To Florus 2.161
This is plainly false. Sinners under the law deserved punishment, and before the law righteousness and faith were not deprived of their reward’s fruits. Clearly, then, the glory of that promise belongs not to flesh cut with a blade, but to minds distinguished by uprightness. What follows is a thunderbolt against inherited transmission: ‘For the law,’ he says, ‘produces wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there transgression’ (Romans 4:15). Persuade us, then, that a law was given to those conceived in the womb, that a law can be given to newborn children, so that it may convict them of transgression. We, however, believe with the apostle—whom we defend as having meant nothing contrary to reason—that there is no transgression at an age when law could not exist, because ‘where there is no law, neither is there transgression.’ This law produces wrath not through its own fault but through the wickedness of those who prefer sins to virtues.
Latin
Quod quia manifeste falsum est, et sub lege quippe peccatores poenam merebantur et ante legem iustitia et fides remunerationis suae fructibus privatae non sunt, constat non ad truncatas ferro carnes, sed ad illustres probitate mentes promissionis illius gloriam pertinere; sequitur autem fulminea contra traducem sententia: Lex enim - inquit - iram operatur; ubi autem non est lex, nec praevaricatio [n232] . Per suade ergo legem datam esse conceptis, legem posse dari nascentibus, ut eos praevaricationis reos possit arguere. Ceterum nos cum Apostolo credimus, quem nihil contra rationem sensisse defendimus, non esse in ea aetate praevaricationem, in qua lex esse non potuit, quia ubi non est lex, nec praevaricatio, quae lex iram operatur, non vitio suo, sed eorum iniquitate, qui peccata virtutibus anteponunt.