Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 8.djvu/756

 KNOWLEDGE

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KNOWLEDGE

sqq.; i, 18; i, 31 sq.); any knowledge of God inferior to immediate vision is imperfect and unworthy of Christ (I Cor., xiii, 9-12); Jesus repeatedly asserts that He knows the Father and is kno^\Ti by Him, that He knows what the Father knows. There is a difficulty in reconciling Christ's sufferings and surpassing great sorrow with the beatitude implied in His beatific vi- sion. But if the Word could be united with the human nature of Christ without allowing Its glory to overflow into His sacred body, the happiness of the beatific vi- sion too might be in the human soul of our Lord with- out overflowing into and absorbing His lower faculties, so that He might feel the pangs of sorrow and suffering. The same faculty may be simultaneously affected by sorrow and jov, resulting from the perception of differ- ent objects (cf. St. Thom., Ill, Q. xiii, a. 5, ad 3; St. Bonav., in III, dist. xvi, a. 2, q. 2); the martyrs have often testified to the ecstatic happiness with which God filled their souls, at the very time that their bod- ies were suffering the extremity of torment.

(2) Christ's Infused Knoidedge. — The existence of an infused science in the human soul of Jesus Christ may perhaps be less certain, from a theological point of view, than His continual and original fruition of the \'ision of God; still, it is almost universally admitted that God infused into Christ's human intellect a knowl- edge similar in kind to that of the angels. This is knowledge which is not acquired gradually by expe- rience, but is poured into the soul in one flood. This doctrine rests on theological grounds: the Man-God must have possessed all perfections except such as would be incompatible with His beatific \'ision, as faith or hope; or with His sinlessness, as penance; or again, with His office of Redeemer, which would be incom- patible with the consummation of His glory. Now, infused knowledge is not incompatible with Clirist's beatific vision, nor with His sinlessness, nor again with His office of Redeemer. Besides, the soul of Christ is the first and most perfect of all created spirits, and cannot be deprived of a privilege granted to the angels. Moreover, a created intellect is simply perfect only when, besides the \'ision of things in God, it has a vi- sion of things in themselves; God only sees all things comprehensively in Himself. The God-Man, besides seeing them in God, would also perceive and know them by His human intellect. Finally, Sacred Scrip- ture favours the existence of such infused knowl- edge in the human intellect of Christ: St. Paul speaks of all the treasures of God's wisdom and science hidden in Christ (Col., ii, 3) ; Isaias speaks of the spirit of wis- dom and counsel, of science and understanding, rest- ing on Jesus (Is., xi, 2): St. John intimates that God has not given His ."Spirit Ijv measure to His Di\dne en- voy (John,iii, 34); St. Matthew represents Christ as our sovereign teacher (Matt., xxiii, 10). Besides the Di- vine and the angelic knowledge, most theologians admit in the human intellect of Jesus Christ a science infused per acddens, i. e. an extraordinary comprehen- sion of things which might be learned in the ordinary way, similar to that granted to Adam and Eve (cf. St Thom., III., Q. i, a. 2; QQ. viii-xii; Q. xv, a. 2). (3) Christ's Acquired Knowledge. — Jesus Christ had, no doubt, also an experimental knowledge acquired by the natural use of His faculties, tlirough His senses and imagination, just as happens in the ease of com- mon human knowledge. To say that His human faculties were wholly inactive would resemble a pro- fession of cither Monothelitism or of Docetism. "This knowledge naturally grew in Jesus in the process of time, according to the words of Luke, ii, 52: "And .lesus advanced in wisdom, and age, and grace with God and men". Understood in this way, the Evan- gelist speaks not merely of a successively greater manifestation of Christ's Divine and infused knowl- edge, nor merely of an increase in His knowledge as far as outward effects were concerned, but of a real ad- vance in His acquired knowledge. Not that this kind

of knowledge implies an enlarged object of His science; but it signifies that He gradually came to know, after a merely liuman way, some of the things which He had known from the beginning by His Divine and infused knowledge.

II. Extent op the Ivnowledgb op Jesus Christ. — It has already been stated that the knowledge in Christ's Divine nature is co-extensive with God's Om- niscience. As to the experimental knowledge ac- quired by Christ, it must have been at least equal to the knowledge of the most gifted of men ; it appears to us wholly unworthy of the dignity of Christ that His powers of observation and natural insight should have ijcen less than those of other naturally perfect men. But the main difficulty arises from the question as to the extent of Christ's knowledge flowing from His be- atific vision, and of His infused amount of knowledge. (1) TheCouncfl of Basle (Sess. XXII) condemned the proposition of a certain Augustinus de Roma: " Anima Christi videt Deum tam clare. et intense cjuam clare et intense Deus videt seipsum" (The soul of Christ sees God as clearly and intimately as God perceives Himself). It is quite clear that, however perfect the human sou! of Christ is, it always remains finite and limited; hence its knowledge cannot be unlimited and infinite. (2) Though the knowledge in the human soul of Christ was not infinite, it was most perfect and embraced the widest range, extending to the Divine ideas already realized, or still to be realized. Nescience of any of these matters would amount to positive ignorance in Christ, as the ignorance of law in a judge. For Christ is not merely our infallible teacher, but also the universal mediator, the supreme judge, the sovereign king of all creation. (3) Two important texts are urged against this perfection of Christ's knowledge: Luke, ii, 52 demands an ad- vancement in knowledge in the case of Christ; this text has already been considered in the last paragraph. The other text is Mark, .xiii, 32: "Of that day or hour no man knoweth, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father. " After all that has been written on this question in recent years, we see no need to add anything to the traditional explanations: the Son has no knowledge of the judgment day which He may communicate; or, the Son has no knowledge of this event, which springs from His human nature as such; or again, the Son has no knowledge of the day and the hour, that has not been communicated to Him by the Father. (See Mangenot in A'igouroux, "Diet, de la Bible ", II, Paris, 1899, 2268 sqq.)

Since the time of the Nestorian controversies. Catho- lic tradition has been practically unanimous as to the doctrine concerning the knowledge of Christ (cf. Le- porius," LibellusEmendationis", n. 40; Eulogius Alex.,

in Phot.", cod. 230, n. 10; S. Ciregorius Magnus, lib. X, epp. XXXV, xxxix; Sophron., "Ep. Syn. ad Ser- gium"; Damascenus, "De Hsr.," n. 85; Nat. Alex., " Hist. Eccl. in sa>c. sext.", n. 85). As to the Fathers preceding the Nestorian controversy, Leontius Byzan- tinus simply surrenders their authority to the oppo- nents of our doctrine concerning the knowledge of Christ; Petavius represents it as partly undecided; but the early Fathers may be excused from error, because they wrote mostly against the Arian heresy, so that they endeavoured to establish Christ's Divinity by renioving all ignorance from His Divine nature, while they did not care to enter upon an ex professo inves- tigation of the knowledge possessed by His human nature. At that time there was no call for any svich study. .After the patristic period, Fulgentius (Resp. ad q'uiPst. tert. Ferrandi) and Hugh of St. ^'ictor ex- aggerated the human knowledge of Clirist, so that the early Schola.stics asked the question, why God's Om- niscience could be communicated, while His Omnipo- tence was iiici)mmupic;ible (Lomb., "Liber Sent.", Ill, d. 14). But even at this period, at least a modal difference was a*imitted to exist between the Om-