To Florus 3.142
In the later parts of your book, after saying, ‘God creates evil people in the same way as he feeds and nourishes evil people,’ (John 12:31) you add:
‘For what he gives them by creating them belongs to the goodness of nature. When he gives them growth by feeding and nourishing them, he gives good assistance not to their wickedness but to that same good nature which he, being good, created. Insofar as they are human, there is the good of nature, whose author is God. But insofar as they are born with sin and will perish unless reborn, this belongs to the seed cursed from the beginning by the fault of that ancient disobedience (compare Wisdom 12:11). Yet the maker of even the vessels of wrath uses this well to make known the riches of his glory in vessels of mercy (Romans 9:22–23). Thus, if anyone belonging to the same mass is freed by grace, he should not credit his own merits, but “let the one who boasts boast in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:31).
‘Departing from this faith, this man refuses to allow that newborns are under the devil, so that infants will not be brought to Christ to be rescued from the power of darkness and transferred into his kingdom (Colossians 1:13). In this way he accuses the Church spread throughout the world, in which everywhere all infants about to be baptized are breathed upon in exorcism for no other reason than to cast the ruler of this world out of them’ (Augustine, Marriage and Sexual Desire 2.32–33; compare John 12:31).
Again, further down, you discuss sexual desire, without which spouses cannot unite. We defend it as natural and belonging to God’s work, not as some great good, but as a sensation of bodies made by God. You maintain that the devil implanted it in human inward parts, and, founding your doctrine on the shame surrounding it, you try to establish this in so many writings. About this same desire, then, as often elsewhere, you say in a later part of your book:
‘Therefore we do not criticize the honorable union of spouses because of the body’s shameful desire. Such union could have existed without any preceding commission of sin, and spouses would not have blushed for it. But this desire arose after sin, and their confusion forced them to cover it (Genesis 3:7). Hence later spouses, although using this evil well and lawfully, still avoid human sight during such an act. They thus acknowledge something shameful, although no one ought to be ashamed of something good. Therefore anyone who has lawful intercourse through shameful desire uses an evil well, while anyone who has unlawful intercourse uses an evil badly’ (Augustine, Marriage and Sexual Desire 2.36).
Latin
In inferioribus itaque libri tui partibus postquam dixisti: Sic creat malos Deus, quomodo pascit et nutrit malos, addis: Quia, quod eis creando tribuit, ad naturae pertinet bonitatem et, quod eis pascendo et nutriendo dat incrementum, non utique malitiae eorum, sed eidem bonae naturae, quam creavit bonus, bonum tribuit adiumentum. In quantum enim homines sunt, bonum est naturae, cuius auctor est Deus; in quantum autem cum peccato nascuntur perituri, qui non renascuntur, ad semen pertinet maledictum ab initio illius antiquae inoboedientiae vitio [n183] . Quo tamen bene utitur factor etiam vasorum irae, ut notas faciat divitias gloriae suae in vasis misericordiae, ut non meritis suis tribuat, si ad eamdem massam quisque pertinens gratia liberetur, sed " qui gloriatur, in Domino glorietur " [n184] . Ab hac fide iste discedens non vult nascentes esse sub diabolo, ne parvuli portentur ad Christum, ut eruantur a potestate tenebrarum et in regnum ipsius transferantur [n185] . Et sic Ecclesiam accusat toto orbe diffusam, in qua ubique omnes baptizandi infantuli non ob aliud exsufflantur, nisi ut ab eis mundi princeps mittatur foras [n186] . Item deorsum de libidine loquens, sine qua coniugum non potest esse commixtio, quam nos naturalem et ad Dei operam pertinentem non ut magnum aliquod bonum, sed ut sensum corporum, quae sunt a Deo facta, defendimus, quam tu inditam visceribus humanis a diabolo atque in eius verecundia dogma tuum collocans tam multis scriptis conaris asserere, de ipsa ergo libidine, sicut frequenter, ita etiam in inferiore parte libri tui loqueris: Quocirca - inquis - commixtionem quoque honestam coniugum non reprehendimus propter pudendam libidinem corporum. Illa enim posset esse nulla praecedente perpetratione peccati, de qua non erubescerent coniugati; haec autem exorta est post peccatum, quam coacti sunt velare confusi [n187] . Unde remansit posterioribus coniugatis, quamvis hoc malo bene et licite utentibus, in eiusmodi opere humanum vitare conspectum atque ita confiteri, quod pudendum est, cum debeat neminem pudere, quod bonum est. Proinde pudenda libidine, qui licite concumbit, malo bene utitur; qui autem illicite, malo male utitur [n188] .