On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §505 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 9: entered by propagation; leprosy analogy; Non entis

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Who also, unless he is a Pelagian, does not understand that sin entered into humans by natural propagation as soon as we are begotten, and therefore was not brought from outside into those already born? namely it is said to have entered into us, because it truly is inside us, and yet is not from creation, or from human nature itself, but from elsewhere, from the serpent's temptation and the first man's actual sin. And so truly through one man that vice entered into human nature where before it was not, nor ought to be, and together with nature into us all, which cannot be said of actual sin. What therefore is innate, if it is not from nature, nothing can prohibit that it be said to have entered through parents into children. So it can be said that through a parent leprosy or gout entered into children, although leprosy is in the children from birth. Not indeed earlier in time, but earlier yet by nature we were than we were corrupt. For corruption of nature cannot but be later than nature itself. But if we were not earlier than we were corrupt, and corruption follows, There are no accidents of a non-being.

Latin

Quis etiam, nisi sit Pelagianus, non intelligit peccatum intrasse in homines propagatione naturali simul ac gignimur, ac proinde in genitos non fuisse foris delatum? nempe dicitur in nos intrasse, quia revera intra nos est, nec tamen est a creatione, aut ab ipsa humana natura, sed aliunde, a tentatione serpentis & peccato primi hominis actuali. Itaque revera per unum hominem vitium illud in naturam humanam ubi antea non erat, nec esse debebat, intravit, & una cum natura in nos omnes, id quod de peccato actuali dici non potest. Quod igitur innatum est, id si non est a natura, quominus per parentes in liberos introiisse dicatur, nihil potest prohibere. Sic potest dici per parentem in liberos lepra aut podagra intraisse, quamvis lepra insit liberis ab ortu. Non quidem prius tempore, at prius tamen natura fuimus quam corrupti fuimus. Non potest enim corruptio naturae non esse posterior ipsa natura. Caeterum si prius non fuimus quam corrupti fuimus, & corruptio sequitur, Non entis nulla sunt accidentia.

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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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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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