Constantine's Sword

by Carroll, James

• ISBN13: 9780618219087
• ISBN10: 0618219080
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-04-01
• Publisher: Mariner Books

Summary

In this "rare book that combines searing passion . . . with a subject that has affected all of our lives" (Chicago Tribune), the novelist and cultural critic James Carroll maps the two-thousand-year course of the Church's battle against Judaism and faces the crisis of faith it has sparked in his own life as a Catholic. "Fascinating, brave and sometimes infuriating" (Time), this dark history is more than a chronicle of religion. It is the central tragedy of Western civilization, its fault lines reaching deep into our culture. Drawing on his well-known talents as a storyteller and memoirist, Carroll has created "a deeply felt work, a book that measures the "sweep of history" against [his] experience as a man of the church" (San Francisco Chronicle). A courageous and affecting reckoning with difficult truths that will touch every reader, "CONSTANTINE'S SWORD is a history written to change the way people live" (Talk).

Author Biography

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. His New York Times Bestseller Constantine's Sword is now the subject of an acclaimed documentary, directed by Oren Jacoby and distributed nationally by First Run Features and Red Envelope Entertainment.

Table of Contents

PART ONE The Cross at Auschwitz
Sign of Folly	3	(10)
Stumbling Block to Jews	13	(6)
The Journey	19	(5)
My Mother's Clock	24	(7)
Passion Play	31	(6)
My Rabbi	37	(21)
Between Past and Future	58	(9)
PART TWO New Testament Origins of Jew Hatred
My Great-Uncle	67	(4)
Jesus, a Jew?	71	(18)
The Threshold Stone	89	(11)
Destroy This Temple	100	(22)
The Healing Circle	122	(13)
Paul, the Martyr of Shalom	135	(9)
Parting of the Ways	144	(6)
The Lachrymose Tradition: A Cautionary Note	150	(5)
PART THREE Constantine, Augustine, and the Jews
The Heart of This Story Is a Place	155	(10)
The Story of Constantine	165	(7)
The Cross and the Religious Imagination	172	(6)
The Vision of Constantine	178	(17)
The True Cross	195	(13)
Augustine Trembling	208	(12)
The Seamless Robe	220	(9)
The Danger of Ambivalence	229	(8)
PART FOUR From Crusades to Conversionism
The War of the Cross	237	(9)
The Incident in Trier	246	(11)
Mainz Anonymous	257	(11)
The Blood Libel	268	(10)
Anselm: Why God Became Man	278	(12)
Abelard and Heloise	290	(11)
Thomas Aquinas: Reason Against the Jews	301	(12)
PART FIVE The Inquisition: Enter Racism
One Road	313	(6)
My Inquisition	319	(3)
Convivencia to Reconquista	322	(11)
Convert-Making: The Failure of Success	333	(10)
Expulsion in 1492	343	(20)
The Roman Ghetto	363	(22)
The Religious Response of the Jews	385	(6)
Shema Yisrael!	391	(10)
PART SIX Emancipation, Revolution, and a New Fear of Jews
Karl Marx, Second Son of Trier	401	(5)
Spinoza: From Rabbis to Revolution	406	(8)
Voltaire and the False Promise of Emancipation	414	(12)
Jew as Revolutionary, Jew as Financier	426	(13)
Revolution in Rome: The Pope's Jews	439	(11)
Alfred Dreyfus and La Croix	450	(14)
The Uses of Antisemitism	464	(3)
Lucie and Madeleine	467	(8)
PART SEVEN The Church and Hitler
From Christian Anti-Judaism to Eliminationist Antisemitism	475	(4)
Setting a Standard: The Church Against Bismarck	479	(16)
Eugenio Pacelli and the Surrender of German Catholicism	495	(6)
The Seamless Robe in 1933	501	(10)
Maria Laach and Reichstheologie	511	(12)
Pius XII: Last Days of the Roman Ghetto	523	(13)
Edith Stein and Catholic Memory	536	(11)
PART EIGHT A Call for Vatican III
The Broad Relevance of Catholic Reform	547	(12)
Agenda for a New Reformation	559	(2)
Agenda Item 1: Anti-Judaism in the New Testament	561	(9)
Agenda Item 2: The Church and Power	570	(7)
Agenda Item 3: A New Christology	577	(11)
Agenda Item 4: The Holiness of Democracy	588	(11)
Agenda Item 5: Repentance	599	(6)
Epilogue: The Faith of a Catholic	605	(14)
Acknowledgments	619	(3)
Chronology	622	(6)
Notes	628	(68)
Bibliography	696	(24)
Index	720