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Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews
“A rare book that combines searing passion with a subject that has affected all of our lives.”
—Chicago Tribune
Novelist, cultural critic & former priest James Carroll marries history with memoir as he maps the 2000-year course of the Church’s battle against Judaism & faces the crisis of faith it has sparked in his own life.
“Fascinating, brave & sometimes infuriating” (Time), this dark history is more than a chronicle of religion. It's the central tragedy of Western civilization, its fault lines reaching deep into our culture to create “a deeply felt work” (San Francisco Chronicle) as Carroll wrangles with centuries of strife & tragedy to reach a courageous & affecting reckoning with difficult truths.
—Chicago Tribune
Novelist, cultural critic & former priest James Carroll marries history with memoir as he maps the 2000-year course of the Church’s battle against Judaism & faces the crisis of faith it has sparked in his own life.
“Fascinating, brave & sometimes infuriating” (Time), this dark history is more than a chronicle of religion. It's the central tragedy of Western civilization, its fault lines reaching deep into our culture to create “a deeply felt work” (San Francisco Chronicle) as Carroll wrangles with centuries of strife & tragedy to reach a courageous & affecting reckoning with difficult truths.
756 pages, Paperback
First published January 10, 2001
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4071 people want to read
About the author
James Carroll
142 books161 followersJames Carroll was born in Chicago and raised in Washington, D.C. He has been a civil rights worker, an antiwar activist, and a community organizer in Washington and New York. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1969 and served as Catholic chaplain at Boston University. Carroll left the priesthood to become a novelist and playwright. He lives in Boston with his wife, the novelist Alexandra Marshall, and their two children.
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January 18, 2018
Dear James Carroll,
Although you kindly gave me your email address, I purposely have not written you in the nearly seven years since meeting you at your 2011 lecture series at Emory University, and the reason I have not is that I hadn't read your work, any of it. Now I have! I've just completed Constantine's Sword. What's more, I've read it over a period of six months with a group that has been reading and studying it together, and, not only that, I put together our notes and study questions each month. So, yes, now I've indeed read Constantine's Sword.
But to which "you" am I writing? You published Constantine's Sword (which I'll now begin abbreviating as "CS") in 2001 as a journey of discovery, self-confrontation, atonement, and challenge, but you had reached that point on your journey ten years before I met you. By now you've undoubtedly gone on beyond where you were in 2011. So first of all, the you to whom I'm writing is the you with whom I've been in intimate conversation over the past six months, the you of CS.
At the outset I want to say that I consider you a hero. Adam Gopnik once wrote that at critical points the integrity of institutions depends on the integrity of individuals; the fragile integrity. He was talking about the courage of such individuals, of which I consider you one. That is important for me to say since I do have quibbles with the book, but that's what they are, quibbles, and do not take away from your monumental achievement.
In 2011 I asked you if you received pushback from your church (by which I meant the institution, not your local church), and you said no, but maybe I phrased my question wrong, since in the book you do mention that your witness sometimes has been questioned by those who might consider you just another anti-papal troublemaker. I don't doubt that you do have support, and you must have a strong internal support system too, for taking on an institution is not for the faint of heart. Or, rather, it's not about taking on an institution but about standing up to one, and when you're talking beyond Catholicism to Western Christianity, and, in a sense, Western civilization, you are brave and strong. Most of us can't stand up to our institutions. We think we could, but we don't.
Next, on to my quibbles.
The first is the way you explain how the Christian New Testament became anti-Jewish. I resonated with your explanation of your family's misremembering of your uncle as a hero of Irish independence, when actually he died fighting for Britain in WWI--how with subsequent events Irish people no longer could imagine, much less remember, that not-so-distant ancestors had been British patriots. (I also groaned as you explained how the British "solved" their Irish problem in part by putting Irish soldiers on the front lines during that war.) I also think I understood John Dominic Crossan's "history remembered" vs. "prophecy historicized." I think, too, that this way of reaching your conclusion must have been acceptable to you, by which I mean compatible with your faith--important, since the need to rehearse it arose at a number of points throughout the book. And I certainly agree with the conclusion you reached, stated most strongly when you referred to the New Testament's pinning the death of Jesus on the Jews as the first blood libel. Yet I found your explanation labored and difficult to get my mind around. Your hands may have in part been tied by having to believe all the Gospel writers were Jews and therefore their anti-Jewish rhetoric takes on aspects of a family spat instead of something worse. Not all scholars accept that now, but even if they did, some people might say fights between family are the most terrible of all. And so, too, can be the attitude toward a group by those who have left it. Also, you may have been encumbered by your assumption that early Christians hated Rome as much as the Jews did, when they may have forgotten that hatred sooner rather than later.
My other main quibble is with your treatment of Marx and his father. First, the father: how is becoming a lawyer instead of a rabbi an act of rebellion against his own father? Before Napoleon's impact, could he have even been a lawyer; wouldn't he have been tied to either trade or Talmud? You're so hard on him. Also, I read elsewhere, in Jerry Muller's The Mind and the Market: Capitalism in Western Thought (published two years after CS) that after the Rhineland came under Prussian auspices, the elder Marx tried to get grandfathered in to the practice of law while remaining a Jew, but he was turned down, and only then went to the baptismal font, as Heine might have said. I did not get the impression he jumped at conversion out of ambition, shrugging his Judaism off like an old coat. And if he had a family to feed, was keeping his profession simply a matter of ambition? Yes, I've felt sad about his peeling away from Judaism, but coping with a hostile majority culture is so hard that I'm reluctant to condemn people for their decisions, particularly in this case in which I haven't heard he was selling anyone down the river to save himself.
As to Karl Marx himself, his language evokes responses such as yours, leading to much confusion, so that various Europeans were (and are) trying to differentiate their capitalism from "heartless" or "exploitive" (reducing to "Jewish") capitalism. It may well be that his language was an unintended defense against the perceived scandal of his origins. However, I understand from Muller that Marx was playing on two words, first, Judentum, which in German could mean either "Jews," "Judaism," or "business" ("jewing"), and Schacher, which was used to mean either "huckstering" or "usury" and was associated primarily with Jews. What I understand is that Marx was saying that all capitalism, that is, all modernity with its market economy, is Jewdom and based on jewing, and that "the Jew" is emancipated in the sense that the entire world is now Jewdom. And so according to Marx all capitalism (all of modern society) is by definition bad. Despite his language, he is against, not Jews, but bourgeois society in its entirety. Thus, per Marx, modernity is untenable, and Marxism too (as you say about fascist and Catholic totalitarianism) harks backward toward a pre-modern ideal.
Finally, you portray Marx as somehow the culmination of the Enlightenment: "...the secular Enlightenment, whose political champion (is) Karl Marx..." (p. 502 in the paperback), and that is a new one on me. While according to Marxism capitalism may culminate in Marxism, I can't see Marx representing the epitome of the Enlightenment.
Okay, so much for the quibbles. The appreciations could go on indefinitely. I'd have to rewrite the book here. So let me go with the appreciations that come up first for me, realizing they are not all and emphasizing the aspects that are new to me.
You say that even though the Christian scriptures do blame Jews for the death of Jesus, Jews only became central to the faith after the focus in the West shifted to the crucifixion and thus to the cross, which happened with Constantine. I think many people have heard that the early focus was on life and its symbols--the egg, the fish, for example, or the waters of baptism--and not on death, not on how that happened through the promulgation of Constantine's story and later his mother Helena's. You say the political implications of his conversion are known but that his impact on the religion and culture are not, since much of it is the way we think now, and therefore taken for granted. Constantine's legendary victory was in 312, his story as commonly told was generated by the bishop Eusebius originated in 325. You said he was no underdog, his conversion being "calculated and strategic." For Constantine, the rivalries in Christianity reflected those in the Empire (not to mention those in his family) and needed to be stamped out. He saw himself from the point of view of heaven as God's regent bringing order out of chaos, but the view on the ground was of a totalitarian. And so Eusebius' rendition, no objective biography, made Constantine a new Moses and celebrated "the divinely ordained union of the Church and the Empire" with the newly central cross, both as triumphal insignia and as means of salvation. You go so far as to say Constantine surpassed even the caesars in doing what they could not do and eliminating Jewish political autonomy. As Christianity's political star rose, the status of Jews correspondingly sank, essentially until 1948. Subsequently the bishop Ambrose used Helena's legend of finder of the True Cross to hammer the nail into the coffin. With the corresponding centrality of relics, every sliver of wood from the cross, every nail in it, could become another nail of proof against the alleged perpetrators and a triumphal sign of victory. And thus, the best defense being a good offense, did Christianity take arms against the conflict at its heart, that Judaism did not accept the "Jewish messiah" proclaimed by Christianity.
That reminds me that Amy-Jill Levine, the rock star of interfaith study and interaction, has told a story of how she used to resent the name Old Testament, that is, until she became old, and then it didn't sound so bad. Likewise, I had to laugh, when, while studying this stuff, I acquired a watch whose brand name is Relic. Well, now that I'm a relic, maybe relic doesn't sound so bad...
Oh, man, it's hard to do this without going into every detail, and then I don't know when I'll finish. Let me just say that, subsequently, Augustine countered the lethal consequences of Ambrose's and Chrysostom's ideology with a double-edged sword that saved Jews in their immediate situation but, as you're fond of saying, came with a fuse. He came up with the idea that Jews needed to be kept around in a denigrated state to prove they had "lost" and were despised by God, but at the same time, they shouldn't be killed or forcibly converted since they needed to be kept around as proof of the truth of Christianity. Oh, the rationales people come up with! Now that's a balancing act that's hard to maintain and explodes from time to time: preach hate and forbearance. Partly because of it there are thirteen or fourteen million Jews in the world rather than the hundred million or so that might be projected from their numbers in the Roman empire. But partly because of it there are some Jews in existence (as opposed to having been absorbed or eliminated).
And the part about the double standard on suffering: that when Christians suffer it's redemptive; while when Jews suffer it's reflecting God's curse.
And the urge among Christians to define Judaism so as to bolster conclusions already reached; how any Christian feels authorized to say what Judaism is.
It's a relief to have such perspectives out in the open.
I also appreciated your point that when the church is weak, vulnerable, and defensive, it's rough times ahead for the Jews. Which puts me in mind of taking karate when I was 29 and having as a sparring partner an "old" man in his late 50s. He couldn't kick all that high, and, God, were my shins bruised... I think it's in the context of a needy, power-seeking church that you're looking at the rise of ultramontanism--a good cocktail party word meaning power to the Pope--and the new doctrine of papal infallibility, subsequent to the advances of modernism and the Church's profound reduction in worldly power after the late 18th century--I should capitalize when it's about Roman Catholicism in particular that I'm talking. I also appreciated your pointing out the usefulness of fanning the flames of both piety and Jew-hatred for reconnecting with a disaffected populace. Somewhere you said faith becomes politics.
You also pointed out the unity inherent in Spinoza's thinking and Descartes' aim toward dualism and alienation.
You gave a new slant to the Dreyfus episode, the Church being another player besides those usually identified. You also identified the Dreyfus affair as the beginning of the end for Emancipation in Europe and how Theodor Herzl felt that in his bones and was galvanized. And who knew that as of 1994 the French army had never admitted its error?
I never before had heard of the medieval nature of the Church, beginning with Anselm's medieval theology--his Christology--of why Jesus had to die and why he had to be both man and God--the offended medieval lord who must be appeased. The envisioning of the Church's structure with the pope as medieval lord of the world also attended to the need in those medieval times to tame the wild, wild West, but done through unitary thinking and totalitarianism. That made sense, made some things fall into place, in particular, the rejection of modernity. Now I think that's what makes the Church, and maybe the church in general, sound "socialist" in its attitude toward modernity, when in actuality it's that medievalism. Do you remember that at one of your Emory lectures a young man railed at the fact that there was a flag in the sanctuary? He protested there should be no flag, only the cross. And that was in a Protestant, not a Catholic, setting. You said that ever since Pope John XXIII, those who have followed him have striven to undo his reforms. Of course, that's your word from 2001, but I think it's still the case.
I had thought no one could resist Hitler during his rise to power and the war years, but you pointed out that when there was the will, there was a way. The Nazis couldn't remove the crucifixes from the walls of Bavarian schools lest they lose the sympathies of the whole area, so they had to cease and desist. Also, the Bishop of Münster preached against the Nazi euthanasia program application to the local population; he called it murder; the Nazis had to call it off. Then, later, you also did describe the Catholics rising to the challenge to resist Bismarck, an attitude that wouldn't be recapitulated in Hitler's time since, at least early on, the Church in Germany made common cause with Nazism. It was to the wolves with Jews and even some Polish Catholics. You explained how it was that the view of Fascism was fuzzy while Communism was always the greatest foe and resisted with alacrity--meaning that at times the Church fell into bed with Fascism. And, too, not just Communism, but modernism in general was the foe of that basically medieval institution, so that at one point "Americanism" was a heresy. O the horror that people might look into their own consciences and think for themselves! You said that as recently as your own ordination in the '60s, you had to take an oath against Modernism. All of this has left its confusing stamp on the West!
Your explanation of why anti-Judaism and antisemitism don't add up to just another agenda item on the Catholic to-do list is crucial. That's the defense so often deployed on the Left--that it is just one wrong among others and one, it's often said, that has already received more than its share of attention. Not that Jewish suffering or loss of life is worse than the suffering or death of others; it is not. But that is not the point, which is that the Jewish question is the arrow aimed into the center of Christian theology, and, further, into the Western imagination, with its fantasy Jew and with "(a)ntisemitism ... a consistently exploited organizing principle, a pillar of Protestant and Catholic identity. Individual Jews and whole Jewish communities were periodically sacrificed to this principle" (p. 478). Your exploration of the Jewish question through history is what has led you to call for a new reformation, a reformare, in the Latin, meaning to shape something according to its own essential being." For you have said all along that antisemitism is not essential to Christianity, although you also said that not facing the theology behind the denigration of Jews is what has made it inevitable. It is a pattern that can't be deconstructed as long as it's still being exploited.
One of your central emphases is the cross at Auschwitz and although I can follow the theological objection, the clearer more immediate explanation is that the cross represents people who at the time were aligned with the perpetrators subsequently repositioning themselves as victims. Or, at least, people who didn't speak out because they were not a Jew, and saw no need to speak out for Jews, until eventually the Nazis did come for them as well, leading to the eventual repositioning as fellow-victims, at which point, after all, the facts on the ground had reversed.
Your emphasis on history (and that scripture isn't history) and on the question "What is truth?" is key. Back seven years ago I thought you were saying history = truth, which would not be consistent with your statements in CS.
Thank you for being so articulate in recording your journey. Talking to you was not easy because I had so much to say. Possibly I strayed from the point too often, but also I elaborated; I was concerned to get what I said right since readers will think what I say does reflect what you intended. I hope I didn't mislead them too badly. In closing, let me say, James Carroll, that you have been a great help and inspiration.
With appreciation and affection,
Jan Rice
Questions for further thought:
Is it still anathema for Jews (and others) to be integrated into society without being converted? (the question of pluralism)
What makes this book difficult to read for many people--sheer length; the aspect of memoir; the painful subject matter?
Is Pope Francis another John XXIII?
Should Jews be allowed to read this book?
Although you kindly gave me your email address, I purposely have not written you in the nearly seven years since meeting you at your 2011 lecture series at Emory University, and the reason I have not is that I hadn't read your work, any of it. Now I have! I've just completed Constantine's Sword. What's more, I've read it over a period of six months with a group that has been reading and studying it together, and, not only that, I put together our notes and study questions each month. So, yes, now I've indeed read Constantine's Sword.
