Here's some information by St.Augustine that destroys a sacred cow today, which is the erroneous belief that Charles Darwin was the mind who discovered the ape to man evolution myth. In fact, Darwin only read literature of the classical era and then called it his own. Today people think Darwin was some great scientist who proved man evolved from apes. But this careless thinking avoids the reality that what came down to us from Darwinian assumptions had been an ancient mystical belief long before Augustine's time. Here, Augustine is speaking about the origin and diversity of humans and some myths which have come about since ancient times.
City of God: Book XVI, chapter 8, p.663 (Penguin Classics translation),
"Some years ago, but certainly in my time, a man was born in the East with a double set of upper parts, but a single set of the lower limbs. That is, he had two heads, two chests, and four arms, but only one belly and two feet, as if he were one man. And he lived long enough for the news of his case to attract many sightseers.
In fact, it would be impossible to list all the human infants very unlike those who, without any doubt, were their parents. Now it cannot be denied that these derive ultimately from that one man; and therefore the same is true of all those races which are reported to have deviated as it were, by their divergences in bodily structure, from the normal course of nature followed by the majority, or practically the whole of mankind. If these races are included in the definition of 'human', that is, if they are rational and mortal animals, it must be admitted that they trace their lineage from that same one man, the first father of all mankind. This assumes, of course, the truth of the stories about the divergent features of those races, and their great differences from one another and from us. The definition is important; for if we did not know monkeys, long tailed apes and chimpanzees are not men but animals, those natural historians who plume themselves on their collection of curiosities might pass them off on us as races of men, and get away with such nonsense."
City of God, Marcus Dods translation:
"Some years ago, quite within my own memory, a man was born in the East, double his upper, but single his lower half--having two heads, two chests, four hands, but one body and two feet like a 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 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."
Charles Darwin would be the natural historian who would entertain the false theory which placed man in the same pedigree as the moneys and apes. Julian Huxley would have fun making fun of the mentally challenged as Darwin's theory allowed for that such bigotry. But real science proves that mutations at birth are all human through and through, and mentally challenged people can give birth to normal healthy children. In all cases, no human being who was born either a Siamese twin or mentally challenged is subhuman as Darwin and J.Huxley would want us to believe. And here, from 4th century Augustine, we see that long before Darwin's ignorance, human deformations were believed by pagans to be apes and monkeys--a show of mockery for those born different from other humans. Today, Darwin's ape to man theory--borrowed from ancient pagan philosophers--is used to degrade and dehumanize people so that corrupt powers will rule over the masses and strip them of all their earned income and make them slaves to a dictator of the state. Augustine mentions how absurd these people were back in his day and now we see why Augustine mentioned their absurdities.