Noah about to be baptised. In medieval Christianity, Noah's three sons were generally considered as the founders of the populations of the three known continents, Japheth/Europe, Shem/Asia, and Ham/Africa, although a rarer variation held that they represented the three classes of medieval society – the priests (Shem), the warriors (Japheth), and the peasants (Ham). In medieval Christian thought, Ham was considered to be the ancestor of the people of black Africa. So, in racialist arguments, the curse of Ham became a justification for the slavery of the black races. Isaac Newton, in his religious works on the development of religion, wrote
Juji Nakada to Goodman, Nakada became a supporter of Japanese militarism because he believed the Japanese military were (unknowingly) serving God's purposes. (Goodman 53) Nakada "saw the Jews as mystical saviors whose redemption would ensure the political and military, as well as spiritual, salvation of the Japanese." (Goodman 39) Nakada wrote in "Japan in the Bible": The Japanese are an inter-mixture of the three original races i.e. the Shemitic [sic], Hamitic, and Japhetic - for the Jews are the descendents [sic] of Shem, the Hittites, of Ham, and the Ainus of Japheth. (The Ainus should be classified among the white people as