingly hard. But those without sin are better partners in life."