On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §411

Man. Post. Cap. VII: Objections 4–5 — Achan; other heads (Noah/Abraham)

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For the body is not one member but many: and if the foot is not the head, it does not follow that the foot is not of the body. And what the head does is imputed to the whole body, and also what the foot does. So when God considered his people as one body in the desert, he was angry with the whole people for one Achan, who was not that people's head. If therefore all men coalesce with Adam into one body, not one sin of one Adam but all Adam's and all other men's sins must be imputed to the whole body. Yet neither the Apostle nor you according to the Apostle approve that. Fourth, what stands in the way of fitting this likeness also to other stocks and parents respecting their posterity? For example, why should Noah not also be head of the second world, Abraham of the Israelites, and so of the rest—whence a great mass of sins to be imputed would arise? For Adam is called head and compared to a king not because he was the first man, but because we draw origin from him. He is not referred to us by negation of relation to a prior, but by the relation he acquired to posterity by generating. Fifth, if someone falls into enemies' hands whom they know for certain was alien to the war in will and deed and did not consent to it, if they kill that innocent man they seem to me monstrous and cruel. Otherwise the mind of the King making war is presumed to be the mind of all subjects. But deserters and those who surrender are usually spared.

Latin

Corpus enim non est unum membrum, sed multa: nec si pes caput non est, consequens est pedem non esse ex corpore. Imputatur autem toti corpori non modo quod caput facit, sed etiam quod pes. Itaque cum populum suum Deus consideraret ut unum corpus in deserto, toti populo ob unius Achan, qui populi illius caput non erat, iratus est. Si ergo omnes homines coalescunt cum Adamo in unum corpus, non unius Adami unum peccatum, sed omnia Adami, omnia aliorum hominum peccata toti corpori imputanda sunt. Quod tamen nec Apostolus, nec tu secundum Apostolum probas. Quarto, quid obstat quominus haec similitudo accommodetur etiam aliis stirpibus & parentibus respectu posterorum? Exempli causa, cur Noachus etiam non sit secundi mundi caput, Abrahamus Israelitarum, & ita de reliquis; unde magna exurget moles peccatorum imputandorum? Caput enim dicitur Adamus, & regi comparatur, non quia primus homo fuit, sed quia ab eo ducimus originem. Negatione relationis ad priorem ad nos minime refertur, sed relatione, quam generando sibi acquisivit, ad posteros. Quinto, si quis in manus hostium incidat quem certo noverint a bello fuisse & voluntate, & opere alienum, nec in id consensisse, hunc si interficiunt innocentem, mihi immanes & crudeles esse videntur. Alioqui qua Regis est mens bellum inferentis, eadem praesumitur esse mens omnium subditorum. Transfugis autem, iisque qui se dedunt, parci solet.

About this text

Josue de la Place (Placeus) — Capita I–XIV partial of De imputatione primi peccati Adami from the 1661 Saumur Latin, through Man. Post. Caput X (GAR.1–3 Rom. 5.13 tip) / before PLAC on reatus-only. Honest partial; Cap. X Rom. 5:14+ / ~494 pp Disputatio remain.

English follows the locked 1661 Saumur Latin of Capita I–XIV partial through Man. Post. Caput IX (eph-ho / eph-ho pantes) before eph-ho / eph-ho pantes, reconstructed from IA PDF page images with Vision OCR and pdftotext as check. No modern English was copied. Cap. IX deepen+ remain.

Catalogue & scope

IA deimputationepri00lapl. Densify: Capita I–XII + Caput XIV + Man. Post. Cap. II–VI through Cap. X Rom. 5:14 tip. Not whole Disputatio; Cap. X Rom. 5:14+ / ~494 pp Disputatio remain.

Witnesses

This is an AI-assisted study translation. Source fidelity and completeness have not been independently certified. Open Latin on each section (or the Latin source witness link) for the source text. This is not a complete critical edition.