[The following is a copy of a `Catholic Biblic Quarterly' article published in July 1967, by Raymond E. Brown SS, one of the Catholic Church's leading Biblical expersts. I did not scan the references that he refers to in his article, because of the time that would have taken. I believe the article provides a very good understanding of this complex subject.]

Writing this essay has not been an entirely pleasant task. Although today we are not much given to sentiment, there is an almost instinctive distaste for discussing the human limitations of him who is our Lord. It is hard to participate in such a discussion without seeming insufferably arrogant and without offending against the respect, nay adoration, that the figure of Jesus Christ calls forth. Nevertheless, the discussion is going on, and for the exegete not to participate would be a neglect of duty.

Dogmatic theologians, not exegetes, have led the way in the modern discussion of Jesus' human knowledge. If exegetes had begun the discussion, the orientation might have been different. They would probably have tended to start with Heb 4,15 which describes Jesus as "one who has been tempted as we are in ever respect, yet without sinning." As Chalcedon (DS 301) rightly recognized, this means that Jesus is "consubstantial with us according to humanity, similar to us in all things except sin." Ignorance does not seem to be excluded by such a statement; and while there are other statements in the NT that do seem to reject any ignorance on Jesus' part, an exegete working from the evidence supplied by his own field would not have any a priori inclination against seeing limitation in Jesus' knowledge. But the modern discussion that theologians have taken up was already oriented by the medieval theory that Jesus possessed different types of extraordinary knowledge that prevented limitation.  The guiding principle that come down to the theologians was not Heb 4, 15 but: "One cannot deny to Christ any perfection that it was possible for him to have had." One cannot but admire the openness of modern theologians who had the intellectual courage to reexamine these earlier positions that seemed to foreclose any discussion of limitation. Moreover, they have had to reevaluate the many statements of the Church on this question, most of them quite unfavorable to limitation; and only after a very careful historical investigation about what was condemned in the past have they evolved their own theories of Christ's knowledge, theories which, they claim, legitimately allow limitation.

Much that is pertinent biblically to the question of Jesus' knowledge, especially of his knowledge of himself, has been written by Protestant exegetes. However, since they approach the problem without the particular theological background that looms so large in the Catholic study of the problem, their work has been of only limited help to Catholic theologians. Exegetical studies by Catholics of the problem of Jesus' knowledge have been relatively few;" yet it is just such studies that would be of most help to the theologians. One reason for the paucity of these studies is that truly critical NT exegesis has, with some important exceptions, been a reality in Catholic circles only in the last few years; and only critical exegesis would see the limitations attributed to Jesus in the earliest layers of NT tradition. Another reason, however, has been the repercussions that such studies might bring upon their writers, for they leave the writers open to the charge of denying the divinity of Jesus. This is somewhat paradoxical, because only when one has a strong faith in the divinity of Jesus is there a real problem about admitting that his knowledge might have been limited. Those who think of him as a mere man have no problem: his knowledge could not be anything but limited.

         But Catholic exegetes must put aside fear of misunderstanding and mis­representation and take up the study. This is urgent first because they have a duty toward theology. As we shall insist in the conclusion, the biblical evidence does not decide the theological problem or conclusively support one theory over another. Yet  the theologians who are trying to establish the possibility of new answers must have available to them competent critical surveys of the NT evidence in order to see how their theories can be best reconciled with the evidence. Exegetical study is urgent secondly because, in the absence of careful treatments, facile and inexact estimates of the NT picture are circulating among the Catholic public. Newsweek of April 11, 1966 attributed to Catholic scholars two statements on this question-state­ments of a type heard by the present writer in many parts of the country. One was: "Jesus had to discover who he was. He was uncertain of his divine sonship; yet he never abandoned his quest for certainty"; the other was: "I'm sure that Jesus himself was not aware of being God.'  As will become apparent in the course of this essay, I do not believe that scientific  biblical study can substantiate either of these statements; but we must write to that effect or such evaluations will carry the day. Exegetical study of Jesus' knowledge is demanded for a third and final reason: many prob­lems in the history of NT thought can be solved only if we know to what extent Jesus' own knowledge of these problems was limited. How can we trace through the NT a gradual development in the understanding of such topics as Jesus' divinity, the personality of the Spirit, the organization of the Church, eschatology, etc., unless we know whether or not Jesus' formulations about them might have been unclear and limited ? In other words, the failure to tackle the problem of Jesus' knowledge is holding up progress in other NT fields.

