On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §658 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 9 — sinned in Adam as we were in him: by natural generation, not divine imputation

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All men sinned in Adam as they were in him.

But they were in him not by imputation of his being, but because his being is the cause of the being of all.

Therefore all sinned in him not by imputation of his sin, but because his sin is the cause of the sin of all—a cause, I say, in the same way his being is the cause of ours: not by intervening divine imputation, but through natural generation and propagation.

Latin

Peccavisse omnes homines in Adamo, quomodo in eo fuerunt. Fuerunt autem in eo non imputatione τοῦ εἶναι ipsius, sed quia eius esse est causa τοῦ εἶναι omnium. Peccavisse igitur in eo omnes, non peccati ipsius imputatione, sed quia peccatum eius est causa peccati omnium; causa, inquam, eo modo quo ipsius esse est causa nostri, non imputationis divinae interventu, sed per generationem & propagationem naturalem.

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About this text

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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