On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §458 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 8: serpent as cause of common evil — not the evil itself

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What of this—that it even supplies me arms fatal to that imputation of yours? For I reason thus. That against which a common remedy is set is either the common evil itself or the cause why the evil is common. In this place the common remedy is set against the serpent; and the serpent is not itself the common evil. Therefore the serpent is the cause why the evil is common.

Latin

Quid quod mihi arma ministrat tuae isti imputationi funesta? Sic enim ratiocinor. Id cui remedium commune opponitur, vel est ipsum commune malum vel causa cur sit malum commune. Opponitur hoc loco remedium commune serpenti; nec est serpens ipsum commune malum. Ergo serpens est causa cur sit malum commune.

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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.

Printed text used

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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