Matthew 24:36

The Lord having described all the tokens that shall precede His coming, and brought His discourse to the very doors, yet would not name the day; "Of that day and hour knoweth no man, no not the Angels Of heaven, but my Father only."

" but in the Greek copies, and particularly those of Adamantius and Pierius, it is not found. [ed. note: The addition is found in a very few Greek MSS., and ancient versions, in Chrys. and Theophylact. It is in the Old Italic version, and is acknowledged by Hilary, Ambrose, and Pseudo-Chrys.; but the preponderance of evidence is greatly against it, and it is not admitted into the text of the G. T. by any editors. It probably crept in from the parallel passage in S. Mark. Adamantius is a surname of Origen. Pierius was a presbyter of Alexandria in the third century, whose learning occasioned him to be styled " Origen the younger."] But because it is read in some, it seems to require our notice.

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Whereat Arius and Eunomius rejoice greatly; for say they, He who knows and He who is ignorant cannot be both equal. Against these we answer shortly; Seeing that Jesus, that is, The Word of God, made all times, (for "By him all things were made, and without him was not any thing made that was made, [1 John 1:3]) and that the day of judgment must be in all time, by what reasoning can He who knows the whole be shewn to be ignorant of a part? This we will further say; Which is the greater, the knowledge of the Father, or the knowledge of the judgment? If He knows the greater, how can He be ignorant of the less?

And has indeed God the Father denied the knowledge of that day to the Son, when He has declared, "All things are committed to me of my Father?" [Luke 10:22] but if any thing has been denied, all things are not committed to Him.

Having then shewn that the Son of God cannot be ignorant of the day of the consummation, we must now show a cause why He should be said to be ignorant. When after the resurrection He is demanded concerning this day by the Apostles, He answers more openly; "It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father has put in his own power." [Acts 1:7] Wherein He shews that Himself knows, but that it was not expedient for the Apostles to know, that being in uncertainty of the coming of their Judge, they should live every day as though they were to be judged that day.

When He says here, "Knows not," He means, "makes others not to know;" i.e. He knew not then, so as to tell His disciples; as it was said to Abraham, "Now I know that thou fearest God;" [Gen 22:19] i.e. "Now have I caused that thou shouldest know," because by the temptation he came to know himself.

That He says that the "Father knoweth," implies that in the Father the Son also knows. For what can there be in time which was not made by the Word, seeing that time itself was made by the Word!

That the Father alone knows may be well understood in the above-mentioned manner of knowing, that He makes the Son to know; but the Son is said not to know, because be does not make men to know.

Otherwise; So long as the Church which is Christ's body knows not that day and hour, so long the Son Himself is said not to know that day and hour. The word "know" is used according to its proper usual meaning in Scripture. The Apostle speaks of Christ, as "him who knew no sin," [1 Cor 5:21] i.e. sinned not. The knowledge of that day and hour the Son reserves in store for the fellow-heirs of the promise, that all may know at once, i.e. in the day when it shall come upon them, "what things God hath prepared for them that love him." [1 Cor 2:9]

I have read also in some one's book, that "the Son" here is not to be taken of the Only-begotten, but of the adopted, for that He would not have put the Angels before the Only-begotten Son, saying, "Not the Angels of heaven, neither the Son." [ed. note: See further on this Passage, Hil. de Trin. ix. 58, cited in the Catena on Mark, xiii. 32, and Basil adv. Eunom. iv.]

The Gospel then says, "Of that day and hour knoweth no man;" but you say, That neither the month nor the year of His coming can be known. This exactness of yours up to this point seems as if you meant that the year could not be known, but that the week or the decade of years might be known, as though it was possible to fix or assign it to some seven, ten, or a hundred, or some number of years more or less. If you allow that you cannot so limit it, you think with me.

That you may perceive that it is not owing to ignorance that He is silent of the day and hour of the judgment, He brings forward another token, "As it was in the days of Noe, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be." By this He means that He shall come sudden and unlooked for, and while men are taking their pleasure; of which Paul also speaks, "When they shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them." [1 Thess 5:3]

Marriage and meats in themselves are not here condemned, as the error of Marcion and Manicheaus teaches; for in the one the continuation of the species, in the other that of life, depends; but what is reproved is all unrestrained use of things lawful.

It is asked here, how it was said above, "Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, &c." when here only tokens of peace are spoken of as what shall be then? We must suppose, that after the wars and the other miseries which shall waste the human race, shall follow a short peace, offering rest and quiet to approve the faith of the believers.

Or, To such as are thoughtlessly disposed, it shall be a time of peace and enjoyment; as the Apostle said not, "When there shall be peace," but "When they shall say, Peace and safety," shewing their insensibility to be such as was theirs in the days of Noe, when the wicked, and not the good, indulged themselves, but their end was sorrow and tribulation. This shews also, that when Antichrist shall come, those who are wicked, and despair of their salvation, shall run into illicit pleasures; therefore He chooses an instance suitable. For while the ark was building, Noe preached among them, foretelling the evils that should come; but those wicked giving no heed to him, wantoned as though no evil should ever come; so now, because many would not believe things future, He makes credible what He says from what has happened. Another token He gives to shew how unexpectedly that day shall come, and that He is not ignorant of the day, "Then two shall be in the field, one shall be taken and the other left." These words shew that masters and servants, they that work, and they that work not, shall be taken or left alike.

