49. The Son then did know, as being the Word; for He implied this in what He said,--I know but it is not for you to know;' for it was for your sakes that sitting also on the mount I said according to the flesh, No, not the Son knoweth,' for the profit of you and all. For it is profitable to you to hear so much both of the Angels and of the Son, because of the deceivers which shall be afterwards; that though demons should be transfigured as Angels, and should attempt to speak concerning the end, you should not believe, since they are ignorant; and that, if Antichrist too, disguising himself, should say, I am Christ,' and should try in his turn to speak of that day and end, to deceive the hearers, ye, having these words from Me, No, not the Son,' may disbelieve him also. And further, not to know when the end is, or when the day of the end, is expedient for man, lest knowing, they might become negligent of the time between, awaiting the days near the end; for they will argue that then only must they attend to themselves [3136] . Therefore also has He been silent of the time when each shall die, lest men, being elated on the ground of knowledge, should forthwith neglect themselves for the greater part of their time. Both then, the end of all things and the limit of each of us hath the Word concealed from us (for in the end of all is the end of each, and in the end of each the end of all is comprehended), that, whereas it is uncertain and always in prospect, we may advance day by day as if summoned, reaching forward to the things before us and forgetting the things behind [3137] . For who, knowing the day of the end, would not be dilatory with the interval? but, if ignorant, would not be ready day by day? It was on this account that the Saviour added, Watch therefore, for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come;' and, In such an hour as ye think not, the Son of man cometh [3138] .' For the advantage then which comes of ignorance has He said this; for in saying it, He wishes that we should always be prepared; for you,' He says, know not; but I, the Lord, know when I come, though the Arians do not wait for Me, who am the Word of the Father.'
50. The Lord then, knowing what is good for us beyond ourselves, thus secured the disciples; and they, being thus taught, set right those of Thessalonica [3139] when likely on this point to run into error. However, since Christ's enemies do not yield even to these considerations, I wish, though knowing that they have a heart harder than Pharaoh, to ask them again concerning this. In Paradise God asks, Adam, where art Thou [3140] ' and He inquires of Cain also, Where is Abel thy brother [3141] ?' What then say you to this? for if you think Him ignorant and therefore to have asked, you are already of the party of the Manichees, for this is their bold thought; but if, fearing the open name, ye force yourselves to say, that He asks knowing, what is there extravagant or strange in the doctrine, that ye should thus fall, on finding that the Son, in whom God then inquired, that same Son who now is clad in flesh, inquires of the disciples as man? unless forsooth, having become Manichees, you are willing to blame [3142] the question then put to Adam and all that you may give full play [3143] to your perverseness. For being exposed on all sides, you still make a whispering [3144] from the words of Luke, which are rightly said, but ill understood by you. And what this is, we must state, that so also their corrupt [3145] meaning may be shewn.
51. Now Luke says, And Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature, and in grace with God and man [3146] .' This then is the passage, and since they stumble in it, we are compelled to ask them, like the Pharisees and the Sadducees, of the person concerning whom Luke speaks. And the case stands thus. Is Jesus Christ man, as all other men, or is He God bearing flesh? If then He is an ordinary [3147] man as the rest, then let Him, as a man, advance; this however is the sentiment of the Samosatene, which virtually indeed you entertain also, though in name you deny it because of men. But if He be God bearing flesh, as He truly is, and the Word became flesh,' and being God descended upon earth, what advance had He who existed equal to God? or how had the Son increase, being ever in the Father? For if He who was ever in the Father, advanced, what, I ask, is there beyond the Father from which His advance might be made? Next it is suitable here to repeat what was said upon the point of His receiving and being glorified. If He advanced [3148] when He became man, it is plain that, before He became man, He was imperfect; and rather the flesh became to Him a cause of perfection, than He to the flesh. And again, if, as being the Word, He advances, what has He more to become than Word and Wisdom and Son and God's Power? For the Word is all these, of which if one can anyhow partake as it were one ray, such a man becomes all perfect among men, and equal to Angels. For Angels, and Archangels, and Dominions, and all the Powers, and Thrones, as partaking the Word, behold always the face of His Father. How then does He who to others supplies perfection, Himself advance later than they? For Angels even ministered to His human birth, and the passage from Luke comes later than the ministration of the Angels. How then at all can it even come into thought of man? or how did Wisdom advance in wisdom? or how did He who to others gives grace (as Paul says in every Epistle, knowing that through Him grace is given, The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all'), how did He advance in grace? for either let them say that the Apostle is untrue, and presume to say that the Son is not Wisdom, or else if He is Wisdom as Solomon said, and if Paul wrote, Christ God's Power and God's Wisdom,' of what advance did Wisdom admit further?