The present essay will, to the extent of my ability, be an exercise. of critical exegesis and will admit the possibility that statements attributed to Jesus by the evangelists were not uttered by him or have been substantially modified. Despite the fact that Vatican II gave approval to such exegesis in principle,' many still feel uneasy when a statement is treated in this way; and so at times I shall lean over backwards to see what would be the implication if a dubious statement really were the words of Jesus. In cases where no firm decision about ipsissima verba can be reached, I shall often comment on what the statements attributed to Jesus tell us about the evangelists' attitude toward his knowledge. In view of the delicacy of the subject matter 1 wish to state that I am completely open to correction if my evaluation of the evidence is unsatisfactory either exegetically or because of theological implications. There has been an attempt to combine honesty with circumspection, precisely because I am mindful of the caution the Church has shown in questions of Christ's knowledge. The non-Catholic reader will have to make the effort to understand the treatment in the light of the Catholic problematic.

This study will necessarily seem pointless or objectionable only to the theological positions at the two ends of the spectrum. To the absolute minimalist who thinks that Jesus knew no more than any other man, the attempt to leave place for the divine in his consciousness will seem forced. To the absolute maximalist who says that Jesus was God and therefore knew everything that God knows, the uncovering of evidence of limitation will seem blasphemous? To all the more nuanced positions in between the study will offer evidence that must be faced. If the study has the byproduct of in making Jesus seem more human, this too can be a service to Christian truth. It was Pope Leo the Great who said, "It is as dangerous an evil to deny the truth of the human nature in Christ as to refuse to believe that his glory is equal to that of his Father."

As originally conceived, this survey of the biblical evidence concerning the knowledge of Jesus was to consist of four parts:

I. Jesus' Knowledge of the Ordinary Affairs of Life;

II Jesus' General Knowledge of Religious Matters;

III Jesus' Knowledge of the Future;

IV Jesus' Understanding of Himself and of His Mission.

The full survey will be published elsewhere; and here, because of the limits of the Festschrift, we shall deal only with the last two parts. By way of synopsis, Part I shows that there is an ancient Gospel tradition (e.g., Mk 5,30-33) that accepts without noticeable difficulty normal ignorance on Jesus' part of the ordinary affairs of life. On the other hand Jesus is also presented as a man with more than ordinary knowledge and perception about other men. The latter feature does not exclude the former in great religious and prophetical figures, and thus a combination of the two is almost to be expected in Jesus. Part II shows that in the areas of demonology, the afterlife, and apocalyptic, Jesus seems to draw on the imperfect religious concepts of his time without indication of superior knowledge and without substantially correcting the concepts. In the parts treated below we move from such general areas to areas where the teaching attributed to Jesus has been regarded as unique, outdistancing the ideas of his time.

III. Jesus' Knowledge of the Future

To a certain extent a knowledge of the future might be expected of Jesus since he was described as a prophet (Mk 6,15; Lk 7,16; Jn 6,14). It is a commonplace of modern biblical science that the prophets of the OT were primarily religious reformers involved with their own times who did not spend their lives gazing into the distant future in the manner once thought. Therefore, in that understanding of a prophet, Jesus the prophet would not necessarily have had foreknowledge. But we cannot judge the first-century estimation of Jesus as a prophet from the standpoint of a modern critical understanding of an OT prophet. In post-biblical Judaism a notion of prophecy had evolved that stressed the prophetic foreknowledge of the future. The Qumran pesharim or biblical interpretations suppose that prophets like Habakkuk were really writing about the Qumran community which did not appear till hundreds of years after the prophets' time. Therefore, Jesus' contemporaries' evaluation of him as a prophet may well have connoted a tradition that he knew the future.

But there are difficulties in determining from the Gospels whether and to what extent Jesus actually did know the future. The Gospels were written after most of the events that Jesus is thought to have predicted-all were written after his death and resurrection; Mt, Lk, and Jn were probably written after the fall of Jerusalem. In order to indicate the fulfillment of Jesus' words, the Gospel writers may have clarified those words so that the reader would recognize their nature as prophecy." And so, in the prophecies attributed to Jesus, how much represents the ipsissinta verba and how much represents clarification by the evangelist in the light of the subsequent event? If we do establish that the original statements of Jesus about the future may have been vaguer than they now appear, what is the demarcation line between firm conviction about how things will turn out and real foreknowledge? Genuine detailed foreknowledge is superhuman; unshakeable conviction is not necessarily beyond human powers.