But to which "you" am I writing? You published Constantine's Sword (which I'll now begin abbreviating as "CS") in 2001 as a journey of discovery, self-confrontation, atonement, and challenge, but you had reached that point on your journey ten years before I met you. By now you've undoubtedly gone on beyond where you were in 2011. So first of all, the you to whom I'm writing is the you with whom I've been in intimate conversation over the past six months, the you of CS.
At the outset I want to say that I consider you a hero. Adam Gopnik once wrote that at critical points the integrity of institutions depends on the integrity of individuals; the fragile integrity. He was talking about the courage of such individuals, of which I consider you one. That is important for me to say since I do have quibbles with the book, but that's what they are, quibbles, and do not take away from your monumental achievement.
In 2011 I asked you if you received pushback from your church (by which I meant the institution, not your local church), and you said no, but maybe I phrased my question wrong, since in the book you do mention that your witness sometimes has been questioned by those who might consider you just another anti-papal troublemaker. I don't doubt that you do have support, and you must have a strong internal support system too, for taking on an institution is not for the faint of heart. Or, rather, it's not about taking on an institution but about standing up to one, and when you're talking beyond Catholicism to Western Christianity, and, in a sense, Western civilization, you are brave and strong. Most of us can't stand up to our institutions. We think we could, but we don't.
Next, on to my quibbles.
The first is the way you explain how the Christian New Testament became anti-Jewish. I resonated with your explanation of your family's misremembering of your uncle as a hero of Irish independence, when actually he died fighting for Britain in WWI--how with subsequent events Irish people no longer could imagine, much less remember, that not-so-distant ancestors had been British patriots. (I also groaned as you explained how the British "solved" their Irish problem in part by putting Irish soldiers on the front lines during that war.) I also think I understood John Dominic Crossan's "history remembered" vs. "prophecy historicized." I think, too, that this way of reaching your conclusion must have been acceptable to you, by which I mean compatible with your faith--important, since the need to rehearse it arose at a number of points throughout the book. And I certainly agree with the conclusion you reached, stated most strongly when you referred to the New Testament's pinning the death of Jesus on the Jews as the first blood libel. Yet I found your explanation labored and difficult to get my mind around. Your hands may have in part been tied by having to believe all the Gospel writers were Jews and therefore their anti-Jewish rhetoric takes on aspects of a family spat instead of something worse. Not all scholars accept that now, but even if they did, some people might say fights between family are the most terrible of all. And so, too, can be the attitude toward a group by those who have left it. Also, you may have been encumbered by your assumption that early Christians hated Rome as much as the Jews did, when they may have forgotten that hatred sooner rather than later.
My other main quibble is with your treatment of Marx and his father. First, the father: how is becoming a lawyer instead of a rabbi an act of rebellion against his own father? Before Napoleon's impact, could he have even been a lawyer; wouldn't he have been tied to either trade or Talmud? You're so hard on him. Also, I read elsewhere, in Jerry Muller's The Mind and the Market: Capitalism in Western Thought (published two years after CS) that after the Rhineland came under Prussian auspices, the elder Marx tried to get grandfathered in to the practice of law while remaining a Jew, but he was turned down, and only then went to the baptismal font, as Heine might have said. I did not get the impression he jumped at conversion out of ambition, shrugging his Judaism off like an old coat. And if he had a family to feed, was keeping his profession simply a matter of ambition? Yes, I've felt sad about his peeling away from Judaism, but coping with a hostile majority culture is so hard that I'm reluctant to condemn people for their decisions, particularly in this case in which I haven't heard he was selling anyone down the river to save himself.
As to Karl Marx himself, his language evokes responses such as yours, leading to much confusion, so that various Europeans were (and are) trying to differentiate their capitalism from "heartless" or "exploitive" (reducing to "Jewish") capitalism. It may well be that his language was an unintended defense against the perceived scandal of his origins. However, I understand from Muller that Marx was playing on two words, first, Judentum, which in German could mean either "Jews," "Judaism," or "business" ("jewing"), and Schacher, which was used to mean either "huckstering" or "usury" and was associated primarily with Jews. What I understand is that Marx was saying that all capitalism, that is, all modernity with its market economy, is Jewdom and based on jewing, and that "the Jew" is emancipated in the sense that the entire world is now Jewdom. And so according to Marx all capitalism (all of modern society) is by definition bad. Despite his language, he is against, not Jews, but bourgeois society in its entirety. Thus, per Marx, modernity is untenable, and Marxism too (as you say about fascist and Catholic totalitarianism) harks backward toward a pre-modern ideal.
Finally, you portray Marx as somehow the culmination of the Enlightenment: "...the secular Enlightenment, whose political champion (is) Karl Marx..." (p. 502 in the paperback), and that is a new one on me. While according to Marxism capitalism may culminate in Marxism, I can't see Marx representing the epitome of the Enlightenment.
Okay, so much for the quibbles. The appreciations could go on indefinitely. I'd have to rewrite the book here. So let me go with the appreciations that come up first for me, realizing they are not all and emphasizing the aspects that are new to me.
You say that even though the Christian scriptures do blame Jews for the death of Jesus, Jews only became central to the faith after the focus in the West shifted to the crucifixion and thus to the cross, which happened with Constantine. I think many people have heard that the early focus was on life and its symbols--the egg, the fish, for example, or the waters of baptism--and not on death, not on how that happened through the promulgation of Constantine's story and later his mother Helena's. You say the political implications of his conversion are known but that his impact on the religion and culture are not, since much of it is the way we think now, and therefore taken for granted. Constantine's legendary victory was in 312, his story as commonly told was generated by the bishop Eusebius originated in 325. You said he was no underdog, his conversion being "calculated and strategic." For Constantine, the rivalries in Christianity reflected those in the Empire (not to mention those in his family) and needed to be stamped out. He saw himself from the point of view of heaven as God's regent bringing order out of chaos, but the view on the ground was of a totalitarian. And so Eusebius' rendition, no objective biography, made Constantine a new Moses and celebrated "the divinely ordained union of the Church and the Empire" with the newly central cross, both as triumphal insignia and as means of salvation. You go so far as to say Constantine surpassed even the caesars in doing what they could not do and eliminating Jewish political autonomy. As Christianity's political star rose, the status of Jews correspondingly sank, essentially until 1948. Subsequently the bishop Ambrose used Helena's legend of finder of the True Cross to hammer the nail into the coffin. With the corresponding centrality of relics, every sliver of wood from the cross, every nail in it, could become another nail of proof against the alleged perpetrators and a triumphal sign of victory. And thus, the best defense being a good offense, did Christianity take arms against the conflict at its heart, that Judaism did not accept the "Jewish messiah" proclaimed by Christianity.
That reminds me that Amy-Jill Levine, the rock star of interfaith study and interaction, has told a story of how she used to resent the name Old Testament, that is, until she became old, and then it didn't sound so bad. Likewise, I had to laugh, when, while studying this stuff, I acquired a watch whose brand name is Relic. Well, now that I'm a relic, maybe relic doesn't sound so bad...
Oh, man, it's hard to do this without going into every detail, and then I don't know when I'll finish. Let me just say that, subsequently, Augustine countered the lethal consequences of Ambrose's and Chrysostom's ideology with a double-edged sword that saved Jews in their immediate situation but, as you're fond of saying, came with a fuse. He came up with the idea that Jews needed to be kept around in a denigrated state to prove they had "lost" and were despised by God, but at the same time, they shouldn't be killed or forcibly converted since they needed to be kept around as proof of the truth of Christianity. Oh, the rationales people come up with! Now that's a balancing act that's hard to maintain and explodes from time to time: preach hate and forbearance. Partly because of it there are thirteen or fourteen million Jews in the world rather than the hundred million or so that might be projected from their numbers in the Roman empire. But partly because of it there are some Jews in existence (as opposed to having been absorbed or eliminated).
And the part about the double standard on suffering: that when Christians suffer it's redemptive; while when Jews suffer it's reflecting God's curse.
And the urge among Christians to define Judaism so as to bolster conclusions already reached; how any Christian feels authorized to say what Judaism is.
It's a relief to have such perspectives out in the open.
I also appreciated your point that when the church is weak, vulnerable, and defensive, it's rough times ahead for the Jews. Which puts me in mind of taking karate when I was 29 and having as a sparring partner an "old" man in his late 50s. He couldn't kick all that high, and, God, were my shins bruised... I think it's in the context of a needy, power-seeking church that you're looking at the rise of ultramontanism--a good cocktail party word meaning power to the Pope--and the new doctrine of papal infallibility, subsequent to the advances of modernism and the Church's profound reduction in worldly power after the late 18th century--I should capitalize when it's about Roman Catholicism in particular that I'm talking. I also appreciated your pointing out the usefulness of fanning the flames of both piety and Jew-hatred for reconnecting with a disaffected populace. Somewhere you said faith becomes politics.
You also pointed out the unity inherent in Spinoza's thinking and Descartes' aim toward dualism and alienation.
You gave a new slant to the Dreyfus episode, the Church being another player besides those usually identified. You also identified the Dreyfus affair as the beginning of the end for Emancipation in Europe and how Theodor Herzl felt that in his bones and was galvanized. And who knew that as of 1994 the French army had never admitted its error?
I never before had heard of the medieval nature of the Church, beginning with Anselm's medieval theology--his Christology--of why Jesus had to die and why he had to be both man and God--the offended medieval lord who must be appeased. The envisioning of the Church's structure with the pope as medieval lord of the world also attended to the need in those medieval times to tame the wild, wild West, but done through unitary thinking and totalitarianism. That made sense, made some things fall into place, in particular, the rejection of modernity. Now I think that's what makes the Church, and maybe the church in general, sound "socialist" in its attitude toward modernity, when in actuality it's that medievalism. Do you remember that at one of your Emory lectures a young man railed at the fact that there was a flag in the sanctuary? He protested there should be no flag, only the cross. And that was in a Protestant, not a Catholic, setting. You said that ever since Pope John XXIII, those who have followed him have striven to undo his reforms. Of course, that's your word from 2001, but I think it's still the case.
I had thought no one could resist Hitler during his rise to power and the war years, but you pointed out that when there was the will, there was a way. The Nazis couldn't remove the crucifixes from the walls of Bavarian schools lest they lose the sympathies of the whole area, so they had to cease and desist. Also, the Bishop of Münster preached against the Nazi euthanasia program application to the local population; he called it murder; the Nazis had to call it off. Then, later, you also did describe the Catholics rising to the challenge to resist Bismarck, an attitude that wouldn't be recapitulated in Hitler's time since, at least early on, the Church in Germany made common cause with Nazism. It was to the wolves with Jews and even some Polish Catholics. You explained how it was that the view of Fascism was fuzzy while Communism was always the greatest foe and resisted with alacrity--meaning that at times the Church fell into bed with Fascism. And, too, not just Communism, but modernism in general was the foe of that basically medieval institution, so that at one point "Americanism" was a heresy. O the horror that people might look into their own consciences and think for themselves! You said that as recently as your own ordination in the '60s, you had to take an oath against Modernism. All of this has left its confusing stamp on the West!
Your explanation of why anti-Judaism and antisemitism don't add up to just another agenda item on the Catholic to-do list is crucial. That's the defense so often deployed on the Left--that it is just one wrong among others and one, it's often said, that has already received more than its share of attention. Not that Jewish suffering or loss of life is worse than the suffering or death of others; it is not. But that is not the point, which is that the Jewish question is the arrow aimed into the center of Christian theology, and, further, into the Western imagination, with its fantasy Jew and with "(a)ntisemitism ... a consistently exploited organizing principle, a pillar of Protestant and Catholic identity. Individual Jews and whole Jewish communities were periodically sacrificed to this principle" (p. 478). Your exploration of the Jewish question through history is what has led you to call for a new reformation, a reformare, in the Latin, meaning to shape something according to its own essential being." For you have said all along that antisemitism is not essential to Christianity, although you also said that not facing the theology behind the denigration of Jews is what has made it inevitable. It is a pattern that can't be deconstructed as long as it's still being exploited.
One of your central emphases is the cross at Auschwitz and although I can follow the theological objection, the clearer more immediate explanation is that the cross represents people who at the time were aligned with the perpetrators subsequently repositioning themselves as victims. Or, at least, people who didn't speak out because they were not a Jew, and saw no need to speak out for Jews, until eventually the Nazis did come for them as well, leading to the eventual repositioning as fellow-victims, at which point, after all, the facts on the ground had reversed.
Your emphasis on history (and that scripture isn't history) and on the question "What is truth?" is key. Back seven years ago I thought you were saying history = truth, which would not be consistent with your statements in CS.
Thank you for being so articulate in recording your journey. Talking to you was not easy because I had so much to say. Possibly I strayed from the point too often, but also I elaborated; I was concerned to get what I said right since readers will think what I say does reflect what you intended. I hope I didn't mislead them too badly. In closing, let me say, James Carroll, that you have been a great help and inspiration.
With appreciation and affection,
Jan Rice
Questions for further thought:
Is it still anathema for Jews (and others) to be integrated into society without being converted? (the question of pluralism)
What makes this book difficult to read for many people--sheer length; the aspect of memoir; the painful subject matter?
Is Pope Francis another John XXIII?
Should Jews be allowed to read this book?
February 7, 2025
Carroll’s astonishing work left me electrified and unnerved, a paradoxical cocktail of revelation and disquiet. Carroll, a former Catholic priest turned National Book Award-winning historian, crafts a searing examination of Christianity’s two-millennia entanglement with antisemitism, interwoven with his own journey from devout seminarian to disillusioned yet deeply devout and lovingly Catholic critic. The book’s central thesis—that the Church’s elevation of the cross from a symbol of redemptive suffering to a “sword” of imperial power under Constantine catalyzed a theology of Jewish culpability—is both intellectually audacious and morally urgent. Carroll’s lyrical and forensic writing juxtaposes Augustine’s theological dualism with the visceral horrors of the Crusades, while his personal anecdotes—like the darkly comic memory of a childhood friend quipping, “Why do Jews answer questions with questions?”—puncture the gravity with wry humanity. One particularly chilling quote lingers: “The Church invented the Jew as a permanent heretic,” a sentence that distills centuries of systemic othering into a single, damning indictment.
The book’s panoramic scope is staggering. Carroll unearths twenty centuries of antisemitic vitriol, each episode a grotesque vignette: the 4th-century Council of Nicaea’s exclusionary theology; 11th-century Rhineland Crusaders massacring Jews as “Christ-killers”; 12th-century blood libels in Norwich; 13th-century Parisian burnings of the Talmud; 14th-century Black Death scapegoating; 15th-century Spanish Inquisitors torturing conversos; 16th-century Luther’s venomous On the Jews and Their Lies; 17th-century Venetian ghettoization; 18th-century Enlightenment philosophes like Voltaire recasting Jew-hatred as “rational” disdain; 19th-century Dreyfus Affair hysteria; 20th-century Vatican silence during the Holocaust; and 21st-century conspiracies conflating Zionism with Nazism. Each example, meticulously sourced from Latin chronicles, Hebrew piyyutim, German polemics, French edicts, Spanish inquisitorial records, Italian civic archives, Russian novels, and Polish diaries, reveals antisemitism’s chameleonic adaptability—a virus mutating across epochs yet retaining its lethal core.
Carroll’s hybrid memoir-scholarly treatise is not without flaws. His digressions into U.S. military policy feel tangential, and his penchant for poetic abstraction occasionally muddies historical causality. Yet the book’s importance is undeniable: it is a mea culpa and a call to arms, demanding Christians confront what Carroll terms “the rot at the root.” Reading it, I felt a gnawing shame at my own ignorance of, say, Pope Innocent III’s 1215 edict forcing Jews to wear yellow badges—a precedent for Nazi policies. Yet I also marveled at Carroll’s unflinching hope, his belief that “memory can be redemptive.” Surprised by the Church’s role in racializing antisemitism, unsettled by modern parallels, I emerged convinced this is a vital and courageous work. As Carroll writes, “Truth is a steep price, but denial is costlier.”
