Rating: 
Summary: Pragmatic Christian Perspectives
Review: I do admire the author's willingness to consider the story of Christianity from the Jewish perspective, but I'm not convinced that reluctance of Jews to accept Christianity is based on its atrocities in Europe.However, it it noteworthy that the author constructed plausible links between various acts by European Christian leadership and persecution of the Jewish race and how the acts of doing nothing when something may have been done as fuel for later persecutions. Although I couldn't help but think that this book was written with some personal vendetta, I can't entirely blame him for it either. History is what it is. Hopefully people will learn from the past, but history is also full of lessons that say that tradgedies of the past have a way of repeating themselves. I did come away with a more thoughtful perspective of the symbol of the cross, which is why I would recommend this book to others. I can say that I'm less likely to use the symbol as a banner but I can't say that this symbol can't carry positive meaning either. A person's focus is certainly worth considering.
Rating: 
Summary: 60 Years Removed
Review: We are a mere 60 years removed from the holocaust, the latest and most terrible of a long line of Xian atrocities stretching back for centuries. If you believe that Jesus was an historical event -- a blameless, spotless son of the one God and not a mythical retelling of various pagan mystery motifs -- then where is the error that has resulted in so much intolerance, cruelty and bloodshed in his name? How can one assess the efficacy of a religion in terms of the supernatural, the magical and the unseen when the temporal, historical manifestations are consistently and cyclically evil? How do you keep it from happening in the future if you don't identify and confront the underlying flaws or errors? At least James Carroll attempts to identify the inherent failing of institutional, Catholic Xianity that have plagued it for so long. And he offers something of a remedy. Does he succeed? I don't know, and I wonder if its not too late anyway, but his ideas are often provocative and should at least give one pause to reflect upon some rather weighty implications.
Rating: 
Summary: "...the history is always amateurish and often wrong..."
Review: From Thomas F. X. Noble, Robert M. Conway Director of the Medieval Institute and Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame, comes this articulate critique of Carroll's book: "Caveat Emptor! This book looks like a bargain, three books for the price of one. It contains a history of Catholicism?s relationship with Judaism and the Jews; a plea for a Christology that would, largely, remedy the most distasteful aspects of that history; and an autobiography of the author, a successful novelist and National Book Award winner. Alas, the history is always amateurish and often wrong; the theology is an affront to any form of historic Christianity; and the author comes off as smug, sanctimonious, and unctuous." For the rest of the article, see .... The two stars are for the importance of the author's question: "How could the symbol he loved, the cross, be such a powerful reminder of God's love and at the same time be for so many Jews a reminder of the hatred and oppression that had prepared the ground for the final solution?" (as summarized by Harvey Cox on beliefnet). The adoption of the Cross as the symbol of Constantine and the Crusaders marked a profound misunderstanding of the purpose of the Cross of Jesus. John Stott captures the heart of the Cross of Jesus with penetrating insight: "I could never myself believe in God if it were not for the cross......In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? I have entered many Buddhist temples in different Asian countries and stood respectfully before the statute of Buddha - - his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agony of the world. But each time, after awhile, I have had to turn away. And in imagination, I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross -- nails through his hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in God-forsaken darkness. That is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. Our sufferings become more manageable in light of his. There is still a question mark against human suffering, but over it we boldly stamp another mark, the cross, which symbolizes divine suffering. The cross of Christ is God's only self justification in such a world as ours." John R. W. Stott, The Cross of Christ (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press 1986), 335.
Rating:
Summary: A Radical Thesis!
