On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §663 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 10: twist — Adam’s first actual sin is not the sin that lasted until the law

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But I will turn this same argument against you by another reason, which will not lean on the prior dispute, but will strengthen it by its own weight, and that a heavy and momentous one.

That sin of which the Apostle speaks in the immediately preceding verse is that sin which was in the world until the law, as you rightly proved.

But the first actual sin of Adam is not that sin which was in the world until the law.

Therefore the first actual sin of Adam is not that sin of which the Apostle speaks in the immediately preceding verse, and so is not that sin which entered into the world—that is, on your interpretation, into us—and by which all men sinned.

Latin

Verum ego alia ratione hoc idem argumentum in te torquebo, quae non nitetur superiori disputatione, sed eam suo proprio pondere augeat, eoque gravi & momentoso. Peccatum illud, de quo loquitur Apostolus versu immediate praecedente, est peccatum illud quod fuit in mundo usque ad legem, ut recte probasti. Atqui peccatum primum actuale Adami non est peccatum illud quod fuit in mundo usque ad legem. Ergo peccatum primum actuale Adami non est peccatum illud de quo loquitur Apostolus versu immediate praecedenti, ac proinde non est peccatum illud quod in mundum, id est, te interprete in nos, introiit, & quo omnes homines peccaverunt.

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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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