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

Reprint in 12mo published the same year as the first edition in 4to. Both issued from the Elzevier press.

Pastiche binding in half light brown sheep, spine with five raised bands ruled in gilt and six compartments decorated with gilt rolls, one containing the title in gilt, marbled paper boards, sprinkled edges, shell-pattern marbled pastedowns and endpapers.

Hinges rubbed, one with a slight split at the upper right extending 2 cm, some staining and browning to the sheep, small nick to the top edge of the upper board.

A few scattered minor foxing spots, marginal dampstain to the title-page.

In Systema theologicum, ex prædamitarum hypothesi. Pars prima, the map facing p. 70 is torn 3 cm into the margin. On p. 295 of the same text, a further tear of 2.8 cm, slightly affecting the text.

« "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)