Review: When I purchased this book, I thought I would be getting a documentation of the terrible history of the Catholic Church's treatment of the Jews. It is that but it is so much more. James Carroll is a former priest and professes to still be a believing Christian and a son of the Church. In this book, Carroll not only lays out the brutal history of Christian Anti-Semitism in the West, he demonstrates how Anti-Semitism is built into the very structure of Christianity, indeed into the Gospels themselves. This inherent Anti-Semitism, Carroll argues, made the Holocaust, if not inevitable, then at least possible and in fact likely. After an introductory section in which Carroll presents some autobiographical material from his own life, he lays the book out chronologically beginning with the immediate aftermath of the death of Jesus right through the 20th century. The book is filled with the history of Christian philosophy and theology that I, as a non-Christian, am no expert on. Throughout his discussion, Carroll continually returns to what he considers to be the two roots of Anti-Semitism. First, the Christian doctrine of supercessionism, the idea that Christianity is intended by God to supercede Judaism which Carroll argues is contrary to the thought and teachings of Jesus. Second, the focus of Christianity on Jesus? death instead of his life, in other words, the Christian obsession with the cross, instead of Jesus' teachings. In making his case, Carroll presents the radical notion, at least in Christian religious circles, that the Gospels do not present an accurate portrait of the crucifixion at all. He believes that by the time they were being written, particularly the later Gospels, the followers of Jesus were already copying down a myth used to explain the death of the Messiah. After tracing the increasingly disastrous history of the Jewish experience in Christian Europe, Carroll chronicles the rise of secular European Anti-Semitism. The history culminates in the Holocaust in which, as Carroll and many others have shown, the anti-liberal Church did precious little to stop the murder of six million people. Finally, Carroll reviews what he considers to be the Church's meager attempts at reform during Vatican II. In the last part of the book Carroll proposes a Vatican III council which would do nothing less than radically re-structure the Catholic Church and the Christian religion from top to bottom. Beginning with the excising of supercessionist ideas from the scriptures, changing the focus from the death of Jesus to his life and message and culminating with a complete embrace of democracy and the free exchange of ideas while jettisoning the notion that the Church is somehow without sin. Only in this manner, Carroll argues, can the Church break free of its ingrown Jew hatred. This book is extraordinarily provocative. I cannot imagine a traditional Catholic even beginning to accept Carroll's ideas. I am surprised, frankly, that the Church hasn?t reacted with greater anger. As a non-Catholic, I will not begin to suggest what another religion should do to reform. Much of what Carroll writes about the Church and the Jews is true, in my opinion. And Catholics should not be surprised that Jews do not rush to embrace them for every minor gesture the Church makes towards the Jewish people. There is quite a lot to answer for. I certainly recommend this book to free thinkers of all religions and it is my hope that Catholics will read this book and, even if not fully agreeing with Carroll, at least gaining an understanding of the issues he raises.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Book, Highly recommended
Review: Wonderful Book. I found 'Constantine's Sword' to be filled with history that has been omitted from Church education. How many of us ever learned of Constantine and how the Christian church was originally formed in our Sunday School Classes. Who wrote the bible that is still used today? Why we worship on Sunday rather than the original Sabbath, Saturday, observed by Christ. This book also reveals the 'Crusades' as one of the first religious holocaust in Europe where Jews were victimized before the crusaders took their battles to the Middle East. I found the book full of fascinating information.
Rating:
Summary: I thought this was a history book!!
Review: Mr Carroll used the first 25-30 pages to just talk about his life.I thought that the book was going to get better but it didnt.Mr Carroll keeps talking about his childhood, his teenage years and adulthood while mentioning the history of anti-semitisn once in a while.The book is certainly very dull and boring.It is also very hard to read because everytime Mr Carroll start to talk about history, he almost inmediatly deviates into his own insights and life. The book is certainly too long because Mr Carroll makes it long.
Rating: 
Summary: Read a REAL History Book, not a sappy Autobiography
Review: To let the reader beware, I am a loyal practicing Catholic, and I suppose I am somewhat biased right off the bat reading an "anti-catholic book". However, I was open minded enough to pick the book up and read it, so here are my thoughts: First, the title plainly states it is "A HISTORY". It is not. The book is about 10% actual useful historical information, 40% personal autobigraphy (sappy, cry-baby stories), and 50% asking rhetorical, or even Socratic questions, all with no answers. His slant on certain events in Church History are almost always negative, when, taken in view of Christendom in particular, and Western Civilization in general, they can be thought of as positive, or at least as necessary (the Crusades in particular). If the reader wants to learn about history from a Catholic pespective, especially on the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the Protestant Reformation, please look up books by Hillare Beloc or William H. Carroll. Several books of this vein have come out recently proclaiming the Catholic Church's evils throughout history. Please read from the author's above to get true historical perspective of the times in which these decisions were made. Second, some of the recommendations made to "solve" this anti-Semetic "problem" are just the typical liberal, left wing Catholic suggestions (democratize the Church?), that would do nothing to the issue he brings up. The remaining recommendations call for reinterpreting or even going so far as to changing the canon. I'm sorry, but this is just ridiculous. For a person who was once a priest to say these things, it is clear that he holds some grudge against the Church. Overall, the book could have been cut to 120 pages - and then still be filled with his 20th century, liberal historical bias.
