Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews, A History

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Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Apr 1, 2002 - Religion - 780 pages

The “monumental” New York Times bestseller in which a Catholic explores the problem of anti-Semitism through Church history (The Washington Post).

A Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year and a New York Times Notable Book

In this “masterly history” (Time), National Book Award-winning author James Carroll maps the profoundly troubling two-thousand-year course of the Church’s battle against Judaism and faces the crisis of faith it has provoked in his own life as a Catholic.

More than a chronicle of religion, this dark history is the central tragedy of Western civilization, its fault lines reaching deep into our culture. The Church’s failure to protest the Holocaust — the infamous “silence” of Pius XII — is only part of the story: the death camps, Carroll shows, are the culmination of a long, entrenched tradition of anti-Judaism. From Gospel accounts of the death of Jesus on the cross, to Constantine’s transformation of the cross into a sword, to the rise of blood libels, scapegoating, and modern anti-Semitism, Carroll reconstructs the dramatic story of the Church’s conflict not only with Jews but with itself. Yet in tracing the arc of this narrative, he implicitly affirms that it did not necessarily have to be so. There were roads not taken, heroes forgotten; new roads can be taken yet. Demanding that the Church finally face this past in full, Carroll calls for a fundamental rethinking of the deepest questions of Christian faith. Only then can Christians, Jews, and all who carry the burden of this history begin to forge a new future.

“Carroll discusses the history of Christian-Jewish relations honestly, touchingly, and personally…Carroll investigates his own prejudices as a believing Christian, a former Catholic priest, and a long-time civil rights activist. As he unearths history (using all the best sources), he also encounters emotions he didn't realize he had and shows how his historical journey was also a personal pilgrimage of faith.”—Booklist

“A triumph.”—Atlantic Monthly
 

Contents

PART TWO New Testament Origins of Jew Hatred
65
PART THREE Constantine Augustine and the Jews
153
PART FOUR From Crusades to Conversionism
235
Enter Racism
311
PART SIX Emancipation Revolution and a New Fear of Jews
399
PART SEVEN The Church and Hitler
473
PART EIGHT A Call for Vatican III
545
The Faith of a Catholic
605
Back Matter
617
Back Cover
757
Spine
758
Copyright

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About the author (2002)

James Carroll was raised in Washington, D.C., and ordained to the Catholic priesthood in 1969. He served as a chaplain at Boston University from 1969 to 1974, then left the priesthood to become a writer. A distinguished scholar- in-residence at Suffolk University, he is a columnist for the Boston Globe and a regular contributor to the Daily Beast. His critically admired books include Practicing Catholic, the National Book Award&–winning An American Requiem, House of War, which won the first PEN/Galbraith Award, and the New York Times bestseller Constantine&’s Sword, now an acclaimed documentary.

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