To Florus 4.122

Yet although Jovinian is accused of hostility to Ambrose, he is acquitted when compared with you. When will the judgment of sensible people grant you enough credit to place you on the same level as Jovinian? He said there was a necessity for good; you, for evil. He said people were kept from error through the mysteries; you say they are not freed even through grace. He dissolved Mary’s virginity by the condition of childbirth; you transfer Mary herself to the devil by the condition of being born. He equates better things with good things—that is, virginity with marriage. You call marital union diseased and cheapen chastity by comparing it with something utterly foul. You do not insert a difference of degree between them; you change the whole category, preferring virginity not to a good but to an evil. It is the utmost cheapness to be pleasing only in comparison with something utterly disgusting.

Again, what did he do to insult God that resembles what you do? He wanted to weaken the force of God’s judgment on the side of kindness; you, on the side of malice. He says the good and the best will enjoy equal honor before God. You say the good and the impious—that is, the innocent and the devil—will be tormented by one punishment. He wants God to appear supremely merciful; you, supremely unjust. He says people initiated into God’s mysteries cannot sin. You contend that God himself sins: by weakness in the mysteries, by excess in his commands, and by cruelty in his judgments. Since the distance between you and Jovinian is as great as the closeness between you and Manichaeus, Jovinian is proved more tolerable than you to the same degree that Manichaeus is more dreadful than Jovinian.