On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §181 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 2: Both kinds of imputation refer to Adam's act alone

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Garissoles (§XVI): Sin's imputation is divided into prior—or antecedent, or immediate—and posterior—or consequent, or mediate. Not a bad division; and I do not doubt that if only it were explained rightly, agreement here could easily be reached—namely if both imputations were referred to the same thing, that is, to Adam's sin in the same sense, or to the act by which Adam first made himself guilty of offending the Divine Majesty. Placeus: Why then is agreement not reached? Why am I attacked? I did refer both imputations to the same thing, and understood them only of the act by which Adam first sinned. That is clearer than noon, and I wonder it could be doubted. The distinction itself, to say nothing else, makes this plain: it cannot be taken of imputing habitual sin or corruption. Who would say corruption is imputed before corruption, or after it—through corruption as means, or without it?

Latin

GAR. Distinguitur imputatio peccati in Priorem, sive Antecedentem, aut Immediatam; & Posteriorem, sive Consequentem, aut Mediatam. Haud incommode sane; nec dubito, si modo recta explicatio adhiberetur, consensum hic facile stabiliri posse: si nempe utraque imputatio eodem referretur, id est, si intelligeretur de peccato Adami eadem significatione accepto, sive de actione, qua primum Adamus reum se fecit laesae Divinae Majestatis. PL. Cur ergo consensus non stabilitur? Cur oppugnor? utramque enim illam imputationem eodem retuli, ac nonnisi de illa actione qua primum Adamus peccavit, intellexi. Id sole meridiano clarius est, & miror vocari potuisse in dubium. Illa enim ipsa distinctio, ut alia omittam, hoc clarum facit: non potest enim de peccati habitualis seu corruptionis imputatione accipi. Quis enim dicat corruptionem ante corruptionem, aut post corruptionem; mediante corruptione, aut ea non mediante imputari?

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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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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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