american-holocaust

168 AMERICAN HOLOCAUSTfurther removed from that center anything in nature was, the further itwas removed from God, from virtue, and from the highest essence of humanity.Thus, the fact that the monstrous races were said to live on thedistant extremes of the earthly realm was one crucial element in their radicalotherness, and also in their being defined as fundamentally unvirtuousand base. So great was their alienation from the world of God's-or thegods'-most favored people, in fact, that well into late antiquity they commonlywere denied the label of "men." 60This eventually became a problem for Christianity, eager as the faithwas to convert all humanity to God's revealed truth. The classic statementof the early church on this matter was the work of Augustine who, in TheCity of God, affirmed that "whoever is born anywhere as a human being,that is, as a rational mortal creature, however strange he may appear toour senses in bodily form or colour or motion or utterance, or in anyfaculty, part or quality of his nature whatsoever, let no true believer haveany doubt that such an individual is descended from the one man whowas first created." Though often regarded as a fairly unambiguous statementof support for the humanity of distant peoples, Augustine's linkingof humanity to "rationality" left open a large area for definitional disagreement.Nor did his closing words on the subject help: "Let me thententatively and guardedly state my conclusion. Either the. written accountsof certain races are completely unfounded or, if such races do exist, theyare not human; or, if they are human, they are descended from Adam." 61All that really can be concluded from this is that, for Augustine, someonewho worships within the fold of Christianity certainly is rational and certainlyis human, though there clearly are races that in some respects mightseem to be human, but are not.A great challenge was thus posed to the Church. It was met with avidity.Stories circulated throughout medieval Europe of creatures with hoovesfor feet, and with claws, who had been converted to the way of Christ; ofpeople as small as seven-year old children, with horses the size of sheep,who had been brought to see the light. Even people with the heads of dogsand who ate human flesh were said to have been brought within Christianity'sembrace. Indeed, in several accounts of the conversion of St. Christopher-forcenturies one of the Church's most popular saints-the preconversionChristopher was a Cynocephalus, or dog-headed creature with"long hair, and eyes glittering like the morning star in his head, and [with]teeth like the tusks of a wild boar." 62 If, however-to some enthusiasticChristians, at least-physical appearance was no bar-.to conversion andeven to sainthood, another less generous conclusion from this same premisewas equally important, and equally linked with Augustine's earlier ambivalenceon the subject: those creatures who made up the alien races infar flung lands and who were not "rational"-that is, unlike St. Christo-