To Florus 2.218

You certainly contend that in these passages the apostle discussed natural sin. Earlier, he said it existed until the law, so that we would understand it ceased after the law. Now, however, he says of the same sin that it began to grow and abound after the law. We have shown that both statements fit the catholic understanding we follow. But with what shamelessness are they claimed for your doctrine, so that one and the same sin is said earlier to have ceased when the law was given, and now to have grown? How, then, did natural sin abound after the law? Did the genitals begin to move more fiercely, so that increased and novel movements seem to have added power to your sin? Or was a law given to newborn children, admonishing those begotten from sexual desire—which you call diabolical and the root and fruit of sin—to amend what they had been made, and correct the activity they had undergone when their parents begot them? Were they finally to compel what had happened not to have happened, and by refusing to hear this incur the crime of disobedience? No fool, much less the law God gave, could charge them with that (compare Romans 5:13; Romans 5:20) (Romans 5:13) (Romans 5:20) (Romans 5:13; Romans 5:20).