To Florus 3.92
It would be an unheard-of monstrosity if someone tried to establish even a tolerable but novel doctrine by abandoning exact expressions for inexact and ambiguous ones. How infinitely more disgraceful, then, that Augustine tries to establish obscene claims accusing God’s justice through statements so double-edged that he admits they speak properly against him and only by indulgence in his favor! What educated person would trust an argument that, once it came to court, his opponent could claim as a slave born in his household, while he himself could possess it only as a runaway he had kidnapped?
Latin
Nam cum inauditum monstrum sit, si dogma etiam tolerabile, novum tamen, aliquis relin quens propria abusivis verbis condere ambiguisque conetur, tum istud infinite deformius est, quod res obscaenas et Dei iustitiam criminantes tam ancipitibus Augustinus nititur confirmare sententiis, ut eas contra se proprie, pro se autem precario sonare fateatur. Quisquamne eruditorum illi argumento fidat, quod, cum in ius venerit, ab inimico eius quasi vernaculum, ab illo vero quasi fugitivum plagiatumque pensetur?