Sect. 193Mental Perfection of the Soul of Christ—fulness of Wisdom and Truth—vision of GodMental Perfection of the Soul of Christ—fulness of Wisdom and Truth—vision of God

I. The integrity of Christ’s human nature postulates intellectual cognition by acts of the human intellect. The “Man Christ” is indeed wise by the wisdom of God; yet “the humanity of Christ” knows by its own mental act, not by the act of the Divine nature. All theologians, excepting Hugo of St. Victor, teach that the soul of Christ is elevated to participation in the Divine Wisdom by an infusion of Divine Light—in the same way as other creatures.

II. The Light infused into Christ’s soul was given all at once, as in the case of Adam and of the Angels. So Holy Writ expressly teaches: “Coming into the world, He saith: Sacrifice and oblation Thou wouldest not, but a body Thou hast fitted to me … then I said: Behold I come … that I should do Thy will, O God” (Heb. 10:5–7). St. Jerome explains in the same sense (Jer. 31:22): “A woman shall compass a man.” Christ was a new creation more than Adam and the Angels, and, like them, was made perfect from the beginning. The Divine excellence of His Person required, from the beginning, the consciousness of His dignity; and He would not be the Head of all creations if some creatures at any time surpassed Him in mental perfection.

III. The Light shed on Christ’s intellect by the Logos made it the most perfect image of the Divine Wisdom and Omniscience. Its knowledge embraced God, the universe and its laws, the past, the present, and the future. Such is the sense of John 3:34: “He Whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God, for God doth not give the Spirit by measure (ἐκ μέτρου);” cf. Isa. 11:2, “The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the Spirit of Wisdom,” etc. (see preceding section, n. II.). Knowledge of such perfection was due to the Soul of the Eternal Wisdom, to the Head of all intellectual creatures. Christ manifested it on earth by revealing the secret thoughts of men, and by foretelling future events (Luke 5:7, 8; John 13:11; 2:24, 25, etc.). Christ’s knowledge excludes all and every error and ignorance of fact. Yet it is not infinite. Its limit, however, is only to be found in the “Possibilia,” viz. in the domain of things which are possible to God’s Omnipotence, but are never to be realized: the Divine ideas already realized, or still to be realized, cannot be unknown to the Head of the universe. Nescience of these latter in Christ would amount to positive ignorance, like the ignorance of law in a judge.

The difficulty from Mark 13:32 admits of solution. The Son has no knowledge of the day of judgment which He may communicate, or any knowledge having its source in His human intellect.

IV. The theologians of, at least, the last six centuries, unanimously teach that the fulness of knowledge in the soul of Christ resides in His original and immediate vision of God. The vision of God assimilates to God (deifies) all those who enjoy it: it deifies the soul of Christ to a degree as far superior to any other as the grace of Christ is superior to any other grace.

The fulness of truth and the completeness or consummation of His grace, require that Christ should possess the vision of God. Any knowledge of God inferior to immediate vision is imperfect and unworthy of Christ (1 Cor. 13:9–12). Christ is an eye-witness of things Divine, which the Prophets only knew by revelation (John 1:18; 3:31, 32). He says of Himself: “Amen, amen, I say to thee, We speak what we know, and testify what we have seen” (John 3:11 sqq.) The reason He gives for “having seen” what He testifies, is that He ascended into heaven, which refers to His humanity taken up in the Divinity. Again, Christ’s frequent assertion that He knows the Father and is known by Him, and that He knows what the Father knows, admits of no satisfactory explanation if not understood of the Beatific Vision. Christ’s soul certainly was conscious of its union with the Logos, Whom it knew with perfect, that is, intuitive science; and such science is identical with the Beatific Vision.

It is difficult to reconcile Christ’s life and sufferings on earth with the beatitude demanded by the immediate vision of God. Yet this difficulty has not induced theologians to give up the doctrine in question: their unanimous consent, in spite of the difficulty, is a strong proof of the solidity of the doctrine. The only solution they offer is to the effect that in this greatest of mysteries—the union of the Highest with the lowest in one Person—minor miracles are to be expected as natural concomitants.

V. Although the knowledge possessed by Christ’s human soul in the Beatific Vision comprises eminently all other kinds and degrees of knowledge, it is almost universally admitted that God infused into it a knowledge similar in kind to that of the Angels. The subject-matter of this infused science was the things outside of God, natural and supernatural. These were known in the most perfect manner, intuitively, and, according to some divines, even comprehensively. The existence, however, of infused science in Christ is less certain than His original and continual fruition of the vision of God. It is attributed to Christ on theological grounds only, viz. His soul, the first and most perfect of created Spirits, cannot be deprived of any perfection enjoyed by lower spirits. Besides, a created intellect is simply perfect only when, besides the vision of things in God, it has a vision of things in themselves. God sees all things in Himself comprehensively. Not so the blessed spirits; for these, then, there remains room for another kind of knowledge, and it is meet that Christ should have possessed it. Besides the Divine and the Angelic science, most theologians admit a “science infused per accidens,” similar to that given to our first parents. See, however, St. Thomas, 3, q. 1, a. 2; and on this whole section, 3, qq. 8–12:15, a. 2.