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The Columbia History of the British NovelBefore the Christian era, the classical male mind-set of the Greeks and Romans-in which children, being immature, were considered less human, less complex, and therefore less interesting than adults-had seemed relatively uncurious about the child as such. Christian dogma would change that indifference, though it would take a long time and -590- involve much historical contention. Robert Pattison has shown how deeply a divided early Christian heritage has colored thoughts about children. On the one hand there was Augustine's expounding of the orthodox doctrine of Original Sin and the damnation of human offspring without Christian salvation, baptism, and intervention into the corrupt, selfish nature of children. On the other side, preparing the way to see the child as a religious symbol, were the scriptural "massacre of the innocents," the advent and representation of Christ as a miraculous babe, the words of Jesus, "Suffer little children… to come unto me for of such is the kingdom of heaven," and the influential Pelagian heresy arguing for a primary innocence in the child ...» |
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