To Florus 4.45

Having settled this in the present work as far as a matter already treated required, I come to your statement that this natural desire was not in Christ. For this is how you object to me: “But amid all these things he was unwilling to name the desire of the flesh, which is not from the Father but from the world. The devil is called the ruler of this world. He did not find this desire in the Lord, because the Lord came among human beings as a man without it” (Augustine, On Marriage and Concupiscence 2.2.5; compare John 14:30). You have therefore pronounced that Christ, whom the catholic faith confesses to be a true human being in every respect, did not have in his flesh the desire spoken of by the apostle John. But John, as his words showed, declares that the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes, together with the whole world, are not from the Father (1 John 2:16). I have explained how this ought to be understood.