MARK 13:32 AND CHRIST'S SUPPOSED IGNORANCE: FOUR PATRISTIC SOLUTIONS

Trinity Journal, Fall 2007 by Gumerlock, Francis X

I. THE PROBLEM OF CHRIST'S SUPPOSED IGNORANCE1

Referring to the time of his second coming, Jesus is recorded as saying, "But of that day or hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone" (Mark 13:32, NASB; the word alone is italicized because it was supplied by the translator). The church fathers spilled much ink explaining this statement of the Lord, most often because of its import regarding Christology.2 Since the passage allegedly presents Christ as ignorant, the Arians of the early church, who denied that the Son was consubstantial with the Father, used it as a proof-text for their belief in a less-than-divine Son of God.3 On the other hand, those who held to Nicene orthodoxy and believed that Jesus was fully God and possessed all the attributes of divinity, including omniscience, responded to the Arians with Col 2:3, "In him are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." The adherents of Nicene orthodoxy, besides asserting Christ's omniscience, also had to make sense out of Mark 13:32, which seemed to teach that Jesus was ignorant of at least one detail concerning the future, i.e., the time of his return. To solve the theological dilemma of the omniscient Son of God not knowing the time of his own second coming, the church fathers proposed a variety of explanations. This article presents and evaluates four of their solutions-the philological solution of Basil of Caesarea, two "figures of speech" solutions offered by Augustine of Hippo and Gregory of Tours respectively, and the anthropological solution of Athanasius of Alexandria.

II. THE PHILOLOGICAL SOLUTION

In the fourth century, Basil of Caesarea (d. 379) offered a philological solution to the problem. He argued that the Greek words in Mark 13:32 do not teach that the Son was ignorant. He noted that a literal, word-for-word translation of the verse reads, "But of that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, if not (ei me) the Father." From this philology, Basil reasoned that Jesus was in effect saying: If I were not one with the Father, even I would not know the time of my second coming. Basil commented,

But the saying of Mark . . . we understand in this way: that no one knows, neither the angels of God, but not even the Son would have known, unless the Father had known, that is, the cause of the Son's knowledge is from the Father.4

According to this interpretation, Mark 13:32 is not a statement about the Lord's ignorance, but the exact opposite. It is a statement about Christ's divinity and omniscience.

Basil's argument has several positive qualities. First, it is based on the Greek text itself. Ei me in Greek can mean "if not."5 In fact, the words ei and me are often translated "if" and "not", as in the NASB and NIV translations of John 9:33 which both read: "If this man were not from God, He could do nothing" (italics mine). Basil's interpretation also entirely erases the problem of Christ's supposed ignorance.

On the other hand, Basil's interpretation has the problem of the words Pater monos (the Father alone) in the synoptic parallel of Matt 24:36: "But of that day or hour, no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone." Basil explains this by saying that the phrase the Father alone is used in contradistinction from the angels, not in contradistinction from the Son.6 In other words, according to Basil, the contrast in the passage is not: Humans, angels, and the Son do not know; the Father does know. Rather, it is: Humans and angels do not know; the Son and Father do know. Although Basil's understanding of the passage springs from the language of the biblical text itself, to me it seems like he is forcing a theological presupposition into a biblical text for polemical reasons, rather than accepting the "natural reading" of the text.

III. TWO "FIGURES OF SPEECH" SOLUTIONS

A. Augustine: To Know is to Reveal

Several patristic authors attempted to solve the problem of Christ's supposed ignorance by saying that Jesus was speaking figuratively when he said that the Son did not know the time of the second coming. Augustine of Hippo (d. 430), for example, wrote that many times in Scripture the statement "God knows" means "God reveals." When it says in Mark 13:32 that the Son does not know the day or hour, according to Augustine, it really means that the Son does not reveal the day or hour.

For support, Augustine gave the example of Gen 22:12, where God said to Abraham after his test of obedience in sacrificing Isaac: "Now I know that you fear me." In reality, Augustine argued, the omniscient God did not increase in knowledge. It was a figurative way of saying, "Now it is revealed that you fear me." Augustine cited Deut 13:3 as another biblical example of this kind of figure of speech. Here Moses said that God would test the love of his people by means of false prophets. He wrote: "For the Lord your God is testing you that he may know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul." According to Augustine, the phrase "that he may know" does not mean that God would increase in knowledge once the Israelites were tested, but that at that time it would be revealed whether the children of Israel loved God.7