On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §503 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 9: Chapter 8 Resp. 1 — innate corruption cannot 'enter'

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1. By the same subtlety it can be shown that by that sin is not to be understood (which yet those who use these reasons want) the hereditary corruption inhering in each of us from origin. For that corruption cannot be said to enter into us: since it is innate and inborn, and most deeply fixed from the beginning in our nature: but that is said to enter somewhere, which has been brought there from outside, or comes from elsewhere, and before was not there. Certainly none of us was earlier than he was corrupt.

Latin

GAR. Resp. 1. Eadem subtilitate ostendi posse, per illud peccatum, non esse intelligendum (quod tamen volunt qui his rationibus utuntur) corruptionem haereditariam, unicuique nostrum ab origine inhaerentem. Nam ea corruptio non potest dici intrare in nos: cum sit innata & ingenita, & penetissime infita a principio in natura nostra: illud autem intrare aliquo dicitur, quod foris eo delatum est, aut venit aliunde, & antea ibi non erat. Certe nemo nostrum prius fuit, quam fuit corruptus.

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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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