The book’s panoramic scope is staggering. Carroll unearths twenty centuries of antisemitic vitriol, each episode a grotesque vignette: the 4th-century Council of Nicaea’s exclusionary theology; 11th-century Rhineland Crusaders massacring Jews as “Christ-killers”; 12th-century blood libels in Norwich; 13th-century Parisian burnings of the Talmud; 14th-century Black Death scapegoating; 15th-century Spanish Inquisitors torturing conversos; 16th-century Luther’s venomous On the Jews and Their Lies; 17th-century Venetian ghettoization; 18th-century Enlightenment philosophes like Voltaire recasting Jew-hatred as “rational” disdain; 19th-century Dreyfus Affair hysteria; 20th-century Vatican silence during the Holocaust; and 21st-century conspiracies conflating Zionism with Nazism. Each example, meticulously sourced from Latin chronicles, Hebrew piyyutim, German polemics, French edicts, Spanish inquisitorial records, Italian civic archives, Russian novels, and Polish diaries, reveals antisemitism’s chameleonic adaptability—a virus mutating across epochs yet retaining its lethal core.
Carroll’s hybrid memoir-scholarly treatise is not without flaws. His digressions into U.S. military policy feel tangential, and his penchant for poetic abstraction occasionally muddies historical causality. Yet the book’s importance is undeniable: it is a mea culpa and a call to arms, demanding Christians confront what Carroll terms “the rot at the root.” Reading it, I felt a gnawing shame at my own ignorance of, say, Pope Innocent III’s 1215 edict forcing Jews to wear yellow badges—a precedent for Nazi policies. Yet I also marveled at Carroll’s unflinching hope, his belief that “memory can be redemptive.” Surprised by the Church’s role in racializing antisemitism, unsettled by modern parallels, I emerged convinced this is a vital and courageous work. As Carroll writes, “Truth is a steep price, but denial is costlier.”
October 13, 2008
This is a priceless investigation of anti-semitism in Christianity, and it is an invaluable book. However in asmuch as the author does not get past Christianity enough to understand that it had nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus, and the fact that it was Paul who was so heavily invested in creating a separate and different movement, which of necessity had victimization built in, as a good Cahtolic, he remains stuck with the guilt over this aspect, and the reader through him. Having said that his honesty and courage in looking at this messy aspect of Christian history is overwhelming.
A long time ago, a book by the Dutch theologian Prof. G. J. Heering, The Fall of Christianity (English translations from ca. 1943) identified the fall of the teachings of the Prince of Peace as they finally became the religion of the soldiers of Caesar, Constantine the Great - whose "In Hoc Signo Vinces," which surely was a nadir of Christianity, and hardly a triumph.
Once it is understood that Christian aggression begins with Paul's proselytizing--let's not practice what he says, but instead let's convince the neighbors that they should practice what he says--then it is also clear that the seeds of hatred were in the DNA of the movement, since separation, and being unique and different is the underlying premise, wich completely flies in the face of everything Jesus stood for, which was inclusion never exclusion.
While Heering had a clear eye for the decay of Jesus's message, more so than Carroll, he did not realize that the rot was built in from the moment Paul's proselytizing turned the message completely outward.
A long time ago, a book by the Dutch theologian Prof. G. J. Heering, The Fall of Christianity (English translations from ca. 1943) identified the fall of the teachings of the Prince of Peace as they finally became the religion of the soldiers of Caesar, Constantine the Great - whose "In Hoc Signo Vinces," which surely was a nadir of Christianity, and hardly a triumph.
Once it is understood that Christian aggression begins with Paul's proselytizing--let's not practice what he says, but instead let's convince the neighbors that they should practice what he says--then it is also clear that the seeds of hatred were in the DNA of the movement, since separation, and being unique and different is the underlying premise, wich completely flies in the face of everything Jesus stood for, which was inclusion never exclusion.
While Heering had a clear eye for the decay of Jesus's message, more so than Carroll, he did not realize that the rot was built in from the moment Paul's proselytizing turned the message completely outward.
July 17, 2020
Jesus was a simple man with a simple philosophy: love one another, don't be a judge, don't be self-righteous parading virtue on your sleeve. Violence solves nothing. Be the first to help others and the last to put yourself forward ahead of them.
I've taken up a daily habit that will keep me busy for some time. I am visiting all the French and English cathedrals online. They are nothing if not symbols of immense power, of a religious empire based on the Roman, the buildings being derivative of the Roman basilica where emperors sat at the front above the people. The structures were meant to inspire awe and submission to supernatural power as represented by clerical power.
What possible connection could there be between the subject of my first paragraph and that of my second? Jesus' wanted people to be humble with respect to each other, not to a hierarchy of clergy dressed in elaborate attire and carrying symbols of power with a supreme leader at the top claiming to be the representative of God on earth and declared infallible regarding doctrine in 1870. There is nothing in Jesus' philosophy that calls for an institution of such wealth and power as the Roman Catholic Church became in his name.
Constantine's Sword is the work of an ordained Catholic following the course of the church through history with the common thread of anti-semitism that has been a feature more or less on display for two millennia culminating in a failure to censure let alone act against Hitler, the polar opposite to Jesus.
James Carroll takes the reader on his youthful travels with his devout mother, showing the naive acceptance of the story of Jesus and the place assigned to the Jews as responsible for his death on the cross. Then we see Carroll become a priest, increasingly questioning the position of the church with regard to the Jews as well as his own responsibility in it. This is a book about the morality of church and of the author as a member of it.
Carroll gives a detailed account of the leading thinkers who set the course of the church and the many popes who could deviate toward acceptance of the Jews but more often toward passivity or even encouragement when laymen became violent against Jews. It almost becomes farce with the setting up of a Jewish ghetto in Rome on the order of and within sight of the pope in the Vatican. The next pope has the ghetto torn down, then the next pope has it restored.
Peter and Paul, Constantine, Augustine, Ambrose, Abelard, Aquinas, and many popes from Gregory the Great down to John Paul II are all here with their views and actions analyzed, making this a masterpiece of Catholic philosophical investigation and behind it all stands the icon of the church, Christ suffering on the cross. Carroll highlights that the church makes this the center of attention rather than Jesus' message of love and forgiveness.
The cross is the thread that binds the book, starting with a vision of it in the sky before the Roman emperor Constantine marching to take Rome against his rival Maxentius in 312 CE. He saw below the cross the words "with this, conquer", had his troops fashion a cross icon with a vertical spear and a horizontal sword and the following day was victorious. Thus did Christianity win his endorsement.
The cross is at the end of Carroll's historical account with the display of it at Auschwitz, still there in 2020 against the wishes of most Jews. Carroll's extreme discomfort with this placement drives his determination to understand why he feels it and how the cross has established itself as representative of a demeaning, insulting, accusing view of Judaism.
Constantine wished to bring the empire together under the cross and that purpose has never been lost, moving through all the popes into modern times. It is well known that to encourage unity, a common enemy is helpful and a helpless one was readily available throughout Europe.
In contrast to Jesus' call for the love of others, church thinkers starting with Augustine have placed blame on Jews for the death of Jesus. While Augustine did not call for direct oppression of the Jews, he did say that as punishment they were bound to never find peace but must be permitted to exist because their scripture authenticates (in the Christian view) the coming of Christ through prophesies in what the church calls the Old Testament, the first five books of which are the Torah of Judaism.
But permanent guilt in a matter so close to the heart of the vast majority of Europeans could not help but lead to terrible treatment in tough times. A plague? It was the Jews! Political unrest? The Jews at work! Economic decline? The Jews are bleeding us dry! Beatings, riots and dispossession could easily follow and more often than not, the church looked on.
To most in the church, the Jew was a scapegoat always at hand but in such small numbers that oppression was easily practiced and hard to resist, contradicting Jesus' practice of comforting the outcast and befriending the stranger.
It is well known that Jesus told his disciple Peter that before the cock would crow, Peter would deny three separate times that he knew Jesus. Peter vigorously denied it would happen and then went on to fulfill the prophecy, realizing with anguish how easily he had betrayed what he claimed was most important to him as he heard the cock crow. It is with a similar anguish that James Carroll documents the troubling history of his church, ending the book by calling for a Vatican III council to put a determined end to it.
Carroll has the gift of writing, never hesitates to relate the most regrettable episodes, of which there are so many. The reader feels the author's dedication to duty throughout.
Jesus stopped a stoning, saying "let he who is without sin cast the first stone." In other words, look to yourself before you judge others. As a dedicated Catholic, the author has done this with an institution that he feels deeply a part of himself. It is a job well done.
I've taken up a daily habit that will keep me busy for some time. I am visiting all the French and English cathedrals online. They are nothing if not symbols of immense power, of a religious empire based on the Roman, the buildings being derivative of the Roman basilica where emperors sat at the front above the people. The structures were meant to inspire awe and submission to supernatural power as represented by clerical power.
What possible connection could there be between the subject of my first paragraph and that of my second? Jesus' wanted people to be humble with respect to each other, not to a hierarchy of clergy dressed in elaborate attire and carrying symbols of power with a supreme leader at the top claiming to be the representative of God on earth and declared infallible regarding doctrine in 1870. There is nothing in Jesus' philosophy that calls for an institution of such wealth and power as the Roman Catholic Church became in his name.
Constantine's Sword is the work of an ordained Catholic following the course of the church through history with the common thread of anti-semitism that has been a feature more or less on display for two millennia culminating in a failure to censure let alone act against Hitler, the polar opposite to Jesus.
James Carroll takes the reader on his youthful travels with his devout mother, showing the naive acceptance of the story of Jesus and the place assigned to the Jews as responsible for his death on the cross. Then we see Carroll become a priest, increasingly questioning the position of the church with regard to the Jews as well as his own responsibility in it. This is a book about the morality of church and of the author as a member of it.
Carroll gives a detailed account of the leading thinkers who set the course of the church and the many popes who could deviate toward acceptance of the Jews but more often toward passivity or even encouragement when laymen became violent against Jews. It almost becomes farce with the setting up of a Jewish ghetto in Rome on the order of and within sight of the pope in the Vatican. The next pope has the ghetto torn down, then the next pope has it restored.
Peter and Paul, Constantine, Augustine, Ambrose, Abelard, Aquinas, and many popes from Gregory the Great down to John Paul II are all here with their views and actions analyzed, making this a masterpiece of Catholic philosophical investigation and behind it all stands the icon of the church, Christ suffering on the cross. Carroll highlights that the church makes this the center of attention rather than Jesus' message of love and forgiveness.
The cross is the thread that binds the book, starting with a vision of it in the sky before the Roman emperor Constantine marching to take Rome against his rival Maxentius in 312 CE. He saw below the cross the words "with this, conquer", had his troops fashion a cross icon with a vertical spear and a horizontal sword and the following day was victorious. Thus did Christianity win his endorsement.
The cross is at the end of Carroll's historical account with the display of it at Auschwitz, still there in 2020 against the wishes of most Jews. Carroll's extreme discomfort with this placement drives his determination to understand why he feels it and how the cross has established itself as representative of a demeaning, insulting, accusing view of Judaism.
Constantine wished to bring the empire together under the cross and that purpose has never been lost, moving through all the popes into modern times. It is well known that to encourage unity, a common enemy is helpful and a helpless one was readily available throughout Europe.
In contrast to Jesus' call for the love of others, church thinkers starting with Augustine have placed blame on Jews for the death of Jesus. While Augustine did not call for direct oppression of the Jews, he did say that as punishment they were bound to never find peace but must be permitted to exist because their scripture authenticates (in the Christian view) the coming of Christ through prophesies in what the church calls the Old Testament, the first five books of which are the Torah of Judaism.
But permanent guilt in a matter so close to the heart of the vast majority of Europeans could not help but lead to terrible treatment in tough times. A plague? It was the Jews! Political unrest? The Jews at work! Economic decline? The Jews are bleeding us dry! Beatings, riots and dispossession could easily follow and more often than not, the church looked on.
To most in the church, the Jew was a scapegoat always at hand but in such small numbers that oppression was easily practiced and hard to resist, contradicting Jesus' practice of comforting the outcast and befriending the stranger.
It is well known that Jesus told his disciple Peter that before the cock would crow, Peter would deny three separate times that he knew Jesus. Peter vigorously denied it would happen and then went on to fulfill the prophecy, realizing with anguish how easily he had betrayed what he claimed was most important to him as he heard the cock crow. It is with a similar anguish that James Carroll documents the troubling history of his church, ending the book by calling for a Vatican III council to put a determined end to it.
Carroll has the gift of writing, never hesitates to relate the most regrettable episodes, of which there are so many. The reader feels the author's dedication to duty throughout.
Jesus stopped a stoning, saying "let he who is without sin cast the first stone." In other words, look to yourself before you judge others. As a dedicated Catholic, the author has done this with an institution that he feels deeply a part of himself. It is a job well done.
June 2, 2017
By way of disclosure, I am not a Catholic or a Christian. As an outsider I had never understood why Christianity had chosen for its central symbol the cross.
That a cross can be made by holding a sword by the blade must have been convenient for a would-be conqueror, in particular, Constantine. But it also makes the central event of Christian belief the torture and murder of its most sacred founder. A religion that espouses peace should not want so much violence embodied in its embodying symbol. The best symbol for The Prince of Peace should not be a sword shaped reminder that this prince was the victim of a political assassination. The Prince of Peace would reject the sword as his personal emblem
Ex Priest, a former Catholic columnist, now a writer, play write and historian begins Constantine's Sword with this same observation. His central thesis seems to be that by making the death of Christ the most important event of his "human" life and by adopting as an article of faith that only through Christ can one's soul enter heaven, the Catholics created a set of justifications for violent anti-Semitism. Further Carroll argues that Antisemitism is a most shaming rot at the core of what is otherwise a beautiful religion. Carroll pointedly rejects the defense that evil is done in the name of the Church but never by the Church. In other words: the riot was not started by the person who falsely shouts "Fire" in a crowded theater, but by the people who panic upon hearing of the supposed threat.
In my taxonomy, Constantine's Sword is a second level of history. It is not the recounting of events for the purpose of detailing what happened. It is the deliberate selection of key events for the purpose of proving a theory. However this is an incomplete description. James Carroll recounts his personal journey, relating his experiences as a privileged child of a family living a privileged life as American in post war Europe. In his house the devil was incarnated as the threat of Communism. His mother's example was a loving influence for living a Catholic life.
The result is a very personal view of history. Not a remote or subjective recounting of history but one driven by his passion for his topic and insistence on a more impassioned appreciation for "what all this", the events of the remote past, means to us today.
His agenda is not hidden. He is positively advocating that the Mother Church has a duty to do an honest introspection, followed by unequivocal repentance and move forward with an improved catechism. The new catechism must emphasize The Mother Church's comment to Love and Peace and that there is no place for violence.
Carroll has taken a very vocal stance against the roll of the Pope during World War II. He argues that the Pope had a moral responsibility to force a direct confrontation with Hitler in particular and Anti-Semites of whatever politics or nationality. There is much to this argument. The history of Catholic Church's response to 1930's fascism and the Holocaust is a complicated story. I regret that Carroll does not allow for more of that complexity.
On the other hand, Carroll provides the right answer to Pope John Paul II's apparent deafness on the subject of placing Catholic memorials at Holocaust sites and the decision to beatify Pope Pius IX. Given Pope John Paul II sincere pain over the failures of Catholic individuals and his leadership in building peace between the Mother Church and the Jews of the world, one may choose to overlook these examples. However Carroll's reply is that the Church must take full and honest ownership of the evil done by its leadership. The Church should also understand that by inserting its presence on grounds made sacred by the blood of another faith, it is inciting the legitimate fears of those of that faith. As for Pious IX, he was not saintly in his attitude toward Jews. Furthermore, he abetted one of the last known cases of the kidnapping of a Jewish baby, his improper Baptism and refused to restore the child to his rightful family.
