Praeadamitae sive Exercitatio super versibus [...] capitis quinti Epistolae D. Pauli ad Romanos. Quibus inducuntur primi homines ante Adamum conditi [and:] Systema theologicum, ex Praeadimitarum hypothesi. Pars prima.

12mo: 70, [14]-317-[7-2 bl.] pp.

Old gilt red morocco, covers with gilt triple ruled border, gilt spine with 4 raised bands, gilt sides, a.e.g., gilt inside dentelles, marbled endpapers. Nice copy.

12mo ed. published immediately after the original 4to ed. of the same year. La Peyrère (1596-1676) is considered to be the father of Biblical criticism. He asserted in "Praeadamitae" that there were human beings before Adam. His approach to Biblical scholarship argued that the Bible was just the story of the Jewish people, not of all humanity. His book and "heretical" views were quickly banned. He was eventually arrested but offered a half-hearted renunciation of his views to escape punishment. This is an important book in the Radical Enlightenment identified as one of the "wicked" books of the late 17th century. “The wicked sedition which commenced with La Peyrère’s Prae-Adamitae, gained impetus with the utterly licentious, dissipated dictionary of Koerbagh, that shameless book the Philosophia S. Scripturae, and Hobbes’ Leviathan, and culminated in the Tractatus-Theologico-Politicus and Ethics of Spinoza” (J. Israel, 367).
Ref. Willems 1189. - STCN 853010439.