To Florus 2.53

Just as the word ‘imitation’ plainly applies in common to different things, so ‘generation,’ in its true and proper sense, indicates a substance that begets. It applies to deliberate activities only figuratively, not properly. Yet because this usage is now established, what it indicates is recognized, without allowing it to prejudice the words’ proper meanings. Thus the devil is said to beget sinners, according to the Lord’s words in the Gospel: ‘You are from your father the devil’ (John 8:44). With these words he called the devil the father of criminals who were shown to imitate his malice. Yet the meaning is perfectly clear: the name ‘father’ assigns neither a sex to the devil nor an airy substance to those human beings. Let our intended conclusion now become plain. Suppose a human being were never properly said to imitate another human being, and the apostle had said that everyone sinned through Adam. I would freely insist that scriptural usage must vindicate the apostle. Just as the Lord had called the devil a father, though he could not beget by substance, so the apostle would have described a human being as imitable, to avoid the belief that he taught anything against clear reason.