Anthropophagi

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The term anthropophagi (cannibals) may refer to one of the following:

• Creatures from English folklore with no heads and a mouth in their chests. Their diminutive brain was located in their groin, and their eyes on their shoulders. While they were made widely known by William Shakespeare in The Merry Wives of Windsor (1602) and Othello (1605), they were not created by Shakespeare, and were mentioned as early as the 5th century BC in the Histories of Herodotus as "blemmyes".
• The name given to primitive Christians by others. This usage appears in Tertullian, in his Apologeticus (ch. VII), and Salvian (de Provid. Lib. IV). They affirmed that the Christians, in the mysteries of their religion, killed a child and feasted on its flesh. This was grounded on what they had heard of the Eucharist.

[edit] References

• This article incorporates content from the 1728 Cyclopaedia, a publication in the public domain.