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Did Drijvers really say that? It's impossible to know (Carroll's use, or misuse, of sources in his book has raised critical eyebrows). In any case, the implication that the "image of execution" represented by the cross was unimportant to pre-Constantinian Christianity, that Jesus' death on the cross acquired a novel importance in the fourth century, is sheer nonsense.

Already in the second century, Christians made frequent use of the sign of the cross; by the end of the second century Tertullian noted that "we Christians wear out our foreheads with the sign of the cross," elsewhere adding, "In all our travels and movements, in all our coming in and going out, in putting on our shoes, at the bath, at the table, in lighting our candles, in lying down, in sitting down, whatever employment occupies us, we mark our foreheads with the sign of the cross."

Since Carroll's point is not just about symbolism but about the cross itself, it must also be said that this flies in the face of the whole New Testament, which contains scores of references to the cross, crucifixion and death of Jesus.

Director Oren Jacoby confers with Carroll in Rome

So much, in fact, is the New Testament against Carroll's thesis that Carroll himself bluntly admits that he sees the New Testament as part of the problem. In his mind, Christian anti-Semitism began with the depiction in the Gospels and other NT writings of Jesus being handed over to the Romans for execution by "the Jews" (i.e., Jewish authorities).

Did the NT writers fudge the facts to shift blame for Jesus' death from the Romans to "the Jews"? For confirmation, Carroll turns to a single scholar, Elaine Pagels. Credited in a subtitle simply as "Bible scholar," Pagels is in fact a professor of religion best known for her sympathetic scholarship on early Gnostic texts. (In his book Carroll relies heavily on radical-fringe scholar John Dominic Crossan, of Jesus Seminar notoriety. It is a mark of Carroll's fringe leanings that he describes mainstream–liberal scripture scholar Raymond Brown as typical of "more traditional scholars" [p. 101], and mentions him only to dismiss him.)

Not surprisingly, Carroll's chosen authority agrees that the Gospels are "completely at odds with history" on this point. Of course Pagels cites no historical evidence that Jewish leaders had no hand in Jesus' death, for the obvious reason that no such evidence exists. All Pagels can say is that Jesus' death by crucifixion represented a Roman, not Jewish, form of execution—a point abundantly clear from the New Testament accounts, so there's hardly any opposition there.

A major part of Carroll's thesis is that Christian anti-Semitism, while not the same as the secular anti-Semitism of Nazism and not a direct cause of the Holocaust, was nevertheless a historically contributing factor. Carroll thus takes Pope Benedict XVI to task for mentioning only secular factors in his message at Auschwitz rather than acknowledging the Church's responsibility. (At least Carroll does acknowledge the secular factors Benedict cites, and only claims that religious anti-Semitism was a contributing factor.)

Prescinding from the question of Benedict's message, it does seem to me that there is a case to be made that anti-Semitism in Christian history was a contributing factor to the Nazi insanity. At the same time, Carroll effectively treats anti-Semitism in isolation, as if tribalism, xenophobia, bigotry and racism of various kinds weren't common human phenomena. To be sure, the history of anti-Semitism is unique in a number of ways; but then the historical situation of the Jews has also been unique. ("If you want to understand anti-Semitism," one interviewee wryly remarks, "don't study Jews, study non-Jews." It's a partial truth.)

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