I turned to this book as a means to gain understanding what a modern Catholic might see in reading his own history. I had not expected such a powerful book. Carroll's writing makes ancient events immediate and relevant. Unfortunately, when the topic is religion, there are too many who cannot tolerate criticism. There is nothing in Constantine's Sword that should make a Catholic feel attacked. James Carroll bares his soul and his fears. He looks directly into the evil that he believes is the logical result of illogical aspects of Catholic theology. It is for the reader to make an equally soulful and passionate examination of Catholic history and determine the connections between their faith and the evil men do.
That a cross can be made by holding a sword by the blade must have been convenient for a would-be conqueror, in particular, Constantine. But it also makes the central event of Christian belief the torture and murder of its most sacred founder. A religion that espouses peace should not want so much violence embodied in its embodying symbol. The best symbol for The Prince of Peace should not be a sword shaped reminder that this prince was the victim of a political assassination. The Prince of Peace would reject the sword as his personal emblem
Ex Priest, a former Catholic columnist, now a writer, play write and historian begins Constantine's Sword with this same observation. His central thesis seems to be that by making the death of Christ the most important event of his "human" life and by adopting as an article of faith that only through Christ can one's soul enter heaven, the Catholics created a set of justifications for violent anti-Semitism. Further Carroll argues that Antisemitism is a most shaming rot at the core of what is otherwise a beautiful religion. Carroll pointedly rejects the defense that evil is done in the name of the Church but never by the Church. In other words: the riot was not started by the person who falsely shouts "Fire" in a crowded theater, but by the people who panic upon hearing of the supposed threat.
In my taxonomy, Constantine's Sword is a second level of history. It is not the recounting of events for the purpose of detailing what happened. It is the deliberate selection of key events for the purpose of proving a theory. However this is an incomplete description. James Carroll recounts his personal journey, relating his experiences as a privileged child of a family living a privileged life as American in post war Europe. In his house the devil was incarnated as the threat of Communism. His mother's example was a loving influence for living a Catholic life.
The result is a very personal view of history. Not a remote or subjective recounting of history but one driven by his passion for his topic and insistence on a more impassioned appreciation for "what all this", the events of the remote past, means to us today.
His agenda is not hidden. He is positively advocating that the Mother Church has a duty to do an honest introspection, followed by unequivocal repentance and move forward with an improved catechism. The new catechism must emphasize The Mother Church's comment to Love and Peace and that there is no place for violence.
Carroll has taken a very vocal stance against the roll of the Pope during World War II. He argues that the Pope had a moral responsibility to force a direct confrontation with Hitler in particular and Anti-Semites of whatever politics or nationality. There is much to this argument. The history of Catholic Church's response to 1930's fascism and the Holocaust is a complicated story. I regret that Carroll does not allow for more of that complexity.
On the other hand, Carroll provides the right answer to Pope John Paul II's apparent deafness on the subject of placing Catholic memorials at Holocaust sites and the decision to beatify Pope Pius IX. Given Pope John Paul II sincere pain over the failures of Catholic individuals and his leadership in building peace between the Mother Church and the Jews of the world, one may choose to overlook these examples. However Carroll's reply is that the Church must take full and honest ownership of the evil done by its leadership. The Church should also understand that by inserting its presence on grounds made sacred by the blood of another faith, it is inciting the legitimate fears of those of that faith. As for Pious IX, he was not saintly in his attitude toward Jews. Furthermore, he abetted one of the last known cases of the kidnapping of a Jewish baby, his improper Baptism and refused to restore the child to his rightful family.
I turned to this book as a means to gain understanding what a modern Catholic might see in reading his own history. I had not expected such a powerful book. Carroll's writing makes ancient events immediate and relevant. Unfortunately, when the topic is religion, there are too many who cannot tolerate criticism. There is nothing in Constantine's Sword that should make a Catholic feel attacked. James Carroll bares his soul and his fears. He looks directly into the evil that he believes is the logical result of illogical aspects of Catholic theology. It is for the reader to make an equally soulful and passionate examination of Catholic history and determine the connections between their faith and the evil men do.
October 27, 2007
This might be the most powerful book I've ever read. It details the history of Christianity, with regard to antisemitism. It begins at the time of Jesus' death and goes through Vatican II. I knew the Church far from perfect, but I had no idea that it not only tolerated antisemitism but FOSTERED it.
Carroll is an ex-priest. The first part of the book (too long, in my husband's estimation) is spent on explaining Carroll's personal experience with the Church, which forms the framework for his writing of this book. For me, the fact that a devout Catholic wrote this book gave it more validity than if it had been a non-Catholic or non-Christian.
I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in exploring the historical truth about Christianity.
Carroll is an ex-priest. The first part of the book (too long, in my husband's estimation) is spent on explaining Carroll's personal experience with the Church, which forms the framework for his writing of this book. For me, the fact that a devout Catholic wrote this book gave it more validity than if it had been a non-Catholic or non-Christian.
I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in exploring the historical truth about Christianity.
January 23, 2008
Easily the worst book I have read in the last 10 years. The author's historical analysis is flawed throughout the book and no legitimate historian would find it plausible (I've read some of the scholarly reviews of the book and they were not kind). Claims throughout the book are often outrageous (e.g. New Testament is anti-semetic) with little or no scholarship to back up arguments--simply having a lot of footnotes does not mean it is well researched or supported by the literature of the field. All of his heroes in the book are those who agree with his theologically liberal positions, while all the villians are of course theologically conservative. This book is really about one man's self-created theology and fanciful imagination and not about the topic it claims to address.
Christianity does have a lot to answer for in regards to its relationship with the Jews over the last 2000 years, including the fostering of anti-semitism throughout certain periods of its history, but this book contributes nothing of value to this issue. Unfortunately, many readers are likely to be mislead by this book as they have not read much else on this topic. I encourage anyone who thinks this is good history to read further!
Christianity does have a lot to answer for in regards to its relationship with the Jews over the last 2000 years, including the fostering of anti-semitism throughout certain periods of its history, but this book contributes nothing of value to this issue. Unfortunately, many readers are likely to be mislead by this book as they have not read much else on this topic. I encourage anyone who thinks this is good history to read further!
May 29, 2018
Very well-written, informative, and frequently interesting for those qualities and other reasons, but this book was addressed to a dilemma specific to Carroll and others who identify with him, which limited its appeal to me. Consequently, the parts that were likely the most significant for the author and the most rewarding for other readers were those that I wanted to get through most quickly.
January 20, 2008
This is a SERIOUS read. It's long, beautifully written and heartfelt, thoroughly researched and annotated, and 2 millenia in the making. Thought-provoking, yes, but soul-search provoking also. This should be mandatory reading for every practicing Christian, particularly Roman Catholics. James Carrol amazes. I need to blog about this.
December 21, 2009
I think what may shed a cleansing light upon the dark recesses of ignorance pertaining to any dispute of this excellent book would be for everyone here to read up on Mithraism / Mithra. In a nut shell it preceded Christ by 600 years ( at least ) and, surprise, has almost identical teachings & many of the same stories as the bible. Basically Constantine who ordered the first mass printing of the bible was a follower of Mithra first and as a method of consolidating power helped replace the Pagan God Mithra ( but still keeping many of the same stories ) with the fabled figure head of the, back then, minor cult called Christianity. Constantine then appointed himself Pope of this now better organized & funded religion as well as having the power & title of Emperor. Time to grow up everyone. Jews & Muslm's too have forged their religions over this original super-religions stories & views. Read & learn the real truth.
As for the similarities between Mithra, Mithraism, Jesus and Christianity:
Mithra was born on December 25th sometimes in a stable or cave but traditionally from a rock.
The Roman Emperor Aurelian declared December 25 to be the official birthday of Mithra, circa 270 CE, even attended by shepards who brought gifts.
Mithra was a traveling teacher.
Mithra had 12 disciples.
He performed Miracles.
He was buried in a tomb.
In three days he was resurrected.
He was called the "Good Shepard".
He was considered ""the Way, the Truth and the Light, the Redeemer, the Savior, the Messiah."
His sacred day was Sunday.
His resurrection was celebrated on Easter.
He had a Last Supper when he returned to his father. Also called the Eucharist or the Lord's Supper.
He was believed not to have died, but to have ascended to heaven where it was believed he would return at the end of time where he would judge the living and the dead.
He granted immortal life of his followers through baptism.
Followers of Mithra were lead by a 'papa', the Greek word for 'father' and what 'pope' is derived from,who ruled on Vatican Hill in Rome.
Remember - This is all BEFORE Christ. Records show at the very least 600 years before !
Followers of Mithra celebrated "sacramenta", a consecrated bread and wine, using chanting, incense,bells, candles and holy water just as is found in the Catholic Mass.
"He who will not eat of my body and drink of my blood, so that he will be made on with me and I with him, the same shall not know salvation."- NO this isn't John 6:53-54. Its actually an inscription to Mithras.
Yup folks - your entire life devoted to Christianity has been a fraud. The bible is just 'the book of plagiarism' design to control & tax the populace of the old world - and things haven't changed much since.
As for the similarities between Mithra, Mithraism, Jesus and Christianity:
Mithra was born on December 25th sometimes in a stable or cave but traditionally from a rock.
The Roman Emperor Aurelian declared December 25 to be the official birthday of Mithra, circa 270 CE, even attended by shepards who brought gifts.
Mithra was a traveling teacher.
Mithra had 12 disciples.
He performed Miracles.
He was buried in a tomb.
In three days he was resurrected.
He was called the "Good Shepard".
He was considered ""the Way, the Truth and the Light, the Redeemer, the Savior, the Messiah."
His sacred day was Sunday.
His resurrection was celebrated on Easter.
He had a Last Supper when he returned to his father. Also called the Eucharist or the Lord's Supper.
He was believed not to have died, but to have ascended to heaven where it was believed he would return at the end of time where he would judge the living and the dead.
He granted immortal life of his followers through baptism.
Followers of Mithra were lead by a 'papa', the Greek word for 'father' and what 'pope' is derived from,who ruled on Vatican Hill in Rome.
Remember - This is all BEFORE Christ. Records show at the very least 600 years before !
Followers of Mithra celebrated "sacramenta", a consecrated bread and wine, using chanting, incense,bells, candles and holy water just as is found in the Catholic Mass.
"He who will not eat of my body and drink of my blood, so that he will be made on with me and I with him, the same shall not know salvation."- NO this isn't John 6:53-54. Its actually an inscription to Mithras.
Yup folks - your entire life devoted to Christianity has been a fraud. The bible is just 'the book of plagiarism' design to control & tax the populace of the old world - and things haven't changed much since.
March 6, 2021
4.5 stars
This book is heavy in every conceivable way: its length, its subject matter, its theological articulation. But it's really good, really important, and I really recommend it.
This book is an outsider's point of view in one sense, and an insider's in another. Carroll is, in one way, telling a history of European Jewry, a community to which he does not belong. On the other hand, he's also telling a history of European Christendom, which he knows intimately. I would like to read a similar book written entirely from a Jewish perspective (I'm sure it's out there--I just haven't gone looking yet), but I think it is truly valuable for a lifelong Catholic to at least attempt a reckoning of the Catholic church's antisemitism.
Caroll does not flinch from the Church's culpability in pogroms, ghettos, the Shoah, all the many, many ways in which European Jewry suffered at the hands of Christians in the name of their cross--I almost want to say that 'culpability' is too weak a word here. In fact, he explicitly states that attempts to "exonerate 'the Church as such,' or even to reduce the Church's failure to what it did not do between 1933 and 1945, are so evasive and, finally, immoral." He is saying: "We did this," which is more than the Catholic church (or the Church universal) has ever said. Another example quote: "When 'the Church as such,' as opposed to its 'sinful members,' is absolved of any guilt in relation to Nazism, and when what Christian failures there were are reduced to sins of omission, as if the only crime were silence, then the real meaning of this history is being deflected. However modern Nazism was, it planted its roots in the soil of age-old Church attitudes and a nearly unbroken chain of Church-sponsored acts of Jew hatred. However pagan Nazism was, it drew its substance from groundwater poisoned by the Church's most solemnly held ideology--it's theology." [emphasis in original]
This is certainly a historically-grounded book, but it's as interested in theological history as it is in social and political history. Carroll is explicit in exploring the connections between theology, Catholic teachings, clerical voices, papal positions, etc. on the lived reality of Jewish people in Catholic Europe. This book needed to be written by someone who understood the theology just as much as he understood the history; thankfully, it was. He is unafraid to say, outright, "When you teach [x], it is unsurprising that people will commit [y] act, even if you're telling them not to commit that act." Carroll also frequently contrasts the more mainstream antisemitic Catholic voices with alternative voices that ended up being drowned out by history. (I was particularly taken by his chapter on Abelard.) He is intent upon showing that both theology and history could have gone a different way if only different theology was pursued, and that that different theology was there and ready to be used, but was instead rejected. He ties antisemitism specifically to an obsession with the cross of Jesus as the central focus of Christian theology as opposed to the life of Jesus (or the incarnation, or the resurrection, or anything else); this is a deeply important point, but not one I've seen articulated in any Christian writing I've ever read. (I would not be at all surprised if Jewish writers had written about this at length.)
Another interesting throughline is the relationship between papal authority (culminating in Vatican I and the claim of infallibility) and the pope's relationship with Jews. That was not something I anticipated, and I was surprised to find that it came up again and again. I appreciate also Carroll's perspective as a Catholic who is adamantly opposed to the infallibility claim. Honestly, the book goes into all sorts of directions of Church history and theological development that I would never have anticipated, proving, once again, how deeply tied to everything about Western Christianity antisemitism is.
Carroll's understanding of antisemitism as the original sin of Christendom reminds me very much of the understanding of racism and slavery as the original sins of the United States. The latter is coming to be more and more central to any dialogues about American history; the former, unfortunately, still gets overlooked too much of the time. Carroll sees the antisemitism of (specifically Catholic, European) Christianty as snowballing over the centuries, all of it leading to the Shoah. He is quick to reiterate that this snowballing was not inevitable but that it happened because of a series of choices that Christian leaders made and that the laity (mostly) then acted on.
The last few chapters are dedicated to the intellectual and theological work it would take to drain the antisemitism out of the Church. Carroll envisions a Vatican III (which he's written about in other context elsewhere, including about opening the priesthood to marriage and allowing the ordination of women so obviously I'm a big fan) that would do this work and outlines what areas should be focused on. This section would actually stand on its own outside the context of a book on the Church's antisemitism, but that only goes to prove how deeply-rooted that antisemitism is in the worldview the Church has adopted over the past two thousand years. (I love reading anyone attacking neo-Platonism in Christianity, so I ate this up.)
Carroll also tries, to a limited degree, to trace how Jewish theology reacted to antisemitism. I appreciate that--it's an incredibly interesting topic, and he wants to make sure that readers don't forget that Jewish people weren't just sitting around, passively letting things happen to them--but though he clearly has studied a great deal and draws on a lot of sources, this is one of the weaker parts of the book. That said, he always writes about the Jewish perspective with compassion and respect; in fact, he writes about it so admiringly that it's kind of a wonder to me that he hasn't converted. He seems to have far more respect for Jewish faith traditions than Catholic ones and writes about them very beautifully, if narrowly. (I guess it's the Protestant in me that got to the end of the book and said, "Well, damn, dude, why are you still Catholic???")
