ACC ~ Mark 13 v32b

WHETHER EVERYTHING IS ALREADY REVEALED

IRENAEUS: The gnostics presumptuously assume acquaintance with the unspeakable mysteries of God. Remember that even the Lord, the very Son of God, allowed that the Father alone knows the very day and hour of judgment. … If then the Son was not ashamed to ascribe the knowledge of that day to the Father only, but declared what was true regarding the matter, neither let us be ashamed to reserve for God those enigmatic questions which come our way. AGAINST HERESIES 2.28.6. [1]

[1] AHR 1:355; ANF 1:401*. The text calls us to humility.

THE ALL-KNOWING GOD

GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS: The last day and hour no one knows, not even the Son himself, but the Father. [1] Yet how can the source of wisdom be ignorant of anything—that is, wisdom who made the world, who perfects all, who remodels all, who is the limit of all things that were made, who knows the things of God and the spirit of a person, knowing the things that lie deep within? [2] For what can be more perfect than this knowledge? How then can you say that all things before that hour he knows accurately, and all things that are to happen about the time of the end, but of the hour itself he is ignorant? For such a thing would be like a riddle. It is as if one were to say that he knew accurately all that was in front of the wall, but did not know the wall itself. Or that, knowing the end of the day, he did not know the beginning of the night. Yet knowledge of the one necessarily implies the other. Thus everyone must see that the Son knows as God, and knows not as man (if we may for the purposes of argument distinguish that which is discerned by sight from that whichis discerned by thought alone). For the absolute and unconditioned use of the name “the Son” in this passage, without the addition of whose Son, [3] leads us to conclude: We are to understand the ignorance in the most reverent sense, by attributing it to his human nature, and not to the Godhead. ORATION 30, ON THE SON, SECOND ORATION 15. [4]

[1] Mt 24:36; Mk 13:32.

[2] 1 Cor 2:2.

[3] Whether the reference is to the son of Mary or Son of God.

[4] TLG 2022.010, 15.1-17; NPNF 2 7:315**.

NOT FOR OUR GOOD TO KNOW ALL

AUGUSTINE: It was not part of his office as our master that through him the day should become known to us. [1] It remains true that the Father knows nothing that the Son does not know, since his Son, the Word, is his wisdom, and his wisdom is to know. But it was not for our good to know everything which was known to him who came to teach us. He surely did not come to teach us that which it was not good for us to know. As master he both taught some things and left other things untaught. He knew both how to teach us what was good for us to know, and not to teach us what was not for our good to know. It is according to this common form of speech that the Son is said “not to know” what he does not choose to teach. We are in the daily habit of speaking in this way. Accordingly he is said “not to know” what he causes us not to know. ON THE PSALMS 37.1. [2]

[1] Augustine is asking whether it would have been for our good to have known everything that was known to God.

[2] Cetedoc 0283, 38.36.1.1.5; NPNF 1 8:91**. It is according to a common form of speech that the Son is said not to know what he does not teach; hence he is said not to know what he causes us not to know.

THE SON’S DISCERNMENT OF THE FUTURE

GREGORY THE GREAT: When we speak of a glad day, we do not mean that the day itself is glad, but that it makes us glad. So also the Almighty Son says that he does not know the day which he causes not to be known. It is not that he himself does not know it, but that he does not allow it to be known. Only the Father is said to know the future in this same way. [1] The Son, who according to his divinity is of the same essential nature with the Father, has knowledge of that which the angels are ignorant. The only begotten, being incarnate and made for us a perfect man, knew indeed in the nature of his incarnate humanity the day and hour of the judgment, but still it was not from the nature of his humanity as such that he knew it. What then he knew in his humanity he knew not from it. EPISTLE 41, TO EULOGIUS. [2]

[1] Similarly we say the Father alone knows, not so as to imply that it is known only by the Father and not the Son. The eternal Son knows what the eternal Father knows.

[2] Cetedoc 1714, 10.21.47; NPNF 2 13:48** (italics added).

Mk