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Isaac De La Peyrère

Isaac de la Peyrère (1594 or 1596–1676) was a prominent French theologian, Bible critic, and anthropologist whose ideas profoundly challenged the conventional wisdom of the 17th century. Born in Bordeaux to a Calvinist family, possibly of Portuguese Jewish converso or Marrano heritage, his intellectual journey led him to groundbreaking, and often controversial, conclusions that reverberated through the intellectual landscape of his time and beyond.

La Peyrère was not a reclusive scholar; he moved in influential circles, serving as secretary to the powerful Prince of Condé and connecting with figures like the abdicated Queen Christina of Sweden. His early writings, such as "Du Rappel des Juifs" (1643), already hinted at his unconventional thinking, advocating for the return of Jews to Palestine and the advent of a Messianic Age. This work, along with his later, more incendiary text, formed a continuous theory of Bible criticism and Messianism.

The Explosive Prae-Adamitae Thesis

La Peyrère's most renowned and controversial work, "Prae-Adamitae" (Latin for "Men Before Adam"), was written around 1642–43 but only published in Amsterdam in 1655 after Queen Christina of Sweden urged its publication and offered to finance it. This book dropped like a bombshell into the 17th-century intellectual world, directly contradicting the prevailing biblical chronology which, famously, Archbishop James Ussher had calculated to place the creation of the world in 4004 BCE.

The core of La Peyrère's "Prae-Adamitae" was the revolutionary thesis that humanity existed before Adam. He argued that Adam was not the first man created by God, but rather the progenitor of the Jewish people alone. Consequently, the Gentile nations of the world, he posited, were descendants of these "pre-Adamites." To support this radical claim, La Peyrère offered several lines of evidence:

• A reinterpretation of Saint Paul's Epistle to the Romans (Chapter 5, verses 12-14), suggesting that if Adam sinned under a law, there must have been a lawless world with people before him.
• Information from pagan histories and early anthropological observations, particularly concerning the indigenous peoples of the Americas, Eskimos, and Chinese, whose origins were not easily explained by a single Adamic creation. The question of the origins of Native Americans was a significant intellectual puzzle of the era.
• Internal biblical inconsistencies, such as Cain's ability to find a wife and build a city after Abel's murder, implying the existence of other people outside of Adam's immediate family.
• The provocative assertion that the Bible, specifically the Pentateuch, was not a complete history of all mankind but only the history of the Jews, and that it was not entirely written by Moses, and no accurate copy of the Bible existed. This foreshadowed later "Higher Criticism" of the Bible.

His work implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, challenged the Mosaicity and absolute accuracy of the biblical text, which was a deeply seditious act at the time.

Controversy, Arrest, and Recantation

Predictably, the publication of "Prae-Adamitae" ignited a firestorm of indignation across Protestant, Jewish, and Catholic authorities. The book was widely condemned and publicly burned in Paris in 1656. La Peyrère himself faced severe consequences. He was arrested in Brussels in 1656 and imprisoned for six months in the Spanish Netherlands.

To secure his release, La Peyrère was compelled to recant his views and convert to Catholicism. He journeyed to Rome, where he formally begged Pope Alexander VII for forgiveness in 1657, publishing retractions such as "Lettre de la Peyrère à Philotime" (1658) and "Apologie de Peyrère" (1663). While he publicly attributed his heresies to his Calvinist upbringing and declared his abjuration, the sincerity of his conversion has been widely questioned by contemporaries and historians alike. Some accounts suggest he continued to hold his pre-Adamite views privately.

Later Life and Enduring Legacy

After his recantation, La Peyrère returned to Paris, becoming the Prince of Condé's librarian and a lay member of the Oratorians, a Catholic religious congregation. Despite his public silence on his most controversial theories, he continued to engage in intellectual pursuits, arguing with the notable Bible scholar Richard Simon, who would later be recognized as a "father of the higher criticism." La Peyrère passed away in 1676. A contemporary epitaph humorously captured his complex religious affiliations: "Here lies La Peyrère, that good Israelite, Huguenot, Catholic and finally Pre-Adamite. Four religions pleased him at the same time and his indifference was so uncommon that after 80 years when he had to make a choice the Good Man departed and did not choose any of them."

La Peyrère's impact was far-reaching. He is considered by many as a father of modern biblical criticism, influencing figures like Baruch Spinoza and Richard Simon, who further developed methods of critical textual analysis. His separation of Jewish and Gentile histories influenced secular historiography and sparked debates about the reliability and interpretation of biblical texts. While his pre-Adamite theory was originally an attempt to reconcile observed human diversity with biblical accounts, it was unfortunately later distorted in the 19th century to justify polygenesis and racist ideologies, particularly in claiming that American Indians and Black people were not descendants of Adam.

Beyond his theological provocations, La Peyrère also made contributions to early anthropology through his accounts of Iceland and Greenland, based on his travels to Denmark in 1644. His work showcased a blend of scientific inquiry and Messianic speculation, reflecting the complex intellectual currents of the Early Modern era. Isaac de la Peyrère, a figure of profound intellectual courage and controversy, remains a pivotal, albeit often overlooked, figure in the history of ideas, whose work irrevocably altered the course of biblical interpretation and anthropological thought.