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Isaac De la Peyrère, A Precursor of Eighteenth-Century Critical Deists

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

David Rice McKee
David Rice McKee*
Affiliation:
Hamilton College
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Extract

In the study of the origins and development of French eighteenth century thought, the importance of Isaac de la Peyrère has been strangely overlooked. I say “strangely ”advisedly since not only was La Peyrère a person of some prominence in his day, but through his works, was one of the first to disseminate certain critical arguments which were to prove popular with deists in both France and England, and which find their highest degree of success in Voltaire's Essai sur les mœurs, La Bible enfin expliquée, and the Dictionnaire philosophique. Accordingly it is the purpose of this article to investigate La Peyrère's place among his contemporaries, the subsequent fortune of his ideas, and to attempt to evaluate his importance in the formation and development of critical deism in both France and England.

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Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 59 , Issue 2 , June 1944, pp. 456 - 485
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1944

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References

1 La Peyrère is not mentioned in Professor Lanson's articles “L'Origine et le développement de l'esprit philosophique, etc., ”RCC (1907–09); nor in Mr. Henri Busson's, La Pensée religieuse française de Charron à Pascal (Paris, 1933). In Paul Hazard's, La Crise de la conscience européenne (Paris, 1935), i, 240, he is dismissed in one short paragraph, and although V. Pinot in his La Chine et la formation de l'esprit philosophique en France, 1640–1740 (Paris, 1932), relates La Peyrère to the formation of the esprit philosophique and gives much valuable information, unfortunately the limitations implicit in the nature of his study prevent him from fully exploring all the possibilities.

2 See Antoine Adam, Théophile de Viau et la libre pensée en 1620 (Paris, 1935), p. 299; also F. Lachèvre, op. cit. (Paris, 1909), i, 497.

3 Lettres de Gui Patin, éd. Reveillé-Parise (Paris, 1846), i, 297.

4 Mémoires (Paris, 1730), xii, 77.

5 Lettres de Jean Chapelain, éd. Tamizey de Larroque (Paris, 1880), i, 277, 278; for Ménage see below, note 12.

6 Praeadamitae sive exercitalio super versibus duodecimo, decimo tertio et decimo quarto capitis quinti Epistolae Pauli ad Romanos, quibus inducuntur primi hominis ante Adamum conditi (s.l., 1655).

7 See Abbadie, Traité de la vérité de la religion chrétienne (Rotterdam, 1684), i, 81, 368, 369; Bossuet, Correspondance (Paris, 1909), ii, 22; Menagiana (Paris, 1715), iv, 299; Renaudot, Anciennes relations de deux voyageurs Mahométans (Paris, 1718), preface, also p. 372; Bayle, Dictionnaire critique (Rotterdam, 1697), ii, 766. Care must be taken in the interpretation of the term Preadamite for it may refer to La Peyrère's work, to the men who lived before Adam, or to those who are in sympathy with his views. Cf. Œuvres de Frêret (Paris, 1792), ii, 291; Examen de la Genèse (MS Troyes 2376), i, 1–10; Diderot, Œuvres complètes (Paris, 1876), xvi, 387. Also Preadamite is used by the apologists as a term of reproach like “atheist, ”“deist ”or “libertin.”

8 Lettres, éd. Reveillé-Parise, ii, 252; V. Pinot, op. cit., p. 199, incorrectly gives seventeen.

9 Op. cit., xii, 79–81.

10 See Andrew White, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology (New York, 1913), ii, 317.

11 Op. cit., iii, 67.

12 Bayle, op. cit., ii, 766–767; Niceron, op. cit., xii, 66.

13 Quelques lettres inédites de Guy Patin, éd. Chéreau (Paris, 1877), p. 23.

14 Loc. cit.

15 See above, note 3; also Lettres, ii, 264.

16 Op. cit., xii, 67.

17 Op. cit., iii, 83, 84.

18 R. Simon, Lettres choisies (Amsterdam, 1730), ii, 1–31; iii, 41–49.

19 Bayle, op. cit., ii, 767; Niceron, op. cit., xii, 70, 71.

20 In this article wherever the Systema theologicum is quoted the English translation of 1655 is used. La Peyrère's view of the state of nature, and his assertion of the existence of laws before the Mosaic law suggest the possible influence of Hobbes. Cf. the De Cive, chap, xvi, sections 2. 5 and 10.

21 It was Scaliger who reconstructed from fragments the chronicle of Eusebius in his Thesaurus temporum (1606).

22 See R. Simon, Lettres choisies, ii, 204.

23 For La Mothe le Vayer, see Œuvres (Dresden, 1758), vi, pt. ii, 356, 357; for Patin, see Lettres, éd. Reveillé-Parise, i, 297 (cited by V. Pinot, op. cit., p. 196); for Bayle see Dictionnaire critique (Rotterdam, 1697), i, 678.

24 See R. Charbonnel, La Pensée italienne au XVIe siècle et le courant libertin (Paris, 1919), p. 559 n.

25 For Patin, see V. Pinot, op. cit., p. 198; for La Mothe le Vayer, see note 23 above.

26 Mémoires (Paris, 1656), pp. 243–247.

27 For a more detailed discussion of this subject see my study, Simon Tyssot de Patot and the Seventeenth-Century Background of Critical Deism (Baltimore, 1941), pp. 28–33.

