(Cf. Gregory of Nyssa adv. Eunom. xi. 14, P. G. xlv. p. 557 ἀλλὰ καὶ πάντων τῶν ἀνθρώπων τὴν πρὸς τὸν θεὸν ὑποταγήν, ὅταν ἑνωθέντες οἱ πάντες ἀλλήλοις διὰ τῆς πίστεως ἓν σῶμα τοῦ κυρίου τοῦ ἐν πᾶσιν ὄντος γενώμεθα, τοῦ υἱοῦ πρὸς τὸν πατέρα ὑποταγὴν ὁ ἀπόστολος λέγει.) So the cry 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' is the cry of our sinful human nature deserted by God, now taken upon the lips of Him who was bringing us near to God ; He, the Christ, was not deserted (οὐ γὰρ αὐτὸς ἐγκαταλέλειπται, . . . ἐν ἑαυτῷ δὲ τυποῖ τὸ ἡμέτερον).

ST. BASIL considers the meaning of St. Mark xiii. 32 at length (Ep. 236), and while he prefers to interpret No man knoweth, nor do the angels, nor did the Son know except the Father, i. e. the cause of the Son's knowing is from the Father' (c. 2), he admits that 'one who refers the ignorance to Him who in His incarnation took everything human upon Himself, and advances in wisdom and favour with God and man, will not fall outside the orthodox apprehension of the matter (τὸ τῆς ἀγνοίας ἐπὶ τὸν οἰκονομικῶς πάντα καταδεξάμενον καὶ προκόπτοντα παρὰ θεῷ καὶ ἀνθρώποις σοφίᾳ καὶ χάριτι λαμβάνων τις, οὐκ ἔξω τῆς εὐσεβοῦς ἐνεχθήσεται διανοίας) 1.

Among westerns ST. AMBROSE has been quoted as admitting a real increase of knowledge in Christ as man. Cf. de Incarn. vii. 72 'Iesus proficiebat aetate et sapientia et gratia apud Deum et homines. Quomodo

It should be noted that St. Basil's argument in part depends on the position that St. Matthew, who says the Father only knows (ὁ πατὴρ μόνος, xxiv. 36), does not admit the words 'neither the Son'; but according to the true reading St. Matthew and St. Mark both have these latter words.

proficiebat Sapientia Dei? Doceat te ordo verborum. Profectus est aetatis et profectus sapientiae, sed humanae est. Ideo aetatem ante praemisit ut secundum hominem crederes dictum, aetas enim non divinitatis sed corporis est. Ergo si proficiebat aetate hominis, proficiebat sapientia hominis: sapientia autem sensu proficit quia a sensu sapientia.' He protests that to recognize real human increase in Christ is not to divide the Christ but to distinguish the substance of the flesh (manhood) and of the Godhead, cf. Expos. in Luc. ii. 63, 641. On the other hand St. Ambrose, when (de Fide, v. 16. 193) he comes to deal with the words 'of that day and hour knoweth no man. ... neither the Son,' after first suggesting that the words nec Filius, as not being represented in the old Greek codices, are an interpolation2, and after, secondly, suggesting that 'the Son' means 'the Son of Man' or Christ in His humanity, goes on finally to deny the ignorance of Christ altogether, like all late westerns, and to make the profession merely economic; see v. 17. 219 'Ea est in scripturis consuetudo divinis, . . . ut Deus dissimulet

1 The distinction of the two natures is expressed in Expos. in Luc. x. 61, as if the humanity did not really belong to the person of the Son. Commenting on Tristis est anima mea, he writes 'Tristis autem est non ipse, sed anima. Non est tristis sapientia, non divina substantia, sed anima.' Cf. Hilary de Trin. ix. 5, where it is argued that the things said by Christ, 'secundum hominem,' are not to be taken as said 'de se ipso,' i. e. of the divine nature.

2 It is often assumed, as by Dr. Liddon, Divinity of our Lord (Longmans, ed. 12) p. 467, that St. Ambrose is here referring to Mark xiii. 32. In this case St. Ambrose's statement would be a simple mistake. But in fact, as shown by the words nisi solus Pater, he is referring to St. Matt. xxiv. 36, where many-though not the best-Greek codices do omit ovdè ó viós. The reading is discussed by Jerome in a passage quoted p. 135. This fact however does not improve Ambrose's argument, for he has simply left Mark xiii. 32, where the reading is undoubted, out of sight.

