To Florus 1.70

To gather up what we have established: I did not deal fraudulently with your words, and you produced nothing you could cover with even a faint appearance of piety, much less prove by scriptural testimony. The apostle did not mean what you think. Nor was the condition of sexual union in paradise different from what now occurs in marriages. God has made abundantly clear that he established marriage, both by the constitution of the sexes and the character of their bodily members, and by his repeated blessing (compare Genesis 1:27–28; Genesis 9:1). Once these points are settled, it is clear that all whom you deceive deserve anger more than mercy. At your prompting they defame birth to excuse the crimes they commit by an evil will, rather than amend their conduct.