To Florus 3.57
If this age has any time left, who will be able to believe the written record that there existed a man who believed and swore that what was natural was not natural, that what belonged to generation did not belong to generation, and that what affected certain people solely because they were parents did not belong to the condition of parents? I think a future generation will consider these claims invented rather than defended by any mortal.
These are the lurchings, nausea, and vomitings your party and belief undergo. You say: Parents’ sins cannot flow to their children through nature, because an act of choice is not bound to reproductive seed; but Adam’s sin, conceived by his will, passes through nature to all people, because an act of choice is bound to reproductive seed. Again: God does not condemn children for their parents’ sins, because that is the height of injustice; but he condemns Adam’s descendants for their parents’ sin, which no justice can defend. Finally: What applied to Adam only because he fathered children under the law of marriage does not belong to the condition of generation by which spouses become parents.
Is this steering a course, or floundering? Is this digesting an argument, or feeling sick? Is this taking in anything solid, or constantly vomiting? In the same words you affirm what you denied; in the same lines you deny what you affirmed. And you are angry that we do not submit to a man so shattered by serious illness that he cannot retain what he takes in (Deuteronomy 24:16)!
Latin
Quis enim hoc, si quid saeculo huic superfuerit aetatis, monumentis credere poterit litterarum exstitisse videlicet hominem, qui crederet et iuraret non esse naturale, quod esset naturale, non esse generationis, quod esset generationis, non pertinere ad condicionem parentum, quod ad aliquos non ob aliud pertineret, nisi quia fuissent parentes? Puto, quod conficta haec magis quam ab ullis defensa mortalibus arbitretur secutura generatio. Hos enim natatus et has nauseas atque hos vomitus vestra natio fidesque perpetitur, qui dicitis: Non possunt parentum peccata ad filios decurrere per naturam, quia res arbitrii seminibus non ligatur, sed peccatum Adae, quod de voluntate conceptum est, transit in omnes homines per naturam, quia res arbitrii seminibus illigata est; non damnat etiam Deus filios pro peccatis parentum, quia summae iniquitatis est, sed damnat Adae posteros propter peccatum parentum, quod nulla potest iustitia vindicari. Non pertinet postremo ad condicionem generationis, quia hi, qui coniuges sunt, fiunt parentes, quod non ob aliud pertinuit ad Adam, nisi quia coniugii lege generavit. Hoccine cursum gubernare est an natare? Hoccine est conficere an nauseare? Hoccine est sumere aliquid solidum an semper evomere? Isdem sermonibus quod negaveris, affirmas, isdem lineis quod affirmaveris, denegas, et irasceris, cur non acquiescamus homini, qui gravi morbo ruptus non potest tenere, quod suscipit.