se nescire quod novit1. Et in hoc ergo unitas divinitatis et unitas dispositionis in Patre probatur et Filio, si quemadmodum Deus Pater cognita dissimulat, ita Filius etiam in hoc imago Dei quae sibi sunt nota dissimulet.' Again, v. 18. 220 'Mavult Dominus nimio in discipulos amore propensus, petentibus his quae cognitu inutilia iudicaret, videri ignorare quae noverat, quam negare: plusque amat nostram utilitatem instruere quam suam potentiam demonstrare.' He goes on however to mention the interpretation of some 'less timid than himself' who, while denying that the Son of God in His divine nature could be ignorant, affirm that in respect of His assumption of humanity He could both grow in knowledge and be ignorant of the future. I may add that Ambrose appears to deny that our Lord prayed for Himself: 'non utique propter suffragium,' he says, 'sed propter exemplum' (Expos. in Luc. v. 10). Cf. v. 42 'orat Dominus non ut pro se obsecret sed ut pro me impetret.' The above quotations show that St. Ambrose cannot be reckoned with Athanasius as affirming the reality of a human ignorance in our Lord. But perhaps he is hardly consistent with himself.

1 Ambrose is referring to passages such as Gen. xi. 5, where God is represented as coming down to earth to see, as if He did not know. Such expressions belong, one can hardly doubt, originally to a period when God's spiritual omnipresence was very imperfectly realized.

§ 4.

Anti-Arian writers especially of the west.

These admissions by anti-Arian writers of a real human ignorance are, though valuable, still in a measure unsatisfactory, and that for two reasons.

(1) The theologians who make these admissions do not really face the question of the relation of the divine person to the human conditions into which He entered. What is meant when it is said, 'the Son was ignorant in respect of His manhood'? Does this mean that within the sphere of His incarnate life the Son Himself was submitting to conditions of limitation? Or does it mean that He simply annexed a human consciousness to the divine, so that always, in every act He was conscious with the divine consciousness, whatever else He may have been? This question, neither theologically nor exegetically, is met full face.

(2) Anti-Arian theology shows a rapid tendency to withdraw the admission of a human ignorance. Already, as has been said, Basil and Gregory, even in a measure Athanasius, lead the way in retiring upon a more or less forced interpretation of our Lord's words. Ephraim Syrus writes boldly-in his commentary upon Tatian's Diatessaron-Christ, though He knew the moment of His advent, yet that they might not ask Him any more about it, said I know it not1? Didymus of Alexandria

1

Evang. Concordant. Expos. (Aucher and Moesinger, Venice, 1876) p. 16.

L

introduces into a beautiful passage about the divine condescension the idea of the merely 'economic' ignorance1. St. Cyril will be found on the whole to follow him; and St. Chrysostom, trained though he was in the literalism of Antioch, adopts the same view 2.

This withdrawal is due in part no doubt to the fatal tendency which haunts the Church to extreme reaction from perilous error; in part also it is to be accounted for by the metaphysical tendency of the time to ascribe to God not only unchangeableness of essential being, purpose, and power, such as Scripture ascribes to Him, but also unchangeableness in such rigid 'metaphysical' sense as would exclude all idea of self-accommodation, and therefore all idea of real self-limitation, on God's part to human conditions 3. The tendency to explain away our Lord's express words, which those theologians exhibit who are responsible for this withdrawal, meets in the East with at least one vigorous protest from Theodoret 4.

In a phrase which commends itself to modern consciences he wrote: 'If He knew the day and, wishing to

1 in Psalm. Ixviii. 6 (P. G. xxxix. p. 1453) кai yàp didáσkaλos redelav ἔχων ἐπιστήμην διὰ συγκαταβάσεων τοῖς εἰσαγομένοις ταῦτα φαίνεται γινώσκων (i. e. appears to know those things only) ὧν εἰσὶν ἐκεῖνοι χωρητικοί.

2 in Matt. hom. lxxvii. 1 and 2. He argues at length in the usual strain against the real ignorance.

3 See below, p. 173.

* Repr. xii. Capp. Cyril. c. 4 (P. G. lxxvi. 412 a) el dè olde tǹv ýμépav, κρύπτειν δὲ βουλόμενος ἀγνοεῖν λέγει, ὁρᾷς εἰς ποίαν βλασφημίαν χωρεῖ τὸ συναγόμενον· ἡ γὰρ ἀλήθεια ψεύδεται. The passage is an argument for the distinct reality of our Lord's manhood from the phrases in the Gospels which attribute to Him prayer, ignorance, and the sense of being deserted of God. Such expressions cannot be attributed to the Word, Theodoret argues, but to the manhood which the Word assumed.