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.

'...thoughtful treatment of the deeply ambivalent, conflict-ridden relationship between children and adults.' - Kelly Bulkeley, Journal of Religion

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

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.