|
It is also asked whether we are to believe that certain monstrous races
of men, spoken of in secular history,5 have sprung from Noah's
sons, or rather, I should say, from that one man from whom they
themselves were descended. For it is reported that some have one eye
in the middle of the forehead; some, feet turned backwards from the
heel; some, a double sex, the right breast like a man, the left like
a woman, and that they alternately beget and bring forth: others are
said to have no mouth, and to breathe only through the nostrils;
others are but a cubit high, and are therefore called by the Greeks
"Pigmies: "6 they say that in some places the women conceive in
their fifth year, and do not live beyond their eighth. So, too,
they tell of a race who have two feet but only one leg, and are of
marvellous swiftness, though they do not bend the knee: they are
called Skiopodes, because in the hot weather they lie down on their
backs and shade themselves with their feet. Others are said to have no
head, and their eyes in their shoulders; and other human or
quasi-human races are depicted in mosaic in the harbor esplanade of
Carthage, on the faith of histories of rarities. What shall I say
of the Cynocephali, whose dog-like head and barking proclaim them
beasts rather than men? But we are not bound to believe all we hear of
these monstrosities. But whoever is anywhere born a man, that is, a
rational, mortal animal, no matter what unusual appearance he presents
in color, movement, sound, nor how peculiar he is in some power,
part, or quality of his nature, no Christian can doubt that he
springs from that one protoplast. We can distinguish the common human
nature from that which is peculiar, and therefore wonderful.
The same account which is given of monstrous births in individual cases
can be given of monstrous races. For God, the Creator of all,
knows where and when each thing ought to be, or to have been created,
because He sees the similarities and diversities which can contribute
to the beauty of the whole. But He who cannot see the whole is
offended by the deformity of the part, because he is blind to that
which balances it, and to which it belongs. We know that men are born
with more than four fingers on their bands or toes on their feet: this
is a smaller matter; but far from us be the folly of supposing that the
Creator mistook the number of a man's fingers, though we cannot
account for the difference. And so in cases where the divergence from
the rule is greater. He whose works no man justly finds fault with,
knows what He has done. At Hippo-Diarrhytus there is a man whose
hands are crescent-shaped, and have only two fingers each, and his
feet similarly formed. If there were a race like him, it would be
added to the history of the curious and wonderful. Shall we therefore
deny that this man is descended from that one man who was first
created? As for the Androgyni, or Hermaphrodites, as they are
called, though they are rare, yet from time to time there appears
persons of sex so doubtful, that it remains uncertain from which sex
they take their name; though it is customary to give them a masculine
name, as the more worthy. For no one ever called them
Hermaphroditesses. Some years ago, quite within my own memory, a
man was born in the East, double in his upper, but single in his
lower half, having two heads, two chests, four hands, but one body
and two feet like an ordinary man; and he lived so long that many had
an opportunity of seeing him. But who could enumerate all the human
births that have differed widely from their ascertained parents? As,
therefore, no one will deny that these are all descended from that one
man, so all the races which are reported to have diverged in bodily
appearance from the usual course which nature generally or almost
universally preserves, if they are embraced in that definition of man
as rational and mortal animals, unquestionably trace their pedigree to
that one first father of all. We are supposing these stories about
various races who differ from one another and from us to be true; but
possibly they are not: for if we were not aware that apes, and
monkeys, and sphinxes are not men, but beasts, those historians would
possibly describe them as races of men, and flaunt with impunity their
false and vainglorious discoveries. But supposing they are men of whom
these marvels are recorded, what if God has seen fit to create some
races in this way, that we might not suppose that the monstrous births
which appear among ourselves are the failures of that wisdom whereby He
fashions the human nature, as we speak of the failure of a less perfect
workman? Accordingly, it ought not to seem absurd to us, that as in
individual races there are monstrous births, so in the whole race there
are monstrous races. Wherefore, to conclude this question cautiously
and guardedly, either these things which have been told of some races
have no existence at all; or if they do exist, they are not human
races; or if they are human, they are descended from Adam.
|
|