Ninth Argument: that Christ
Was Once Ignorant of the Day of the Last Judgement
Up to this point we have brought
forward testimonies from John in which something is denied of Christ that could
not be denied of him if he were that supreme God. It remains that we bring
forward similar testimonies from the other sacred writers as well, and indeed
such as attribute a prerogative to the Father above Christ. The first of these
we shall make that saying of Christ which we touched on above when treating of
the Father (Mark 13:32): “But of that day or hour” (namely, of the last
judgement) “no one knows, not the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the
Father”, or, as Matthew puts it (Matt 24:36), “but the Father alone”. How it is
proved from this that the Father alone is the supreme God, we have shown
earlier. Now we must see how it is proved from it that the Son is not that
supreme God: although, once the former is proved, this latter necessarily
follows. But here we proceed the opposite way, and do not demonstrate from the
fact that the Father alone is the supreme God that Christ is not the supreme
God, but from this latter the former. The matter, however, is easy and plain to
anyone: for that supreme God is ignorant of nothing and never was. But the Son
of God was once ignorant of the day and hour of the last judgement. Therefore
the Son of God is not that supreme God.
Defence of the Argument
How greatly the opponents have
tormented themselves in untying this knot, and what diverse interpretations
different men, indeed even the same men, have devised, may be seen both in
others and especially in Maldonatus. He reports that Jerome and Augustine, hard
pressed by the difficulty of the testimony, took refuge in declaring the
passage corrupt and saying that one should not read “nor the Son” but “the
Father”: against the witness of all the manuscripts. If it is permitted to call
this into doubt, nothing in Holy Scripture will be certain, nothing firm,
nothing that one may not deny; and one will have to strike out not only the
words of Mark but also the corresponding words of Matthew. The same interpreter
says further that the greater part of the ancient authors held that Christ was
ignorant of the day of judgement, not because he was really ignorant of it, but
because he did not wish to reveal it to us, because his body, that is, the
Church, was ignorant of it, or because he concealed that he knew it; and for
this opinion he cites Origen, Chrysostom, Gregory, Jerome, Bede and
Theophylact. This interpretation (if indeed it deserves the name) the same
writer rightly refutes with the argument that in this way the Father too would
be ignorant of the day of judgement, since he has not revealed it to us. But
then, what sort of reply would this have been from Christ? The disciples wished
to learn the day of judgement from him. Christ answers, on the view of those
men: “The Son causes you to be ignorant of the day of judgement; he does not
wish to reveal it; he conceals that he knows it.” Yet this was the very thing
the disciples asked, that he should make it known to them. A reason should have
been given why he would not make it known, why, as they say, he concealed it.
And finally, what sort of interpretation is this: “I do not know”, that is, “I
conceal that I know”? Did Christ deal thus with his disciples, and deceive
those with whom it was both permitted and fitting for him to deal openly? Such
speech would not be worthy even of a sensible man, much less of Christ. Others
again, he says, such as Origen, Epiphanius and Chrysostom, interpreted it to
mean that Christ was ignorant of the day of judgement, that is, had not yet
experienced it. This opinion he refutes on the same ground as the previous one:
because in this way the Father too would be ignorant of it, since he has not
experienced it either. Others, he says, gave the sense as: “Nor does the Son of
Man know, unless the Father knows”; but because the Father knows, the Son of
Man knows too; so Euthymius. This interpretation is quite frivolous. First,
because in this way he would have given no reason why he did not make the day
of judgement known to the disciples, and would not have lessened but increased
their desire to know it and to inquire of him about it: for in this way he
would have indicated that the Son of Man knows that day. Secondly, the word
“Son”, used of Christ absolutely, denotes not the Son of Man but the Son of God
as such; especially since the word “Father”, by which God is understood, is at
once set over against it. And the little word “but” in the words “but the
Father” is in truth connected not with the immediately preceding words “nor the
Son”, but with the words “no one knows”; or at least it stands for the
adversative “but rather”. Finally, this interpretation contradicts the words of
Matthew, who says that “the Father alone” knows. For how ridiculous would it be
to say that the Son of Man does not know the day of judgement unless the Father
alone knows it? For that is a contradiction in the adjunct, and the condition
added overturns the very thing to which it is added. The same interpreter says
further that many ancient and weighty authors, whose names he lists in order,
interpreted it thus: that Christ was ignorant of the day of judgement in so far
as he is man. This he holds to be true only to the extent that it is understood
that Christ knew the day of judgement not under this title, or not for this
reason, that he was man, but because he was God. Otherwise he holds it false,
indeed dreadful to hear, that the human nature of Christ was ignorant of
anything. For the Papists, and some others as well, think that the human nature
of Christ knew all things straight from the beginning of his conception or
birth. But he refutes that interpretation too, because Christ not only denies
that the Son of Man (he ought rather to have said “the Son of God” here) knows
the day of judgement, but also affirms that the Father alone knows it: by which
word he seems to exclude not only the Son but also the holy spirit.
