On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §292 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 6: Seven questions about Adam as head of the race

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1. If he sinned as the head of the human race, why ought he not also to have been punished under that title? Adam's sin rather imputed to posterity than posterity's to Adam? 3. Since Adam after that sin did not at once cease to be head, why are Adam's following sins not equally imputed to posterity as the first? 4. Why is actual sin, which is a transient action, rather said to be imputed than habitual, which was a permanent vice? 5. If the first act of sinning was an act of nature, why not also the first act of begetting? Yet no one would say that we in Adam begot Cain or Seth. 6. If as Christ's righteousness is imputed to us, so also Adam's sin is ours by imputation, why is Christ called our righteousness, but Adam is not also called our sin? 7. When we are said to have sinned in Adam, is it proper or improper speech? It cannot be called proper unless we say that something simultaneously is and is not: for properly speaking, when Adam sinned, we would have been, we would not have been. If it is not proper, it must be reduced to the proper. But what does it properly signify that we were in Adam, except that we draw origin from Adam, or that Adam's being is the cause of our being?

Latin

GAR. 1. Si peccavit ut caput generis humani, cur non etiam puniri debuit eo nomine? 2. Cur potius Adami peccatum posteris, quam posterorum Adae imputatur? 3. Cum Adamus post illud peccatum, confestim non desierit esse caput, cur non sequentia Adami peccata aeque posteris imputantur atque primum? 4. Cur potius actuale peccatum, quod est actio transiens, imputari dicitur, quam habituale, quod fuit vitium permanens? 5. Si primus actus peccandi fuit actus naturae, cur non etiam primus actus generandi? Nemo tamen dixerit nos in Adamo Cainum aut Sethum genuisse. 6. Si ut Christi justitia nobis imputatur, ita & peccatum Adae nostrum est imputatione, cur non, ut Christus dicitur, justitia nostra, dicitur etiam Adamus peccatum nostrum? 7. Cum dicimur peccasse in Adamo, estne propria, an impropria locutio? Propria dici non potest, nisi dicamus, aliquid simul esse & non esse: proprie enim loquendo, tum cum Adamus peccavit, fuissemus, non fuissemus. Si propria non est, revocanda est ad propriam. Quid autem significat proprie nos fuisse in Adamo, nisi nos ducere ab Adamo originem, vel esse Adami esse causam nostri esse?

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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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