To Florus 4.58
So here, as in everything, you have spoken most profanely in saying that what belongs to human nature was absent from Christ’s flesh. You drew this, deceived, not from any sound vein of Scripture but solely from Manichaean filth. Yet to display a greater abundance of resources for defending truth, let us grant your dream that the desire of the flesh you speak of was absent from Christ. This was certainly condemned first in Manichaean and afterward in Apollinarist frenzy. But what support could it give your doctrine? It would not immediately follow that something was evil if he had chosen not to assume it. Since good things rise by degrees in worth, one could say that he proceeded through the best without condemning goods placed below him by choosing those above. Just as he did not defame marriage by following virginity, so he would not have condemned the sensation of the reproductive flesh even if he had been unwilling to possess its capacity in his own substance.
Latin
Tu igitur, ut omnia, profanissime effatus es, in Christi carne non fuisse quod humanae naturae est; quod certe de nulla Scripturae rationabilis vena, sed de solo Manichaeorum coeno deceptus hausisti. Verum ut maior copia defendendae veritatis appareat, concedamus te somniasse, in Christo carnis quam dicis concupiscentiam non fuisse; quod certe in Manichaei prius, postea in Apollinaris furore damnatum est; tuo tamen quid possit dogmati suffragari; cum non continuo sequeretur malum esse, si quid ille assumere noluisset? Quoniam gradatim crescentibus meritis bonorum, diceretur isse per optima, nec bona tamen infra se locata superiorum electione damnasse. Quomodo enim nuptias non infamavit, integritatem secutus; ita nec sensum carnis genitalis damnasset, si eius possibilitatem nec in substantia sua habere voluisset.