Review of Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews by James
Carroll
Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 2001.
James Carroll, the well-known Boston writer, has published a new
book on the complex, tortured history of Catholic-Jewish relations.
At over 700 pages, the book’s first difficulty is not its
length, but the elusiveness of its genre. The author calls his
work “history refracted through one man’s own experience,” and
that, as I see it, is a big part of the problem. The book is so
self-referential that, in places, I squirmed my way through the
text, and was led to the conclusion that the author is working
out his own issues in print. This leaves a potential reviewer in
the awkward position of seeming to make any criticism of the work
an ad hominem attack. I have no desire to disparage the personal
journey of another, and I respect James Carroll’s passion,
but in my opinion he should have refrained from putting his own
issues on the agenda of Catholic-Jewish relations.
The book begins with a poignant reflection on the continued presence
of the large “papal” cross at Auschwitz, which Carroll
sees as the epitome of the Church’s distortion of the crucifixion,
itself the cause of the denigration of Jews by Christians since
the late 1st century. He traces this tragic history to the first
followers of Jesus who, devastated by his death, naturally sought
to understand their loss in reference to the (Old Testament) scriptures.
In the light of religious reflection on various scriptural precedents,
what began to emerge was a growing understanding of the meaning
of Jesus’ life and death, and the conviction that he was
(in some sense) still alive. Within a generation or two, however,
a combination of trauma inflicted by the Romans during the Jewish
revolt (66 – 70 CE), mutual recrimination between Jewish
Christians and Jews who were not, and an overwhelmingly Gentile
presence in the Church produced a situation in which the Christians
who composed the Gospels misconstrued the earlier conclusions regarding
the death of Jesus. They mistook religious reflection for literal
history - with an anti-Jewish bias. Later generations of Christians
would use the misunderstood prophecy/fulfillment conclusions as
a weapon against the Jews who “should have” perceived
the “self-evidence” of Christian claims.
The onus in the hardening of a fluid theological situation, according
to Carroll, is on Constantine who, desiring the political and religious
unification of his empire, used his imperial authority and the
mythical allure of his famous “vision” of the cross
to coerce the bishops at the Council of Nicaea (325 CE) to adopt
the creedal formula that (still) exaggerates the significance of
the crucifixion. (Could it have been merely a coincidence, Carroll
asks, that Constantine killed his own son?) Since Nicaea, exclusivist
claims for Jesus as the only savior, epitomized in Anselm’s
theology of the crucifixion as atonement to God for sin, have had
egregious effects on the Jews, the most hideous of which is the
Shoah (Holocaust). According to Carroll, the Church has yet to
make a thorough moral reckoning in this regard, because it is prevented
from doing so by the weight of its own (distorted) claims. But
none of this is endemic to Christianity per se, and so Carroll
proposes a solution: Christian self-understanding must be reshaped
at a “Vatican Council III” at which, among other things,
exclusivist claims for Jesus must be rejected. “The Church’s
fixation on the death of Jesus as the universal salvific act must
end, and the place of the cross must be reimagined in Christian
faith” (p. 583). This might have occurred at Vatican II,
but for the subsequent retrenchment in centralized papal power
by the successors of Pope John XXIII.
There are some conclusions of Carroll’s with which, with
important qualifications, I agree. Among other things, it is true
that when Jesus and the early Christians are removed from their
Jewish context, distortions enter into the Christian self-understanding
that can and have had lethal consequences for the Jews. It is also
true that the antagonism against “the Jews” in the
New Testament is largely a result of a later polemic read back,
and that the history of Christian denigration of Jews is the result
of specific choices – roads taken and not taken - over the
past centuries. Supersessionism, i.e., the notion that the Covenant
of Jesus supplants the Covenant with Israel, must be replaced by
a theology that does not malign Judaism. And repentance for the
sinful persecutions of the Jews must remain an ongoing process
for the Church at all levels.
But here is one of the most interesting quirks of Carroll’s
presentation. One would infer from it that these conclusions are
the result only of the work of maverick scholars who are opposing
the Church’s stalwart efforts to protect its own self-interest.
In fact, these conclusions – as I have stated them – are
mainstream scholarship and Church doctrine, going back at least
to Vatican II, at which, among other things, the Church accepted
the ongoing validity of God’s Covenant with the Jews. Then
again, the only time that Carroll makes reference to any Church
documents is to point out their ambiguities and inadequacies. He
never mentions the Vatican’s Notes on the Correct Way to
Present the Jews and Judaism, or any of the several excellent American
bishops’ documents such as God’s Mercy Endures Forever,
or the Pope’s address to the 1997 Vatican Symposium on “The
Roots of Anti-Judaism in the Christian Milieu” in which he
spoke of “erroneous and unjust interpretations of the New
Testament relative to the Jewish people and their presumed guilt.” In
fact, the edifice of Carroll’s whole argument is constructed
on a shaky foundation - his heavy reliance on the work of John
Dominic Crossan, against whose methodology and conclusions serious
and sustained criticisms have been leveled by respected scholars
(see esp. Luke Timothy Johnson’s The Real Jesus). Although
Carroll makes reference to the eminent Raymond Brown’s critique,
he dismisses it with a wave of the hand: “I accept Crossan … here
against Brown” (p. 129). On what basis? One might conclude
that this is simply ideology seeking history.