But since today the very
interpretation which that interpreter rejects, namely that Christ is said to
have been truly ignorant of the day of judgement not according to the divine
but according to the human nature, is very widely and commonly received, even
among those who otherwise maintain that at the very moment of conception the
properties of the divine nature were communicated to the human, or that the
knowledge of all things was infused into his soul, we must briefly refute it
here; and once it has been disposed of, that man’s own interpretation is also
to be refuted in a few words.
This interpretation, then, and
this reply to our argument, which is commonly offered, is not to be admitted,
chiefly for three reasons. First, because Christ simply and without any
limitation denies that the Son knows the day and hour of judgement. From this
it follows that he spoke of himself as a whole, in his whole person, as we
showed in examining the second reply on the passage John 5:19. Secondly, to
pass over other things said in the same place: both from the simple word “Son”,
set over against God the Father, and from the gradation Christ uses, ascending
from the angels to the Son and from the Son to the Father, it is evident that
he spoke precisely of that nature according to which he is the Son of God.
Thirdly, because in Matthew it is expressly said that “the Father alone” knows
the day or hour of judgement. And this is also the sense of the words of Mark
when he says: “No one knows”, etc., “but the Father”, thereby setting the
Father against the Son, too. But if Christ had known the day of judgement
according to the divine nature, then not the Father alone would have known it,
but the Son as well, and besides, if we believe the opponents, the holy spirit.
As for that saying of Paul which
they press so hard here (Col 2:3): “In whom are hidden all the treasures of
wisdom and knowledge”, they do not notice, first, that those words can be
referred no less, indeed even more correctly, to the term “mystery of God and
of Christ”, which had been mentioned immediately before, than to the name of
Christ; for it is chiefly the knowledge of that mystery which is treated there,
so that the sense is: in the mystery of God and of Christ all the treasures of
wisdom and knowledge are hidden. That mystery, however, is the doctrine of the
Gospel (cf. Col 1:25–27). Secondly, the words “knowledge” and “wisdom” are to
be understood of the knowledge of things pertaining to human salvation, which
have also been revealed to us through Christ and are to be diligently learned
by us. But that the day of judgement is not among these things is evident from
the very words of Christ about which we are disputing. Not to mention that,
even if the same kind of things were otherwise in question, this special saying
about the day of judgement would nevertheless have to restrict the general one,
and the special would have to be interpreted not from the general, but the
general from the special.
It remains to say something about
the interpretation and reply which that interpreter of the Papists devised
after refuting the opinions of all the others; though he puts it forward in
such a way that he himself seems not quite to trust it. For he says: But,
unless I am mistaken, Christ speaks in the same way as he said above: “But to
sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to give to you, but to those
for whom it has been prepared by my Father” (Matt 20:23). He therefore
indicates, which is saying more, that not only as man but also as God he is in
a certain way ignorant of the day of judgement: not that he is ignorant of it,
but that it is not his office to know it; just as he did not say “for whom it
has been prepared by me”, but “by my Father”, not because it had not also been
prepared by him, but because to prepare the kingdom, that is, to predestine, is
not his office but the Father’s.
