To Florus 3.33

Now apply these examples to the case. Charging children with their parents’ sins and not charging children with their parents’ sins cannot both be shown equally just. If justice consists in holding the offspring guilty, it must be injustice to declare them not guilty for those same sins. And just as it is good to command justly, it is evil to give an unjust order. Argument may weaken the force of something already obvious, yet it is helpful to confirm an established case by the supporting judgments of divine law. Let us stay with this point: anyone who stands here with a sound mind will not be allowed to wander among the precipices of our present disputes.

You therefore concede, preacher of natural evil, that God’s law commands that children must not be punished for their parents’ sins. You also acknowledge that this people understood the command precisely as we now maintain it should be observed. Consequently King Amaziah, obeying God’s commands, restrained with praiseworthy moderation the anger caused by his father’s murder. He killed his father’s assassins but spared their sons, out of justice, not cowardice. Amaziah is praised; he is said to have done this according to God’s law, and commended for obeying the Lord’s will. Yet the account does not conceal that remnants of false worship stained him, and it shows that he did not imitate the devotion of his ancestor David (2 Kings 14:3–6). Even this man, who fell short of his family’s holiness, maintained in judgment the justice commended by divine law. Such was the power of reverence for unmistakable fairness! Consider, then, what evil your belief embraces: you attribute to God, whom we acknowledge as eternal, good, and just, an injustice that neither a king’s pride nor a bereaved son’s grief committed.