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State of the question. In opposition to the Scriptures
and tradition, the Preadamites, led by Isaac de la
Peyrere (1655), denied the unity of the human race
and taught that some men existed before Adam, and that
Adam was the father of the Jews but not of the
Gentiles.[1374] The Coadamites held that many
human families existed contemporaneously with Adam.
The revealed doctrine. According to Holy Scripture the
entire human race had its origin in the one protoparent,
Adam. This truth is an article of faith.
We are speaking here of our earth and of the human race
that is on this earth. If some indulge in the hypothesis
that there are rational creatures on the stars or planets,
or that other men existed on our earth before Adam and
were extinct before his creation, many theologians hold
that such gratuitous assumptions do not affect the teaching
of faith.
According to Genesis no men existed when Adam was
created: "And there was not a man to till the
earth..... But for Adam there was not found a helper
like himself."[1375] Eve is called the mother of
all the living;[1376] and Adam is called the father
of the human race.[1377]
St. Paul says: "And hath made of one, all mankind,
to dwell upon the whole face of the earth";[1378]
"Wherefore as by one man sin entered into this world,
and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in
whom all have sinned."[1379] That is: all men are
born with the stain of original sin because all derive the
same nature infected with sin from the same head.
This is the common teaching of the Fathers, especially
of Lactantius, St. Ephrem, St. Ambrose, and St.
Augustine.[1380]
Confirmation by reason. We find various signs of
specific identity in all men of whatever race or color.
As Quatrefages points out,[1381] we find the same
anatomical structure, the same physiological functions,
the same laws of generation, unlimited fecundity in the
marriages contracted between various races of men, the
same faculty of speech, the same power of reasoning, and
the same moral and religious sense. Differences in
color, brain capacity, facial angles, or idiom, are not
substantial but only accidental, as ethnographers
admit.[1382]
From paleontology and geology we now know that man is much
older than was thought formerly, but there is still a
great difference of opinion about the precise epoch when
man appeared on earth. On this point the Scriptures are
silent, and the Church has made no declaration.
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