Carroll frequently uses his own experiences (mostly as an Army brat growing up in the Rhineland, then as a young Catholic priest) as a frame for the book. This tendency in nonfiction frequently frustrates me (I nearly always find the subject of the book vastly more interesting than the story of how the writer pursued that subject), but I find it less annoying here than usual, probably because Carroll is just such a good writer. I'm torn about its use, though. On the one hand, making the ties between antisemitism and Catholicism explicit through the story of one individual man is fairly effective; on the other hand, the book is already so long that it might have benefited from removing that stuff, just so the text could be shorter and not as intimidating to people. I worry that the sheer length of the book is off-putting and that people will be discouraged from reading it, when I think it's an incredibly important book.
The editor could have been a little more heavy-handed, too. It's a pretty repetitive book in a lot of ways; surely they could have cut out fifty or a hundred pages just of the repeated stuff? On the other hand: that very repetition does a really good job of making the reader realize how ubiquitous this stuff was. How the same actions repeated themselves over and over again. How the story of Christendom's feelings about Jews is indeed one story, whether you're looking at Constantine or at Hitler. It's one seamless robe.
I think this book needs to be paired with books on the topic written by Jewish writers--for all its length, it's insufficient on its own--but I do think it's an invaluable and admirable contribution to a reckoning that needs to happen.
This book is heavy in every conceivable way: its length, its subject matter, its theological articulation. But it's really good, really important, and I really recommend it.
This book is an outsider's point of view in one sense, and an insider's in another. Carroll is, in one way, telling a history of European Jewry, a community to which he does not belong. On the other hand, he's also telling a history of European Christendom, which he knows intimately. I would like to read a similar book written entirely from a Jewish perspective (I'm sure it's out there--I just haven't gone looking yet), but I think it is truly valuable for a lifelong Catholic to at least attempt a reckoning of the Catholic church's antisemitism.
Caroll does not flinch from the Church's culpability in pogroms, ghettos, the Shoah, all the many, many ways in which European Jewry suffered at the hands of Christians in the name of their cross--I almost want to say that 'culpability' is too weak a word here. In fact, he explicitly states that attempts to "exonerate 'the Church as such,' or even to reduce the Church's failure to what it did not do between 1933 and 1945, are so evasive and, finally, immoral." He is saying: "We did this," which is more than the Catholic church (or the Church universal) has ever said. Another example quote: "When 'the Church as such,' as opposed to its 'sinful members,' is absolved of any guilt in relation to Nazism, and when what Christian failures there were are reduced to sins of omission, as if the only crime were silence, then the real meaning of this history is being deflected. However modern Nazism was, it planted its roots in the soil of age-old Church attitudes and a nearly unbroken chain of Church-sponsored acts of Jew hatred. However pagan Nazism was, it drew its substance from groundwater poisoned by the Church's most solemnly held ideology--it's theology." [emphasis in original]
This is certainly a historically-grounded book, but it's as interested in theological history as it is in social and political history. Carroll is explicit in exploring the connections between theology, Catholic teachings, clerical voices, papal positions, etc. on the lived reality of Jewish people in Catholic Europe. This book needed to be written by someone who understood the theology just as much as he understood the history; thankfully, it was. He is unafraid to say, outright, "When you teach [x], it is unsurprising that people will commit [y] act, even if you're telling them not to commit that act." Carroll also frequently contrasts the more mainstream antisemitic Catholic voices with alternative voices that ended up being drowned out by history. (I was particularly taken by his chapter on Abelard.) He is intent upon showing that both theology and history could have gone a different way if only different theology was pursued, and that that different theology was there and ready to be used, but was instead rejected. He ties antisemitism specifically to an obsession with the cross of Jesus as the central focus of Christian theology as opposed to the life of Jesus (or the incarnation, or the resurrection, or anything else); this is a deeply important point, but not one I've seen articulated in any Christian writing I've ever read. (I would not be at all surprised if Jewish writers had written about this at length.)
Another interesting throughline is the relationship between papal authority (culminating in Vatican I and the claim of infallibility) and the pope's relationship with Jews. That was not something I anticipated, and I was surprised to find that it came up again and again. I appreciate also Carroll's perspective as a Catholic who is adamantly opposed to the infallibility claim. Honestly, the book goes into all sorts of directions of Church history and theological development that I would never have anticipated, proving, once again, how deeply tied to everything about Western Christianity antisemitism is.
Carroll's understanding of antisemitism as the original sin of Christendom reminds me very much of the understanding of racism and slavery as the original sins of the United States. The latter is coming to be more and more central to any dialogues about American history; the former, unfortunately, still gets overlooked too much of the time. Carroll sees the antisemitism of (specifically Catholic, European) Christianty as snowballing over the centuries, all of it leading to the Shoah. He is quick to reiterate that this snowballing was not inevitable but that it happened because of a series of choices that Christian leaders made and that the laity (mostly) then acted on.
The last few chapters are dedicated to the intellectual and theological work it would take to drain the antisemitism out of the Church. Carroll envisions a Vatican III (which he's written about in other context elsewhere, including about opening the priesthood to marriage and allowing the ordination of women so obviously I'm a big fan) that would do this work and outlines what areas should be focused on. This section would actually stand on its own outside the context of a book on the Church's antisemitism, but that only goes to prove how deeply-rooted that antisemitism is in the worldview the Church has adopted over the past two thousand years. (I love reading anyone attacking neo-Platonism in Christianity, so I ate this up.)
Carroll also tries, to a limited degree, to trace how Jewish theology reacted to antisemitism. I appreciate that--it's an incredibly interesting topic, and he wants to make sure that readers don't forget that Jewish people weren't just sitting around, passively letting things happen to them--but though he clearly has studied a great deal and draws on a lot of sources, this is one of the weaker parts of the book. That said, he always writes about the Jewish perspective with compassion and respect; in fact, he writes about it so admiringly that it's kind of a wonder to me that he hasn't converted. He seems to have far more respect for Jewish faith traditions than Catholic ones and writes about them very beautifully, if narrowly. (I guess it's the Protestant in me that got to the end of the book and said, "Well, damn, dude, why are you still Catholic???")
Carroll frequently uses his own experiences (mostly as an Army brat growing up in the Rhineland, then as a young Catholic priest) as a frame for the book. This tendency in nonfiction frequently frustrates me (I nearly always find the subject of the book vastly more interesting than the story of how the writer pursued that subject), but I find it less annoying here than usual, probably because Carroll is just such a good writer. I'm torn about its use, though. On the one hand, making the ties between antisemitism and Catholicism explicit through the story of one individual man is fairly effective; on the other hand, the book is already so long that it might have benefited from removing that stuff, just so the text could be shorter and not as intimidating to people. I worry that the sheer length of the book is off-putting and that people will be discouraged from reading it, when I think it's an incredibly important book.
The editor could have been a little more heavy-handed, too. It's a pretty repetitive book in a lot of ways; surely they could have cut out fifty or a hundred pages just of the repeated stuff? On the other hand: that very repetition does a really good job of making the reader realize how ubiquitous this stuff was. How the same actions repeated themselves over and over again. How the story of Christendom's feelings about Jews is indeed one story, whether you're looking at Constantine or at Hitler. It's one seamless robe.
I think this book needs to be paired with books on the topic written by Jewish writers--for all its length, it's insufficient on its own--but I do think it's an invaluable and admirable contribution to a reckoning that needs to happen.
August 15, 2013
This is a rather uneven book. The history presented is pretty clearly derivative, the author having read secondary sources and deriving much of his portrayal from them. There are, as a result, statements of fact which are, in fact, arguable. Not enough, perhaps, to overturn the broad thesis of the text, but enough to occasionally raise the eyebrows of some readers. The theology is more thought out. Again, Carroll is quite reliant on others, but here he evinces having done quite a bit of thought himself. I found some of his thinking original and insightful. Still, what is lacking is any sort of foundational theology. What exactly does Carroll mean by "God"?--you know a lot of what he doesn't believe or has ceased believing, but you won't find much clarity as regards his positive beliefs as regards the nature of Deity. (I suspect something closer to Jewish Reconstructionalism than Catholic Trinitarianism.) What is best about the book is his personal storytelling, most of which concretely reflects more abstract argumentation.
My criticism must be qualified by two considerations. First, I'm not Catholic--indeed, I was never even baptised a Christian. Second, I know quite a bit about some segments of the 2000 years of history he surveys and am one of those whose eyebrows were raised a number of times. Certainly the average Catholic would be more informed and deeply challenged by this book than I was.
Finally, it ought be noted that while the book represents itself as a history of Catholic relations with the Jews it actually leads to and accompanies a much broader critique of the Roman Church on many fronts.
My criticism must be qualified by two considerations. First, I'm not Catholic--indeed, I was never even baptised a Christian. Second, I know quite a bit about some segments of the 2000 years of history he surveys and am one of those whose eyebrows were raised a number of times. Certainly the average Catholic would be more informed and deeply challenged by this book than I was.
Finally, it ought be noted that while the book represents itself as a history of Catholic relations with the Jews it actually leads to and accompanies a much broader critique of the Roman Church on many fronts.
February 22, 2011
In concluding this book, James Carroll writes that he offers it as a "personal penance to God". As bad as it sounds to say, I think that's why the book was so hard to read. The book struggles from a split identity: it can't decide whether to be a disinterested history, a personal ode to the Catholic faith or a philosophical attempt to find reconciliation between Christianity at large and Judaism. As narrative, the result is painful to read, veering between themes, overdeveloping some and neglecting others.
The subjectivity of the author taints the material and the telling: is this history? biography? a matter of historical record? opinion? generally accepted theology or his interpretation of a subjective religious experience? Ideally, context should make it obvious, but I didn't find that to be the case here. And I never felt comfortable reading his narrative because he is so openly emotionally and spiritually invested. It's like reading the diary of a historian: every event from the author's childhood is somehow implicated in the larger history being dealt with- a narrow and constricting perspective.
There is much on the subject to be pondered, of course; much to study, much to learn, much to write about.One feels that James Carroll might now be ready to write a more substantive work having got this stuff off his chest. I don't think I'd have the patience though.
The subjectivity of the author taints the material and the telling: is this history? biography? a matter of historical record? opinion? generally accepted theology or his interpretation of a subjective religious experience? Ideally, context should make it obvious, but I didn't find that to be the case here. And I never felt comfortable reading his narrative because he is so openly emotionally and spiritually invested. It's like reading the diary of a historian: every event from the author's childhood is somehow implicated in the larger history being dealt with- a narrow and constricting perspective.
There is much on the subject to be pondered, of course; much to study, much to learn, much to write about.One feels that James Carroll might now be ready to write a more substantive work having got this stuff off his chest. I don't think I'd have the patience though.
August 11, 2015
James Carroll has a very personal relationship with the Catholic Church, having been taken to many holy sites as a child as well as having an audience with the Pope. Most strikingly, he spent a number of years as a brother. He comes to this subject not as someone who wants to denigrate the Church, but as a man who wants to understand the tortured relationship between the Church and the Jews.
He begins his journey at Auschwitz, which in addition to the memorials to the lost Jews, has a large Cross that was placed there not so long ago. It is this symbol--the Cross (or more appropriately to the Catholics, the Crucifix)--upon which he creates his history.
He draws his story back and forth from the actual Crucifixion, through the growth of the Church, to the Holocaust, to his own personal experience. His style makes a long book very easy to read and extremely informative.
Any history of the Catholic Church is a history of Western civilization--and if you are not "religious," but interested in history, you should read this. It is not a condemnation of the Church as such but a look at the failure of human beings and lost opportunities.
I wish James Carroll would write an Afterword--he finished the boo in 1999. I think he would have despaired at Pope Benedict but rejoiced at Pope Francis. Me too.
He begins his journey at Auschwitz, which in addition to the memorials to the lost Jews, has a large Cross that was placed there not so long ago. It is this symbol--the Cross (or more appropriately to the Catholics, the Crucifix)--upon which he creates his history.
He draws his story back and forth from the actual Crucifixion, through the growth of the Church, to the Holocaust, to his own personal experience. His style makes a long book very easy to read and extremely informative.
Any history of the Catholic Church is a history of Western civilization--and if you are not "religious," but interested in history, you should read this. It is not a condemnation of the Church as such but a look at the failure of human beings and lost opportunities.
I wish James Carroll would write an Afterword--he finished the boo in 1999. I think he would have despaired at Pope Benedict but rejoiced at Pope Francis. Me too.
August 14, 2007
This is an incredible book. It examines the relationship of the Church and the Jews throughout history. I learned an amazing amount about the world in general while reading this book. It is both sad, and hopeful. It is an important work to remind the readers that there is a better way to live and act.
April 8, 2025
Absolute rubbish! Every book James Carroll writes ultimately revolves about what he thinks is
wrong with Christianity, his relationship with his late father, and Carroll's own personal problems. The history between Christianity and Judaism is better tackled in books written by specialists.
wrong with Christianity, his relationship with his late father, and Carroll's own personal problems. The history between Christianity and Judaism is better tackled in books written by specialists.
March 20, 2015
I don't understand humans. I'm a Hitchens/Dawkins/Harris anti-theist, so straight off you have an idea where I'm coming from. But here's a man, a former Catholic priest, who has put a tremendous amount of effort and research into examining not only the history of Christianity, but the concomitant history of the Catholic church's record of antisemitism. Some reviewers have questioned his historical accuracy, but I suspect those complaints are more agenda driven than anything else.
The record of the church (by church I mean primarily Catholic and Protestant) in human affairs is less than stellar. Starting with Paul, the uber-salesman of Jesus (who never met the man), continuing on to the Constantine-ordered Council of Niceae (if you didn't believe in the trinity you were booted out of the club. Or more simply just killed.) moving on through the Crusades, the Inquisition, the colonization and forced religious conversions of the Americas, Africa, Asia, forced conversion of Jews in Europe. The church even rightly draws blame for facilitating Hitler (who, although Catholic has never been ex-communicated!) in the Holocaust.
It's clear to me that right from the start, whatever the life and death of Jesus was about, seekers of power and authority have kidnapped the narrative. How can one not see none of this holds water?! Western religions, or let's be more inclusive and say Abrahamic-based faiths have unendingly been all about power and control. The popes hated the Enlightenment. The idea that people could think for themselves. Preposterous!
The author closes out the book by emphasizing that God is love. Seriously? Where's the evidence? If things go your way, "God is love." If they don't go your way, "God is love. This is a test." Or its part of his plan. They can't lose.
After all his efforts he still has faith. Like I say, I don't understand humans.
The record of the church (by church I mean primarily Catholic and Protestant) in human affairs is less than stellar. Starting with Paul, the uber-salesman of Jesus (who never met the man), continuing on to the Constantine-ordered Council of Niceae (if you didn't believe in the trinity you were booted out of the club. Or more simply just killed.) moving on through the Crusades, the Inquisition, the colonization and forced religious conversions of the Americas, Africa, Asia, forced conversion of Jews in Europe. The church even rightly draws blame for facilitating Hitler (who, although Catholic has never been ex-communicated!) in the Holocaust.
It's clear to me that right from the start, whatever the life and death of Jesus was about, seekers of power and authority have kidnapped the narrative. How can one not see none of this holds water?! Western religions, or let's be more inclusive and say Abrahamic-based faiths have unendingly been all about power and control. The popes hated the Enlightenment. The idea that people could think for themselves. Preposterous!
The author closes out the book by emphasizing that God is love. Seriously? Where's the evidence? If things go your way, "God is love." If they don't go your way, "God is love. This is a test." Or its part of his plan. They can't lose.
After all his efforts he still has faith. Like I say, I don't understand humans.
June 23, 2010
An unreadable amalgam of self-loathing, anti-Catholicism, selective quotation, and psycho-theology.
