To Florus 5.32

For you affirm that this nothing, from which all things were made, was sin’s cause. The power of this nothing therefore accomplishes as much for you as the prince of darkness does for Mani. Both of you say that even the first evil arose by necessity. But he supplies something solid, although evil; you supply emptiness, equally evil. He therefore says there is a violent substance; you say there is something equally violent, but nothing. See, then, the conclusion of your syllogism. When nothing had yet been created, ‘nothing’ indicated eternal emptiness. But this very nothing—that is, emptiness—was brought to an end when creatures arose: it ceased to be nothing when something began to be. Thus even when this nothing was, it was not, since it is understood to have been only when nothing yet existed. After things were made, this indication of emptiness—nothing—lost even its name, just as it had never possessed substance. Thus what had never existed in reality lost even its name. You invent the claim that by its violence evil arose in both angel and human being. What could be more insane?