prelapsarian

Lapsus connotes the fall (the “Fall”), pre goeth before.

Merriam-Webster:  characteristic of or belonging to the time or state before the fall of humankind.

Albrecht Dürer, Adam and Eve (1504)

From an exegesis on this engraving¹:

Four of the animals represent the medieval idea of the four temperaments: the cat is choleric, the rabbit sanguine, the ox phlegmatic, and the elk melancholic. Before the Fall, these humors were held in check, controlled by the innocence of man; once Adam and Eve ate from the apple of knowledge, all four were activated, all innocence lost.

To recall our earlier entry on “abcedarius”,  I’m reminded that The New England Primer² taught A by this verse: ” In Adam’s fall, we sinned all.”

The word prelapsarian seems to have arisen in the 1870’s;  one wonders what word or phrase (“before the Fall?”) sufficed for the concept earlier. (There’s more on the “lapsarian” family here.)

¹ From the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
² Facsimiles of editions (over 200!) of The New England Primer are available through Early American Imprints, 1639-1800 and Early American Imprints, 1801-1819.