To Florus 3.35
But if you say both are just, both what we say and what you say—that is, both what God’s law decreed and what Mani and the advocate of inherited sin invented—then, restraining the force of plain reason, we question you more gently and kindly. If you believe both what we say and what you say to be good, why have you stirred up all Italy with so much organized intrigue? Why have you hired crowds to raise riots in Rome? Why have you fed herds of horses throughout almost all Africa at the poor’s expense and sent them, with Alypius escorting them, to tribunes and centurions? Why have you corrupted worldly officials with the estates offered by wealthy women, so that the tinder of public fury would blaze against us? Why have you shattered the churches’ peace? Why have you stained a religious emperor’s reign with the wickedness of persecution, if we say nothing except what even you are forced to acknowledge as good?
Latin
Si autem dixeris utrumque iustum esse, et quod nos dicimus et quod vos, id est et quod lex Dei sanxit et quod Manichaeus Traducianusque confinxit, hic sane rationis perspicuae potentiam cohibentes benignius te convenimus et mitius. Cur ergo, si creditis et hoc bonum esse quod dicimus, et illud bonum esse quod dicitis, tantis totam Italiam factionibus commovistis? Cur seditiones Romae conductis populis excitastis? Cur de sumptibus pauperum saginastis per totam pene Africam equorum greges, quos prosequente Alypio tribunis et centurionibus destinastis? Cur matronarum oblatis haereditatibus potestates saeculi corrupistis, ut in nos stipula publici furoris arderet? Cur dissipastis ecclesiarum quietem? Cur religiosi principis tempora persecutionum impietate maculastis, si a nobis nihil aliud dicitur, quam quod etiam tu bonum cogeris confiteri?