To Florus 2.44

With what effrontery, then, do you add: ‘But through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin; and so it passed into all human beings, in whom all sinned’ (Romans 5:12)? You interpret this to mean that the apostle says sin was transmitted from that man to his descendants by generation (Augustine, Marriage and Desire 2.45). Above, you had conceded that the Teacher of the Gentiles does not accuse marriage, which God blessed; that no will to sin exists in the newborn child; and that parents, insofar as they are parents, are lawfully and legitimately united to produce children. Immediately you add, as though you had said the earlier things in your sleep, that guilt is transmitted to descendants by generation. If they beget only insofar as they are parents, and insofar as they are parents are lawfully and legitimately united, and this union is not disapproved by the apostle because God not only instituted but also blessed it, with what mouth, by what rule, with what effrontery do you maintain that this generation is the cause of guilt, a root of crimes, and the devil’s slave?