A. Foreknowledge of His Own Passion, Crucifixion, and Resurrection

All the Gospels attribute to Jesus such foreknowledge during his ministry. Yet there is a problem that might make us suspicious a priori of such exact predictions, namely, that the disciples who are supposed to have heard these predictions do not seem to have foreseen the crucifixion even when it was imminent nor to have expected the resurrection (Lk 24,19-26 is typical of the attitude found in all the Gospels). One may attribute this failure to the slowness of the disciples, but one may also wonder if the original predictions were as exact as they have now come to us.

Mk 8,31; 9,31; 10,33-34 and par. On three occasions the Synoptic Gospels report sayings of Jesus foretelling his passion, death, and resurrection. In the first prediction Jesus says that the Son of Man (Mt: he) must suffer many things, be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, be killed, and be raised after three days. The second prediction is less specific, for it simply speaks of action by, men and does not mention the exact officials. The third prediction is the most specific, not only does it mention the officials, but it says that they will condemn him and deliver him to the Gentiles to be mocked, spit upon, and scourged. The Matthean form of the third prediction mentions crucifixion. These three sayings,  Son of Man sayings of the variety that speak of the Son of Man as a suffering  figure on earth. Neither of the two most recent full treatises on the Son of Man consider this class of Son of Man sayings to be genuine words of Jesus. They point out that passages dealing with the suffering Son of Man are not found in the "Q" tradition and that for such sayings we have only the authority of the Marcan tradition. For Todt, if Jesus spoke of a future coming of the Son of Man, he could not have described himself during his ministry as the Son of Man. But there are many other writers, including C. H. Dodd and C. F. D. Moule, who think that suffering was associated with the .Son of Man figure already in Dn 7. Thus the a priori case against the genuineness of the three savings is far from certain.

         The tradition of the three sayings is a very ancient one. Todt himself has shown that the way they describe the passion, death, and resurrection does not come from the Marcan accounts of these events. In other words the evangelist did not first compose an account of the passion, death, and resurrection and then go back and create the prophecies in the light of his account; rather the sayings came to Mk from a pre-Marcan Palestinian formulation. Have we then reason to suspect that these three sayings did not come from   Jesus himself, once we have found inconclusive the argument against the genuineness of suffering Son of Man sayings? There is, of course, the general difficulty mentioned above about the failure of the disciples to understand after such explicit pre­dictions. But there is also a problem created by the evidence of the Johanninetradition. Jn too has three predictions by Jesus that the Son of Man (or Jesus) must be crucified and raised up. In Jn 3,14 Jesus says: "The Son of Man must be lifted up" (also 8,28; 12,32). Jn makes clear that the phrase "lifted up" refers to the crucifixion, but there can be little doubt that the symbolism also includes the resurrection-ascension. But we note that the wording in the Johannine predictions has no details; rather it echoes the vague language of Is 52,13: "Be­hold my servant . . . shall be lifted up." One might suggest that a similarlyvague style of prediction lies behind the Synoptic sayings, perhaps also in OT terms (if Dodd and Moule are right, perhaps in terms of the suffering Son of Man from Dn 7). At least it would be easier to explain how the details were added post eventum in the Synoptic tradition than to postulate that they were lost in the Johannine tradition.In Jn 2,19 Jesus says to the Jewish authorities: "Destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it. up." The evangelist comments that he was talking about his body but that the disciples did not understand until after the resurrection. There is an echo of this saying in the Synoptic tradition (Mk 14,58; Mt 26,61 ; Mk 15,29; M1 27,40), but there the verb is to rebitild rather than to raise up. Thus, the interpretation of this saying as a prediction of Jesus' death and resurrection is peculiar to In and is dependent on the Johannine wording (which, at least in the use of "raise up," is certainly secondary). The fact that a reference to three days appears in both the Synoptic and the Johannine form of the saying does not prove an allusion to Jesus' resurrection, for that phrase could mean simply a short time (Ex 19,11 ; Hos 6,2; Lk 13,32). Thus, this logion cannot be used to establish Jesus' foreknowledge of his crucifixion and resurrection.

