Carroll CS 2001

Carroll, a former Catholic priest and a successful novelist, treats the troubled history of relations between Judaism and Christianity from the earliest period to the present day.

This ambitious work means to demonstrate how the theological and political anti-Judaism? of Christendom is causally linked to the the militant and genocidal anti-semitism of the 20th century. While other specialized studies have examined pieces of this history separately, his book attempts to cover the entirety of the vast and complex 2000 year period of Christian history. And though others may have faulted Christians while exculpating Christianity itself, Carroll argues persuasively that the classical structure of Christian theology and identity has been built on an anti-Judaistic basis, leading inevitably and tragically to the anti-semitism of the modern period.

For this reason, Carroll calls for a third Vatican council, one which will deal openly and squarely with the traumatic legacy of Jewish–Christian relations, paving the way towards a new Christian theology which is not rooted in anti-Judaism.

As much of a personal memoir as a scholarly history, Carroll's book is written in an accessible and vibrant style. In spite of many errors in detail – these will bother specialists but go unnoticed by casual readers – the book is very well researched and is as fully documented as any work of popular nonfiction I have seen in recent years.

The tome weighs in at a massive 756 pages, including 68 pages of endnotes (628–695) and 25 pages of bibliography (696–720), and a 36 page index of subjects and names (720–756). The extensive bibliography is worth perusing by students in Prodigal Sisters.

This book is divided into eight parts, each consisting of seven to eight chapters. There are 60 chapters total in the book.

Part 1, called "The Cross at Auschwitz," sets the stage by explaining Carroll's personal story. It is a masterful blend of memoir and critical history, allowing Carroll to establish a contemporary basis for our ongoing concern with this important material.

Part 2, the "New Testament Origins of Jew Hatred," contines the pattern of blending memoir with history, but focuses on the early period of the Church. Carroll is influenced by John Dominic Crossan's reconstruction of the emergence of a Christian kerygma after the death of Jesus. He shows that Christians, as they sought to understand the traumatic experience of Jesus' death, presented "prophecy historicized" – for example, by re-telling the story of the passion of Jesus by following the outline of Psalm 22 (see p. 129). One of Crossan's points in this part of the book is to demonstrate that it was only through a gradual process of forgetting the truth about the history of their origins that Christians came to demonize "the Jews" as a group... a relatively late phenomenon in New Testament texts, but one with disastrous consequences.

Part 3, called "Constantine, Augustine, and the Jews," mixes colorful history with insightful theological criticism. Carroll weaves together the stories of the formation of orthodoxy and Christian empire, and the rise of interest in Christian pilgrimage and relics, convincingly demonstrating that anti-Judaism was a consistent part of the formation of gentile Christendom. Carroll elucidates the tragic history of Christian responses to the continuing presence of unbelieving Jews in Christendom, with a survey of Christian anti-Judaism in the period (including an especially troubling look at the adversos Judaeos genre of writings that emerged in the period and found terrifying expression in John Chrysostom). In particular, he highlights Augustine's ambivalent approach to the Jewish problem: "do not slay them!" Augustine said (in his City of God? 18.46.827-828), highlighting the precarious position that Christian rhetoric had placed Jewish communities. Their continuing presence, in a diminished, economically and politically restricted state, was necessary to serve as testimony to Christianity's truth and favor with God (see p. 219).

Part 4, "From the Crusades to Conversionism"