To Florus 2.105

Let us bring out the force of your arguments. After Paul said that the Savior’s grace abounded much more in healing than the first man’s transgression in harming, he continues: ‘And the gift is not as it was through one who sinned. For the judgment was from one to condemnation, but grace is from many offenses to justification’ (Romans 5:16). You contend that this one offense sufficient for condemnation is original sin, passing into all human beings. You say that grace is called ‘from many offenses to justification’ because it releases not only that one sin inherited at birth but also the other sins each person adds by the movement of his own will (Augustine, Marriage and Desire 2.46). A little later, to confirm this, you argue that, if the apostle had described this one offense sufficient for condemnation as acquired by imitation, he should have added that all people go to condemnation not through one offense, but through the many each has committed voluntarily. Since the apostle’s language must be disentangled here from the Manichaeans’ nets, I urge the reader to pay attention. You say that, according to our understanding—that the first fault supplied a model to sinners—the apostle ought to have said that death reigned through many sins, just as he said grace produces justification from many offenses. But with this argument you struggle entirely against yourself. I prove that, according to your doctrine, the apostle speaks inconsistently in saying, ‘But grace is from many offenses to justification,’ after saying, ‘The judgment was from one sin to condemnation.’ Let us leave our own territory and spend some time in yours. Suppose freedom of will was overthrown by the first sin, and thereafter remained so crippled throughout the human race that it can do nothing but evil; that it has no power to choose the other side—to turn from evil and do good (possible allusion to Psalm 34:14; compare Psalm 37:27 and 1 Peter 3:11)—but, oppressed by the necessity of wickedness, is compelled to obey a craving for crimes. Suppose that, with every law of justice broken, things once voluntary became natural; that the law of sin dwells in the limbs (Romans 7:23), having gained tyranny over God’s image and work through marriage’s modesty and pleasure; that the devil’s shrub is planted in the inner body before the soul arrives, and grows with natural growth, puts out leaves, and becomes heavy with deadly fruit. If, I say, the first man’s single fault produced all these things as you claim, it is more consistent to say that the mortal race goes into condemnation from one offense than that grace frees it from many offenses. One should more properly understand this grace as freeing those it frees from one offense. For no other sins are added by the movement of a personal will if all evil is worked by the first parent’s fault that infects the seed, with freedom of will broken and honorable desire excluded.