XV. Their tenth objection is the ignorance,
and the statement that Of the last day and hour knoweth no man, not
even the Son Himself, but the Father. Mark xiii. 32. And yet how can Wisdom be ignorant of
anything—that is, Wisdom Who made the worlds, Who perfects them,
Who remodels them, Who is the Limit of all things that were made, Who
knoweth the things of God as the spirit of a man knows the things that
are in him? 1 Cor. ii. 11. For what can
be more perfect than this knowledge? How then can you say that
all things before that hour He knows accurately, and all things that
are to happen about the time of the end, but of the hour itself He is
ignorant? For such a thing would be like a riddle; as if one were
to say that he knew accurately all that was in front of the wall, but
did not know the wall itself; or that, knowing the end of the day, he
did not know the beginning of the night—where knowledge of the
one necessarily brings in the other. Thus everyone must see that
He knows as God, and knows not as Man;—if one may separate the
visible from that which is discerned by thought alone. For the
absolute and unconditioned use of the Name “The Son” in
this passage, without the addition of whose Son, gives us this thought,
that we are to understand the ignorance in the most reverent sense, by
attributing it to the Manhood, and not to the Godhead.