On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §215 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 4: interpreters vitam; Zanchius/Pareus; sanctitas as sanitas

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So every interpreter I have seen rendered "life," not "lives." Either they found no mystery in the plural 'chayyim'm'm', or they took it to hint at the lives strictly needed for human essence and nature—vegetative, sensitive, and rational—which is Zanchius's and Pareus's view, and not to be scorned.

As the body's formation belonged to making and composing the human being, so did this inspiring of נִשְׁמַת חַיִּים. To that same constitution I gladly also refer sanctity and blessedness, increased when Adam, after he was made, was brought into paradise. Sanctity stood to the soul as health stands to the body.

Latin

Itaque interpretes omnes quos viderim, vitam verterunt non vitas, & vel nihil mysterii in plurali חַיִּים quaesierunt, vel putarunt eo innui eas vitas, quae ad hominis essentiam & naturam sunt absolute necessariae, vegetativam, sensitivam, & rationalem, quae Zanchii & Parei opinio est non contemnenda: quam enim formatio Corporis, tam haec quoque נִשְׁמַת חַיִּים inspiratio ad hominis fabricationem & compositionem, ac constitutionem pertinebat, ad quam etiam sanctitatem & beatitudinem, introductione Adami, postquam creatus fuit, in paradisum, auctam, libenter refero. Habebat enim se sanctitas ad animam, ut sanitas ad corpus.

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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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