Constantine's Sword

A bold and moving book tracing the two-thousand-year course of the Church's battle against Judaism by National Book Award-winning author James Carroll. More than a chronicle of religion, this dark history is the central tragedy of Western civilization. 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. Constantine's Sword. is a brave and affecting reckoning with difficult truths that will touch every reader.