December 10, 2017
Introduction
This book unveils much about the church that has been hidden or cloaked by misinformation though the centuries. Most people are ignorant of the history unveiled by Carroll in this book, particularly as relates to Jewish-Catholic relations and the relations between Nazi Germany and the Catholic Church. Here we find revealed a historical horror that many of us thought was embodied fully in Hitler, but which we now see spans hundreds of years before Hitler. Carroll reveals how Nazi ideology borrowed heavily form Christian eschatology and how antisemitism has been an unbroken thread within Christian history. Carroll subjects the Christian Church to a thorough psychoanalysis and, in the process, lets us see where we stand as human beings.
The perpetrators of the holocaust were not a group apart from the broad population of Germans. Had the Nazi hierarchy encountered unambiguous and sustained revulsion by non-Jewish Germans, the holocaust would not have occurred. We have been indoctrinated to think that the holocaust was the result of Hitler’s manipulation of the people; but Carroll lets us see that it was more a historical consequence than something kindled independently by Hitler. An evil leader simply ignites the evil that already dwells within society.
One fault of this book is that it totally ignores the wanton acts of genocide that the Jewish people committed against the Canaanites; which involved the slaughtering of women and children, as related in their own scriptural history. The evil of religious and racial intolerance did not originate in Christianity; but has existed for as long as religions have existed.
The Conflict of the Christian Cross at Auschwitz
This book opens with a discussion of the conflict between Catholics and Jews over the modern day placement of Christian crosses at Auschwitz. One unaware of the church's historical conflicts with the Jews, or its complicity with Hitler, might wonder why these crosses caused such Jewish protest. But one who has read this book will clearly understand why the Auschwitz crosses are such an insult to Judaism.
Jews must wonder: why must Christians install a sadistic Roman execution device in this place called Auschwitz? The Romans hung Jews on crosses and left them to die, over several days, the slow death of suffocation, as their muscles gave out and they could no longer hold themselves erect enough to catch a breath. And once squeezed free of life, the corpses were left on the crosses to be eaten by buzzards. One may simply carry this evil image forward to the Auschwitz death camp to understand why Jewish people would protest the erection of crosses there. What is less clear, but addressed here by Carroll, is: why in the world Catholics insist upon maintaining crosses at Auschwitz?
Scriptural Distortions
The scriptures about Jesus were written fifty to seventy years after the death of Jesus. We have difficulty enough remembering something that happened five years ago; so writing factually about something that happened fifty to seventy years ago is especially difficult. It is naive to imagine a total absence of embellishment within writing done so much later.
In fact, the idea of the Father of Jesus callously presiding over his son’s death, willed by the Father, as a means of salvation, doesn’t really take root in Christianity until hundreds of years later, with the emperor Constantine (288-337), who had political reasons for embracing such ideology. The reality is that we are heirs to a Roman imperial culture that controlled the writing of history and deeply influenced the evolution of scriptural interpretation.
Western civilization is essentially an extension of Rome and we have been indoctrinated to perceive the Neo-Roman empire, as a civilizing work of human progress. Paintings and graphics depict an Aryan Christ. Mary, Joseph, and all their intimates are portrayed with blue eyes, light hair, graceful Hellenic robes, and in stark distinction to the Pharisees, Sadducees, and high priests, with their odd headdresses, glaring dispositions, oversized noses, and dark skin.
The extent to which scripture has been manipulated becomes even more apparent when we examine the ways in which it vilifies the Jews. We see Jesus attacking the money changers in the temple, which is the predominant historical occupation of Jewish people. Jesus becomes known as “The Nazarene” or “The Galilean”; to distinguish Him from Judea, which begins with emphasis on the syllable “Jew,” as in “Jew-dea”. Similarly, the vilification of Judas, as the betrayer of Jesus, emphasizes the syllable “Jew,” as is “Jew-does” and similarly associates the Jew with greed and betrayal. The scriptural symbology of Pilate washing his hands of the matter and declaring himself innocent of Jesus’ blood transfers the blame toward the Jewish crowd, as clamoring for His crucifixion. In fact, in Matthew, all the people are portrayed to answer: “His blood be on us and on our children,” a blatant indictment of Jewish posterity.
This on-going conflict between Christianity and Judaism served the Roman empire by deflecting protest from the masses against Roman imperialism. This technique of using petty conflicts to deflect protests against the establishment persists into modernity and is widely practiced by modern western nation states. Carroll reveals how the Catholic church became an arm of such imperialism, fully complicit in sustaining such diversionary tactics.
Neo-Romanism
Rome had no choice but to embrace and corrupt Christianity because that was the only move that would keep the powerful message of martyrs from revolutionizing their entire society. The struggle of that revolution continues today against Neo-Rome.
Imperial powers depend on the inability of oppressed populations to muster a unified resistance. This lack of organization is exacerbated by promoting conflicts among the masses. We see this today, in the conflicts perpetuated between liberals and conservatives, blacks and whites, believers and atheists, CNN and Fox, pro-life and pro-choice, rich and poor, Catholic and Protestant, etc. Perpetuating such divides prevents people from unifying and pressing together for relief in the things that really matter, such as: exorbitant taxation, absurdly expensive health care, barriers to the best schools, barriers to the most lucrative professions, unfair interest on savings, usurious rates on borrowing, insurance extortion, subjection of sons and daughters to horrible wars, etc. The weapon of divisiveness is utilized by the imperial system to keep the masses divided, conquered, and producing enough GDP so that a small entitled class may leisurely sift whatever goods and services they want off the top.
The masses have only each other to blame, because they are too busy blaming the liberals, conservatives, whites, Jews, blacks, immigrants, communists, youth, homeless, and other targets, to unite in blaming the establishment. The persistent drama of perpetual conflict within the Senate and Congress is simply a pretense for doing nothing other than guarding over the lucrative positions of the establishment. No better example exists than the constant promulgation of fear that social security is going bankrupt, when it would be more than self-sustaining, if Congress had not raided it’s accounts for other purposes. A similar example is the imposed limitations on contributions to retirement vehicles, like 401-k’s and IRA’s. The reality is that the establishment never wants the masses to retire, so long as they can continue contributing to the GDP; that is, contributing to a piling up of surplus goods and services so large that unbridled consumption by a leisure class goes unnoticed. Keeping the specter of outrageous health care expenses looming over the potential retiree is the most effective way to keep him at work.
The ability of the establishment to manipulate the masses is no better exemplified than in the rise of Donald Trump, supported by a faction of the masses that have digested propaganda to the extent that they actually support a deterioration in their own access to health care, education, and sustained peace; while simultaneously supporting a disregard for the environment, war, and constant litanies of horrid insults. It is sad to see people indoctrinated to support policies that are contrary to their own interests.
We are indoctrinated to think of the decline and fall of Rome sentimentally, as a tragedy. We have been inculcated with the belief that the reduction of imperial power would lead only to chaos arising from the dark hordes of indigenous masses. But, ask yourself, what if Roman power was the real darkness? The Roman war machine was as ruthless as the world has ever seen.
It was for the oppressed, for those whom the Roman system was an endless horror, that the message of Jesus was addressed. That is, up until that message was hijacked by Constantine and twisted into a mechanism for controlling the masses. It’s easier for one educated in history to clearly see these mechanisms persistently utilized. The masses are much easier to manage once they are convinced of their inherent sinfulness, lack of self-worth, and obligation to tolerate suffering as self-deserved.
Constantine
The approximate eastern extent of ancient Rome was the Rhine, which became Europe’s cultural fault line. Today the Rhine distinguishes the separation of Latin-derived Romance languages and Germanic-Slavic languages. The Rhine has been the defining boundary of the Reformation and a frontline of every major war fought in Europe. The Roman emperor Constantine arose from these western territories and established his palace in what is modern day Germany.
Roman Empire
It was Constantine (288-337) who joined Rome to the ideology of the Church and converted the cross, the Roman execution device, into a battle standard. Constantine reversed the nonviolent message of Christ, a message of passive resistance, into a symbol of war, domination, and imperialism.
The church, in 324, was a seething caldron of doctrinal rivalries between Docetists, Manichaeans, Arians and others. The church couldn’t even agree on how to calculate the date of Easter, much less on whether or not Jesus was God. Constantine asserted his right to exercise absolute authority over the entire Church and suddenly tolerance of theological disagreement was deemed unchristian. The answers that had eluded passionate minds like Irenaeus, Origen and Arius, would now be imposed by imperial fiat. Heresy became defined as a political crime. Since Constantine, totalitarianism has dominated Roman Catholicism, which has defined itself, not by Jesus, but by a dictatorial head.
Constantine summoned the bishops to Nicaea in 325 to agree that Jesus was God and those who dissented were exiled. The Nicene Creed was developed, proclaiming that the Son of God became man in order to be crucified as the symbol of God’s love for the world. This led to the Catholic-Orthodox split, when Constantinople promulgated that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father alone, instead of from the Father and the Son, which undercut the full divinity of the Son.
Constantine initiated a campaign to build large and resplendent churches everywhere. He constructed St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome to revere Peter’s martyrdom. He constructed the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, which was completed in 335, and which stood until 1009, when the ruling caliph ordered Constantine’s original destroyed. At that time, the tomb of Jesus was marked by a modest rotunda, which still stands, and is what pilgrims today revere as the Church of the Holy Sepulcher; but it is a pale shadow of what Constantine built. It’s interesting to note that the dome of the rock wasn’t built by the Muslims until the 7th century, so Constantine could easily have built there, had he wanted. However, Christendom had no desire to reconstruct the Jewish temple.
The politics of relics began with Constantine. Fragments of wood, supposedly from the cross, appeared all across Europe and were venerated or worn as talismans. A piece of the True Cross is supposedly atop an obelisk in St. Peter’s Square. Legend ensued that Helena, Constantine’s mother, discovered the true cross; positing her like a mother standing beside her divine Son. In fact, a cult of Helena exploded in the late 4th century, as she was credited with discovering other relics like the nails, the sign, the thorns, the whip, the Nativity cave in Bethlehem, and the seamless robe that Jesus wore.
Constantine sought to usurp Christ with himself and Mary with his mother, reimposing Christianity in a way conducive to Rome. In 326, Constantine ordered the murder of his own firstborn son and his wife; so that Helena might assume her place as holy mother and so he might be seen as an all-powerful father forced to put to death his beloved son. Constantine represents the beginning of what would ultimately become horrible corruptions in the Catholic Church, curtailment of which did not begin until the Reformation in 1517. In many ways, Constantine appears as an antichrist corrupting the message of the true church.
Augustine
Augustine (354-430) came after Constantine and applied Platonic thought to Christian theology. Augustine argued against those who held that saintly virtue was a prerequisite for full membership in the church. Augustine’s position was rooted in Plato’s distinction between the ideal and the real. Augustine believed the real could not be experienced until God brought about the fulfillment of creation at the end of times. This explained the flawed human condition. Christians could come together before God, confessing sin, and knowing that the church itself, remained imperfect.
Augustine’s theology of original sin and the fall has influenced all subsequent generations of Western Christians. For Augustine, only humans capable of understanding innate sinfulness could be capable of community, which thrives in the willingness to forgive. Augustine saw that relationships and unity were at the heart of God.
However, Augustine’s late vision was influenced by the sacking of Rome by Gothic hoards in 410, Attila the Hun's successes in the Rhine, and subsequent coming invasions of Vandals. The looming barbarians caused Augustine to forsake reason and justify the use of coercion and force in defending and spreading the faith. Augustine supported the passage of laws against pagans and heretics. Augustine provided the theological rationale for the use of violence to stamp out heresy and establish totalitarian Christian rulers.
Augustine’s writing denounces Jews for their rejection of the obvious testimonies of the prophets and declares that God has cast them off in favor of others. Augustine asserted that Christ distinguished between His faithful ones and His Jewish enemies as between light and darkness. Augustine called upon Jews to repent and come into the church. Augustine rejected genocide but supported the scattering or disbursement of the Jews; so that by evidence of their own scriptures, they would bear witness for Christianity. For this reason, Augustine supported the idea that Jews live as exiles everywhere. The theology that followed this was that Jews must be allowed to survive but never to thrive.
Polytheists disappeared from the western world because they were given the choice to convert or die. Jews would have disappeared as well, but Judaism endured because Christianity permitted it to endure, largely because of Augustine. For a thousand years, the compulsively repeated pattern would show in bishops and popes protecting Jews from Christian mobs incited exactly because of what the same bishops and popes had taught about Jews. However, Jews were allowed to be attacked whenever that were seen to be thriving.
This mode of thought survived within the church well into the 20th century, with Cardinal Augustyn Hlond stating in 1936: “…the Jews are fighting against the Catholic Church, persisting in free-thinking, and are the vanguard of godlessness, Bolshevism and subversion.” This statement by Augustyn was read from the pulpits as part of official Catholic endorsement of the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses.
The Resurgence of Rome as the Holy Roman Empire
As we know, Augustine’s fears were realized as the barbarians sacked and ended the Roman empire. But the empire eventually began to revive. A loosely disbursed European people slowly became more consolidated and known as the Franks.
Frankish Kingdom
The Frankish leader Charles Martel (688-741) defeated the Muslims at Tours in 732, saving Europe from Islam. After Martel’s death, his son Pepin was elected king of the Franks and was anointed by Pope Stephen II. When a subsequent pope, Leo III, crowned Pepin’s son Charlemagne (742-814), he proclaimed him the Holy Roman Emperor. Soon knights would be dubbed at the altar and bishops would be warriors at the heads of armies. The Roman Empire mutated into the Germanic Holy Roman empire.
Holy Roman Empire
Since its inception, the Holy Roman empire has persisted in violence. Pope Urban II called the first crusade in 1096 and he promised a guarantee of eternal salvation to those who died in the struggle against the infidel. This was the first time in Christian history that violence was cited as a source for obtaining grace. The second Crusade was launched by Pope Eugene III in 1146. The third crusade occurred in 1184, lead by Frederick Barbarossa. The 4th crusade was launched in 1202 and vented its fury on Christian Constantinople, for being schismatic, and it fell with a savage sacking.
Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) chose to don himself the Vicar of Christ, as successor to Peter, and as bearing absolute spiritual authority, existing below God but above man. Innocent’s crusaders began attacking Christian heretics, even in Europe. Innocent began a religions monarchy, as his family would produce eight popes. Innocent himself was a nephew of a pope who had made him a cardinal even though he was not even a priest.
At the 4th Lateran Council, in 1215, Innocent established the papacy’s claim to monarchial authority. It was this council that put in place the seven sacraments of Catholicism: baptism, extreme unction (anointing of the sick), eucharist (transubstantiation), confession, confirmation, marriage, and holy orders. This council also passed resolutions that Jews should be marked off in the public by the character of their dress (a precursor to Hitler’s yellow badge). Jews were denigrated, banned from taking public office, and had to pay a special tax to the Christian clergy. Hundreds of years later, the Holy Roman Empire would manifest again under Hitler.
Maximum Axis Expansion
CONTINUED IN COMMENTS BELOW
This book unveils much about the church that has been hidden or cloaked by misinformation though the centuries. Most people are ignorant of the history unveiled by Carroll in this book, particularly as relates to Jewish-Catholic relations and the relations between Nazi Germany and the Catholic Church. Here we find revealed a historical horror that many of us thought was embodied fully in Hitler, but which we now see spans hundreds of years before Hitler. Carroll reveals how Nazi ideology borrowed heavily form Christian eschatology and how antisemitism has been an unbroken thread within Christian history. Carroll subjects the Christian Church to a thorough psychoanalysis and, in the process, lets us see where we stand as human beings.