The Epistles of Paul would appear to be an important source for
early Christian thought. In fact, they would seem to be a goldmine
since, although a Jew of the Diaspora, Paul was familiar with the
Judean situation and was writing shortly after the death of Jesus
in the period prior to the Jewish revolt. Yet, while favorable
to Paul as a kind of personal “patron saint,” and while
asserting that Paul turns the cross, the sign of Roman oppression,
into a standard of victory, Carroll simply ignores the words of
Paul that would seem to challenge the book’s thesis. For
example, “We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to
Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” (1 Cor 1:23) or “I
handed on to you … what I in turn had received: that Christ
died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he
was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance
with the scriptures” (1 Cor 15:3-4).
But then again, Carroll has simply skirted the tough theological
issues, among them, the divinity of Jesus. Either Jesus is what
we profess him to be – the incarnate, eternal Son of the
Father - or he is not. If he is not, then the entire Christian
religion is, at best, a misguided deception. If he is, then Jesus
is absolutely original and unique, and, despite all the difficulties
that claim causes between Christian and Jewish self-understandings,
we are not free simply to avoid the truth we claim. And if Jesus
is the Savior, how can we conceive of him as anything other than
the Savior of all? On the other hand, if salvation is “happiness” (merely
this?), as Carroll asserts (p. 579), what need is there of a savior?
But Carroll proposes that Jesus is not about salvation. Rather,
he is about the revelation of the Father’s unconditional
love (pp. 116 ff). If the latter is true (certainly it is; who
would have denied it?) are the two opposed? As it is, I prefer
the Pope’s explanation of salvation, which is divine love
at work: “To save means to liberate from radical, ultimate
evil. Death itself is no longer that kind of evil, if followed
by the resurrection. And the resurrection comes about through the
work of Christ. Through the work of the Redeemer death ceases to
be an ultimate evil; it becomes subject to the power of life” (Crossing
the Threshold of Hope, pp. 69-70). But if resurrection means, as
Carroll asserts, (merely?) knowing that Jesus’ love continues
(p. 125), what assurance is there that death is anything other
than annihilation or that there is to be a final triumph of God
over evil? And how would we have any assurance for our hope at
all, except through divine revelation? Yet, while it is true that
the Christian scriptures emerged gradually out of particular communities’ experiences
of God, if those writings are only a human construct, and at least
partially misconstrued at that, then what assurance do we have
that the New Testament is God’s self-disclosure at all?
These are the daunting issues one faces when one suggests dismantling
the constitutive faith of the Church. But I’m not sure that
Carroll really understands the faith of the Church. He certainly
makes outright misstatements concerning what the Church actually
teaches. To wit: the liturgical renewal of Vatican II affirms that “Christ
(is) present in the Church not through the ordained minister, but
through the Mysterium of the entire people at prayer” (p.
513). With all due respect, he needs to reread the Constitution
on the Sacred Liturgy. The Church, Carroll asserts, claims primacy
over the Word (p. 559). Ditto for the Dogmatic Constitution on
Divine Revelation.
Finally, I have to wonder about Carroll’s historical analysis.
The sad record stands, although I think the jury is still out on
Pope Pius XII. One cannot deny the tragic historical events Carroll
names, but is describing a series of discrete events and then connecting
them as causally related a legitimate method? For example, one
must wonder how much influence the thought of Aquinas (a theologian,
not a hierarch, in France) really had on Spanish inquisitors -
in the 1240’s (pp. 333-34). Or again, when Carroll asserts
that the emphasis on the crucifixion and death of Jesus was added
to the creed at Nicaea (325 CE) under the influence of Helena and
Constantine (p. 190), what should be made of the fact that the
influential Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus, compiled in Rome
one hundred and ten years earlier, includes the following baptismal
profession of faith: “Do you believe in Christ Jesus, who … was
crucified in the days of Pontius Pilate, and died, and was buried
and rose the third day living from the dead”? And what to
make of an outright assertion, without qualification, such as this: “There
are few things we can say with more certainty about Jesus than
that he defined his mission in opposition not to Judaism but to
the imperium of Rome” (p. 570)? Indeed? A more nuanced version
might suggest that Jesus was opposed to whatever was not of the
reign of God. And never offering a critical assessment of the work
of scholars (e.g., the idiosyncratic John Cornwell, Hitler’s
Pope) who just happen to agree with you? Please.
The work of Catholic-Jewish reconciliation is more than merely
important. “Important” would imply an option. There
is no option. The work is indispensable. And the Church is committed
to it. Theological formulas, as formulas, can be revised; emphases
can be changed - but only in fidelity to the constitutive revelation
of the Church. Facile calls for a “Vatican III” are
out of place. As Dr. John Clabeaux of St. John Seminary, Boston,
has pointed out, at least for the time being, we have to hold two
realities in tension against one another: the absolute uniqueness
of Jesus Christ as Savior and the certainty that God’s Covenant
with Israel has never been revoked. James Carroll makes some legitimate
points, but I was left exasperated by the fact that he leaves no
room for conscientious disagreement with his conclusions. He is
so ideological and apodictic that you either agree with him or
you are in collusion by default with a great injustice, and guilty
by association in all the evils that every Christian has ever visited
upon the Jewish people anywhere. I have a problem with that, and,
I believe, so would my Jewish friends.
Fr. David C. Michael is
Catholic Chaplain at Brandeis University, Associate Director
of the Archdiocesan Office for Ecumenical
and Interreligious Affairs, and Archdiocesan Liaison to the
Jewish Community.
|
