On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §45 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 7: Secunda ratio — ἐν ᾧ versus ἐφ᾽ ᾧ and common-sense horror

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Second reason. If the Apostle had thought of imputation, this place uniquely demanded that he commemorate it expressly; and he ought to have said in which, not on which, because the matter is hard and abhorrent from common sense, and therefore he ought to have expressed it clearly, lest anyone doubt concerning it. He answers first: whether the imputing of alien sins abhors from common sense has already been disputed above. Nay, it abhors that they be imputed to some who are altogether innocent, so that on account of alien things imputed these men are punished with a punishment which is truly sin and makes them inheringly sinners, so that by this imputation they become liable to eternal death who otherwise would not be liable. This, I say, from common sense, from Scripture, and from reason, and from the very sense of conscience, seems to me to abhor vehemently. What? If someone should say that other sins of Adam, or of the other Patriarchs, are imputed to us all, would he not seem to say things abhorrent from common sense? Let there be some imputation of an alien sin that is not unjust: has that been proved of every imputation, and namely of this such immediate imputation of the first actual sin, than which none more unjust seems to me able to be feigned?

Latin

Secunda ratio. Si Apostolus de imputatione cogitasset, locus hic unice flagitabat, ut eam diserte commemoraret: et debuit dicere ἐν ᾧ, non ἐφ᾽ ᾧ, quia res ardua est, et a communi sensu abhorrens, itaque oportuit eam clare exprimere, ne quis de ea dubitaret. Respondet primo, an imputari aliena peccata a communi sensu abhorreat, jam supra disputatum est. Immo abhorret, ut imputentur aliquibus prorsus innocentibus, ut ob aliena imputata hi puniantur ea poena quae sit vere peccatum, eosque faciat inhaerenter peccatores, ut hac imputatione fiant rei mortis aeternae, alioqui non rei. Hoc, inquam, a sensu communi, a Scriptura, et ratione, ab ipsoque conscientiae sensu mihi videtur vehementer abhorrere. Quid? nonne si quis diceret, alia Adami, aut aliorum Patriarcharum peccata nobis omnibus imputari, is videretur a communi sensu abhorrentia dicere? Sit aliqua alieni peccati non injusta imputatio, an id probatum est de omni, ac nominatim de ista tali, primi peccati actualis imputatione immediata, qua nulla mihi fingi posse videtur injustior?

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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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