On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §256 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 4: Decalogue metaphors

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e grant that laws should be framed in ordinary, commonly known words. But who says metaphorical or improper words are not ordinary? Metaphors are nowhere more common than in framing laws, which often pack many and very different things into one word that cannot be reduced to a single proper sense—as the Decalogue's precepts show.

say metaphorical and improper words are unused? I said only that 'death' in the metaphorical, improper sense that means spiritual death—or the privation of original righteousness—is unused in the Old Testament. I never denied that laws sometimes use metaphors; I denied using metaphors that were unusual when the laws were made, and I denied that the same word, used once in the same law, must be read both properly and metaphorically at once. Metaphor comes in only when something blocks taking the word properly. That does not make me deny Scripture's double sense, literal and mystical: the first belongs to the words, the second rather to the things. In the Decalogue I see no word that must be read both properly and improperly—or metaphorically—together.

Latin

GAR. 4. Verbis usitatis, id est, vulgo notis leges concipi debere fatemur. Sed quis dicat verba metaphorica & impropria non esse usitata? Imo metaphoris nihil communius, etiam in legibus sanciendis, quae saepe una voce multa complectuntur, eaque diversissima, ut ad unius vocabuli proprietatem redigi non possint, sicuti patet in praeceptis Decalogi. PLAC. Dixine verba metaphorica, & impropria non esse usitata? Dixi tantum nomen mortis eo sensu metaphorico & improprio, quo significat mortem spiritualem, seu privationem justitiae originalis, non esse usitatum in vetere Testamento. Non negavi quin usurpentur interdum metaphorae in legibus, tantum negavi eas usurpari, quae sunt eo tempore, quo leges feruntur, inusitatae: negavi etiam eandem vocem in eadem lege semel usurpatam, simul & proprie & metaphorice intelligi debere. Tum enim demum accipi debet metaphorice, cum aliquid obest, quominus accipi possit aut debeat proprie. Neque propterea duplicem sensum Scripturae nego, literalem & mysticum: ille enim est verborum, hic potius rerum. In praeceptis Decalogi nullam vocem video, quae simul & proprie & improprie, seu metaphorice debeat exponi.

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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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