Evil Children in Religion, Literature and Art explores the genesis, development, and religious significance of a literary and iconographic motif, involving a gang of urchins, usually male, who mock or assault a holy or eccentric person, typically an adult. Originating in the biblical tale of Elisha's mockery (2 Kings 2.23-24), this motif recurs in literature, hagiography, and art, from antiquity up to our own time, strikingly defying the conventional Judeo-Christian and Romantic image of the child as a symbol of innocence.

Autorentext

ERIC ZIOLKOWSKI is Professor of Religion at Lafayette College. He is author of The Santification of Don Quixote: From Hildago to Priest and editor of A Museum of Faiths: Histories and Legacies of the 1893 World's Parliament of Religions. In 1997 he was elected as a Life Fellow in the Society of the Arts, Religion and Contemporary Culture.

Inhalt

Dedication List of Illustrations Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Introduction The Boys of Bethal as Sacrilegious Type Patristic and Medieval Views of 2 Kings 2.23-24 Children of the Passion Passive Saints, Aggressive Urchins The Bethal Boys Motif at the Dawn of Modernity Nineteenth-Century Antitypes of the Bethal Boys Twentieth-Century Antitypes of the Bethal Boys Conclusion Notes Index