Men Before Adam, Or, A Discourse…by which are Prov'd, that the first Men were Created Before Adam. * A Theological Systeme upon that Presupposition, that Men were Before Adam.

(LA PEYR`ERE, ISAAC).

n.p.

London

1655-56

FIRST ENGLISH EDITION. Two title-pages.

The earliest book of Bible criticism, directly influenced Spinoza's theories as appeared 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.