On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §173 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 2: Adam's first sin as both an act and a lasting habit

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But that, I say, is not enough. We must go further. Adam's first sin among all embraces two things: actual sin and habitual sin—the first of all actual sins, and the first of all habitual ones. The former passed; the latter remained and was propagated to posterity; and that it is imputed to us proximately or immediately, since it is within us, no non-Pelagian doubts. About the other—whether it is imputed immediately—the whole controversy among us has been raised. Because that distinction did not leap to mind as soon as a hearer heard "Adam's first sin" named, and because it mattered much for deciding the question, it had to be set before the reader's eyes.

Latin

At, inquam, hoc non sufficit. Progredi longius oportet. Peccatum enim Adami inter omnia primum duo complectitur, peccatum actuale, & peccatum habituale: illud omnium peccatorum actualium, hoc omnium habitualium primum: illud transiit, hoc mansit, & in posteros propagatum est, & quin nobis proxime seu immediate, cum intra nos sit, imputetur, nemo non Pelagianus ambigit. De altero illo an imputetur immediate, omnis est inter nos excitata controversia. Haec distinctio, quia audienti nominari primum Adae peccatum non statim veniebat in mentem, multumque habebat ad decidendam quaestionem momenti, constituenda fuit ob oculos Lectoris.

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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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