To Florus 3.46
So you are angry with me because I believe God under oath rather than Mani dreaming! Especially since Mani produces no testimonies of sound faith, or even arguments of an alert intelligence. Such arguments could never be found strong enough to overthrow truth’s foundations; still, if aptly expressed, they might at least offer some immediate relief from the shame of stupidity.
God persists in strengthening by an oath what he had made sacred by a command. He goes on to make his decree plain through examples. Suppose, he says, a man maintains every form of justice with unstained devotion and fathers a son who clings to corrupt behavior and turns away from his father’s paths. The noble standing acquired by his father’s great devotion to justice does that son no good. Conversely, he presents this sinner’s son avoiding his father’s ways by a better decision, and shows that his parent’s iniquity does him no harm. He places justice and sin on an equal footing, asserting that parents’ vices no more travel through reproductive seed than virtues can. All souls belong to his authority. This also exposes the irreverence of your claim that newborn children’s souls and bodies belong to the devil’s dominion (Ezekiel 18:5–18).
Latin
Indignaris itaque mihi, cur iuranti magis Deo credam quam Manichaeo somnianti, qui nulla praesertim si non sanae fidei testimonia vel argumenta promit vigilantis ingenii, quae, licet numquam tanta inveniri queant, ut veritatis valeant fundamenta convellere, tamen quae vel impraesentiarum contra stoliditatis pudorem solacii quippiam, si apte dicerentur, afferrent. Persistit Deus id, quod sacrum fecerat praecipiendo, communire iurando. Pergit planum facere etiam per exempla quod sancit, et dicit, quia, si fuerit homo omnes iustitiae species impolluta devotione custodiens et hic genuerit filium, qui pestilentibus moribus adhaerescat atque ab itineribus deflectat paternis, nihil ei prosit tanta patris cura iustitiae comparata nobilitas; atque item e regione huius peccatoris filium statuit patris sui vias consilio meliore fugientem ostenditque nihil ei nocere iniquitatem parentis. Paremque condicionem iustitiae facit atque peccati, asserens vitia generantium ita non ire per semina, sicut non queunt ire virtutes, sed ad ius suum omnes animas pertinere, per quod et illud ostenditur profanum, quod dicis nascentium et animas et corpora a iure diaboli possideri.