"the school of Biblical interpretation of which he was perhaps the first founder," before Spinoza

Isaac de LA PEYRÈRE

Præadamitæ. Sive exercitatio super versibus duode-cimo, decimotertio, et decimoquarto, capitis quinti Epistolæ D. Pauli ad Romanos. Quibus inducuntur primi homines ante Adamum conditi.

Name: Isaac de LA PEYRÈRE • Præadamitæ. Sive exercitatio super versibus duode-cimo, decimotertio, et decimoquarto, capitis quinti Epistolæ D. Pauli ad Romanos. Quibus inducuntur primi homines ante Adamum conditi. • 1655
Brand: Daniel Elzevier
SKU: 65643
Price: 1500 EUR
Availability: InStock
Author: Isaac de LA PEYRÈRE

[Louys & Daniel Elzevier] • S. n.|s. l. • [Amsterdam] 1655|14.50 x 19.50 cm|3 textes reliés en 1 volume

€1,500

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⬨ 65643

Rare first edition of a work that was controversial from the moment of its publication, and of which Baruch Spinoza, a contemporary of the author, owned a copy in his personal library. Our copy is complete with its folding map of the Holy Land and its three texts, here bound in an order inverse to the usual: the Præadamitæ, which appears last, is in fact the first text.

Contemporary full brown calf, spine with five raised bands decorated with double gilt fillets and gilt fleurons, double gilt fillet to boards, all edges marbled.

Caps very skilfully restored, otherwise a very fine copy.

Dry stamp of the Gianni de Marco library on the first flyleaf. Early manuscript annotation on the title page: "Fait par le Sr de la Pebere en Hollande et bruslé à Paris" [Written by the Sr de la Pebere in Holland and burned in Paris].

Provenance: armorial bookplate of Balthazar-Henri de Fourcy (1669–1754), Abbé of Saint-Sever in the diocese of Coutances, subsequently of Saint-Wandrille and of the Priory of the Bons-Hommes.

« "Dubitare possumus num apostoli tanquam prophetæ ex revelatione et expresso mandato, ut Moses, Jeremias et alii, an vero ut privati vel doctores, Epistolas scripserint. [We may fairly inquire whether the Apostles wrote their Epistles as prophets, by revelation and express mandate, as Moses, Jeremiah, and others did, or whether only as private individuals or teachers]" Spinoza, "Tractatus Theologico-Politicus," c. XI, edit. 1674, p. 198. [...]

— The "Tractatus Theologico-Politicus" was published in 1670. Fifteen years earlier, a French Protestant, Isaac de la Peyrère (1594–1676), had published "Præadamitæ sive Exercitatio super versibus" [...], 1655. He admits miracles, but reduces their number as far as possible; Adam is not the father of all mankind, but only of the Jews; other men, the Pre-Adamites, existed before him; Moses is not the author of the Pentateuch, etc. La Peyrère converted, more or less sincerely, to Catholicism in 1656. Mr. Lecky, in his "History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe," 4th ed., 1870, vol. I, p. 297, regards him as having been perhaps the founder of the rationalist interpretation of the Bible, "the school of Biblical interpretation of which he was perhaps the first founder..." In reality, his influence was virtually nil; the same cannot be said of Spinoza, whose ideas later exercised a profound influence. Cf. Lecky, ibid., p. 299. »

Fulcran Vigouroux, "La Bible et les découvertes modernes en Égypte et en Assyrie," 1877

(our own translation)