Or, the two in the field, are the two people of believers and unbelievers, whom the day of the Lord shall overtake, as it were in the labours of this life. And they shall be separated, one being taken and the other left; this shews the separation that shall be between believers and unbelievers; when God's wrath is kindled, the saints shall be gathered into His garner, and the unbelievers shall be left as fuel for the fire from heaven. The same is the account to be given of that, "Two shall be grinding at the mill." The mill is the work of the Law, but as some of the Jews believed through the Apostles, so some shall believe through Elias, and be justified through faith; and one part shall be taken through this same faith of good works, the other part shall be left unfruitful in the work of the Law, grinding in vain, and never to produce the bread of heavenly food.

Or, "Two men in one field" shall be found performing the same labour, sowing corn together, but not reaping the same fruit of their labour. The two "grinding together" we may understand either of the Synagogue and the Church, which seem to grind together in the Law, and to make of the same Scriptures meal of the commandments of God; or of other heresies, which out of both or one Testament, seem to grind meal of their own doctrines.

The "two in one bed" are those who preach alike the Lord's rest after His passion, about which heretics and catholics have the same confession; but because the Catholic Faith preaches the unity of the Godhead of the Father and the Son, and the false creed of the heretics impugns that, therefore shall the Divine judgment decide between the confession of these two by taking one and leaving the other.

Or, these words denote three orders in the Church. "The two men in the field" denote the order of preachers [marg. note: praedicatores], to whom is committed the field of the Church; by "the two grinding at the mill," the order of the married priests [marg. note: conjugati], who while with a divided heart they are called first to one side, then to the other, do, as it were, ever turn round a mill; by "the two in one bed," the order of the continent [marg. note: continentes], whose repose is signified by the bed. But in all these orders are good and bad, righteous and unrighteous, so that some shall be taken, and some left.

Or otherwise; The body is laid as sick on the bed of carnal passions, the soul grinds in the mill of this world, and the bodily senses labour in the field of the world.

In addition to Philip’s conversation, and the Lord’s reply to it, the reader will observe that we have run through John’s Gospel to show that many other passages of a clear purport, both before and after that chapter, are only in strict accord with that single and prominent statement, which must be interpreted agreeably to all other places, rather than in opposition to them, and indeed to its own inherent and natural sense. I will not here largely use the support of the other Gospels, which confirm our belief by the Lord’s nativity : it is sufficient to remark that He who had to be born of a virgin is announced in express terms by the angel himself as the Son of God: “The Spirit of God shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also the Holy Thing that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God .” On this passage even they will wish to r …

When the disciples intend to ask anything, they approach Him together, that by dint of numbers they may abash Him into compliance. They well knew that in what He had said previously, “Of that day knoweth no man” ( Matt. xxiv. 36 ), He had merely declined telling them: therefore they again drew near, and put the question. They would not have put it had they been truly satisfied with that answer. For having heard that they were about to receive the Holy Ghost, they, as being now worthy of instruction, desired to learn. Also they were quite ready for freedom: for they had no mind to address themselves to danger; what they wished was to breathe freely again; for they were no light matters that had happened to them, but the utmost peril had impended over them. …

The emperor, about this period, condemned Eunomius to banishment. This heretic had fixed his residence in the suburbs of Constantinople, and held frequent churches in private houses, where he read his own writings. He induced many to embrace his sentiments, so that the sectarians, who were named after him, became very numerous. He died not long after his banishment, and was interred at Dacora, his birthplace, a village of Cappadocia, situated near Mount Argeus, in the territory of Cæsarea. Theophronius, who was also a native of Cappadocia, and who had been his disciple, continued to promulgate his doctrines. …

Against IV. These statements, too, are akin to the preceding. On the assumption that there has been a mixture, he means that there is a distinction of terms as used both in the holy Gospels and in the apostolic writings. And he uses this language while glorifying himself that he is at war at once with Arius and Eunomius and the rest of the heresiarchs. Let then this exact professor of theology tells us how he would confute the blasphemy of the heretics, while applying to God the Word what is uttered humbly and appropriately by the form of the servant. They indeed while thus doing lay down that the Son of God is inferior, a creature, made, and a servant. …

Now “no man” seems to be a general expression, so that not even one person is excepted by it, but this is not its use in Scripture, as I have observed in the passage “there is none good but one, that is, God.” For even in this passage the Son does not so speak to the exclusion of Himself from the good nature. But, since the Father is the first good, we believe the words “no man” to have been uttered with the understood addition of “first.” So with the passage “No man knoweth the Son but the Father;” even here there is no charge of ignorance against the Spirit, but only a testimony that knowledge of His own nature naturally belongs to the Father first. Thus also we understand “No man knoweth,” to refer to the Father the first knowledge of things, both present and to be, and generally to exhibit to men the first cause. …