On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §161 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 2: Placeus divides status — imputation vs poena; subject duplex; four modes open

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So when my own view is at stake, that I may say plainly what I hold, and set the state of the question as clearly as I can, I divide it in two: one part on the imputation of Adam's first sin, the other on the penalty by which the imputed sin is said to be avenged. First: Is Adam's first sin imputed to all his posterity, Christ excepted? Second: Is hereditary corruption inflicted on us by God the Judge so that justice may be done? To the first I cannot answer with a bare yes or no, for the wording is ambiguous. Subject and attribute must both be distinguished. The subject is Adam's first sin, in which two things are to be marked: the act, inward and outward, by which he broke the divine ban, and the moral corruption that act brought into Adam's nature. That corruption itself may be viewed two ways: as it was in Adam, and as it is in us as it came from Adam. Hence Adam's first sin is used in four senses.

Latin

Ut igitur, quando de mea sententia agitur, quid sentiam distincte aperiam, atque statum questionis, quoad ejus fieri a me poterit, dilucide et enucleate constituam, eam dividam in duas, quarum altera est de imputatione primi peccati Adami, altera de poena, qua imputatum vindicari dicitur. Quaeritur enim primum, Utrum primum peccatum Adami omnibus ejus posteris, Christo excepto, imputetur? Deinde, Utrum corruptio haereditaria nobis infligatur a Deo Judice, ut fiat justitia? Priori quaestioni, quia laborat homonymia, non possum per simplicem affirmationem, aut negationem respondere. Distinguendum enim ejus est tum subjectum, tum attributum. Subjectum est primum peccatum Adami: in quo duo distinguenda, Actio tam interna quam externa, qua divinum interdictum violavit, et Corruptio moralis, quam illa actio in Adami naturam intulit. Quae corruptio ipsa quoque spectari potest duobus modis, uno ut fuit in Adamo; altero, ut est in nobis profecta ab Adamo. Hinc fit ut primum peccatum Adami usurpetur quatuor modis.

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Josué de la Place (Placeus) on the imputation of Adam's first sin: chapters 1 to 12 and 14, and the later disputation up to its chapter on Romans 5:14, from the Latin. The rest is not yet translated.

Josué de la Place (c. 1596–1655), known in Latin as Placeus, was pastor at Nantes and from 1633 professor of theology at the Academy of Saumur, the school of Cameron and Amyraut.

On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin argues the distinctive Saumur thesis: Adam's sin reaches his posterity only mediately, through the inherited corruption — never by immediate reckoning of a sin they did not commit. Fellow Reformed theologians rejected the view, but the book remains its classic statement.

Part only: Chapters 1–12 and 14, and the disputation up to Romans 5:14

Datec. 1645–1655 AD (written after the 1645 Synod of Charenton, and read in draft by Drelincourt by 10 December 1653; printed posthumously at Saumur, 1661; Reformed / Amyraldian circle)

The English is made from the 1661 Saumur Latin of chapters 1 to 12 and 14 and part of the later disputation. No earlier English was copied.

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Translated from Latin (Saumur 1661) (Latin)
Also checked Text extract of Caput Primum (Latin)
Also checked machine-read text of the 1661 volume (Latin)

We have not yet re-checked this work against its source. We made this study translation with AI help. No scholar has yet certified it as faithful and complete. Open Latin on any section, or the Latin source link, to see the source text. It is not a critical edition.

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