To Florus 2.70

Nevertheless, we must consider whether he now at least intimates what he previously passed over. ‘Until the law,’ he says, ‘sin was in the world’ (Romans 5:13). You say the apostle intended this sin to be understood as natural. I therefore ask: if it existed until the law, why did it cease to exist after the law? I do not agree to understand ‘until the law’ as until its end rather than until its appearance. The expression’s proper meaning supports me: in saying it existed until the law, he shows it does not exist after the law. Anything removed in the course of time was not natural. Therefore what the law’s discipline broke, and in breaking largely extinguished, evidently arose through imitation, not generation.