In Mt 12,39-40 Jesus offers to the Pharisees the sign of Jonah: "As Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." This is a clear prediction of the resurrection, but comparative Synoptic studies suggest that the Matthean interpretation of the sign is a secondary addition to a more original saying. In the parallel passage, Lk 11,29-30.32, there is another interpretation of the sign, this time in terms of Jonah's preaching: "As Jonah became a sign to the men of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be to this generation ... for they repented at the preaching of Jonah" (the latter clause also appears in Mt 12,41, so Mt has elements of a twofold interpretation). A third form of the saying in Mt 16,4 simply mentions the sign without explaining it, and this may have been the original form of the legion. In that case the two different interpretations taken from the career of Jonah may be alternative explanations of the enigmatic sign that became common in the early Church. Thus, once again, this logion cannot be used to establish Jesus' foreknowledge of his resurrection.

There is a tradition that Jesus knew beforehand that Judas would betray him. Jn 6,70-71 attributes this foreknowledge to Jesus during the ministry; all the Gospels (Mk 14,21 and par.; Jn 13,18.21) report a prediction to this effect at the Last Supper; Mk 14,41; Mt 26,45; and In 18,4 show Jesus aware of imminent betrayal at Gethsemane. The last two groups of logia, at least 'In their Synoptic form, belong to the suffering Son of Man sayings (see the dispute mentioned above). If the agreement of the Synoptic and the Johannine tradition on the existence of such predictions offers at least a probability of their being original (perhaps without the title "Son of Man"), one may still wonder whether this prediction represents supernatural foreknowledge or only a penetrating insight into Judas' character and into the direction in which events were leading (especially if the prediction was made when the treason had already been committed). The evangelists seem to take the former option, but we may recall that Jn 12,6 describes Judas as previously corrupt. In any case we could scarcely base a theory of Jesus' foreknowledge on these sayings alone.

Summing up the question of Jesus' foreknowledge of his passion, crucifixion, and resurrection, we find it difficult to be categorical. Modern criticism would cast doubt on a foreknowledge of the details, but we should not undervalue the general agreement of the Gospel tradition that Jesus was convinced beforehand that, while his life would be taken from him, God would ultimately vindicate him (see also Lk 17,25; Mk 10,45). It may be difficult to prove scientifically that any one saying represents the ipsissima verba of Jesus, but are we to suppose that this conviction about death and victory was spontaneously attributed to Jesus in the divergent traditions? One may argue that the attribution of predictive ability to Jesus was part of Church apologetics, but is it riot just as reasonable to argue that the Church merely embellished with details a genuine tradition in which Jesus predicted that he would die at the hands of men and be made victorious by God ? Such a prediction could have come from his interpretation of the OT (e.g., of Is, and perhaps of Dn) and would not presuppose superhuman knowledge. It could represent the unshakeable conviction of a man who was sure that he knew God's plan. A similar conviction can be found in the career of Jeremiah and in Deutero-Isaiah's portrayal of the Servant.

If we suppose that beforehand Jesus had a conviction that God's victorious reign could be brought about only by his death, can anything be said about when he got such a conviction ? Undoubtedly Catholic writers of an earlier generation would have assumed that Jesus always knew he would have to die, but today some are beginning to suggest a psychological development of knowledge through various stages of the ministry. One popular thesis is that at first Jesus hoped to bring about God's reign through his preaching and miracles, but the discouragement of being rejected by the crowds and having the parables misunderstood led Jesus to realize that his own death would be required. J. S. Dunne has suggested that it was probably when John the Baptist was killed by Herod that Jesus realized a similar fate awaited him.

         While there is a certain attraction to such theses, since they fit Jesus into an understandable psychological pattern, we must recognize that there is simply no scientific way to prove them. They are really exercises of the imagination. For instance, the fact that in the Synoptic tradition (Mk 8,31 and par.) the first detailed prediction of death and resurrection occurs after the death of John the Baptist really proves nothing, for the form critical 'analysis of the Gospels warns us against supposing that the individual sayings of Jesus are reported in their original sequence. And even if one argues that "substantially" the Synoptic order is true to history, one must face the objection that there are in the Gospels vaguer but unmistakable predictions of Jesus' death earlier in the ministry. We have already seen that in records two predictions of death (2,19-22 ; 3,14) before the arrest of the Baptist (see 3,24). The Synoptics (Mk 2,20 and par.) also record a prediction before the death of the Baptist: "The day will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast."21 Cullmann21 and many others think that already from the time of his baptism the whole plan of salvation was laid out before Jesus, including his death; certainly the reference to "the lamb of God" in Jn 1,29 may be interpreted in this way. Lk 2,33-35 would seem to attribute a premonition of death to the period of Jesus' infancy. We are not suggesting that these remembrances of early predictions of death are necessarily historical-some of them are not, and that is why, on the other side of the question, the Gospels do not prove that Jesus always knew he would be put to death. But it is clear from such passages that the evangelists were aware of no tradition that only late in his ministry did Jesus become aware that he must suffer and die. Scripture alone neither favors nor disproves a theory that posits a psychological development of Jesus' knowledge of what lay in store for him.

