"sed qui non peccavissent imputative," because sin was not imputed before the law.

To this conclusion the language of the Apostle logically leads, although contrary to the common opinion and the orthodox interpretation. Peyrere anticipated the horror with which many would receive it; but he claims, that just as the succession of day and night has not been affected by the Copernican theory of astronomy, so the doctrine that there were men before Adam practically changes nothing in the Christian faith. The fundamental fact of this faith is that men are counted guilty in Adam, but righteous in Christ. As it was not necessary that Christ should be the last of the race in order to rescue it from sin, so it was not requisite that Adam should be the first member of the series of beings on which he brought condemnation.

Peyrere then proceeds to show that the view he propounds is confirmed by the fourteenth verse: "Death reigned even over those who had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression." He maintains that these words cannot be applied, as many theologians assert, to the infant descendants of Adam. For the similitude here spoken of may be either a natural or a spiritual similitude. The latter, or spiritual similitude, is the creature of imputation, so that all to whom Adam's sin has been imputed are so far forth like him, and are properly described as having sinned after his similitude. Natural similitude is of two kinds: geometrical, which exists between bodies alike in figure and having the same propor tions and physical, a similitude of propagation, which arises in the order of nature between parents and their offspring. Now, that the infant descendants of Adam sinned after the spiritual similitude of his transgression, is obvious from the very terms of the definition above given. And this is equally true in case of the other meanings of the word. Thus the infant Seth, begotten in the likeness of Adam, was endowed with understanding, reason and will, after the similitude of the understanding, reason and will possessed by the adult Adam; so that the infant Seth performed every mental act after the similitude of the corresponding mental act of the adult Adam.

Again, the infant Seth was similar to the adult Adam, just as one circle is similar to another; for the parts and functions of the infant Seth were like in kind and proportions to the corresponding parts and functions of the adult Adam, each to each; so that the ratio of the parts of the one to the corresponding parts of the other was as the whole Seth to the whole Adam. In every sense, therefore, of the term similitude, infants are properly said to sin after the similitude of the sin of Adam ; after the similitude or proportion of the sin, not the sinful act itself. This infants could not commit; and if they could, they would sin, not after the similitude, but the actual sin, of Adam. It is plain, therefore, that all who sinned not after the similitude of Adam's transgression must have lived before him.

Peyrere claims that his hypothesis reconciles faith with right reason, which does not allow us to believe that this globe has existed only for a period at which Hesiod computes half the lifetime of a crow. By this theory, the sacred history is more easily harmonized with itself, while it is made to agree in a wonderful manner with the records and monuments of the ancient Greeks, Chaldeans and Egyptians. The origin of the Mexicans whom Columbus discovered, and of other strange nations, brought to light by distant voyagers, becomes an easy problem. They existed before Adam, and their creation is described in the first chapter of Genesis.

To the objector who should quote the words of Paul, “God made all men of one blood," Peyrere replies that this language does not mean that all men sprang from Adam. Its meaning is simply, that all men are made of the same materials, and upon the same model; as Elihu says to Job: "I also am formed out of the clay." And that the Apostle did not intend to refer all men to a common progenitor, is plain from another expression in the same discourse, "We are the offspring of God," not, we are the offspring of Adam. For he is addressing the Gentile Athenians, and, accordingly, he refers not to the particular creation of Adam, but to the original creation of the race, wherein God made men after his own image, so that by virtue of this image all men may be described as the offspring of God.

And so, also, in the first epistle to the Corinthians, where Adam is named the first man, the language is figurative and has its counterpart in the designation of Christ as "the second man." Adam and Christ are here set as landmarks in the judicial history of the race-opposite termini of imputation— and as, by the one, sin, which is the transgression of the law, entered into the world, and through sin death; so, by the other, deliverance from sin came into the world, and by that deliverance life. As Christ was not the last man in time, so Adam was not the first man, but each stands in a definite relation to all men who have existed, or are yet to be.

