PRAEADAMITAE… Primi Homines ante Adamum conditi. [“Pre-Adamites…The First Men Before Adam.”].

The present work is regarded as the earliest book of Bible Criticism, and is thought to have directly influenced Spinoza's theories in his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. In 1656, the work was publicly burnt in Paris, and eventually La Peyr`ere, apprehended by the Spanish Inquisition in Flanders, was forced to recant and convert to Catholicism. Isaac La Peyr`ere (1596-1676), millenarian theologian and Bible critic, was born to a French Huguenot family in Bordeaux, possibly of Marrano descent. La Peyr`ere was an unusually complex individual who combined radical Biblical criticism with a mystical Messianism. (The latter view he shared in common with Menasseh Ben Israel, who in negotations with Oliver Cromwell, would utilize the argument of the imminent arrival of the Messiah as grounds for the readmission of the Jews to England.). See R. H. Popkin, Isaac La Peyr`ere: His Life, Work and Influence (1987); A. J. Saraiva, "Antonio Vieira, Menasseh Ben Israel et le Cinquieme Empire, " Studia Rosenthaliana Vol. VI, No. 1 (January 1972), pp. 38-43; EJ, Vol. X, cols. 1425-6.