Numerous critical biblical scholars and contemporary historians have concluded that the evangelists and their editors in the early Church consciously shifted the blame for Jesus’ death from the Romans to the Jews in order to make Christianity more appealing to gentiles living under Roman rule and less threatening to the Romans themselves. The two primary elements utilized by the Gospel writers to blame Jews for the death of Jesus are the trial before the Sanhedrin and, of course, the tribunal before Pontius Pilate.

The four canonical Gospels each give a slightly different account of the encounter, but it is perhaps most illuminative to compare Mark’s version to Matthew’s. In Mark, Pilate reluctantly sentences Jesus to death at the urging of a Jewish crowd. But in Matthew the crowd has suddenly become “the whole people.” Pilate washes his hands in front of them and declares himself innocent of Jesus’ blood. To which “the whole people” reply, “Let his blood be on us and our children!”

So which version is accurate? Did “the whole people” really shout such an outlandish line without a single dissenting voice, or not? And what about Pilate washing his hands? Did it happen? After all, it is no small detail. Obviously, both accounts cannot be correct. If one is right, the other is necessarily wrong. Some might argue that Matthew is simply more right than Mark, but this is an evasion. A reporter who made such a mistake would surely have been reprimanded by his editor, if not fired on the spot.

The most plausible explanation is that the entire scene is a literary invention. The same is likely the case for the Gospels’ inflammatory accounts of Jesus’ appearance before the Sanhedrin. Religious scholar Reza Aslan, in his riveting biography of Jesus titled Zealot, asserts that the problems with the Gospels’ accounts of a Sanhedrin trial “are too numerous to count.” The late Raymond Brown, a Catholic priest who was widely regarded as the greatest New Testament scholar of the late twentieth century, found twenty-seven discrepancies between the Gospels’ accounts of the trial and rabbinic law. Boston University professor Paula Fredriksen, in her landmark Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews, likewise questions the veracity of the Sanhedrin trial. “Between their duties at the Temple and their festive meals at home, these men would have put in a long day already; and besides, what need?” Fredriksen is equally skeptical that there was a tribunal before the Roman prefect. “Perhaps Jesus was interrogated briefly by Pilate, though this, too, is unlikely. There was no point.” Aslan is more definitive on the question of an appearance before Pilate. “No trial was held. No trial was necessary.”

There is perhaps no more compelling voice on this subject than John Dominic Crossan, the professor emeritus of religious studies at DePaul University and a former ordained priest. In Who Killed Jesus?, he asks whether the Gospels’ incendiary depiction of the tribunal before Pilate was “a scene of Roman history” or “Christian propaganda.” He answered the question, in part, with the following passage: “However explicable its origins, defensible its invectives, and understandable its motives among Christians fighting for survival, its repetition has now become the longest lie, and, for our own integrity, we Christians must at last name it as such.”

But why revisit the tortured history of Christianity’s relationship with Judaism? Because the longest hatred—the hatred born of the Gospels’ depiction of the Crucifixion—has risen again, violently. So, too, has a brand of racially based political extremism that apologists refer to as “populism.” The two phenomena are undeniably linked. For proof, look no further than the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where white nationalists protesting the removal of a Confederate memorial chanted “Jews will not replace us!” as they marched by torchlight and snapped off stiff-armed Nazi salutes. Or the Tree of Life Synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, where a white nationalist angry over Hispanic immigration murdered eleven Jews and wounded six more. Why did the gunman target Jews? Could it be that he was gripped by an irrational hatred even more powerful than his resentment of brown-skinned migrants looking for a better life in America?

The brilliant economist Paul Krugman of the New York Times made the connection between the simultaneous rise of anti-Semitism and race-based populism in the same column that produced the quotation that appears in the epigraph of this work. “Most of us, I think, know that whenever bigotry runs free, we’re likely to be among its victims.” Unfortunately, the outbreak of a global pandemic, coupled with a sharp economic downturn, is likely to make matters worse. In the darkest corners of the Internet, Jews are being blamed for the pandemic, just as they were blamed for the Black Death in the fourteenth century.

“Never forget,” Rabbi Jacob Zolli tells Gabriel during the opening scenes of The Order, “the unimaginable can happen.” The outbreak of a global pandemic would seem to bear that out. But even before the Covid-19 crisis, anti-Semitism in Europe had risen to a level not seen since the middle of the last century. To their credit, Western European political leaders have roundly condemned the resurgence of anti-Semitism. So, too, has Pope Francis. He has also questioned the morality of unfettered capitalism, called for action on climate change, defended the rights of immigrants, and warned of the dangers posed by the rise of the European far right, which regards him as a mortal enemy. If only a prelate like Francis had been wearing the Ring of the Fisherman in 1939. The history of the Jews, and the Roman Catholic Church, might well have been written differently.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I AM ETERNALLY GRATEFUL TO MY wife, Jamie Gangel, who served as my sounding board while I worked out the details and structure of a complex plot involving the murder of a pope, the discovery of a long-suppressed gospel, and a conspiracy by the European far right to seize control of the Roman Catholic Church. When I finished my first draft, she made three crucial suggestions and then skillfully edited my final typescript, all while covering the impeachment of a president for CNN and caring for our family during a global pandemic. I share many traits with my protagonist, Gabriel Allon, including the fact we are both married to perfect women. My debt to Jamie is immeasurable, as is my love.

I had hoped to finish The Order in Rome but was forced to cancel my travel plans when the coronavirus ravaged Italy. Having written two previous Vatican thrillers, and several others with scenes set in or around the Vatican, I have formed many cherished friendships with men and women who work behind the walls of the world’s smallest country. I have stood in the lobby of the Swiss Guard barracks, shopped in the Vatican pharmacy and supermarket, visited the conservation labs of the Vatican Museums, opened the door of the stove in the Sistine Chapel, and attended a Mass celebrated by the Holy Father. I wish to express my gratitude to Father Mark Haydu, who was an invaluable resource throughout the writing process, and to the matchless John L. Allen, who literally wrote the book on how a conclave works. For the record, neither influenced my depiction of the anti-Jewish nature of the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ death.

I am forever indebted to David Bull and Patrick Matthiesen for their advice on restoration and art history, and for their friendship. Louis Toscano, my dear friend and longtime editor, made countless improvements to the novel, as did Kathy Crosby, my eagle-eyed personal copy editor. Any typographical errors that slipped through their formidable gauntlet are my responsibility, not theirs.