On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §543 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 9: active ἥμαρτον is not your actual-by-imputation; Pelagius risk

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Yet you deny that this satisfies you: for, you say, the Apostle does not say since sin is in all (but he actually says this in the following verse) but, since all have sinned, eph' hoi pantes hemarton, and he uses an active verb, that he may signify actual sin, of which all are partakers. But in original sin we have not sinned by act, except insofar as we sinned in Adam: for when he sinned he sinned for all his posterity, and all men who were born of him sinned in him, because in him all were. The force of proving, if there is any, in those words of yours, consists in this, that the word hemarton, they sinned, being active, signifies actual sin. The rest are petitions of what was in the beginning. And yet that active verb, if it signifies actual sin, surely signifies actual sin committed by him himself who sinned. Bring forward, if you can, a contrary example. See therefore lest this observation of yours favor Pelagius.

Latin

Id tamen negas tibi satisfacere: non enim, inquis, dicit Apostolus quoniam peccatum est in omnibus (immo hoc dicit versu sequente) sed, quoniam omnes peccaverunt, ἐφ' ᾧ πάντες ἥμαρτον, & utitur verbo activo, ut significet peccatum actuale, cuius omnes sint participes. In peccato autem originali non peccavimus actu, nisi quatenus in Adamo peccavimus: nam cum peccavit pro omnibus suis posteris peccavit, & omnes homines qui ex illo nati sunt in illo peccaverunt, quia in illo omnes fuerunt. Vis probandi, si qua est, in tuis istis verbis, in hoc consistit, quod verbum ἥμαρτον peccaverunt, activum cum sit, significat peccatum actuale. Reliqua petitiones sunt τοῦ ἐν ἀρχῇ. Atqui verbum illud activum, si significat peccatum actuale, profecto peccatum actuale significat ab eo ipso commissum qui peccavit. Profer, si potes, contrarium exemplum. Vide igitur ne haec tua observatio Pelagio faveat.

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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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