In his De peccato originali (1679), Hadriaan Beverland (1650-1716) presented his thesis that sex was the original sin and a vital part of human nature. Building on contemporary insights into the history of the text of the Bible, he criticised the hypocritical attitudes among the religious and social elite of his day concerning the biblical text and sexual morality. The work became notorious in the seventeenth century and led to its author’s banishment. In the eighteenth century, it exerted considerable influence on the way in which many in Europe came to see sexuality. This annotated edition with English translation also includes a comprehensive introduction that includes a contextualization of the De peccato originali and its impact.

In 1679 Hadriaan Beverland (1650-1716) was banished from the province of Holland. Why was this humanist scholar exiled from one of the most tolerant parts of Europe in the seventeenth century? To answer this question, this book places Beverland’s writings on sex, sin, and scholarship in their historical context for the first time. Beverland argued that sexual lust was the original sin and highlighted the importance of sex in human nature, ancient history, and his own society. His audacious works hit a raw nerve: Dutch theologians accused him of atheism, he was abandoned by his humanist colleagues, and he was banished by the University of Leiden. By positioning Beverland’s extraordinary scholarship in the context of the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic, this book examines how his radical studies challenged the intellectual, ecclesiastical, and political elite, providing a fresh perspective upon the Dutch Republic in the last decades of its Golden Age.

This volume is the first to adopt systematically a comparative approach to the role of ancient texts and traditions in early modern scholarship, science, medicine, and theology. It offers a new method for understanding early modern knowledge.

As a consequence of the unique position of the Netherlands during the period, this is an anthology of European thought at large. Included are foreign thinkers who exercised influence on the philosophical life of the Dutch Republic & who developed their ideas through interaction with other philosophers.

This annotated edition of Hadriaan Beverland's De peccato originali (1679) is the first English translation of this infamous work, which presented Beverland's thesis on sex and original sin. It includes a comprehensive introduction that contextualizes the book and its impact.