and there are compilations of his on how to cultivate the soil." He noted the claim that Adam came from India, and went on to Babylon. The presence of a belief in the existence of men before Adam among the Familists, a religious community in Friesland, was noted by John Rogers in 1578. In 1591, Giordano Bruno argued that, because no one could imagine that the Jews and the Ethiopians had the same ancestry, God must have either created separate Adams or that Africans were the descendants of pre-Adamic races. The 17th-century French millenarian Isaac La Peyrère is usually credited with formulating the pre-Adamite theory because of his influence on subsequent thinkers and movements. In his Prae-Adamitae, published in Latin in 1655, La Peyrère argued that Paul's words in should be interpreted to mean that "if Adam sinned in a morally meaningful sense there must have been an Adamic law according to which he sinned. If law began with Adam, there must have been a lawless world before Adam, containing people." Thus, according to La Peyrère, there must have been two creations; first the creation of the Gentiles and then the creation of Adam, who was the father of the Hebrews. The existence of pre-Adamites, La Peyrère argued, explained Cain's taking of a wife and the building of a city after Abel's murder in the Book of Genesis. Lazslo Toth writing in Politica Hermetica states that "racial theory has as its official birthdate 24 April 1684," when François Bernier distinguished four or five races in an article titled A new division of the Earth, according to the different species or races of men who inhabit it published in the Journal des sçavans. Because of widespread theological opposition to the pre-Adamite theories of his friend La Peyrère, Bernier published his paper anonymously. Age of Enlightenment During the Age of Enlightenment, pre-Adamism was adopted widely as a challenge to the biblical account of human origins. In the 19th century, the idea was welcomed by advocates of white superiority. A number of racist interpretive frameworks involving the early chapters of Genesis arose from pre-Adamism. Some pre-Adamite theorists held the view that Cain left his family for an inferior tribe described variously as "nonwhite Mongols" or that Cain took a wife from one of the inferior pre-Adamic peoples. 1800–present Racist pre-Adamism In 19th-century Europe, pre-Adamism was attractive to those who were intent on demonstrating