To Florus 4.104

As for your addition, “Through one man sin entered the world,” I have shown here how inappropriately it was placed, just as I explained in the second book how it should be understood. But now that the present argument is complete, I would like to reconsider your exceedingly sharp statement. You say: “‘Through one man sin entered the world, and through sin death; and so it passed to all human beings, in whom all sinned’ (Romans 5:12). Through that one man’s evil will, all sinned in him, when all were that one man. For that reason, each inherited original sin from him” (Augustine, On Marriage and Concupiscence 2.5.15). “They sinned then,” you say, “when all were that one man.”

I had already pointed out that you wrote this to Marcellinus (Augustine, On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins 1.11; 3.14). This testimony convicts you of believing and embracing the propagation of souls, taken particularly from Manichaeus’s very entrails; I quoted his statements in the third book. It is certainly so ugly that, although you imply it, you nevertheless never dare profess it. But let us postpone this for now: it is killed both by the obscenity of its first advocate and by the fear of his successor—that is, you. At present I want to examine the confusion that tosses you about in argument. You say, “Through that one man’s evil will, all sinned in him, when all were that one man.” If all were that one man, how did all sin through his evil will, when all these people whom you say were in him could have sinned by their own wills? Indeed, to turn the argument back, he was unhappier than everyone else, since he alone bears the odium, although according to your doctrine everyone sinned in him.

Infants therefore possessed will not only before they were born but before their great-grandparents were generated. They exercised choice before the seeds of their substance were created. Why, then, do you fear to say that at the time of their own conception they possess free will, by which they do not naturally inherit sin but voluntarily commit it, if you believe that those conceived today possessed sensation, judgment, and an effective will so many ages ago? You did not hesitate to state this in the books issued under Marcellinus’s name, plainly to show the madness that grips God’s enemies. There you say: “These infants sinned in Adam so that they might be created like him” (Augustine, On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins 1.11). What more false, insane, and filthy words could sound than that they sinned beforehand so that they might be created? That is, by acting they deserved to become beings who could act, and their action was older than their substance. It is enough to point out these inventions, more suited to Bacchic revels and ritual wands than to literature.

From this flowed your reply: “All sinned in him, when all were that one man, from whom each inherited original sin.” There is no need to labor here to show that, since will is a person’s act, will cannot exist before the person whose will it is. What I especially want understood is that even on this opinion there is no original sin. For if everyone who sinned was there, they inherited nothing from an original evil, because they all committed it through their own efforts. The inheritance of sin is therefore destroyed not only by catholic truth but by every argument of its own defender. That is indeed the nature of lies: they do not maintain a consistent pretense. Wasteful of shame and greedy for what belongs to another, they are exposed in everything they seize.