To Florus 3.87

Where it is said of Christ, ‘The one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one’ (Hebrews 2:11), this can be understood as referring not to Adam but to God, by whose power Christ according to the flesh and the whole human race were made. Consequently, the similarity of other expressions has contributed nothing to undermine the apostle’s meaning when he said that sin entered the world through one man.

Yet what follows should stay firmly in the sensible reader’s mind: understand that so far I have argued far more leniently than the matter required. Let us allow that many testimonies show generation, which cannot happen except through two, is nevertheless commonly said to occur through one. The theory of inherited sin will still gain nothing. Why? Because some expressions are figurative or extended, and others are proper and exact. Things with proper names can lend their terms without suffering loss. But things spoken of in a borrowed sense are not allowed to impose the implications of their own definitions on the primary things to which the terms properly belong. All this happens without fault when we lend words to matters about which there is no doubt.