B. Foreknowledge of the Destruction of Jerusalem

Another classical prophecy attributed to Jesus is that he predicted the destruction of Jerusalem. We have already discussed the prediction or threat about the destruction of the Temple; but this can scarcely be used as an example of successful prophecy, for it is in no way apparent how Jesus fulfilled the second part of the prediction about rebuilding the Temple in three days. The early Church had to reinterpret the saying in order to see a fulfillment . Let us concentrate here on the predictions of the destruction of Jerusalem in the Synoptic eschatological discourse.

First, the passage in Mk 13,14 and par. This could be considered as a clear prophecy only in the Lucan wording. In Mk 13,14 Jesus speaks obscurely of the desolating sacrilege set up where it ought not to be. Mt 24,15 clarifies (correctly) by explaining the "desolating sacrilege" is the one spoken of by Daniel the prophet (Dn 9,2". 12,11). Since Dn referred to the profanation of the Temple altar by Antiochus Epiphanes, Mt continues the explanation by identifying Mk's "where it ought not to be" as the holy place or Temple. Thus, Mk and Mt agree in having Jesus figuratively predict a profanation of the Temple. But ill Lk 21,20 Jesus says: "When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near." Some would see here a clear prediction of the Roman capture of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.

From a critical viewpoint many have suggested that Lk rewrote the earlier and vaguer prediction after the destruction of Jerusalem, and so we have a vaticiniunt ex eventu. But C. H. Dodd has shown that such a suggestion is unnecessary. The Lucan description need not flow from a post factum knowledge of the tragedy of 70; rather its vocabulary is that of the prophetic description of the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in the sixth century B.C. Thus, while in Mk and Mt the prototype Jesus offers for the coming disaster stems from the havoc Antiochus Epiphanes wrought in Jerusalem, the prototype in Lk is a more ancient disaster. Yet even were the Lucan saying faithful to the original words of Jesus, Dodd's very argument would imply that it is not a prophecy that demands exact knowledge of the future. Like Jeremiah and Ezekiel, Jesus would be threatening disaster to a rebellious Jerusalem, and he would be using traditional language to do so. The saying would not indicate that he knew when or how this disaster would come about.Another expression of Jesus' general conviction of impending disaster for Jerusalem can be found, in his prediction that the great buildings of the Temple would be destroyed and that not one stone would be left upon another (Mk 13,2 and par.). If anyone would propose that this represented an exact foreknowledge of what would happen in 70, he need simply be reminded that the gigantic blocks of the Temple foundation are still standing firmly one upon the other in Jerusalem.

Thus, in the two instances of Jesus' knowledge of the future that we have studied, the Gospel evidence when critically examined would demand no more than that Jesus have had firm general convictions about the unrolling of God's plan in a way that would lead to death and victory foi- him and to punishment for Jerusalem, This type of conviction is characteristic of the OT, prophets. Neither in their case nor in Jesus' case do we have really scientific proof for a detailed foreknowledge of unpredictable future events, a foreknowledge that could be given by God alone.

C. Foreknowledge of the Parousla

This aspect of Jesus' foreknowledge reflects in a different way on the total problem of whether and how his knowledge was limited, The instances dealt with above concerned predictions of things that actually happened; here we are concerned with the prediction of something that has not happened, and we must ask whether Jesus claimed to know when it would happen or mistakenly expected it to happen within a short time. We shall group here statements about the coming of the Son of Man, about the return of Jesus, and about the coming of the kingdom of God in power. The divergence in these statements presents a very complicated situation that we cannot possibly hope to solve, but it will be very useful to classify the different temporal aspirations that seem to be involved in these statements.

