On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §444 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 8: hereditary vice conceded; missing third — natural propagation

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So you press further. Now, you say, I assume that first sin which sentenced all men to penalty is common to all, either by their own act, or by imputation: Not by their own act, because Adam alone actually sinned. Therefore by imputation, because namely it is imputed to all. Why did you omit the third member so greatly sung against the Pelagians—or by natural propagation? For it is established that the first sin passed into us (not as it was a transient action, but as it was aversion from God and conversion to creatures as to the ultimate end, remaining in Adam)—passed, I say, not by an imputation which is outside us, but by true communication and propagation.

Latin

Itaque longius proveheris. Jam, inquis, assumo, primum illud peccatum quod omnes homines addixit poenae commune est omnibus, vel actu proprio, vel imputatione: Non actu proprio, quia solus Adamus actu peccavit. Ergo imputatione, quia scilicet omnibus imputatur. Cur tertium membrum omisisti tantopere adversus Pelagianos decantatum, vel propagatione naturali? Constat enim primum peccatum in nos transiisse (non qua fuit actio transiens, sed qua fuit aversio a Deo & conversio ad creaturas ut ad finem ultimum, permanens in Adamo) transiisse inquam non imputatione quae extra nos est, sed vera communicatione & propagatione.

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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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