Interpretive tradition weakened the Gospels’ practical constraint on harming children for fifteen centuries

Evidence

The four passages are unambiguous in their original Greek. They are unambiguous in the dominant Aramaic-Hebrew interpretive tradition that they emerged from. They are unambiguous in the early-Christian Greek-language reception. And then, beginning in the late fourth century CE, they become — through the Augustinian re-reading and its broader Latin Christian transmission — substantially obscured. The original meaning of “this child” was systematically reinterpreted as “the spiritual child” — meaning the adult disciple in the posture of childlike receptivity. And this reinterpretation, dominant in Western Christian theological tradition for fifteen centuries, substantially weakened the Gospel passages’ practical force as constraints on how Christians actually treated children. — , The Rod and the Child, 2042

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels the selective-reception dynamic documented across the whole season for Plato, Aristotle, and Tertullian. — connects to: Augustine’s allegorical reading redirected Jesus’ child sayings away from actual children for fifteen centuries — , The Rod and the Child: A Global History…, 2068; Recovered Gospel readings give Christians internal grounds to oppose harm to children — , The Rod and the Child: A Global History…, 2098; The harms of hitting children were invisible to traditional frameworks — , The Rod and the Child: A Global History…, 8177 (+2 more)

Related

• Recovered Gospel readings give Christians internal grounds to oppose harm to children (similarity 0.88)
• Augustine’s allegorical reading redirected Jesus’ child sayings away from actual children for fifteen centuries (similarity 0.83)
• Literary-critical skepticism about scripture prevents mass murder (similarity 0.81)
• Christian pedagogical cruelty was doctrinally contingent, not theologically fixed (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Recovered Gospel readings give Christians internal grounds to oppose harm to children #expands (0.75) — , The Rod and the Child, 2098
• Christian pedagogical cruelty was doctrinally contingent, not theologically fixed #corroborates (0.65) — , The Rod and the Child, 2866
• The harms of hitting children were invisible to traditional frameworks #exemplifies (0.60) — , The Rod and the Child, 8177
• Literary-critical skepticism about scripture prevents mass murder #qualifies (0.35)