The perpetrators of the holocaust were not a group apart from the broad population of Germans. Had the Nazi hierarchy encountered unambiguous and sustained revulsion by non-Jewish Germans, the holocaust would not have occurred. We have been indoctrinated to think that the holocaust was the result of Hitler’s manipulation of the people; but Carroll lets us see that it was more a historical consequence than something kindled independently by Hitler. An evil leader simply ignites the evil that already dwells within society.
One fault of this book is that it totally ignores the wanton acts of genocide that the Jewish people committed against the Canaanites; which involved the slaughtering of women and children, as related in their own scriptural history. The evil of religious and racial intolerance did not originate in Christianity; but has existed for as long as religions have existed.
The Conflict of the Christian Cross at Auschwitz
This book opens with a discussion of the conflict between Catholics and Jews over the modern day placement of Christian crosses at Auschwitz. One unaware of the church's historical conflicts with the Jews, or its complicity with Hitler, might wonder why these crosses caused such Jewish protest. But one who has read this book will clearly understand why the Auschwitz crosses are such an insult to Judaism.
Jews must wonder: why must Christians install a sadistic Roman execution device in this place called Auschwitz? The Romans hung Jews on crosses and left them to die, over several days, the slow death of suffocation, as their muscles gave out and they could no longer hold themselves erect enough to catch a breath. And once squeezed free of life, the corpses were left on the crosses to be eaten by buzzards. One may simply carry this evil image forward to the Auschwitz death camp to understand why Jewish people would protest the erection of crosses there. What is less clear, but addressed here by Carroll, is: why in the world Catholics insist upon maintaining crosses at Auschwitz?
Scriptural Distortions
The scriptures about Jesus were written fifty to seventy years after the death of Jesus. We have difficulty enough remembering something that happened five years ago; so writing factually about something that happened fifty to seventy years ago is especially difficult. It is naive to imagine a total absence of embellishment within writing done so much later.
In fact, the idea of the Father of Jesus callously presiding over his son’s death, willed by the Father, as a means of salvation, doesn’t really take root in Christianity until hundreds of years later, with the emperor Constantine (288-337), who had political reasons for embracing such ideology. The reality is that we are heirs to a Roman imperial culture that controlled the writing of history and deeply influenced the evolution of scriptural interpretation.
Western civilization is essentially an extension of Rome and we have been indoctrinated to perceive the Neo-Roman empire, as a civilizing work of human progress. Paintings and graphics depict an Aryan Christ. Mary, Joseph, and all their intimates are portrayed with blue eyes, light hair, graceful Hellenic robes, and in stark distinction to the Pharisees, Sadducees, and high priests, with their odd headdresses, glaring dispositions, oversized noses, and dark skin.
The extent to which scripture has been manipulated becomes even more apparent when we examine the ways in which it vilifies the Jews. We see Jesus attacking the money changers in the temple, which is the predominant historical occupation of Jewish people. Jesus becomes known as “The Nazarene” or “The Galilean”; to distinguish Him from Judea, which begins with emphasis on the syllable “Jew,” as in “Jew-dea”. Similarly, the vilification of Judas, as the betrayer of Jesus, emphasizes the syllable “Jew,” as is “Jew-does” and similarly associates the Jew with greed and betrayal. The scriptural symbology of Pilate washing his hands of the matter and declaring himself innocent of Jesus’ blood transfers the blame toward the Jewish crowd, as clamoring for His crucifixion. In fact, in Matthew, all the people are portrayed to answer: “His blood be on us and on our children,” a blatant indictment of Jewish posterity.
This on-going conflict between Christianity and Judaism served the Roman empire by deflecting protest from the masses against Roman imperialism. This technique of using petty conflicts to deflect protests against the establishment persists into modernity and is widely practiced by modern western nation states. Carroll reveals how the Catholic church became an arm of such imperialism, fully complicit in sustaining such diversionary tactics.
Neo-Romanism
Rome had no choice but to embrace and corrupt Christianity because that was the only move that would keep the powerful message of martyrs from revolutionizing their entire society. The struggle of that revolution continues today against Neo-Rome.
Imperial powers depend on the inability of oppressed populations to muster a unified resistance. This lack of organization is exacerbated by promoting conflicts among the masses. We see this today, in the conflicts perpetuated between liberals and conservatives, blacks and whites, believers and atheists, CNN and Fox, pro-life and pro-choice, rich and poor, Catholic and Protestant, etc. Perpetuating such divides prevents people from unifying and pressing together for relief in the things that really matter, such as: exorbitant taxation, absurdly expensive health care, barriers to the best schools, barriers to the most lucrative professions, unfair interest on savings, usurious rates on borrowing, insurance extortion, subjection of sons and daughters to horrible wars, etc. The weapon of divisiveness is utilized by the imperial system to keep the masses divided, conquered, and producing enough GDP so that a small entitled class may leisurely sift whatever goods and services they want off the top.
The masses have only each other to blame, because they are too busy blaming the liberals, conservatives, whites, Jews, blacks, immigrants, communists, youth, homeless, and other targets, to unite in blaming the establishment. The persistent drama of perpetual conflict within the Senate and Congress is simply a pretense for doing nothing other than guarding over the lucrative positions of the establishment. No better example exists than the constant promulgation of fear that social security is going bankrupt, when it would be more than self-sustaining, if Congress had not raided it’s accounts for other purposes. A similar example is the imposed limitations on contributions to retirement vehicles, like 401-k’s and IRA’s. The reality is that the establishment never wants the masses to retire, so long as they can continue contributing to the GDP; that is, contributing to a piling up of surplus goods and services so large that unbridled consumption by a leisure class goes unnoticed. Keeping the specter of outrageous health care expenses looming over the potential retiree is the most effective way to keep him at work.
The ability of the establishment to manipulate the masses is no better exemplified than in the rise of Donald Trump, supported by a faction of the masses that have digested propaganda to the extent that they actually support a deterioration in their own access to health care, education, and sustained peace; while simultaneously supporting a disregard for the environment, war, and constant litanies of horrid insults. It is sad to see people indoctrinated to support policies that are contrary to their own interests.
We are indoctrinated to think of the decline and fall of Rome sentimentally, as a tragedy. We have been inculcated with the belief that the reduction of imperial power would lead only to chaos arising from the dark hordes of indigenous masses. But, ask yourself, what if Roman power was the real darkness? The Roman war machine was as ruthless as the world has ever seen.
It was for the oppressed, for those whom the Roman system was an endless horror, that the message of Jesus was addressed. That is, up until that message was hijacked by Constantine and twisted into a mechanism for controlling the masses. It’s easier for one educated in history to clearly see these mechanisms persistently utilized. The masses are much easier to manage once they are convinced of their inherent sinfulness, lack of self-worth, and obligation to tolerate suffering as self-deserved.
Constantine
The approximate eastern extent of ancient Rome was the Rhine, which became Europe’s cultural fault line. Today the Rhine distinguishes the separation of Latin-derived Romance languages and Germanic-Slavic languages. The Rhine has been the defining boundary of the Reformation and a frontline of every major war fought in Europe. The Roman emperor Constantine arose from these western territories and established his palace in what is modern day Germany.
Roman Empire
It was Constantine (288-337) who joined Rome to the ideology of the Church and converted the cross, the Roman execution device, into a battle standard. Constantine reversed the nonviolent message of Christ, a message of passive resistance, into a symbol of war, domination, and imperialism.
The church, in 324, was a seething caldron of doctrinal rivalries between Docetists, Manichaeans, Arians and others. The church couldn’t even agree on how to calculate the date of Easter, much less on whether or not Jesus was God. Constantine asserted his right to exercise absolute authority over the entire Church and suddenly tolerance of theological disagreement was deemed unchristian. The answers that had eluded passionate minds like Irenaeus, Origen and Arius, would now be imposed by imperial fiat. Heresy became defined as a political crime. Since Constantine, totalitarianism has dominated Roman Catholicism, which has defined itself, not by Jesus, but by a dictatorial head.
Constantine summoned the bishops to Nicaea in 325 to agree that Jesus was God and those who dissented were exiled. The Nicene Creed was developed, proclaiming that the Son of God became man in order to be crucified as the symbol of God’s love for the world. This led to the Catholic-Orthodox split, when Constantinople promulgated that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father alone, instead of from the Father and the Son, which undercut the full divinity of the Son.
Constantine initiated a campaign to build large and resplendent churches everywhere. He constructed St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome to revere Peter’s martyrdom. He constructed the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, which was completed in 335, and which stood until 1009, when the ruling caliph ordered Constantine’s original destroyed. At that time, the tomb of Jesus was marked by a modest rotunda, which still stands, and is what pilgrims today revere as the Church of the Holy Sepulcher; but it is a pale shadow of what Constantine built. It’s interesting to note that the dome of the rock wasn’t built by the Muslims until the 7th century, so Constantine could easily have built there, had he wanted. However, Christendom had no desire to reconstruct the Jewish temple.
The politics of relics began with Constantine. Fragments of wood, supposedly from the cross, appeared all across Europe and were venerated or worn as talismans. A piece of the True Cross is supposedly atop an obelisk in St. Peter’s Square. Legend ensued that Helena, Constantine’s mother, discovered the true cross; positing her like a mother standing beside her divine Son. In fact, a cult of Helena exploded in the late 4th century, as she was credited with discovering other relics like the nails, the sign, the thorns, the whip, the Nativity cave in Bethlehem, and the seamless robe that Jesus wore.
Constantine sought to usurp Christ with himself and Mary with his mother, reimposing Christianity in a way conducive to Rome. In 326, Constantine ordered the murder of his own firstborn son and his wife; so that Helena might assume her place as holy mother and so he might be seen as an all-powerful father forced to put to death his beloved son. Constantine represents the beginning of what would ultimately become horrible corruptions in the Catholic Church, curtailment of which did not begin until the Reformation in 1517. In many ways, Constantine appears as an antichrist corrupting the message of the true church.
Augustine
Augustine (354-430) came after Constantine and applied Platonic thought to Christian theology. Augustine argued against those who held that saintly virtue was a prerequisite for full membership in the church. Augustine’s position was rooted in Plato’s distinction between the ideal and the real. Augustine believed the real could not be experienced until God brought about the fulfillment of creation at the end of times. This explained the flawed human condition. Christians could come together before God, confessing sin, and knowing that the church itself, remained imperfect.
Augustine’s theology of original sin and the fall has influenced all subsequent generations of Western Christians. For Augustine, only humans capable of understanding innate sinfulness could be capable of community, which thrives in the willingness to forgive. Augustine saw that relationships and unity were at the heart of God.
However, Augustine’s late vision was influenced by the sacking of Rome by Gothic hoards in 410, Attila the Hun's successes in the Rhine, and subsequent coming invasions of Vandals. The looming barbarians caused Augustine to forsake reason and justify the use of coercion and force in defending and spreading the faith. Augustine supported the passage of laws against pagans and heretics. Augustine provided the theological rationale for the use of violence to stamp out heresy and establish totalitarian Christian rulers.
Augustine’s writing denounces Jews for their rejection of the obvious testimonies of the prophets and declares that God has cast them off in favor of others. Augustine asserted that Christ distinguished between His faithful ones and His Jewish enemies as between light and darkness. Augustine called upon Jews to repent and come into the church. Augustine rejected genocide but supported the scattering or disbursement of the Jews; so that by evidence of their own scriptures, they would bear witness for Christianity. For this reason, Augustine supported the idea that Jews live as exiles everywhere. The theology that followed this was that Jews must be allowed to survive but never to thrive.
Polytheists disappeared from the western world because they were given the choice to convert or die. Jews would have disappeared as well, but Judaism endured because Christianity permitted it to endure, largely because of Augustine. For a thousand years, the compulsively repeated pattern would show in bishops and popes protecting Jews from Christian mobs incited exactly because of what the same bishops and popes had taught about Jews. However, Jews were allowed to be attacked whenever that were seen to be thriving.
This mode of thought survived within the church well into the 20th century, with Cardinal Augustyn Hlond stating in 1936: “…the Jews are fighting against the Catholic Church, persisting in free-thinking, and are the vanguard of godlessness, Bolshevism and subversion.” This statement by Augustyn was read from the pulpits as part of official Catholic endorsement of the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses.
The Resurgence of Rome as the Holy Roman Empire
As we know, Augustine’s fears were realized as the barbarians sacked and ended the Roman empire. But the empire eventually began to revive. A loosely disbursed European people slowly became more consolidated and known as the Franks.
Frankish Kingdom
The Frankish leader Charles Martel (688-741) defeated the Muslims at Tours in 732, saving Europe from Islam. After Martel’s death, his son Pepin was elected king of the Franks and was anointed by Pope Stephen II. When a subsequent pope, Leo III, crowned Pepin’s son Charlemagne (742-814), he proclaimed him the Holy Roman Emperor. Soon knights would be dubbed at the altar and bishops would be warriors at the heads of armies. The Roman Empire mutated into the Germanic Holy Roman empire.
Holy Roman Empire
Since its inception, the Holy Roman empire has persisted in violence. Pope Urban II called the first crusade in 1096 and he promised a guarantee of eternal salvation to those who died in the struggle against the infidel. This was the first time in Christian history that violence was cited as a source for obtaining grace. The second Crusade was launched by Pope Eugene III in 1146. The third crusade occurred in 1184, lead by Frederick Barbarossa. The 4th crusade was launched in 1202 and vented its fury on Christian Constantinople, for being schismatic, and it fell with a savage sacking.
Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) chose to don himself the Vicar of Christ, as successor to Peter, and as bearing absolute spiritual authority, existing below God but above man. Innocent’s crusaders began attacking Christian heretics, even in Europe. Innocent began a religions monarchy, as his family would produce eight popes. Innocent himself was a nephew of a pope who had made him a cardinal even though he was not even a priest.
At the 4th Lateran Council, in 1215, Innocent established the papacy’s claim to monarchial authority. It was this council that put in place the seven sacraments of Catholicism: baptism, extreme unction (anointing of the sick), eucharist (transubstantiation), confession, confirmation, marriage, and holy orders. This council also passed resolutions that Jews should be marked off in the public by the character of their dress (a precursor to Hitler’s yellow badge). Jews were denigrated, banned from taking public office, and had to pay a special tax to the Christian clergy. Hundreds of years later, the Holy Roman Empire would manifest again under Hitler.
Maximum Axis Expansion
CONTINUED IN COMMENTS BELOW
September 22, 2023
This is one of only a handful of books to which I'd give 6 stars if Goodreads had such an option. This book was so heavy (literally; it's a long one) and mentally (so much to take in and think about) that I took breaks after some sections to go read something mindless. The author is an ex-priest, and still a devout Catholic, but he pulls no punches in this history of the church's relationship with Jews. The cross should be as offensive to Jewish people as the swastika. The church organized and encourage the first pogroms. The church established the first ghettos and held the keys on one of the most deployable ones in Rome, at the foot of the Vatican, until 1870. The church arranged the first mass murders of Jews. The initial victims of the crusades weren't the Muslims in the Holy Land, but the Jews in Germany. The church organized book burnings to destroy Jewish holy texts, including stripping synagogues of ancient books and raiding personal homes to dig out copies of the Talmud and others for the pyres. The church excommunicated all Bolsheviks in one swipe, but never ex-communicated Hitler, Goebbels or Himmler, who were all in good standing in the church books at the times of their deaths. The church provided baptismal records to the Nazis so the unbaptized could be targeted for the death camps. The church was silent and uncritical, even as the Jews in the ghetto within sight of the Vatican were forcibly rounded up and shipped to the gas chambers. Subsequent popes since WWII have apologized for the behaviors of a few of its children during the war, but never acknowledged or apologized the institutional role of the church in setting antisemitism in motion and fanning it over the centuries. The book really makes you think twice about the symbols we use and the words of faith we have spoken over the last two thousand years and what that has meant to non-Christians everywhere.
