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On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §111

Cap. X: Retorsion of Garissoles reasons; first ratio closed — before alteram

Consider then, reader, what you can answer when those very reasons of D. Garissoles by which he attacks us are turned back against that propagation. How is hereditary sin propagated, when the souls in which it inheres are not propagated or traduced? You cannot flee to the law of nature by which the diseased generate the diseased, because the soul is not generated, and yet from the beginning of its being it is deprived of justice and corrupted. How also can that blot cling in the seed, when it is not a physical quality but a moral one? Either I am badly mistaken, or you will not be able to meet those reasons insofar as they simply attack the propagation of sin without by the same stroke leaving us immune from them. For if you recur to imputation, you will gain nothing. For imputation is an action not of the generating man but of God judging. Further, D. Garissoles wants that imputation to have been done when Adam first sinned, long before propagation or generation took place — so how it can be called any part of natural propagation I for my part do not understand. But if by imputation you mean the infliction of a penalty for Adam's sin, that infliction itself is God's action, not nature's or the begetting man's. Then that penalty, which is also sin, is either produced by the begetter or not. If it is produced, the earlier reasons return: for how can sin be produced by the begetting man in a soul that is not begotten by him? If it is not produced, certainly it is not propagated. So you see that by D. Garissoles the name of sin's propagation is kept, but the thing signified is taken away. Since therefore it is confessed that sin is propagated by carnal generation, according to that saying what is born of the flesh is flesh; and those reasons have been objected a hundred times by the Pelagians against the orthodox, there is no need for us to detain the reader in solving them. Augustine, Martyr, Chamier, and many others who have written carefully on the propagation of sin may be consulted. So stood D. Garissoles's first reason.

Latin

Considera ergo, Lector, quid possis respondere has ipsas D. Garissolii, quibus nos oppugnat, rationes, in illam propagationem retorquenti. Quomodo propagatur peccatum haereditarium, cum animae, quibus inhaeret, non propagentur, aut traducantur? Non potes confugere ad legem naturae, qua morbosi morbosos generant, quia anima non generatur, & tamen ab initio sui esse privata est justitia & corrupta. Quomodo etiam potest labes illa, cum non sit qualitas physica, sed moralis haerere in semine? Aut ego vehementer fallor, aut non poteris his rationibus, quatenus simpliciter propagationem peccati impugnant, occurrere, quin eadem opera nos ab eis praestes immunes. Nam si recurras ad imputationem, nihil proficies. Imputatio enim est actio non hominis generantis, sed Dei judicantis. Deinde, vult D. Garissolius imputationem illam tunc fuisse factam, cum primum peccavit Adamus, diu antequam propagatio seu generatio fieret: ut quomodo propagationis naturalis pars aliqua dici possit, haud equidem intelligam. Quod si per imputationem poenae irrogationem ob Adami peccatum intelligis, illa ipsa irrogatio Dei actio est, non autem naturae aut hominis gignentis. Deinde illa poena, quae eadem peccatum est, vel producitur a gignente, vel non. Si producitur, redeunt superiores rationes, quomodo enim potest ab homine gignente produci peccatum in anima quae ab eo non gignitur? Si non producitur, certe non propagatur. Vides ergo a D. Garissolio propagationis peccati nomen retineri, rem vero significatam tolli. Cum igitur in confesso sit, peccatum per generationem carnalem propagari, juxta illud quod ex carne natum est, caro est; Et rationes illae a Pelagianis adversus orthodoxos centies sint objectae, nihil opus est ut iis solvendis remoremur lectorem. Consulti possunt Augustinus, Martyr, Chamierus, aliique plurimi, qui de propagatione peccati diligenter scripserunt. Sic se habuit prima D. Garissolii ratio.

About this text

New English, free to read. Open any section below.

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.