30. We therefore expose the blasphemous
misunderstanding at which they have arrived by distortion and
perversion of the meaning of Christ’s words. We account for
those words by stating what manner of questions He was answering, at
what times He was speaking, what partial knowledge He was deigning to
impart; we make the circumstances explain the words, and do not force
the former into consistency with the latter. Thus each case of
variance, that for instance between The Father is greater than
I Ib. xiv.
28., and I and the Father are
One St. John x. 30., or between None is good save One, even
God St. Luke xviii. 19., and He that hath seen Me hath seen the
Father also St. John xiv. 9., or a difference
so wide as that between Father, all things that are Mine are Thine,
and Thine are Mine Ib.
xvii. 10., and That they
may know Thee, the only true God Ib.
3., or between
I in the Father and the Father in Me Ib. xiv.
11.,
and But of the day and hour knoweth no one, neither the angels in
heaven nor the Son, but the Father only St. Mark xiii. 32.,
is explained by a discrimination between gradual revelation and full
expression of His nature and power. Both are utterances of the
same Speaker, and an exposition of the real force of each group will
shew that Christ’s true Godhead is no whit impaired because, to
form the mystery of the Gospel faith, the birth and Name Reading
nativitas et nomen. The clause above, which is bracketed
in Migne, appears to be a gloss. of Christ were revealed gradually, and
under conditions which He chose of occasion and time.