On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §477 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 9: One means one, not first, and a word on method

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To this is added that in this place you seem to me to write a commentary rather than to knit syllogisms: and not to have before your eyes the status of the controversy well constituted and purged; for you often confuse what most ought to be distinguished, and you also mix in certain things which, though true in themselves, yet do not look hither—such as that which you observe, and prove by some examples, that among the Hebrews 'one' is often taken for 'first.' For that it cannot so be taken in this place is opposed by the opposition which the Apostle sets between one man and one man, that Adam and this Christ. Likewise between one trespass and one gift: not to mention that the Apostle's aim demands that unity in this place be opposed to plurality: but it does not help to digress. It would therefore have been better, as I at least judge, that what you wished to be cut apart and disjoined in places should, for the sake of avoiding either tedious repetition or inconvenient distraction, be brought together into this place, and set before the reader's eyes at once in one coherent context of speech; but because it seemed otherwise to you, I will accommodate my method to yours, and will follow you foot by foot, and will weigh those arguments which you could gather from Rom. 5, my Theses having been rejected into another place.

Latin

Huc accedit quod hoc loco commentarium mihi videris scribere potius quam syllogismos nectere: nec habere ob oculos statum controversiae bene constitutum & purgatum; confundis enim saepe quae maxime distingui debent, admisces etiam quaedam quae, ut in se vera sint, huc tamen non spectant, quale illud est quod observas, & aliquot exemplis probas, saepe unum apud Hebraeos pro primo sumi. Quominus enim hoc loco sic possit accipi obstat oppositio, quam Apostolus instituit inter unum hominem & unum hominem, illum Adamum hunc Christum. Item inter unum παράπτωμα & unum χάρισμα: ut taceam scopum Apostoli flagitare, ut unitas hoc loco opponatur pluralitati: sed non juvat excurrere. Satius igitur ut ego quidem arbitror fuisset, quae tu locis discissa & disjuncta esse voluisti, ea vitandae vel taediosae repetitionis, vel incommodae distractionis causa, in hunc locum comportare, ac uno contextu sermonis cohaerentia simul oculis legentis subjicere; sed quia tibi aliter visum est, tuae methodo meam accommodabo, teque sequar πόδας, eaque argumenta expendam, quae tu ex Rom. v. colligere potuisti meis Thesibus in alium locum rejectis.

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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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