On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §278

Man. Post. Cap. VI: PLAC Socrates fails; GAR physical vs moral head

ellent refutation! The discussion concerned Adam with reference to that time when he first sinned, long before he set himself to begetting us. I said that he was not yet then our head, as a general is head of an army, a magistrate of a republic, a king of a kingdom—because he would have been a head without members. Did Scaevola call Socrates fountain and head in that sense? With respect to that time, when there was not yet any hearer of his, nor any other philosopher besides him? Could or ought some action of Socrates therefore to be immediately imputed to all other philosophers? Nothing whatever descended from Socrates to the following philosophers by imputation. But if we treat the matter seriously, why should we not recall the most common distinction, so that head properly so called may be discerned from that improperly so called—that is, the physical from the moral?physical head, which nature has bound by its nerves and ties with the rest of the body, the matter stands so that neither will it be called a head unless members are present, nor will members of the whole be so called unless they are actually joined with the head. But when theologians say Adam is the head of the human race, they without doubt use an improper signification, to denote that he is the origin and seminal principle of the human race, from which of course human nature took its beginning. Just as Abraham is called the head of the Jewish people.

Latin

PLAC. Egregiam refutationem! Agebatur de Adamo relatè ad id tempus, quo primum peccavit, diu antequam nobis gignendis operam daret. Dixi eum tunc nondum fuisse caput nostrum, quomodo exercitus caput est dux, reipublicae magistratus, regni rex: quia caput fuisset sine membris. Num eo sensu Socratem Scaevola fontem & caput appellavit? Num ejus temporis respectu, cum nondum ullus esset ejus auditor, ullusve alius praeter eum philosophus? Num propterea aliqua Socratis actio omnibus aliis philosophis imputari immediate potuit aut debuit? Nihil quicquam a Socrate in sequentes philosophos imputatione descendit. GAR. Atqui si rem serio agimus, quidni vulgatissimam distinctionem in memoriam revocamus, ut caput proprie dictum discernatur ab improprie dicto, id est, physicum a morali? Nam in physico certe capite, quod natura suis nervis & vinculis cum reliquo corpore colligavit, ita res habet, ut neque caput dicetur, nisi cum adsunt membra; neque membra του παντός vocentur, nisi quae actu cum capite conjuncta sunt. At vero cum Adamum dicunt Theologi esse generis humani caput, impropriam sine dubio significationem usurpant, ut denotent originem esse & principium seminale generis humani, unde scilicet humana natura sumpserit initium. Quomodo scilicet Abrahamus Judaicae gentis caput dicitur.

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.