Rating:
Summary: A very dull sword
Review: While James Carroll does a credable job of trying to explian the history of Christians and Jews the book is altogether a choopy and unfocused effort. While I particularly liked the description of his own childhood (the Jewish friend of his couldn't go to the country club and he always wondered why). Other parts are very disjointed there are times while reading this book where I had trouble remembering if I reading about The Holocaust or Martian Luther or Karl Marx(both of whom have a roll in the story. I think the main thing that defeated this book was the shear length of it( 616 pages). A lot the matrial in the book is repetitive, simply put Carroll repeats himself a lot. Also it doesn't seem that Carroll is saying much other then 'Its wrong to hate Jews simply because they are Jewish'(Not that these are the wrong sentiments at all). Also it doesn't seem like a lot of this book is by Carroll own design in addition to the bible size amount of pages listed above there are an additional 88 pages of references. I realize that this is work of history and history books have to have references but come on. I mean pasting together what other guys have thought into a workable sentence, interspersing it with quotes from various sources and calling it your own work is not 'A History' it's 'A review of history' Overall-Ok but there have been many better books on the same subject made by better authors
Rating:
Summary: Absolute Drivel
Review: I was very disappointed in this longwinded academic book. James Carroll is still struggling with a sophomoric guilt within his own life and discusses it in nausiating detail. He sheepishly transfers his own obsequious guilt into his personal theology and how he has now "risen" above the anti-semitism in Christianity. He blasphemes the Church in many ways but the most laughable attempt to characterize the Church as anti-semetic is when he states: "When the priest at the consecration says, 'This is the cup of the New Covenant,' he is pronouncing the Old Covenant superfluous...The Jew's job is to disappear." Somehow, James Carroll believes that for a Christian to believe in the New Covenant, this is inherently anti-semetic. Additionally, James Carroll writes that the Catholic theology of praying for the dead is also anti-semetic. He states that such prayers, even with good intentions, are anti-semetic because they subject the Jew arguably to a post-mortem conversion. He then goes on to describe how this can be interpreted as Christians wanting to dominate the lives of Jews in this life as well as the afterlife.
The book is loaded with these embarrassing stories when what really is happening is the author, though agreeably talented, is struggling through a delusional sense of personal guilt. Guilt, I believe, is centered around his own subsequent rejection of his calling by God to be a priest. His life as a priest he admits in this book "marks me more indelibly than anything else." So why leave?
James Carroll should get professional help for his guilt feelings instead of trying to deal with it through trash like this book. Spend time with another book.
Rating:
Summary: Flawed but powerful
Review: Like many who have commented on this book, I have a tough time because it is not an easy one to pigeonhole. I think of it as a sermon. A compulsively readable sermon masquerading as history-cum-memoir. In consequence it is awkward and disjointed and can't be called a well-made book. It tries to do and explain too many things for even this very capable writer to succeed at everything. I suspect Mr. Carroll is well aware of these weaknesses.
His critics are perfectly justified in questioning it as HISTORY in capital letters. For ancient history, which I know pretty well, it is easy to quibble about his penchant for trusting to secondary sources and too few of them at that. Or to say, for instance, that it is preposterous for him to bring up the Roman "occupation" of Palestine before Jesus' birth as an issue, acknowledge historians' doubts about whether what was done should be called an "occupation" and after that to insist that it WAS an "occupation." I suspect he did so because he felt that he needed a simple term to use in order not to bog down in what are trivial issues. All this is mere quibbling, because as he points out about many controverted points, no matter which side you take, his argument holds true. Such quibbling is a dodge to avoid his central historical thesis: that Christianity tilled the fields of anti-Semitism, watered its soil and nurtured the plant because as doctrine developed Christianity early came to define itself as non-Jewish; this definition over the centuries seemed to demand the keeping down of Jews, and he insists that Church practice enabled popular attitudes toward Jews to become hateful and fearful. The book is therefore more an intellectual history than "what happened.."
He maintains a balanced view as far as his conscience will let him. About the controversy over Pope Pius XII's silence about German treatment of Jews, and specifically about the roundup that took place "under his window" (the damning focus of the play THE DEPUTY), he agrees with that Pope's defenders that by then nothing could be done for the victims. Instead he argues that Pius XII culminated the entire historical record he has detailed, and, in a very charitable nutshell, was so morally oblivious to the plight of the Jews in his concern for the well-being of Christians that he forbade other people who DID see the need for Christian action to do anything. His case in point: the future Pope John XXIII as a matter of policy had baptismal certificates and ancestral records altered to protect Jews in defiance of Vatican directives.
For anyone concerned with the question (and every Christian should be) CONSTANTINE'S SWORD provides a fascinating read because this National Book Award winning author writes very very well indeed. The awkwardness is in the overall construction. His passionate anger and profound sorrow about the evil done to Jews in the name of Christ are terrible-- and wonderful-- to behold.
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