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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 April 2015
1. Ernest P. Rogers Professor of Law and Research Professor, University of Georgia. Watson's other recent works on this general topic include: Watson, Alan, The Trial of Jesus (U. Ga. Press 1995)Google Scholar & Watson, Alan, Jesus and the Jews: The Pharisaic Tradition in John (U. Ga. Press 1995)Google Scholar. For a recent book review see Stein, Peter, The Trial of Jesus, 70 Tul. L. Rev. 1773 (1996) (book review)Google Scholar.
2. Consider the following: “Behold, he is set for the fall and the rising of many in Israel, and as a sign of contradiction” (Luke 2:34, N.R.S.V.: Catholic Ed.)Google Scholar. See also Wojtyla, Karol (Pope John Paul II), Sign of Contradiction (Seabury Press 1979)Google Scholar.
3. Note Pope John Paul II's recent statement to this effect in the Encyclical Letter The Gospel of Life (Evangelium Vitae):
The Gospel of Life is not simply a reflection, however new and profound, on human life. Nor is it merely a commandment aimed at raising awareness and bringing about significant changes in society. Still less is it an illusory promise of a better future. The Gospel of Life is something concrete and personal, for it consists in the proclamation of the very person of Jesus. Encyclical, The Gospel of Life (Evangelium Vitae) 29 (Leaflet Missal 1995)Google Scholar.
4. That Watson is referring to the Mosaic law here, and not some other type of “law” is clear. E.g. (33).
5. John 1:1-5.
6. Gen 1:3 1.
7. Jesus himself addressed a similar misunderstanding:
Then a blind and dumb demoniac was brought to him, and he healed him, so that the dumb man spoke and saw. And all the people were amazed, and said, “Can this be the Son of David?” But when the Pharisees heard it they said, “It is only by Beelzebub, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons.” Knowing their thoughts, he said to them, “every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand; and if Satan casts out satan, he is divided against himself; how then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges. But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Matt 12:22-28.
(Note the implication that Satan is divided against himself because ultimately Satan will be “thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night for ever and ever. (Rev 20: 10.))
St. Thomas' reasoning is in accord: Now in God neither his power to act can fail—since his will, identical with his nature, is itself the supreme good, ultimate goal, and first standard for every will. So his will by nature cleaves to supreme good, and can no more fail to reach it than the desire natural to any other thing can fail to desire its own natural good. Aquinas, St Thomas, Selected Philosophical Writings 291–292 (McDermott, Timothy ed. & trans., Oxford U. Press 1993)Google Scholar.
8. Jesus is, of course, true God and true man. See Catechism of the Catholic Church § 464-478.
9. While it is said that the Holy Spirit inspired Scripture, ours is a Triune God. See Catechism of the Catholic Church §§ 232-260. Note that Watson seems to contradict himself regarding Jesus' Divinity. For example, he says, “[s]o by touching the leper Jesus has made himself unclean unnecessarily and we must presume deliberately. We have already seen from Mark 1.25f that Jesus could cure by use of words alone.” If Jesus was a mere man, how could he cure by words alone? If Jesus is Lord, how can one not believe his word?
10. 2 Tim 3: 16-17.
11. Vatican II, Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (Dei Verbum) 755 (Austin Flannery, O.P. ed., Vatican Council II: Costello Publg. 1996)Google Scholar.
12. Id. at 762.
13. Exod 20:13.
14. Matt 6: 1.
15. Id. 5:16.
16. Mark 1:29-31.
17. Mark 1:40-45.
18. Mark 2:1-12.
19. Mark 2:13-17.
20. Mark 5:39-43.
21. Because the Sermon extends from Matthew chapter five through seven, only the portions most relevant to this particular discussion will be set form.
22. Matt 5:17-22.
23. Id. 5:43-45.
24. Matt 5:17.
25. Exod 20:13.
26. Lev 19:18.
27. Matt 5:17.
28. Note St. Augustine's Retraction:
And also, when I was expounding on the text, ‘Not one iota or one tittle shall pass from the Law till all things have been fulfilled,’ I said that this could be understood as nothing else than a vehement expression of perfection. But one may now rightly ask whether this perfection can be understood in such a way that it is nevertheless true to say that in this life no one lives without sin while using free will. Could the Law be fulfilled even to the last tittle, except, indeed, by a man who observes all the divine commandments? As a matter of fact, in those commandments we are bidden to say: ‘Forgive us our sins, even as we forgive those who sin against us,’ and to the end of the world the whole Church is saying that prayer. Therefore, all the commandments are accounted as fulfilled when forgiveness is granted for whatever is not fulfilled. Augustine, St.. Commentary on the Lord's Sermon on the Mount 203 (Kavanaugh, Deus J. trans., Catholic U. Press 1951)Google Scholar. (Catholic internal footnotes omitted.)
29. Id. at 37-38 (emphasis in original).
30. Matt 5:21.
31. St. Augustine, supra n. 29, at 43.
32. Matt 5:43.
33. St. Augustine, supra n. 29, at 96.
34. Mark 2:23-28.
35. John 14:15-16.
36. The Oxford Companion to the Bible 288 (Metzger, Bruce M. & Coogan, Michael D. eds., Oxford U. Press 1993) (emphasis in original)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
37. Perhaps a more appropriate title for the book would have been “Jesus is the law” rather than “Jesus and the law’ because the use of the word “and” tends to convey a separateness between the two when there is, in fact, none at all.
38. Stein, supra n. 1, at 1773.
39. The following excerpt from St. Thomas' Quaestiones Dispiitalae de Potentia is apt: [T]hings in nature have actuality which is partial, in two senses of the word …. Secondly, relative to all that actually exists, since nothing in nature contains every actual perfection actually existing in things: the actuality of each is determined to one species of one genus, and, as a result, none is an agent of being as such but only of this being as this being, determinately of this or that species …. God himself on the other hand is totally actual both relative to himself … and relative to actually existent things … as a result he, by his action, produces the whole substance of things, presupposing nothing but rather being himself the source of all existence with the whole of himself. And this is why he can make something from nothing, an activity of his which is called creation. St. Thomas Aquinas, supra n. 7, at 254.