To Florus 2.226

Where here is nature accused? Where are the beginnings of human substance blamed? Where is the movement of the one begetting a child condemned? It is clearer than light that the Teacher of the Gentiles addresses only the will, so that it renounces hidden disgrace (2 Corinthians 4:2) and advances to a better life through corrected actions. But now let our explanation take a shorter course and stop continually interpreting the apostle’s words in these passages. Let us hear him discuss his own meaning. At the end of his argument it will become clear whose doctrine and faith he agrees with. We say, of course, that the apostle spoke of the sin of human will, present in each person who sins. You speak of the sin which, believing Faustus, you think was transmitted through generation and received by everyone without willing it. Let our disputes, then, cease, if you please. To proceed modestly, let us set aside the apostle’s dignity. On that ground alone we could insist that, even if his words agreed with you in every respect, he nevertheless could have intended nothing so disgraceful, given the splendor of his office: the fault would lie in ambiguous expressions, not perverse meanings. Let us grant him only this in the present matter: as a man whose mind was not disordered, he should be believed to have understood his own writings better than you do. ‘Therefore,’ he says, ‘do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey it’ (Romans 6:12). I could already say here that the exhortation proves he is treating sins of will. For if evils were natural, they could be defended on grounds of justice or, at least, lamented out of pity; but in no way could people be admonished to avoid them. Greater than any natural evil, if such an evil could exist, would be the evil of the madness possessing anyone who demanded devotion in avoiding natural things. But the apostle enacted nothing that could justly be criticized. He therefore indicates a sin of will when he insists that it must be avoided.