1. ANTICIPATIONS OF AN IMMEDIATE PAROUSIA:

(a) A parousia during the ministry. In Mt 10,23 Jesus instructs the Twelve to go to Israel and to preach (in the parallel in Mk 6,7.30 the scene is one of his sending them two by two into the towns of Galilee). Jesus warns them that they will meet persecution, but he assures them: "When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next; for truly, 1 assure you, you will riot have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes." Combining the Matthean and Marcan versions, A. Schweitzer put forward his famous theory that Jesus expected the parousia before the Twelve had finished their Galilean mission. When they returned without this having happened, disappointment brought Jesus to realize that his death would be necessary to bring about God's intervention. Today few would follow Schweitzer in this interpretation. The Matthean and Marcan scenes cannot be combined. The setting of Mt 10 (e.g., references to persecution by synagogues, governors, and kings in vv. 17-18) is that of the later Church; and in its present form, at least, 10,23 must be understood in that atmosphere and not as a reference to an expectation within the ministry of Jesus. The Palestinian church is assuring itself that, despite persecution, it will not have exhausted all possibilities of preservation before the Son of Man comes.

(b) A parousia immediately after Jesus' death. This seems to be the import of Jn 14,3 where Jesus says that he is departing, but he will return to take his disciples along with him. A comparison with 1 Thes 4,16-17 suggests that Christians would have understood this return in terms of the parousia. M. E. Boismard has argued that 14,3 represents one of the oldest eschatological strains in Jn. An interpretation of parousia right after death might be placed on the words of Jesus to the high priest in Mk 14,62: "You will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand c Power and coming with the clouds of heaven. Mk14,25 and Lk 23,4-13 are other passages that would be most intelligible if Jesus expected immediate victory after death. All of this would fit in with a theory that Jesus did not know precisely what form his victory over death would take. As a Jew, one might conjecture, he spoke of this victory in terms of the imagery of Dn and the coming of the Son of Man, whereas it was the resurrection that took place after his death, and the parousia remained in the future. One cannot refute scientifically the possibility of such a theory, nor can one prove it. All of the statements given above are capable of other interpretations, and no one of them specifies the precise moment of the coming of the Son of Man.

2.    ANTICIPATIONS THAT IMPLY AN INTERIM BETWEEN JESUS' DEATH AND THE PAROUSIA:

This view is supported by many texts that never mention the parousia; for an interim is implied by all references to a church or a community life, a mission of the disciples to Israel or beyond; by the growth parables; by the orders to baptize and to commemorate Jesus in the Eucharist, etc.

(a) A parousia in the lifetime of Jesus' hearers. There are two famous passages in Mk that support this:

Mk 13,30 and par. "Truly, I assure you, this generation will not pass away before all these things take place." In the present context "these things" would have to include the coming of the Son of Man described in 13,2b. But for an inquiry about the original meaning the present context has little value, for most scholars recognize that the eschatological discourse in Mk 13 is a collection of once independent savings. A. Vogtle, in the latest Catholic treatment of the logion, agrees with Taylor and a host of Protestant scholars that the original reference of "these things" was to the destruction of the Temple mentioned in 13,2a. All efforts to explain away the temporal limits of the saying by claiming that "this generation" refers to the existence of mankind are refuted, in my judgment, by the closely parallel saying we cite next.

Mk 9,1 (Vulgate 8,31). "Truly, I assure you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God conic with Power." Mt 16,28 offers an interpretation of what Mk's last clause implies ; it reads: “before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom." In order to avoid the implication that the parousia will take place while some of Jesus' hearers are alive, some scholars question Mt's interpretation and suggest that the saying does not refer to the parousia, or that it is inauthentic or a secondary rewriting of Mk 13,30 and referred originally to the destruction of the Temple (so Vogtle).

In addition to the Marcan tradition, there is some Johannine support for this early anticipation of the parousia. This is of interest because the general Johannine tendency has been to reinterpret parousia expectations in terms of realized eschatology.

Jn 1,51 : "Truly, I assure you, you will see the sky opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man." This saying might have been listed among those that imply a parousia during the ministry; but it is probably an independent saying, out of place in its present context, and all that we can tell from it is that Jesus' disciples are promised a vision of the (seemingly) victorious Son of Man.

