Leithart should read Yoder’s Jewish Christian Schism Revisited before making these arguments(and he should open up his blog for comments). The apologists’ excising of emerging Christianity’s Jewish roots was closely linked to its desire to be free of the precarious situation the Jews found themselves in depending on who was in charge. That “the theological shifts began before the ’sociological and political pressures’ reversed” is not contradictory, as Leithart claims, b/c the theological shift took place out of a desire for exactly that reversal. To call it Constantinian is simply to provide that shift with a handle after the fact, like every historian does. He is not making any legitimate points.

And why does Carter have to be do so damn smarmy?