On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §441 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 8: interdict vs threat — as Adam only, or as distinct persons?

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I should like to know how the interdict looked to us—whether insofar as we are persons distinct from Adam's person, or only insofar as we were nothing other than Adam himself? For then certainly no part of us existed, indeed not even the seed from which we were begotten, indeed not even the seed from which our hundredth parent sprang. You will not say the former. If you affirm the latter, what reason is there why the interdict should not have looked to us, with respect to that time, except insofar as we were nothing but Adam himself—yet you want the threat joined to the interdict to look to us insofar as we are persons diverse and separate from Adam? For my part I do not understand why the interdict should pertain to us in one way, the threat in another.

Latin

Scire velim quomodo ad nos interdictum spectabat, utrum quatenus sumus personae distinctae a persona Adami, an duntaxat quatenus nihil aliud eramus quam ipse Adamus? nostri enim tunc certe pars nulla erat, immo ne semen quidem unde procreati sumus, immo ne semen quidem ex quo centesimus a nobis parens noster ortus est. Prius non dixeris. Posterius si affirmas, quid est quamobrem ad nos non spectaverit interdictum, illius temporis respectu, nisi quatenus eramus nihil nisi ipse Adamus, velis autem comminationem adjunctam interdicto ad nos spectare quatenus personae sumus ab Adamo diversae & separatae? Equidem non intelligo cur ad nos alio modo interdictum, alio comminatio pertineat.

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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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