Constantine

"I gave you five books. I didn’t necessarily rank them in order of importance. If you asked me then the number one for me would be Constantine’s Sword . Anti-Semitism in Western civilisation was unfortunately grounded in religion , in Christianity, and that legitimised it and that gave it an OK, so Constantine’s Sword is, I would say, the most authoritative history, by a former Jesuit priest, as to the antecedents, the roots of anti-Semitism in Western society. I would consider that it’s the most significant book if you want to understand the essence of why and how it spread. It’s a big book. The roots of Western anti-Semitism, going back to Christianity , is the charge of deicide – that the Jews, not the Romans, crucified Jesus, and therefore if the Jews killed the Lord then it’s OK to do whatever it is with them unless they convert. So you had expulsions, you had the Inquisition, and therefore everything was legitimate. Then the thesis developed that Christianity superseded Judaism . That the promise from God to Abraham was superseded by the promise of Jesus. Somebody once wrote that first they came and said to the Jews, ‘You cannot live amongst us as Jews. You have to convert.’ Then somebody came and shortened that phrase to, ‘You cannot live amongst us,’ and therefore they were expelled. It was because of those antecedents that Hitler was able to shorten that to, ‘You cannot live.’ Get the weekly Five Books newsletter The reason I wrote my book, Jews and Money , was that it’s the other side of the coin in the roots of Christianity in terms of anti-Semitism. That’s the greed. Why is there such a preoccupation in anti-Semitism about Jews and money? That’s because when you go back to deicide, the other side of it is that Judas sold out Jesus not for theology but for 30 pieces of silver. So that becomes another fundamental basis for anti-Semitism: ‘The Jews are greedy, they’ll do anything for money, even sell out the Lord.’ Well, in Britain, York was the first one, in 1190. The conversions were in Spain with the Inquisition, when those who wouldn’t convert fled or were expelled or were burnt at the stake. In the Middle Ages you have all kinds of issues. Jews were blamed for the Plague, for example. So there wasn’t one version, but the most significant basis for anti-Semitism stems from the teachings of Christianity. That’s why the book is important and why what the Vatican did 45 years ago in Vatican II by Pope Paul, which was to, not forgive, but to remove the blame for the crucifixion from the Jews, was probably the most important modern-day message relating to anti-Semitism and the Christian church."