52. For men, creatures as they are, are capable in a certain way of reaching forward and advancing in virtue [3149] . Enoch, for instance, was thus translated, and Moses increased and was perfected; and Isaac by advancing became great [3150] ;' and the Apostle said that he reached forth [3151] ' day by day to what was before him. For each had room for advancing, looking to the step before him. But the Son of God, who is One and Only, what room had He for reaching forward? for all things advance by looking at Him; and He, being One and Only, is in the Only Father, from whom again He does not reach forward, but in Him abideth ever [3152] . To men then belongs advance; but the Son of God, since He could not advance, being perfect in the Father, humbled Himself for us, that in His humbling we on the other hand might be able to increase. And our increase is no other than the renouncing things sensible, and coming to the Word Himself; since His humbling is nothing else than His taking our flesh. It was not then the Word, considered as the Word, who advanced; who is perfect from the perfect Father [3153] , who needs nothing, nay brings forward others to an advance; but humanly is He here also said to advance, since advance belongs to man [3154] . Hence the Evangelist, speaking with cautious exactness [3155] , has mentioned stature in the advance; but being Word and God He is not measured by stature, which belongs to bodies. Of the body then is the advance; for, it advancing, in it advanced also the manifestation [3156] of the Godhead to those who saw it. And, as the Godhead was more and more revealed, by so much more did His grace as man increase before all men. For as a child He was carried to the Temple; and when He became a boy, He remained there, and questioned the priests about the Law. And by degrees His body increasing, and the Word manifesting Himself [3157] in it, He is confessed henceforth by Peter first, then also by all, Truly this is the Son of God [3158] ;' however wilfully the Jews, both the ancient and these modern [3159] , shut fast their eyes, lest they see that to advance in wisdom is not the advance of Wisdom Itself, but rather the manhood's advance in It. For Jesus advanced in wisdom and grace;' and, if we may speak what is explanatory as well as true, He advanced in Himself; for Wisdom builded herself an house,' and in herself she gave the house advancement.
53. (What moreover is this advance that is spoken of, but, as I said before, the deifying and grace imparted from Wisdom to men, sin being obliterated in them and their inward corruption, according to their likeness and relationship to the flesh of the Word?) For thus, the body increasing in stature, there developed in it the manifestation of the Godhead also, and to all was it displayed that the body was God's Temple [3160] , and that God was in the body. And if they urge, that The Word become flesh' is called Jesus, and refer to Him the term advanced,' they must be told that neither does this impair [3161] the Father's Light [3162] , which is the Son, but that it still shews that the Word has become man, and bore true flesh. And as we said [3163] that He suffered in the flesh, and hungered in the flesh, and was fatigued in the flesh, so also reasonably may He be said to have advanced in the flesh; for neither did the advance, such as we have described it, take place with the Word external to the flesh, for in Him was the flesh which advanced and His is it called, and that as before, that man's advance might abide [3164] and fail not, because of the Word which is with it. Neither then was the advance the Word's, nor was the flesh Wisdom, but the flesh became the body of Wisdom [3165] . Therefore, as we have already said, not Wisdom, as Wisdom, advanced in respect of Itself; but the manhood advanced in Wisdom, transcending by degrees human nature, and being deified, and becoming and appearing to all as the organ [3166] of Wisdom for the operation and the shining forth [3167] of the Godhead. Wherefore neither said he, The Word advanced,' but Jesus, by which Name the Lord was called when He became man; so that the advance is of the human nature in such wise as we explained above.
[3097] Mark xiii. 32. S. Basil takes the words oud' ho hui& 231;s, ei me ho pater, to mean, nor does the Son know, except the Father knows,' or nor would the Son but for, &c.' or nor does the Son know, except as the Father knows.' The cause of the Son's knowing is from the Father.' Ep. 236, 2. S. Gregory alludes to the same interpretation, oud' ho hui& 232;s e hos hoti ho pater. Since the Father knows, therefore the Son.' Naz. Orat. 30, 16. S. Irenæus seems to adopt the same when he says, The Son was not ashamed to refer the knowledge of that day to the Father;' Hær. ii. 28, n. 6. as Naz, supr. uses the words epi ten aitian anapherestho. And so Photius distinctly, eis archen anapheretai. Not the Son, but the Father, that is, whence knowledge comes to the Son as from a fountain.' Epp. p. 342. ed. 1651.
[3098] skotodiniontes, de Decr. §18 init.; Or. ii. 40, n. 5.
[3099] gigantas theomachountas, ii. 32, n. 4.
[3100] Cf. §18, n. 3.
[3101] Rom. xi. 34.
[3102] Or. i. 45.
[3103] Cf. ii. 45, n. 2.
[3104] Prov. viii. 27, LXX.
[3105] John i. 14.
[3106] Ib. xvii. 1.
[3107] Though our Lord, as having two natures, had a human as well as a divine knowledge, and though that human knowledge was not only limited because human, but liable to ignorance in matters in which greater knowledge was possible; yet it is the doctrine of the [later] Church, that in fact He was not ignorant even in His human nature, according to its capacity, since it was from the first taken out of its original and natural condition, and deified' by its union with the Word. As then (supr. ii. 45, note 1) His manhood was created, yet He may not be called a creature even in His manhood, and as (supr. ii. 14, note 5) His flesh was in its abstract nature a servant, yet He is not a servant in fact, even as regards the flesh; so, though He took on Him a soul which left to itself had been partially ignorant, as other human souls, yet as ever enjoying the beatific vision from its oneness with the Word, it never was ignorant really, but knew all things which human soul can know. vid. Eulog. ap. Phot. 230. p. 884. As Pope Gregory expresses it, Novit in natura, non ex natura humanitatis.' Epp. x. 39. However, this view of the sacred subject was received by the Church only after S. Athanasius's day, and it cannot be denied that others of the most eminent Fathers seem to impute ignorance to our Lord as man, as Athan. in this passage. Of course it is not meant that our Lord's soul has the same perfect knowledge as He has as God. This was the assertion of a General of the Hermits of S. Austin at the time of the Council of Basel, when the proposition was formally condemned, animam Christi Deum videre tam clare et intense quam clare et intense Deus videt seipsum. vid. Berti Opp. t. 3. p. 42. Yet Fulgentius had said, I think that in no respect was full knowledge of the Godhead wanting to that Soul, whose Person is one with the Word: whom Wisdom so assumed that it is itself that same Wisdom.' ad Ferrand. iii. p. 223. ed. 1639. Yet, ad Trasmund. i. 7. he speaks of ignorance attaching to our Lord's human nature.