On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §202 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 2: Placeus denies strict poena; Fathers/Calvin by similitude

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In the Theses I refused to count it that sort of penalty, and conscience still will not let me reverse that denial. The Fathers do call this corruption—or concupiscence—a penalty, and Calvin does in places; I do not deny the word, only the so-proper, so-strict sense. The name rides on likeness. Penalty tracks fault and clings to it; hereditary corruption likewise tracked Adam's fault and sprang from it.

Latin

Ego vero talem esse poenam & negavi in Thesibus & non possum impetrare a conscientia mea ut nunc quoque non negem. Scio hanc corruptionem seu concupiscentiam poenam a Patribus appellari, necnon alicubi a Calvino, sed nego sensu ita proprio, ita stricto. Sed ob similitudinem quandam poenae nomen ei accommodatur. Ut enim poena sequitur culpam & cum ea cohaeret, sic corruptio haereditaria secuta est culpam Adami atque ex ea nata est.

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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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