Annotation CV

”But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the Son of man.” — Matthew 24:36

Whether Christ was ignorant of the day of judgment.

The author of the Opus imperfectum, homily 50, seems to place in Christ an ignorance of the day and hour of judgment, speaking thus: “Those considering this passage ought not to blush to be ignorant of anything of the mysteries of God, since they read that he himself did not blush to confess his ignorance in answering — [namely] that ‘of that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels, nor the Son’ — especially since there is a great depth of the mysteries of God; nor yet does he lie, since what he himself knows, he received from the Father. Deservedly he denies [his own] knowledge,

— [that knowledge] which was not from himself; just as elsewhere too, when he was good, he denied himself [to be] good, because his goodness was from the Father; and lest, on account of the human dispensation, he be thought to have denied that he knew [it], he did not say, “Neither the Son of man” — because he would have said [it] according to [his] divinity, not according to [his] human nature. For between the Son of God and the Son of man there is no difference.

But St. Augustine reproves this opinion — that in Christ there was an ignorance of the day and hour of judgment — teaching that it was said for this reason, that not even the Son himself knows the day of judgment: because he did not know that day in such a way as to be about to reveal it to others. Jerome, elucidating this passage in [his] commentary, affirms that in the Greek codices — especially those of Adamantius [Origen] and Pierius — that clause, “nor the Son of man,” is not had; and Euthymius testifies the same. But Ambrose, in book 5 On the Faith, chapter 8, asserts that this same clause was formerly not written even in Mark, but was craftily added by the Arians. For he says: “‘It is written,’ say the Arians, ‘But of that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven nor the Son, but the Father alone.’ First, the ancient Greek codices do not have [the clause] ‘nor the Son knows’; but [it is] no wonder if they falsified this too — [they] who interpolated the divine Scriptures. And by what reasoning it seems to have been added is disclosed, since it is drawn out to the interpretation of so great a sacrilege.” However, Origen, treatise 30 on Matthew; Chrysostom, homily 78 on Matthew; Hilary, canon 26 on Matthew; and Augustine, homily 21 On the Words of the Lord, on Matthew — had in this passage “nor the Son”; and they expounded [it] according to the aforesaid understanding.