On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §263 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 5: open — quid sit imputari; Heb/Gk digression wasted

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CAPUT V. Examination of Cap. III, in which it is asked what it is for sin to be imputed or not imputed. In the third chapter you again set the state of the controversy, and once that is set you digress again, and take it upon yourself to illustrate what it is to impute and to be imputed, and you weigh first the Hebrew word, then the Greek, citing some places of Scripture to that end—to what purpose, or with what design, I do not know, unless perhaps so that you might swell the bulk of your treatise and cover the scantiness of your arguments. Useful enough, perhaps, your illustration would be for the controversy on justification—since Scripture is wont to describe that now by the imputation of faith and righteousness, now by the non-imputation of sin—but for this question which is between us I do not see what it is worth: for there is no place in all of Scripture in which Adam's sin is said to be imputed to us.

Latin

CAPUT V. Examen Cap. III. In quo disquiritur, Quid sit imputari vel non imputari peccatum. Capite tertio rursus constituis statum controversiae, eoque constituto iterum digrederis, ac tibi sumis illustrandum, quid sit imputare & imputari, ac primum verbum hebraeum, deinde verbum graecum expendis, laudatis in eum finem aliquot Scripturae locis: quorsum, aut quo consilio, nescio, nisi forte, ut tui tractatus molem augeres, ac tuorum argumentorum paucitatem tegeres: utilis quidem fortasse tua haec illustratio foret ad controversiam de justificatione: quoniam Scriptura eam solita est modo imputatione fidei & justitiae, modo non imputatione peccati describere: ad hanc vero, quae inter nos agitur, quaestionem quid valeat non video: Nullus enim extat in tota Scriptura locus, in quo peccatum Adami nobis imputari dicatur.

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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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