To Florus 3.52
But if, unable to endure truth’s clamorous protest, you try to escape elsewhere, you will fall into stronger nets. Suppose you say: The prophet’s pronouncement that relatives are not burdened with each other’s faults is indeed true concerning adults; concerning infants, however, it lies in the part saying they are not guilty of their parents’ crimes, but does not lie in the part asserting that they gain no assistance from their parents’ virtues. Then you will openly display a most disgraceful appetite—not for argument but invention, not for eloquence but mere talk, not the appetite of a sane person but of a Manichaean losing his mind. You would be imagining yourself free to reject whatever you please and accept whatever delights you, against plain reason, God’s honor, examples, the testimony of commands, and the explanation of judgments (Ezekiel 18:19–20).
Latin
Si autem non sustinens reclamantis strepitum veritatis alio tentaris effugere, in plagas incides fortiores. Nam si dicas: Vera quidem est sententia Prophetae, sed in personis grandioribus, quae dicit necessitudines culpis mutuis non gravari, in parvulis autem ab una sui parte mentitur, qua dicit eos reos non esse ob scelera generantium, in alia autem non mentitur, in qua asserit eos nullis parentum virtutibus sublevari, tunc plane foedissimam non disputandi sed confingendi, non eloquendi sed loquendi, non postremo sani hominis, sed excidentis sensu Manichaei libidinem publicabis, si tibi putes contra perspicuam rationem, contra honorem Dei, contra exempla, contra testimonia praeceptorum, contra expositionem iudiciorum, quod libuerit, licere respuere et, quod delectarit, assumere.