It has become popular in trendy theological circles to deny the omniscience of Christ, especially concerning the last days. This was the Arians’ position. After all, didn’t Christ himself say that he didn’t know the day and the hour of the judgment, but that only the Father knew? Doesn’t this prove that he was ignorant of some things? The early Christian fathers knew otherwise.
Athanasius
“Let us examine what he said: ‘But of that day and the hour no one knows, neither the angels, nor the Son.’ After saying, ‘nor the Son,’ he relates to the disciples the things which will precede that day and says that this and that shall be and then the end. Now, he that speaks of what will precede that day also has full knowledge of that day which will follow upon the events foretold. And if he had not known the hour, he would not have signified the events preceding it, not knowing when that hour would be. He says in the Gospel, concerning himself in his human character, ‘Father, the hour has come, glorify your Son.’ Certainly, then, it is plain that as the Word he knows also the hour and the end of all things, although as man he is ignorant of it; for ignorance is proper to man, and especially in these matters. This, moreover, pertains to the Savior’s love of man; for, inasmuch as he was made man, he is not ashamed, because of the ignorant flesh, to say, ‘I do not know,’ so that he may demonstrate that, although as God he knows, according to the flesh he is ignorant. This, then, is why he did not say, ‘nor does the Son of God know,’ lest the Godhead appear to be ignorant; but simply, ‘nor the Son,’ so that the ignorance may be of the son as born of man” (Discourses Against the Arians 3:42-43 [inter A.D. 358362]).
Gregory of Nazianz
“Their tenth objection is ignorance, the statement that the final day and hour is known to none, not even the Son, except the Father. But how is it possible that Wisdom should be ignorant of any of those things that are? How indeed could he know so accurately those things which are to precede that hour and which are to take place at the end, but be ignorant of the hour itself? This thing would be like a riddle, as if one were to say that he knows accurately everything that is in front of a wall, but does not know the wall itself; or that he knows well the end of the day but knows not the beginning of the night, whereas knowledge of the one necessarily brings with it knowledge of the other. If, then, we may proceed from the example of what is seen to what is known, is it not perfectly plain to everyone that he does know as God, but says that, as man, he knows not? (Fourth Theological Oration 30:15[A.D. 380]).
John Chrysostom
” ‘Of that day and that hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven nor the Son, except the Father.’ By the saying ‘neither the angels’ he stopped their mouths, lest they seek to learn what even the angels did not know; and by the saying, ‘nor the Son’ he forbids them not only to learn but even to inquire. He refers this knowledge to the Father both to make the matter more awesome and to preclude their inquiring about it. If this is not the reason, and he really is ignorant of the day and the hour, when will he come to know it? At the same time we do? … He says, ‘When you do not expect it, he will come,’ because he wants them to be anxiously waiting and constantly engaged in virtuous practice. What he means is something like this: ‘If the generality of men knew when they were to die, they would strive earnestly only at that hour’ ” (Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew 77:1 [A.D. 370]).
Jerome
“You ask why a just man would have been ignorant of something and would have done something contrary to his own will. To this the final answer can only be that no man, save him only who deigned to assume flesh for our salvation, can have full knowledge and a complete g.asp of the truth” (Letter to Damasus 36:15 [inter A.D. 382-384].
Jerome
“The apostle writes about the Savior: ‘In whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.’ All the treasures, therefore, of wisdom and knowledge are in Christ; but they are hidden. Why hidden? After the resurrection when he was asked by the apostles about the day, he gave a very plain reply; ‘It is not for you to know the times or moments upon which the Father, by his own authority, has decided.’ When he says, ‘It is not for you to know,’ he shows that he himself does know, but that it is not expedient for the apostles to know, so that, always uncertain of the coming of the judge, they may live daily as if they were to be judged perhaps on that very day” (Commentaries on the Gospel of Matthew 4:24:36 [A.D. 398]).
Jerome
“Of the Son it is said, ‘Of that day and hour no one knows, except the Father, not the angels in heaven and not the Son.’ If we receive baptism equally in the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, we must believe there is one name for Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which is God. If God is one, how can there be a diversity of knowledge in one divinity? What is greater, to be God or to know all things? If he is God, how does he not know? In the apostle we read about Christ: ‘In whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.’ See what he says, ‘all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.’ Not that some are and some are not: all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge; but they are hidden. So what is in him is not lacking to him, even though it be hidden from us. But if all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ, we must ask why they are hidden. If we men were to know the day of judgment, which is the subject of the statement, and that the day of judgment is to come after two thousand years, knowing that it is so far in the future, we would only become more negligent. We would say, ‘What difference does it make to me if the day of judgment is to come after two thousand years?’ When it is said that the Son does not know the day of judgment, it is so stated for our sake, so we do not know when the day of judgment is to come. Finally, see what follows that statement: ‘Take care, watch and pray; for you do not know when that time will come'” (Homilies on the Gospel of Mark 10:13:32 [inter A.D. 410-420]).
Augustine
“When God is said not to know something, either it is said in reference to what he does not approve, that is, of something he does not acknowledge in discipline or in doctrines, as when it is said, ‘I do not know you,’ or in reference to that which it is useless to know and from which he draws an advantage for those who do not know. It is well accepted, therefore, that when it is said that the Father alone knows, it was so stated because it is he that makes the Son know, and when it is said that the Son does not know, it is so stated because he makes men not to know, that is, he does not avail them of a knowledge which it is useless for them to have” (Eighty-Three Diverse Questions 60 [inter A.D. 389-396]).
Cyril of Alexandria
” ‘But how,’ the heretics ask, ‘will the Son be like the Father in respect to essence, when he says that he knows not the day of the consummation of the age?’ It is easy to see that as God he does know both the day and the hour even if, referring to what is human in himself, he can say that he does not know. For if he clearly specifies all the things that are to happen before that day and hour and says, ‘this will be, and that will happen, and then the end,’ it is clear that if he knows the things that are to happen before that day, he knows also the day itself. For after the things predicted by him, he specifies that this is the end. What else, after all, would the end be, except the last day, which, he says, in view of his incarnation, he does not know, thus preserving again in his humanity the rank befitting it? For it is proper for humanity not to know the future” (Treasury of the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity 22 [inter A.D. 423-425]).
Fulgentius
“When we speak of the soul of Christ we speak of the rational spirit, to which not only did God come through grace, but which received the divinity itself in a unity of person. For the soul, with the Word, is one Christ; the soul, with the Word, is one, God the onlybegotten. And because God the onlybegotten is equal to the Father, and no one is able to know the whole Son who does not know the whole Father, let us beware lest, if the soul of Christ is not believed to know the whole Father, knowledge be denied to the one Christ himself of some part not only of the Father but even of himself and of the Holy Spirit. But it is extremely obtuse and utterly foreign to a healthy faith to say that the soul of Christ did not have full knowledge of his divinity, when with that soul it is believed that he had naturally one person” (Letter to Ferrandus 14:26 [post A.D. 512- ante A.D. 527]).
Gregory the Great
“Whence also this can be understood in a more subtle way, that the only-begotten, incarnate and made perfect man for us, did indeed in his human nature know the day and the hour of the judgment, but nevertheless did not know this from his human nature. What he knew in it he did not on that account know from it, because God-made-man knew the day and the hour of the judgment by the power of his Godhead” (Letter to Eulogius, Patriarch of Alexandria 10:21 [A.D. 600]).