Critical Introduction

Augustine (354–430 CE) was bishop of the North African town of Hippo. His works had profound influence on theology and philosophy in the Latin West, and he is considered one of the most important of the Church Fathers whose impact on Christian thought and practice can hardly be overstated. As in many other matters, Augustine's arguments regarding monsters received frequent citation, both throughout the Middle Ages and beyond, and he remains a frequent source for modern scholars writing about Late Antique and medieval concepts of and attitudes towards the monstrous.

Augustine uses the adjective monstrosus in book 16 to describe certain atypical peoples (such as Sciopods) and atypical people within “normal” human society (such as polydactyls), but the noun monstrum appears in book 21 as “omen,” directly correlated with the verb monstrare, “to show.” Nevertheless, establishing a definition of what one ought to consider monstrous does not appear to have particular importance to Augustine himself. He seems much more preoccupied by whether these partial-others may be said to belong to the human category than by any need to establish one of their own for them.

He describes humans as “rational mortal creatures (or animals)”; this creates certain problems when he comes to the Cynocephali, or dog-headed people, whose barking apparently marks them as more animal than human. This element of speech, however, is not elsewhere taken up. The second section of this excerpt concerns the capacity of God to transform one thing into another and to manipulate the properties of objects, up to and including the stars. Throughout both excerpts, Augustine also engages with the use and reliability of classical polytheist histories and authorities on the one hand, and witnesses on the other. Ancient polytheistic texts may be authoritative, he argues, but they are hindered by the fact that their composers were not “divinely taught.” Nevertheless, Augustine finds a particular use for them: he figures that if the polytheists believe these books and not Christian scripture, he can find useful correlates for his arguments also in these histories.

Reading Questions

What does Augustine consider natural? Are monsters natural according to Augustine? Do monsters serve a greater purpose, according to Augustine? If so, what is it? If not, why? Does Augustine describe non-Christians as monsters?