RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Immortality Imputation
was reported to have said that the world had been deceived by three impostors, Moses, Christ, and Mohammed. Frederick repudiated this allegation as untrue; and, in fact, the saying with reference to the three chief impostors occurs prior to Frederick's time. A specific document bearing the title does not appear before 1598 (published from a copy in Dresden by E. Weller, Leipsic, 1846; 2d ed., Heilbronn, 1876) . There was much discussion about the work among scholars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and it appeared in repeated translations. The contents are skeptical and show dearth of religious understanding. That God exists is held to be disproved by the absence of a uniform universally acknowledged conception of God. The heathen conceptions are rated as not far inferior to the Christian, and to the offensive heathen myths are opposed what are represented as equally offensive Christian myths (the Trinity, the virgin birth, etc.). Yet even were it granted that God exists, the question would still arise, how shall he be honored? Surely no one can appeal to special revelations, for this were impostura. The work has been ascribed to various scholars of the sixteenth century. Campanella would seem to have mentioned Muretus as the author, and likewise to have remarked that he saw it in the hands of the Florentine F. Pucci. Florimond de Raemond (L'Histoire de la naissance de I'heresie, pp.
236-237, Rouen, 1629) affirms the same of Petrus Ramus. The question of authorship does not appear open to solution. At all events, the work was not written by Guilielmus Postellus.
K. Benrath.
Bibliography: K. Rosenkranz, Der Zweifel an Glauben, Halle, 1830; F. W. Genthe, De impostura religionum breve compendium, seu liber de tribus impostoribus, Leipsic, 1833.
IMPUTATION.
Origin and Meaning of the Term (§ 1).
Three Acts of Imputation (§ 2).
Pelagian Opposition to the Doctrine (§ 3).
Importance of the Doctrine (§ 4).
Socinian, Arminian, and Rationalistic Opposition (§ 5).
La Place and Later Theologians and Schools (§ 6).
The theological use of the term " imputation " is probably rooted ultimately in the employment of the verb imputo in the Vulgate to i. Origin translate the Greek verb logizesthai in and Mean- Ps. xxxii. 2. This passage is quoted ing of the by Paul in Rom. iv. 8 and made one Term. of the foundations of his argument that, in saving man, God sets to his credit a righteousness without works. It is only in these two passages, and in the two axiomatic statements of Rom. iv. 4 and v. 13 that the Vulgate uses imputo in this connection (cf., with special application, II Tim. iv. 16; Philemon 18). There are other passages, however, where it might just as well have been employed, but where we have instead reputo, under the influence of the mistaken rendering of the Hebrew hashabh in Gen. xv. 6. In these passages the Authorized English Version improves on the Latin by rendering a number of them (Rom. iv. 11, 22, 23, 24; II Cor. v. 19; James ii. 23) by " impute," and employing for the rest synonymous terms, all of which preserve the " metaphor from V— 30
accounts " inherent in logizesthai (and ellogein) in this usage (cf. Sanday-Headlam, Commentary on Romans, iv. 3), such as " count " (Rom. iv. 3, 5), " account " (Gal. iii. 6), and " reckon " (Rom. iv. 4, 9, 10); the last of which the Revised English Version makes its uniform rendering of logizesthai. Even the meager employment of imputo in the Latin version, however, supplied occasion enough for the adoption of that word in the precise language of theology as the technical term for that which is expressed by the Greek words in their so-called " commercial " sense, or, more correctly, be called their " forensic " or " judicial " sense, " that is, putting to one's account," or, in its twofold reference to the credit and debit sides, " setting to one's credit " or " laying to one's charge."
From the time of Augustine (early fifth century) at least, the term " imputation " is found firmly fixed in theological terminology in this 2. Three sense. But the applications and rela- Acts of Im- tions of the doctrine expressed by it putation. were thoroughly worked out only in the discussions which accompanied and succeeded the Reformation. In the developed theology thus brought into the possession of the Church, three several acts of imputation were established and expounded. These are the imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity; the imputation of the sins of his people to the Redeemer; the imputation of the righteousness of Christ to his people. Though, of course, with more or less purity of conception and precision of application, these three great doctrines became the property of the whole Church, and found a place in the classical theology of the Roman, Lutheran, and Reformed alike. In the proper understanding of the conception, it is important to bear in mind that the divine act called " imputation " is in itself precisely the same in each of the three great transactions into which it enters as a constituent part. The grounds on which it proceeds may differ; the things imputed may be different; and the consequent treatment of the person or persons to which the imputation is made may and will differ as the things imputed to them differ. But in each and every case alike imputation itself is simply the act of setting to one's account; and the act of setting to one's account is in itself the same act whether the thing set to his account stands on the credit or debit side of the account, and whatever may be the ground in equity on which it is set to his account. That the sin of Adam was so set to the account of his descendants that they have actually shared in the penalty which was threatened to it; and that the sins of his people were so set to the account of our Lord that he bore them in his own body on the tree, and his merits are so set to their account that by his stripes they are healed, the entirety of historical orthodox Christianity unites in affirming.
Opposition to these doctrines has, of course, not been lacking in the history of Christian thought. The first instance of important contradiction of the fundamental principle involved is presented by the Pelagian movement (see Pelagius, Pelagianism) which arose at the beginning of the fifth century. The Pelagians denied the equity and, therefore,
Imputation Incapacity