Such is a brief outline of Peyrere's exegetical argument for the proposition of his book. A more whimsical medley has probably never been composed on this passage of the Scriptures; so that one is inclined to give credit to the story, that he conceived the idea one day while reading the fifth chapter of Romans, and at first wrote upon the subject, not so much to express a conviction, as to see what might be said in favor of an hypothesis. Probably, that which was originally a mere exegetical fancy, became to his mind sober truth, when brought into connection with the results of history, the condition of the globe, and the apparent necessity for more time than is allowed by the Biblical chronology. The support which his theory derives from this source, merely alluded to in the exegetical essay, occupied a large place in the second part of the book Systema Theologicum ex Prae-Adamitarum Ilypothesi. We do not propose to give a synopsis of the contents of this treatise, which is any thing but systematic, and only less fanciful than the Exercitatio. But the essay has considerable importance in the history of opinions; for Peyrere seems really to have originated (though his claim is scarcely ever recognized) certain views which since his day have had considerable prev alence.

He was the first to make a strong attack upon the inherited opinion that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. * After speaking of

* Hobbes in his "Leviathan," written in Paris, but published in London in the year 1651, had indeed asserted that Moses did not write the entire Pentateuch; but

the brevity and obscurity of the early history of the race, hé says: "I have always held the opinions that the Bible contains whatever God has allowed men to know about the origin of the universe, the sacred history, the prophecies, the divine mysteries and our salvation. Whatever is necessary for our salvation is contained in few words; and the Holy Spirit has employed upon these all the care, diligence and illumination, which were needed in order to bring them to human apprehension. But other topics are more loosely handled; and I will say what all think, but most hesitate to express, that these matters have been committed to writing so carelessly and obscurely, that in many instances nothing can be found more perplexed and enigmatical." He goes on to show that many things in the books of Joshua, Kings and Chronicles are taken from older writings, such as the book of Jashar, the books of Nathan, Gad, etc.; and in like manner many reasons conspire to prove that the Pentateuch was not the autograph of Moses, but was in part at least compiled and edited by another person. Peyrere cites a number of passages, which are at this day adduced as evidences that Moses did not write the books attributed to him. Many things also, he urges, are confused or mutilated, repeated in another form, or inserted out of place, and hence are, obviously, a collection of traditions, or of extracts from various authors. Thus the story of Lamech is only half told. The twentieth chapter of Genesis is inserted in the wrong place, for Sarah was already old and could be no object of desire to Abimelech, while nearly the same story is told of Rebecca in the twenty-sixth chapter. After mentioning other instances of seeming contradiction, Peyrere concludes with these words: "Ye who busy yourselves in harmonistics, and in trying all manner of expedients to solve such difficulties, will labor in vain, if ye do not cut the knot by observing that these matters are described in various ways, because they were extracted and translated from divers authors."

he made but little show of argument, and it is doubtful whether Peyrere had ever seen the book, though he may have known the author. Spinoza, also a contemporary of Peyrere, attacked the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, in his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, but this was not published until 1670.

Peyrere maintained also the opinion (now generally accepted) that the deluge did not extend over the entire globe. The flood, he says, overwhelmed the descendants of Adam but did not destroy all mankind. This is proved: 1. By the olive branch brought to Noah in the Ark, which the dove could not have taken from a tree covered with the slime of a year's deluge, but from a region not visited by the flood. 2. By a passage of Josephus, which says: "Berosus wrote about the Ark in which the first of our race was preserved." For if Josephus had meant all mankind, he would have said the human race, and not our race, i. e. the Jews. 3. The descendants of Noah are described as peopling that portion only of the earth, which reaches from Egypt to the Euphrates, and from the mountains of Armenia to the Arabian Gulf. 4. It is inconsistent with the history and chronology of Egypt to suppose that the deluge extended over that country.

It is interesting to note how Peyrere has anticipated arguments which have been ably maintained by modern scholars. The difference between the first and second account of the creation contributed to the support of his theory. The terror of Cain, who dreads lest his finder should slay him, affords a Scriptual proof that men are not all descended from Adam, which has been repeated in our own day. He appeals, also, to the civilization of the ancient nations, to their progress in art and science, to the Astrology and Astronomy of the Egyp tians and Chaldeans, implying the knowledge of cycles of time that reach far beyond Adam-an argument which has been adorned and enforced by the learning and genius of Bunsen.

Peyrere's book was the occasion of his renouncing the Protestant faith and submitting to the Church. What is the judg ment we are to pass upon his sincerity in this action? Was he an earnest man, who had heartily believed in the crudities. of his own book and sought refuge from them in the authority of the Church? Did he in an hour of misgiving about his own theory resolve to plant himself on the faith of the Fathers? Or, on the other hand, was his conversion the act of one ready to profess or renounce any thing in order to get himself out of a difficulty? These questions have not always been