- beauty, hybrid, monster, claritas
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Abstract
In a Christian context, earthly beauty tends to lose its relevance, while transcendent beauty, linked to the soul, gains significant value in its immaterial nature. Hagiographies about Saint Christopher show a sort of “construction” of a legend centered around the theme of the monster’s conversion to Christianity. The Eastern and Western narratives have different traits: on one side, a converted and later martyred cannibalistic cynocephalus under Decius, on the other side, the story of the giant who carries the Christ Child across the river. However, both traditions are united by the motif of the saint’s physical and monstrous exceptional nature, which instead attracts through spiritual beauty.