December 22, 2022
Brilliant, this book was very close to earning a fifth star. Ultimately, it was a little too long for such a dense book. Carroll, as a former priest, brings some really insightful observations about Christian theology from inside the church. He also provides several childhood stories from his life. However these stories often served very little to further or intensify his arguments, and only needlessly distracted from his main talking point. That said, Carroll does do a great job of staying historically grounded, and presenting 2000 years of church history in a readable way. He methodically walks through the history of anti-semitism in Christianity from a historical standpoint, while also exposing the roots of anti-semitism in most Christian theology. I do wish this book had some more Jewish insight, maybe a shared authorship, or quick commentary. But this book is absolutely a must read for anyone interested in the history of the strained relationship between Christianity and Judaism.
June 14, 2022
First, this book took me about a month to read. It is a very scholarly work on the interaction of Christians (primarily the Catholic Church) and anti-semetism. It touches on 2000 years of history, metaphysics, philosophy and obviously theology. It is very well done but not for the faint of heart. I picked it up at the Holocaust Museum in Washinton DC (which is amazing by the way) and it is very thought provoking. I learned a lot about Judaism and certainly learned a lot about the history of Christian churches and their role in promoting hatred and violence against Jews. The last few chapters are the author's ideas on a third Vatican council, whom it should include and what it should accomplish. If you have any interest in the subject matter I don't know how a book could be bettered for that purpose. It was very interesting and got me thinking about lots of things going on in the world and my own personal life. Despite how dense and scholarly it is and how it is slow in spots I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
May 6, 2016
The other day I found myself browsing through the reviews for this book and I was struck by something which, at the time, I found somewhat funny: the common complaint that this is a long book. Surely, at only 600 pages (plus index, notes), this book is nowhere near as bad as The Age of Faith which I had just finished reading a few weeks before, coming in at almost 1100 pages. However, the more I strutted along, the more it became apparent to me that the complaint about the length of Constantine's Sword was not a complaint that the book is a total of 616 pages, but rather than the substance of the book could just as easily have filled 308 pages. This is what makes this book a long, long read.
However, the 616 pages work together in a way that 308 could not: they form an eclectic and idiosyncratic syncretism of theology, memoir, and history which at times is very pleasurable to read, though at other times is deadly boring. For instance, I rather enjoyed the first 100 pages, which read essentially like a memoir; he details his childhood, learning about his neighbor being a Jew, moving to Germany with his General father, meeting the Pope. These are the various events which led him not just to become a priest and then abandon that vocation, but to write this book from the perspective which he maintains. He is strongly disturbed by the way the Church has treated the Jews, enabling Hitler to carry out his genocide (with the exception of Jews who have been converted, for whom the Church made a habit of speaking up), enabling France to scapegoat Dreyfus back in the 1890s, and going back much further, enabling even Luther in his perhaps even more vitriolic hatred of the Jews than anything ever voiced by an orthodox Catholic.
The one part of the book which I disliked and would just as gladly see excised is Section 8, wherein he makes his impassioned plea for a liberalizing of the Church. Now, I have no interest whatsoever in how the Church hierarchy deals with itself and its various tentacles; religion is, to me, an outdated concept. However, I found most of that section - not all, for there were still pages as enjoyable as any of the first 500 - to be, in my mind at least, both irrelevant and impractical. I cannot imagine the Church actually acceding its absolutist supremacy one iota, much less to the nth degree to which he urges. His values are so clearly at odds with the Church that the Church would have to become unrecognizable for him to be happy, but that would destroy everything that the Church is. Of course, by not making such reforms, the Church may very well also be destroyed as fewer and fewer people are, like him, able to look at it without feeling ashamed of such an archaic organism, a dinosaur in a world of mammals.
Ultimately, minus Section 8, which would probably received a 2-star rating from me were it to be rated independently, I give the book as a whole a 4-star rating because, despite the relative ease with which he manages to incorporate three disparate elements into one singular entity, the experience of reading the book was challenging and at times painfully drawn out. I am glad that it is over, but I am also glad that I have read it.
However, before I can finish this review, I must make note of one omission which upset me: the use of The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara in the bibliography and faint references to the event, but the very notable lack of a chapter (or several) dedicated to the event. I was looking forward to it until I reached near the end of the book and, wondering how it had not been mentioned beyond a reference to Pius IX kidnapping children, checked the index and found myself unable to find an entry for "Mortara, Edgardo". At least a page would have done, but considering the extreme relevance which it has to the subject as a whole, I cannot but feel that this omission was improper.
Edgardo Mortara was a Jewish boy who had allegedly been secretly baptized by the family's Catholic maid as a baby during a bout of sickness during which the girl feared for his life and unbaptized soul. As per Catholic practice, a Catholic child cannot be raised in the home of a non-Catholic family, and thus Pope Pius IX had him removed around 1859 and raised in the Vatican. After many appeals to have their child returned, the news became international and apparently caused quite a stir in America and Germany. Not, of course, because a Jew had been kidnapped, but because the Pope was responsible: it was not an outcry for the Jews, but an outcry against the evils of Catholicism by antisemitic Protestants. The boy was never returned to his family and ultimately entered the ranks of the clergy. I intend on reading the book linked above sometime soon, if only to make up for the hole in my knowledge of the events thanks to James Carroll's having ignored it.
Thus, while Constantine's Sword is a truly fascinating amalgamation of theology, memoir, and history, it definitely could have expanded a lot on the latter count and excised most of the former; I am content with the quantity of memoir in the book. Thus the 4-star rather than a 5-star rating.
However, the 616 pages work together in a way that 308 could not: they form an eclectic and idiosyncratic syncretism of theology, memoir, and history which at times is very pleasurable to read, though at other times is deadly boring. For instance, I rather enjoyed the first 100 pages, which read essentially like a memoir; he details his childhood, learning about his neighbor being a Jew, moving to Germany with his General father, meeting the Pope. These are the various events which led him not just to become a priest and then abandon that vocation, but to write this book from the perspective which he maintains. He is strongly disturbed by the way the Church has treated the Jews, enabling Hitler to carry out his genocide (with the exception of Jews who have been converted, for whom the Church made a habit of speaking up), enabling France to scapegoat Dreyfus back in the 1890s, and going back much further, enabling even Luther in his perhaps even more vitriolic hatred of the Jews than anything ever voiced by an orthodox Catholic.
The one part of the book which I disliked and would just as gladly see excised is Section 8, wherein he makes his impassioned plea for a liberalizing of the Church. Now, I have no interest whatsoever in how the Church hierarchy deals with itself and its various tentacles; religion is, to me, an outdated concept. However, I found most of that section - not all, for there were still pages as enjoyable as any of the first 500 - to be, in my mind at least, both irrelevant and impractical. I cannot imagine the Church actually acceding its absolutist supremacy one iota, much less to the nth degree to which he urges. His values are so clearly at odds with the Church that the Church would have to become unrecognizable for him to be happy, but that would destroy everything that the Church is. Of course, by not making such reforms, the Church may very well also be destroyed as fewer and fewer people are, like him, able to look at it without feeling ashamed of such an archaic organism, a dinosaur in a world of mammals.
Ultimately, minus Section 8, which would probably received a 2-star rating from me were it to be rated independently, I give the book as a whole a 4-star rating because, despite the relative ease with which he manages to incorporate three disparate elements into one singular entity, the experience of reading the book was challenging and at times painfully drawn out. I am glad that it is over, but I am also glad that I have read it.
However, before I can finish this review, I must make note of one omission which upset me: the use of The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara in the bibliography and faint references to the event, but the very notable lack of a chapter (or several) dedicated to the event. I was looking forward to it until I reached near the end of the book and, wondering how it had not been mentioned beyond a reference to Pius IX kidnapping children, checked the index and found myself unable to find an entry for "Mortara, Edgardo". At least a page would have done, but considering the extreme relevance which it has to the subject as a whole, I cannot but feel that this omission was improper.
Edgardo Mortara was a Jewish boy who had allegedly been secretly baptized by the family's Catholic maid as a baby during a bout of sickness during which the girl feared for his life and unbaptized soul. As per Catholic practice, a Catholic child cannot be raised in the home of a non-Catholic family, and thus Pope Pius IX had him removed around 1859 and raised in the Vatican. After many appeals to have their child returned, the news became international and apparently caused quite a stir in America and Germany. Not, of course, because a Jew had been kidnapped, but because the Pope was responsible: it was not an outcry for the Jews, but an outcry against the evils of Catholicism by antisemitic Protestants. The boy was never returned to his family and ultimately entered the ranks of the clergy. I intend on reading the book linked above sometime soon, if only to make up for the hole in my knowledge of the events thanks to James Carroll's having ignored it.
Thus, while Constantine's Sword is a truly fascinating amalgamation of theology, memoir, and history, it definitely could have expanded a lot on the latter count and excised most of the former; I am content with the quantity of memoir in the book. Thus the 4-star rather than a 5-star rating.
June 26, 2023
This is a long and not so easy read. I almost DNF in chapter one... After I slogged though the beginning, the history of the church and the Jews became super interesting. I knew too little and want to know more.
July 5, 2025
A deeply personal and still theological examination of the relationship of the Catholic Church to antisemitism, particularly as it culminated in the Shoah.
Highly recommended to anyone descended of a Christian faith.
Highly recommended to anyone descended of a Christian faith.
October 4, 2019
Catholics are just jews who chose the correct path and the other jews choose the wrong path. simple. every practice by a jew, well almost every, should be practiced by a catholic.
Read
December 7, 2022Very good for history buffs - it's definitely not light reading, but great for history buffs and readers willing to spend some time/effort on the journey. It manages to cover 2000+ years in a cohesive and understandable manner.
January 23, 2020
Sometimes you see a book on a shelf and just know you're in for a hot dose of hyperintellectual, self-flagellating, egotistical white dude bullshit, and boy, did I get my money's worth with Constantine's Sword by James Carroll. If you ever wanted 616 pages of some narcissistic old white guy's thoughts on how abysmally Roman Catholicism has treated Jews, this is the book for you. But wait! You'll also get, as a free, super-thrilling bonus these gripping anecdotes:
-That time he used to have this Jewish friend named Peter Seligman. Don't worry; this never goes anywhere, and he soon drops Peter(who dodged a goddamn bullet, if you ask me), but hey, he needs to prove his solidarity and tolerance cred somehow.
-His weird Oedipal issues with his mother. Frankly, this whole sequence made me need a shower. No, sir, I'm pretty sure most sons don't want to hump their moms, nor do they get lusty thoughts about a statue's neck. I'm pretty sure you're a far-flung outlier on that score. At least, I hope to God you are. If you're not, then that explains a whole lot about men.
-His navel-gazing ex post facto guilt about tainting his children with the horrors of the Holocaust by taking them to Germany in 1990. In a passage so overwrought that you can practically see him angling for some Hollywood studio to option the movie rights, he describes how he re-enacted the last race from Chariots of Fire(with the dramatic addition of a few anguished, Vaderian Noooooooooos for good measure)to rescue his children from the Holocaust-evoking act of...standing on the former spot of Hitler's bunker. In his mind, the mere act of standing on such unhallowed ground confers the a case of zombie Nazi cooties that can only be cleansed by him yodeling like a jackass as he sprints across the former no-man's land of Checkpoint Charlie.
I haven't got the foggiest, friends, but I'd bet a dollar that that scene was the one he fantasized about getting an Oscar for the movie adaptation of his magnum opus. He, no doubt, would be played by Liam Neeson, and his acceptance speech of love and unity and ecumenism wouldn't leave a dry eye in the house.
-An interminable session of him standing, pensive and penitent, before the cross erected by well-meaning but misguided Christians at Auschwitz. That scene frames the entire story, in fact, and I think that's why the whole book sticks in my craw. Mr. Carroll makes the point again and again that Christians have set themselves as superior to Jews since the fourth century, to the world's detriment and the incalculable harm of the latter and claims that he has a plan to redress this wrong, and yet, in the end, it's all about Catholicism. All about him. His guilt. His sorrow. His dreams for religious healing and unity. Even in his plan to remove the cross from Auschwitz, the Jewish people are positions as witnesses to Christian piety and penance. He says the Jews should not be expected to forgive the Christians, but it's clear that it very much is expected, that he hopes they will sing hosannas to this act of pious contrition.
The entire book carries the whiff or performative self-awareness and abasement that borders on the crass. For all his purported concern for Jews and their suppression and displacement from history, there are very few of their voices in this book, and those that are accord with his perspective. Of course. We're meant to marvel at his perspicacity and erudition as we wade through his tortured syntax in search of a point, and I warn you, many are the times you will lose yourself in the coherence-throttling thicket of interrupted clauses designed to add depth to his sniveling introspection.
A monument to self-absorption and delusions of grandeur, it's nonetheless a worthy read for those interested in the development and evolution of the schism between Judaism and Christianity. Just try not to step into the piles of self-congratulation. They're sticky.
-That time he used to have this Jewish friend named Peter Seligman. Don't worry; this never goes anywhere, and he soon drops Peter(who dodged a goddamn bullet, if you ask me), but hey, he needs to prove his solidarity and tolerance cred somehow.
-His weird Oedipal issues with his mother. Frankly, this whole sequence made me need a shower. No, sir, I'm pretty sure most sons don't want to hump their moms, nor do they get lusty thoughts about a statue's neck. I'm pretty sure you're a far-flung outlier on that score. At least, I hope to God you are. If you're not, then that explains a whole lot about men.
-His navel-gazing ex post facto guilt about tainting his children with the horrors of the Holocaust by taking them to Germany in 1990. In a passage so overwrought that you can practically see him angling for some Hollywood studio to option the movie rights, he describes how he re-enacted the last race from Chariots of Fire(with the dramatic addition of a few anguished, Vaderian Noooooooooos for good measure)to rescue his children from the Holocaust-evoking act of...standing on the former spot of Hitler's bunker. In his mind, the mere act of standing on such unhallowed ground confers the a case of zombie Nazi cooties that can only be cleansed by him yodeling like a jackass as he sprints across the former no-man's land of Checkpoint Charlie.
I haven't got the foggiest, friends, but I'd bet a dollar that that scene was the one he fantasized about getting an Oscar for the movie adaptation of his magnum opus. He, no doubt, would be played by Liam Neeson, and his acceptance speech of love and unity and ecumenism wouldn't leave a dry eye in the house.
-An interminable session of him standing, pensive and penitent, before the cross erected by well-meaning but misguided Christians at Auschwitz. That scene frames the entire story, in fact, and I think that's why the whole book sticks in my craw. Mr. Carroll makes the point again and again that Christians have set themselves as superior to Jews since the fourth century, to the world's detriment and the incalculable harm of the latter and claims that he has a plan to redress this wrong, and yet, in the end, it's all about Catholicism. All about him. His guilt. His sorrow. His dreams for religious healing and unity. Even in his plan to remove the cross from Auschwitz, the Jewish people are positions as witnesses to Christian piety and penance. He says the Jews should not be expected to forgive the Christians, but it's clear that it very much is expected, that he hopes they will sing hosannas to this act of pious contrition.
The entire book carries the whiff or performative self-awareness and abasement that borders on the crass. For all his purported concern for Jews and their suppression and displacement from history, there are very few of their voices in this book, and those that are accord with his perspective. Of course. We're meant to marvel at his perspicacity and erudition as we wade through his tortured syntax in search of a point, and I warn you, many are the times you will lose yourself in the coherence-throttling thicket of interrupted clauses designed to add depth to his sniveling introspection.
A monument to self-absorption and delusions of grandeur, it's nonetheless a worthy read for those interested in the development and evolution of the schism between Judaism and Christianity. Just try not to step into the piles of self-congratulation. They're sticky.
April 8, 2022
Tragic and yet scintillating in its breadth.
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