His Holiness explains verses used against faith (by the Arians) about the Lord’s saying: “nor does the Son know that day or hour,” and interprets the relation between Christ’s divinity and humanity and how to understand biblical expressions according to each nature.

The Son’s knowledge and the Divinity

He clarifies that the Son as the “hypostasis of knowledge” and by His divinity possesses all wisdom and knowledge, and He who ordains the times and the coming of the world cannot be taken to lack knowledge in matters of divine economy.

Speech according to the human nature

He emphasizes that some terms are attributed to Christ’s human nature only—such as hunger, sleep, fatigue, and asking—and these are not a fault or sin but signs that Christ took a full humanity to be like us in all things except sin.

The manner of economy and revelation

He explains that God sometimes speaks “as if He did not know” for pedagogical or economic reasons (as a way of teaching or testing), as in Genesis stories and parables, and thus “I do not know” does not mean real ignorance in the divinity but a limit in revealing the message to humans.

Meaning of “My Father is greater than I”

He interprets the phrase “My Father is greater than I” as referring to the voluntary kenotic state the Son took (humiliation and incarnation and withholding of glory), not to a deficiency in divinity; fatherhood implies a dignity or different state though equal in essence.

Glorifying the Father on the Cross

He explains that the Father’s and the Son’s glory are mutual, and that Christ’s glory on the cross is the fulfillment of the Father’s will, where the Father’s justice and the Son’s love met; the cross became the means to glorify God and complete salvation.

Spiritual conclusion

In conclusion, passages that attribute things to the humanity should be understood within the union of the two natures: Christ knows by divinity, yet in earthly life sometimes acted according to His humanity; the mystery is His great love and fulfillment of salvation, not a lack in His divinity.

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