Human equality rests on common divine origin, not natural sameness.

Evidence

The untruth of this theory is as conspicuous as its political usefulness. God created neither men—whose origin clearly is procreation—nor peoples—who came into being as the result of human organization. Men are unequal according to their natural origin, their different organization, and fate in history. Their equality is an equality of rights only, that is, an equality of human purpose; yet behind this equality of human purpose lies, according to Jewish-Christian tradition, another equality, expressed in the concept of one common origin beyond human history, human nature, and human purpose—the common origin in the mythical, unidentifiable Man who alone is God’s creation. This divine origin is the metaphysical concept on which the political equality of purpose may be based, the purpose of establishing mankind on earth. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 594

Categorization

• DEFINE: Arendt’s definitional groundwork: equality as equality of rights/purpose grounded in a shared metaphysical origin, contrasted with the false claim of natural equality that positivism and racism each pervert in different ways.
• XREF: This distinction (rights-based equality vs. natural equality) undergirds later Islamophobia readings on how the ‘Other’ is denied the standing to claim human rights — connects to Arendt’s own later ‘right to have rights’ themes.