To Florus 3.87
Where it is said of Christ, ‘The one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one’ (Hebrews 2:11) (Romans 5:12), this can be understood as referring not to Adam but to God, by whose power Christ according to the flesh and the whole human race were made. Consequently, the similarity of other expressions has contributed nothing to undermine the apostle’s meaning when he said that sin entered the world through one man.
Yet what follows should stay firmly in the sensible reader’s mind: understand that so far I have argued far more leniently than the matter required. Let us allow that many testimonies show generation, which cannot happen except through two, is nevertheless commonly said to occur through one. The theory of inherited sin will still gain nothing. Why? Because some expressions are figurative or extended, and others are proper and exact. Things with proper names can lend their terms without suffering loss. But things spoken of in a borrowed sense are not allowed to impose the implications of their own definitions on the primary things to which the terms properly belong. All this happens without fault when we lend words to matters about which there is no doubt.
Latin
Ubi autem de Christo dicitur: Qui sanctificat, et sanctificatur ex uno omnes [n112] , non de Adam, sed de Deo accipi potest, cuius virtute Christus secundum carnem factus est et omne humanum genus; ac per hoc ad labefactandam intellegentiam Apostoli, qua dixit per unum hominem peccatum intrasse in mundum, aliorum similitudo verborum nihil quivit afferre momenti. Haereat tamen id, quod sequitur, maxime prudentis animo lectoris, ut intellegat me hactenus multo remissius, quam res postulabat, egisse. Patiamur quippe, ut plurimis testimoniis doceatur generationem, quae nisi per duos fieri non potest, agi tamen etiam per unum solere dici. Verum nihil opinio traducis promovebit: cur? Videlicet quia alia sunt, quae abusive, alia, quae proprie dicimus. Ergo ea, quae sunt propria, appellationes suas sine dispendio largiuntur; ea vero, quae per usurpationem dicuntur, principalibus rebus videlicet propriis definitionum suarum praeiudicia non sinuntur invehere; fitque hoc totum inculpabiliter, cum rebus, de quibus non est ulla dubitatio, per abusionem vocabula impertimur aliena.