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Translated by Cardinal Newman.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
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This Part: 130 Pages
Page 74
46. Moreover, after narrating the parable of the Virgins, again He shews more clearly who they are who are ignorant of the day and the hour, saying, 'Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour [3122] .' He who said shortly before, 'No one knoweth, no not the Son,' now says not 'I know not,' but 'ye know not.' In like manner then, when His disciples asked about the end, suitably said He then, 'no, nor the Son,' according to the flesh because of the body; that He might shew that, as man, He knows not; for ignorance is proper to man [3123] . If however He is the Word, if it is He who is to come, He to be Judge, He to be the Bridegroom, He knoweth when and in what hour He cometh, and when He is to say, 'Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light [3124] .' For as, on becoming man, He hungers and thirsts and suffers with men, so with men as man He knows not; though divinely, being in the Father Word and Wisdom, He knows, and there is nothing which He knows not. In like manner also about Lazarus [3125] He asks humanly, who was on His way to raise him, and knew whence He should recall Lazarus's soul; and it was a greater thing to know where the soul was, than to know where the body lay; but He asked humanly, that He might raise divinely. So too He asks of the disciples, on coming into the parts of Caesarea, though knowing even before Peter made answer. For if the Father revealed to Peter the answer to the Lord's question, it is plain that through the Son [3126] was the revelation, for 'No one knoweth the Son,' saith He, 'save the Father, neither the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him [3127] .' But if through the Son is revealed the knowledge both of the Father and the Son, there is no room for doubting that the Lord who asked, having first revealed it to Peter from the Father, next asked humanly; in order to shew, that asking after the flesh, He knew divinely what Peter was about to say. The Son then knew, as knowing all things, and knowing His own Father, than which knowledge nothing can be greater or more perfect.
[3122] Matt. xxv. 13.
[3123] The mode in which Athan. here expresses himself, is as if he did not ascribe ignorance literally, but apparent ignorance, to our Lord's soul, vid. supr. 45. n. 2; not certainly in the broad sense in which heretics have done so. As Leontius, e.g. reports of Theodore of Mopsuestia, that he considered Christ 'to be ignorant so far, as not to know, when He was tempted, who tempted Him;' contr. Nest. iii. (Canis. t. i. p. 579.) and Agobard of Felix the Adoptionist that he held 'Our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh truly to have been ignorant of the sepulchre of Lazarus, when He said to his sisters, 'Where have ye laid him?' and was truly ignorant of the day of judgment; and was truly ignorant what the two disciples were saying, as they walked by the way, of what had been done at Jerusalem; and was truly ignorant whether He was more loved by Peter than by the other disciples, when He said, 'Simon Peter, Lovest thou Me more than these?' B. P. t. 9. p. 1177. [Cf. Prolegg. ch. iv. S:5.]
[3124] Eph. v. 14.
[3125] S:37.
[3126] Cf. 44, n. 4.
[3127] Luke x. 22.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/athanasius/discourses-against-arians-2.asp?pg=74
