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
Shem Tov ibn Shem Tov Shem Tov ibn Shem Tov Shem Tov ibn Shem Tov (c. 1390 – c. 1440) (Hebrew: שם טוב אבן שם טוב) was a Spanish kabbalist and fierce opponent of rationalistic philosophy. Tov was president of a yeshivah in Spain. He lived about 1390-1440 (Gedaliah ibn Yaḥya, "Shalshelet ha-Ḳabbalah," ed. Venice, p. 62b). He was the father of Joseph ibn Shem-Tov and Isaac ibn Shem-Tov. He wrote: "Sefer ha-Emunot," on religious dogmas (Ferrara, 1556); "Sefer Yesodot" (perhaps only another title for the preceding); a commentary on the "Pesach Haggadah" (Steinschneider, "Cat. Munich," 264, 3; idem, "Cat. Bodl." col. 99). The "Sefer