To Florus 4.98

This detestable theft is plain. It was immediately punished by the retribution that clings to sins: before it could spread to destroy its hearers, it entrapped its own author. No one denies that the first human being incurred a sin. The question is how that sin could be found in newborn people. Define what you think the condition of the first sin was. You say, “There was free will, for sin cannot exist without will.” I approve this. But then you add, “Yet this sin, which cannot exist without will, clings to newborn people without will” (compare Augustine, On Marriage and Concupiscence 2.5.15).