On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §614 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 9: discrimination not mere natural propagation, nor Adam-as-origin alone

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There must be some cause at all of this discrimination. But it is not to be sought simply in the natural conjunction or propagation by which we descend from Adam. For we are no less propagated from our other ancestors, nor less joined to them than to Adam; indeed our communion with them is nearer in time than with Adam. Nor again simply in this, that Adam is the principle of our origin, or the one from whom the human race began. For that can indeed be a legitimate cause why we are said to die in Adam; but it is not a legitimate cause why the same cannot be said of other ancestors. Etc.

Latin

Cuius discriminis aliquam prorsus causam esse oportet. Non est autem illa simpliciter quaerenda in conjunctione naturali, aut propagatione qua descendimus ab Adamo. Nam non minus a maioribus alijs nostris propagati sumus, neque minus sumus cum iis coniuncti, quam cum Adamo; imo propinquior est cum iis, quam cum Adamo, communio ratione temporis. Neque etiam in eo, quod Adam principium est nostrae originis, sive ille a quo genus humanum incepit. Nam ea quidem legitima causa esse potest, quare in Adamo mori dicamur: sed non est legitima causa quare idem de alijs maioribus dici non possit. &c.

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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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