So too it is the Father’s part to
determine when the world is to be dissolved and when the day of judgement is to
be. This is what he says to the Apostles: “It is not yours to know times or
seasons which the Father has put in his own power” (Acts 1:7). Therefore he
alone is signified to know it. And this, unless I am mistaken, is the true
sense. He rightly added that “unless I am mistaken” twice; for he was afraid of
being mistaken, and the ingenious man did not satisfy himself while he wished
to satisfy others. But he has neither explained the passage correctly, indeed
he has perverted it, nor removed the difficulty, but in part even increased it.
For, first, without any example and without any just reason he departs from the
proper and customary meaning of the words “he does not know”, and interprets
them as “it is not someone’s office to know”; unless perhaps he offers as his
reason the very thing that is in dispute, namely that it cannot be said that
the Son does not know the day of judgement, because, as he has always known
everything else, so he has always known that day too. Secondly, however he
interprets the words “it is not the Son’s office to know that day”, he still
does not escape the difficulty. For either it is not Christ’s office because he
is not bound to know that day, or is under no obligation to know that day; or
because he is bound not to know that day, or because he is not even permitted
to know it; and the passages he cites seem to require this latter. If he means
the latter, he increases the difficulty rather than lessening it, and even says
more than is needed. For he says not only that the Son did not then know the
day of judgement, but that he was not even permitted to know it. But how can he
be that supreme God who not only is ignorant of something, but cannot even know
it; or who is not even permitted to know something, and that in so far as he is
God? And yet the passages he cites, duly compared with this sense, seem
altogether to require this sense. For when Christ says, “To sit at my right
hand and at my left is not mine to give”, he signifies that this does not lie
within his power and discretion, or that it is not permitted to him. The
passage in Acts, moreover, makes express mention of power, and signifies that
the Father has reserved to his own (for in the Greek it is ἰδίᾳ, that is,
“own”) power and discretion the determination of the times and seasons, and,
further, the knowledge of them as well. But if he means the former, I ask,
first, what does this contribute to the matter? For the sense will be that no
one is obliged to know the day of judgement, neither the angels nor the Son,
but the Father alone. What follows from that? Even if neither men nor angels
nor the Son are obliged to know it, yet both the former and the latter will be
able to know it; “and we”, the disciples could have said, “though we are not bound
to, nevertheless desire to know it, since we can know it without prejudice to
the truth of that saying”. For the man against whom we are disputing believes
that Christ did know the day of judgement, even though it was not his office to
know it. In this way, then, Christ would not have checked the Apostles’ desire
and their eagerness to learn that day, and would have left room for the thought
that it might come about that both men and angels know that day. Secondly, how
can it be said that it is the Father’s office, or that the Father is obliged,
to know the day of judgement, but not the Son, if the Son too is supreme and
thus one God with the Father? For neither of them can be obliged to know
anything without the other being obliged as well, since both have numerically
the same intellect and altogether the same knowledge. And moreover, whatever
reason you may adduce why the Father is obliged to know the day of judgement,
it will be common to the Son, if he is the supreme God together with the
Father. Indeed, if it could come about that one of them were obliged to it and
the other not, or less so, one would have to hold that Christ is the more
obliged; for he holds the office of judge, and in it, if he is the supreme God,
depends on no one, so that he both fixes and determines the day of judgement at
his own discretion. I say nothing of the fact that it is not correctly said
that it is the Father’s office, or that he is bound, to know the day of
judgement, since he cannot fail to know it; or, if you say it is his office
because he is bound to define and fix that day, one must consider how correctly
it is said that he is bound to do what lies within his own discretion. But
enough of this. (Johannes Crell, On the One God, the Father: Two Books, in
Which Much is Also Discussed Concerning the Nature of the Son of God and of the
Holy Spirit [trans. Marcin Poholski; 2026], 87-93)
