On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §402 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 7: Augustine and the saying that Adam's will was all men's

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swer. That Adam's will was the will of all is worn enough among Theologians, and not unknown to Augustine. For by the one Adam's bad will all sinned in him, when all were that one, he says in De Nuptiis et Concupiscentia book 1 chapter 5. And yet the learned man assails this saying not only as doubtful or improbable or false, but even traduces and scoffs at it as inept and fatuous and surpassing old wives' fables. Ed, with the excellent theologian Chamier going before, that Adam's will was our will, and without any harsher word I showed what absurdities follow if it is said to have been our will. Did I do anything in that beyond my duty? But that Adam's will was the will of all is worn enough among Theologians. Among whom, I ask? Their authority certainly did not keep Chamier—himself a theologian, I think—from denying it. Why may I not deny it too? Augustine is opposed to me—who yet is wholly mine.

Latin

GAR. Respondeo. Voluntatem Adae fuisse voluntatem omnium, satis tritum est apud Theologos, neque Augustino ignoratum. Per unius enim Adami voluntatem malam omnes in eo peccaverunt, quando omnes ille unus fuerunt, inquit de Nupt. & Concup. lib. 1. cap. 5. Et tamen hoc dictum non modo tanquam dubium, aut improbabile, aut falsum vir doctus exagitat; verum etiam, tanquam ineptum & fatuum, & anilium fabularum nugamenta superans, traducit, atque subsannat. PLAC. Negavi, praeeunte Chamiero praestanti Theologo, Adami voluntatem fuisse nostram voluntatem, & quae, si dicatur fuisse nostra voluntas, sequantur absurda, absque ullo asperiore verbo, ostendi. Fecine ea in re quicquam praeter officium meum? At voluntatem Adae fuisse voluntatem omnium satis tritum est apud Theologos. Quaeso, apud quos? Eorum certe autoritas non impedivit, quominus Chamierus, & ipse, opinor, Theologus, id negaret. Cur mihi quoque id negare non licuit? Opponitur mihi Augustinus, qui tamen totus meus est.

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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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