28 See V. Pinot, op. cit., p. 201.

29 Ibid., p. 245.

30 Ibid., pp. 203–209. In 1667 appeared an anonymous treatise, De diluvii universalitate, in which the universality of the Flood was also denied. It is interesting to note that whereas Bayle attributes it to Vossius, Ellies du Pin assigns it to La Peyrère.

31 Bohn edition (London, 1883), i, 34, 35, 56, 92–95.

32 Op. cit., pp. 120–127.

33 Part iii, chap. 33.

34 See A. Dupront, P.-D. Euet et l'exégèse comparatiste au XVIIe siècle (Paris, 1930), p. 46; Ellies du Pin also accuses Hobbes with Spinoza and La Peyrère as the principal culprits in the attack on the authenticity of the books of Moses. Cf. Nouvelle bibliothèque des auteurs ecclesiastiques (Paris, 1693), i, 27, 30.

35 See Histoire critique du vieux Testament, ed. of 1685, pp. 31–32; also Lettres choisies de R. Simon (Amsterdam, 1730), iii, 216–236.

36 Op. cit. (Amsterdam, 1685), pp. 110–130.

37 Correspondance (Paris, 1909), ii, 22.

38 Traité de la vérité de la religion chrétienne (Rotterdam, 1684), i, 81, 368–370.

39 See F. Lachèvre, Les Successeurs de Cyrano de Bergerac (Paris, 1922), pp. 132, 195.

40 See L'Espion Turc (Amsterdam, 1696–99), iii, 27, 107, 108, 275, 426, 427; iv, 179, 180; v, 149; vi, 342, 345, 354. There were several editions of this work between the first (Paris, 1684) in one volume to this six-volume edition, which is the earliest that I have been able to consult.

41 L'Antiquité des terns rétablie (1687).

42 See Moréri, Le grand dictionnaire historique, etc. (Amsterdam, 1702), iv, 129.

43 See V. Pinot, op. cit., p. 199.

44 Mr. Wade in the Clandestine Organization and Diffusion of Philosophic Ideas in France from 1700 to 1750 (Princeton, 1938), pp. 100–246, tells us that Boulainvilliers made excerpts from Thomas Burnet's Doubts on the First Chapter of Genesis and that there was also an anonymous manuscript treatise entitled Extrait de l'ouvrage intitulé Doutes ou objections de Thomas Burnet sur le premier chapitre de la Genèse, concilié avec l'Ecriture par M.D. It seems probable that both Boulainviliers and the anonymous deist are referring to the seventh and eighth chapters of the Archaeologiae Philosophical since Burnet never wrote a separate work on the subject.

45 Oracles of Reason (London, 1693), pp. 44, 46–48.

46 See Oracles of Reason, pp. 8–16, 220–222, 225–228.

47 A Discourse of Free-Thinking (London, 1713), pp. 159, 160; cf. N. Torrey, Voltaire and the English Deists (New Haven, 1930), p. 26, n. 5.

48 Op. cit., i, 717.

49 (Paris, 1702), i, 252.

50 Op. cit., i, 717–720.

51 Also by Richard Simon in the preface to the Histoire critique du Vieux Testament.

52 See Ira O. Wade, op. cit., pp. 56, 108, 109; also Voltaire and Mme du Châtelet (Princeton, 1941), p. 176.

53 Op. cit., p. 245.

54 See my article “Lahontan and Critical Deism, ”MLN (Nov., 1941).

55 Wade, loc. cit.

56 (MS Mazarine 1163), Pt. iii, 9, 10, 27, 28, 32, 35.

57 See my study on Tyssot de Patot, pp. 29–41.

58 See V. Pinot, op. cit., pp. 199, 236, 237.

59 Ibid., pp. 243, 244.

60 Ibid., pp. 246–248.

61 Wade, op. cit., p. 211.

62 Ibid., p. 202.

63 Œuvres de Fréret (Paris, 1792), iv, 141, 142, 162, 163, 290, 291; also Wade, op. cit., 56, 165, 169, 179.

64 Examen de la Genèse (MS. Troyes 2376), i, 1–16, 89, 97–102; ii, 13, 14, 98, 99, 112–114; (MS. Troyes 2377), i, 9–10, 99. I wish to express my appreciation here to Professor Ira O. Wade from whom the microfilm was borrowed.

65 xvii, 57.

66 xvii, 59; xix, 230–236; xx, 152; xxx, 6, 8, 11, 13, 14, 16.

67 xix, 239–242; xx, 99–104; xxx, 21, 114, 116.

68 xviii, 33, 59, 511; xxx, 17–20.

69 xvii, 32, 44; xix, 240; xx, 99; xxx, 22, 32, 115, 127, 128, 226, 240, 242, 301, 302, 311.

70 xi, 28–33, 39, 40.

71 See Ira O. Wade, Voltaire and Mme du Châtelet (Princeton, 1941), pp. 126–134.

72 See Norman Torrey, Voltaire and the English Deists (New Haven, 1930), pp. 104–129.