Cathal BarryFrom the beginning of Jesus' public ministry, certain Pharisees and partisans of Herod together with priests and scribes agreed together to destroy him. Because of certain acts of his expelling demons, forgiving sins, healing on the Sabbath day, his novel interpretation of the precepts of the Law regarding purity and his familiarity with tax collectors and public sinners, the Catechism notes that some ill-intentioned persons suspected Jesus of demonic possessionî.
He is accused throughout the New Testament of blasphemy and false prophecy, religious crimes which the Law punished with death by stoning.
Many of Jesus deeds and words constituted a "sign of contradiction", (Lk 2:34) but more so for the religious authorities in Jerusalem, whom the Gospel according to John often calls simply "the Jews", than for the ordinary People of God (Jn 7:48-49).
To be sure, the Catechism notes, Christís relations with the Pharisees were not exclusively polemical. Some Pharisees warned him of the danger he was courting; Jesus praises some of them, like the scribe of Mark 12:34, and dines several times at their homes. Jesus endorses some of the teachings imparted by this religious elite of God's people: the resurrection of the dead, certain forms of piety (almsgiving, fasting and prayer), the custom of addressing God as Father, and the centrality of the commandment to love God and neighbour.
Chosen people
In the eyes of many in Israel, according to the Catechism, Jesus seems to be acting against essential institutions of the Chosen People: submission to the whole of the Law in its written commandments and, for the Pharisees, in the interpretation of oral tradition; the centrality of the Temple at Jerusalem as the holy place where God is presence dwells in a special way; faith in the one God whose glory no man can share.
At the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus issued a solemn warning in which he presented Godís law, given on Sinai during the first covenant, in light of the grace of the New Covenant: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets: I have come not to abolish but to fulfil. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law, until all is accomplished.
"Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven." (Mt 5:17-19)
The Church teaches that Jesus, Israelís Messiah and therefore the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, was to fulfil the Law by keeping it in its all-embracing detail – according to his own words, down to "the least of these commandments" (Mt 5:19). He is, in fact, the only one who could keep it perfectly (Jn 8:46).
