To Florus 3.186

You thought it would be highly effective in maintaining a distinction between you and Mani to say that nature was indeed made good, but only in the first humans, while afterward it was entirely overthrown through desire. Mani argued this way too: ‘It is worth observing that the first soul, which flowed from the God of light, received this structure of the body to govern it with its bridle. The commandment came; sin, which had seemed captive, came to life again. The devil found his own limbs, brought the material of desire into the soul by deception, and through it killed the soul. The law is indeed holy—but holy for a holy soul; and the commandment is just and good—but for a just and good soul’ (compare Romans 7:9–12). Similarly in his letter to Patricius, he calls the first human ‘better than those who followed, as though made from the flower of the first substance.’

It is therefore no great thing, and contributes nothing to your defense, that you thought Adam should be excluded from the accusation against human nature. We shall soon discuss his condition more fully. Here it is enough to have shown that nothing in your ideas is so fresh that Mani has not already worn it out by rolling it over.