To Florus 2.98

I could very properly despise your trifling explanation of this passage and pass it over unanswered, as lying too low on the ground, if I did not fear that this might be credited to evasion rather than confidence. You speak as follows: ‘What does “abound much more” mean (Romans 5:15), except that everyone freed through Christ dies a temporal death on account of Adam, but will live without end on account of Christ himself?’ (Augustine, Marriage and Desire 2.46). If you considered what follows consistently from this statement, you would confess that your entire fortress—that is, inherited transmission—had fallen. For you say Christ’s grace abounded much more because through it eternal life is conferred, whereas through Adam’s sin temporal decay must be undergone. If, then, Adam brought nothing but bodily death, in contrast with which Christ conferred the more generous benefit of life without end, it appears that what passed to descendants was not Adam’s sin but death.