[A French Saumurian “Moderate” Calvinist Divine]

Josué de La Place (Latin: Josua Placeus, c. 1596–1655), ****stands among those figures whose contributions to the French Reformed tradition were both profound and controversial. Born in Saumur, France, around 1596, Placeus was educated in the renowned Academy of Saumur, where he imbibed the more irenic and speculative spirit characteristic of that school, rather than the robust Calvinism that marked earlier generations. Advancing swiftly in academic and ecclesiastical ranks, Placeus succeeded Mark Duncan as Professor of Philosophy in 1621, served as pastor at Nantes (1625), and later held the influential chair of Theology at Saumur from 1633 until his death. It was here, amidst an atmosphere increasingly marked by theological innovation, that Placeus’s “moderate” tendencies came to the fore. Following in the steps of John Cameron and the so-called "Saumur School," Placeus labored to soften the more austere doctrines of Reformed orthodoxy, especially regarding original sin and the imputation of Adam’s guilt. Rejecting the “immediate imputation” of Adam’s sin—a bulwark of Reformed confessionalism—Placeus advanced the doctrine of "mediate imputation," wherein Adam’s sin is accounted to his descendants only by way of inherited corruption, not by the imputation of Adam’s actual guilt. This mitigated position, laid out in his Disputatio de imputatione primi peccati Adami and his defense of the 1645 Charenton Synod’s decree, drew censure and alarm from orthodox contemporaries, who saw in it a dangerous concession to the spirit of the age and a breach with the settled doctrine of the Reformed churches. Placeus’s moderatism, while perhaps intended as a bridge between theological camps, was perceived by many as a harbinger of doctrinal decline. Though his name endures in the annals of controversy, it is as a warning against the perils of theological compromise as much as a testimony to his learning and zeal.

Josué de La Place (Latin: Josua Placeus, c. 1596–1655), ****stands among those figures whose contributions to the French Reformed tradition were both profound and controversial. Born in Saumur, France, around 1596, Placeus was educated in the renowned Academy of Saumur, where he imbibed the more irenic and speculative spirit characteristic of that school, rather than the robust Calvinism that marked earlier generations. Advancing swiftly in academic and ecclesiastical ranks, Placeus succeeded Mark Duncan as Professor of Philosophy in 1621, served as pastor at Nantes (1625), and later held the influential chair of Theology at Saumur from 1633 until his death. It was here, amidst an atmosphere increasingly marked by theological innovation, that Placeus’s “moderate” tendencies came to the fore. Following in the steps of John Cameron and the so-called "Saumur School," Placeus labored to soften the more austere doctrines of Reformed orthodoxy, especially regarding original sin and the imputation of Adam’s guilt. Rejecting the “immediate imputation” of Adam’s sin—a bulwark of Reformed confessionalism—Placeus advanced the doctrine of "mediate imputation," wherein Adam’s sin is accounted to his descendants only by way of inherited corruption, not by the imputation of Adam’s actual guilt. This mitigated position, laid out in his Disputatio de imputatione primi peccati Adami and his defense of the 1645 Charenton Synod’s decree, drew censure and alarm from orthodox contemporaries, who saw in it a dangerous concession to the spirit of the age and a breach with the settled doctrine of the Reformed churches. Placeus’s moderatism, while perhaps intended as a bridge between theological camps, was perceived by many as a harbinger of doctrinal decline. Though his name endures in the annals of controversy, it is as a warning against the perils of theological compromise as much as a testimony to his learning and zeal.

HIS WORKS:

Systematical Theologies:

Collection of Theological Theses Disputed at the Academy of Saumur; 2nd Edition; (Saumur: Jean Lesnier)