Annotation CXLI

”Jesus advanced in age and wisdom.” — Luke 2:52

Whether Christ advanced in wisdom.

Peter, bishop of Crete, alleges the authority of Ambrose from the expositions on Luke, in [his commentary on] the third [book] of the Sentences, in the person of those who, for the sake of disputation, maintain that Christ, inasmuch as he was man, advanced in learning and wisdom according to the increase of age. These are the words of Ambrose: “Jesus advanced in age and wisdom. How he advanced in wisdom, let the order of the words teach thee. For therefore he put ‘age’ before, that thou mightest believe [it] said according to the man. For age is [a property] not of divinity, but of the body. Therefore, as he advanced in the age of the man, so he advanced in the wisdom of the man.” Know, excellent reader, that these words are nowhere had in the commentaries of Ambrose on Luke — in which there is no mention at all of this evangelical passage. But they are had in Ambrose[‘s book] On the Sacrament of the Lord’s Incarnation, chapter 7 — whence also they are cited by the Master of the Sentences, who, elucidating them in book 3, distinction 14, says that they are not to be taken so as [that] we should think the boy Jesus acquired for himself anything of wisdom through the increases of age; but that, by the expression and showing-forth of his wisdom, he advanced daily more and more, and, according to the estimation of men, his wisdom seemed to grow and advance from day to day.