On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §397 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 7: Thomas Aquinas on sin of the person and sin of nature

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It must be said, he says, that just as actual sin is a person's sin, committed through the will of the sinning person, so original sin is nature's sin, committed through the will of the principle of human nature. He distinguishes two sins, one actual, the other original: that of the person, this of nature; that through the sinning person's will, this through the will of human nature's principle. Were there then two wills in Adam—one of the person, another of human nature's principle? And was the sin through the principle's will actual, or not? If he meant to distinguish Adam's actual sin from the habitual corruption left in his faculties, the doctrine is good, but not well expressed. But if Adam's actual sin was of the person, how is it imputed to us? Yet let us go on. For it is to be considered, he says, that just as the body's diverse members are parts of one man's person, so all men are parts and as it were certain members of human nature: whence Porphyry says that by participation in the species many men are one man.

Latin

Dicendum est, inquit, quod sicut peccatum actuale est peccatum personae, quod per voluntatem personae peccantis committitur; ita peccatum originale est peccatum naturae, quod per voluntatem principii humanae naturae commissum est. Distinguit duo peccata, unum actuale, alterum originale: illud personae, hoc naturae; illud per voluntatem personae peccantis, hoc per voluntatem principii naturae humanae commissum. Erantne igitur duae in Adamo voluntates, una personae, altera principii naturae humanae? Et, an peccatum per voluntatem principii naturae humanae fuit actuale, necne? Si voluit distinguere peccatum actuale Adami a corruptione habituali, quam in eius facultatibus reliquit, bona est doctrina, sed non bene expressa. Caeterum peccatum actuale Adami, si fuit personae, quomodo nobis imputatur? Sed pergamus. Est enim, inquit, considerandum, quod sicut diversa membra corporis partes sunt personae unius hominis, ita omnes homines sunt partes, & quasi quaedam membra humanae naturae: unde Porphyrius dicit, quod participatione speciei plures homines sunt unus homo.

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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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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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