The pre-Adamite hypothesis or pre-Adamism is the theological belief that humans (or intelligent yet non-human creatures) existed before the biblical character Adam. Pre-Adamism is therefore distinct from the conventional Abrahamic belief that Adam was the first human. Advocates of this hypothesis are known as "pre-Adamites", along with the humans who they believe existed before Adam. Early development The first known debate about human antiquity took place in 170 AD between a Christian, Theophilus of Antioch, and an Egyptian pagan, Apollonius the Egyptian (probably Apollonius Dyscolus), who argued that the world was 153,075 years old. An early challenge to biblical Adamism came from the Roman Emperor Julian the Apostate, who, upon his rejection of Christianity and his return to paganism, accepted the idea that many pairs of original people had been created, a belief termed co-Adamism or multiple Adamism. Augustine of Hippo's The City of God contains two chapters indicating a debate between Christians and pagans over human origins: Book XII, chapter 10 is titled Of the falseness of the history that the world hath continued many thousand years and the title of book XVIII, chapter 40 is The Egyptians' abominable lyings, to claim their wisdom the age of 100,000 years. These titles tend to indicate that Augustine saw pagan ideas concerning both the history of the world and the chronology of the human race as incompatible with the Genesis creation narrative. Augustine's explanation aligned with most rabbis and with the church fathers, who generally dismissed views on the antiquity of the world as myths and fables, whereas Jewish and Christian claims were based on revealed truth. Augustine did take a critical view of the young earth narrative in some aspects, arguing that everything in the universe had been created simultaneously by God, and not seven literal days. He was primarily concerned with arguing against the idea of humanity having existed eternally rather than a Bible-based chronology of human history. 900–1700 In early Islam, a common belief held that mankind is actually the successor of other intelligent creatures such as jinn and hinn. Medieval Muslim traditions referred to the jinn as pre-Adamites, depicted as human-like in various ways. Although the notion of Jinn as pre-Adamites was generally accepted, the idea that other humans lived before the known Adam was controversial. From the mid-ninth century onward the idea appeared that God created several Adams, each of whom presides over an era lasting