To Florus · §2.187 · Julian of Eclanum

To Florus 2.187

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For under the judgment of justice, which imputes no sin except one from which a person is free to abstain, those who sinned without the law will be judged without the law, and those who sinned under the law will be judged through the law (Romans 2:12). The apostle’s words, ‘But death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who did not sin in the likeness of Adam’ (Genesis 2:16–17)s transgression’ (Romans 5:14), make his meaning shine through. He defines Jews who sin under the law as having transgressed like Adam. For the first man too had received a law, though delivered to his ears rather than in books: to abstain from tasting the tree, which tested obedience. By eating from it against the command, he incurred the crime of transgression (Genesis 2:16–17; Genesis 3:6). Thus the people who sinned after the law was given through Moses’ ministry are proved to have sinned in the likeness of Adam’s transgression, because, like him, they sinned by transgressing a law. But in the age between the two laws—the first given but not written, the second both promulgated and committed to writing—those who sinned are not shown to be free from sin. Rather, they are said to have erred without the likeness of Adam’s transgression, because they had not received a law (Genesis 3:6).

Latin source witness

Latin

Quoniam ea iudicante iustitia, quae non imputat peccatum, nisi a quo liberum est abstinere, hi, qui sine lege peccaverunt, sine lege iudicabuntur [n300] , et hi qui in lege peccaverunt, per legem iudicabuntur. Quod autem ait Apostolus: Sed regnavit mors ab Adam usque ad Moysen etiam in eos, qui non peccaverunt in similitudine praevaricationis Adae [n301] , fecit translucere, quod senserat, id est Iudaeos sub lege peccantes similiter ut Adam praevaricatos fuisse definiens, quia et illi primo homini, licet non libris, auribus tamen commendata lex fuerat abstinendi a gustu arboris, in quo oboedientiae exploratio fuit, de qua contra praeceptum edendo praevaricationis crimen incurrit. Ergo et post datam legem ministerio Moysi peccans populus in similitudine praevaricationis Adae deliquisse convincitur, quia ita ut ille legis transgressione peccabat; in media autem aetate duarum legum, primae datae, non scriptae, secundae vero et latae et litteris traditae, qui peccaverunt, non a peccato ostenduntur alieni, sed non in similitudine praevaricationis Adae, quia legem non acceperant, perhibentur errasse.