Jn 21,22: "If it is my will that he.[the Beloved Disciple] remain until I come, how does that concern you?" The obvious import of the saying is that Jesus will return during the Disciple's lifetime, and this is how Christians interpreted it. But since the Beloved Disciple was dying or dead, the johannine author of ch. 21 employs casuistry to show that Jesus' promise was not absolute.

If one accepts such logia without reinterpretation, one can be certain that neither of the Marcan sayings was a late creation; for from the 60s on, when the apostolic generation was dying out, such statements became a problem precisely because they were not fulfilled.36 They are either substantially ipsissiiiza verba of Jesus or the composition of the first generation. One might theorize that the first generation, puzzled by the fact that the parousia did not take place immediately, consoled itself by the assurance that it would at least come in its lifetime. However, the reason that causes many scholars not to regard the in as ipsissima verba or at least to claim that they were not originally a reference to the parousia is the theological thesis that Jesus could not have been mistaken about the time of an event which, de facto, did not take place during the lifetime of his hearers.

(b) A parousia delayed and preceded by apocalyptic signs. These notions do not have to go together, but the mention of a great number of apocalyptic signs before the parousia does give the impression that it is not coming too soon (see reasoning in 2 Thes 2,3ff.). The eschatological discourse in Mk 13, Mt 24-25, and Lk 21 lists the signs that will precede the coming of the Son of Man, e.g., false messiahs, persecution, war, and cosmic cataclysms. While these chs. open with the question of the destruction of the Temple, they treat both of the punishment of Jerusalem and the parousia, and it is very difficult to interpret what the apocalyptic signs were originally meant to precede. Moreover, many would think that such sayings did not come from Jesus but from the Palestinian church, using the language of Jewish apocalyptic and seeking to console itself when the master did not return. There are also a group of sayings that specifically refer to a delay of the parousia without invoking apocalyptic, e.g., Mt 24,48; 25,5.19.

(c) A parousia the time of which cannot be foretold. A group of sayings insist that the disciples cann-ot know when the Lord is coming-his coming will be like that of a thief in the night or the unexpected return of a master (Mt 24,42-44 = Lk 12,39-40; Mt 24,50 = Lk 12,46; Mt 25,13). Lk17,20-21 is particularly interesting in the light of the references to apocalyptic signs cited above: "The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed . . . . The kingdom of God is in the midst of you." Which is the more original strain in Jesus' teaching? Even more famous is Mk 13,32 which implies that Jesus himself did not know when all these things would come to pass: "Of that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." Some have questioned the authenticity of the saying because it is the only place in Mk that Jesus speaks of himself absolutely as "the Son," and indeed that might be a late feature. Others have thought that the early Church attributed the saying to Jesus to explain the seeming contradictions among his predictions. One is certain, however, that it ran. against the grain of the Church to attribute ignorance to Jesus, and most authors would accept the saying as authentic.

How can one establish the original outlook of Jesus amidst such a confusion of expectations? Undoubtedly some of the confusion can reasonably be explained away. Seeming contradictions are often created by the microscopic analysis to which we subject Gospel passages, and at times they can be solved by common sense. It cannot be doubted that some of the confusion that now appears was caused by early Christians who reinterpreted Jesus' statements in the light of traditional eschatological expectations. In particular, it seems plausible that statements that once referred to the coming of the Son of Man in judgment on Jerusalem have been reinterpreted to refer to the parousia in glory (so A. Feuillet, and John A. T. Robinson). Yet, with all these allowances, one finds it difficult to believe that Jesus' own position was clear. The NT Epistles give independent evidence of the confusion that reigned in first-century thought about the parousia; and, salvo meliore judicio, such confusion could scarcely have arisen if Jesus both knew about the indefinite delay of the Parousia and expressed himself clearly on the subject.

Since it is not reasonable to suppose that he knew about the parousia but for some mysterious reason expressed himself obscurely, one is almost forced to take at face value the admission of Mk 13,32 that Jesus did not know when the parousia would take place. Many Catholics are willing to accept this today, but on this very basis they explain away the statements that attribute to Jesus the expectation of an immediate parousia or of one within the lifetime of his disciples. B. Rigaux distinguishes between what Jesus taught (namely, that he did not know the time of the parousia) and what he hoped for in an apocalyptic setting (namely, a parousia soon). Vogtle rightly objects that the statements that refer to a parousia within a short time are not especially apocalyptic and are clearly taught, e.g., they are preceded by "Truly, I assure you." Yet Vogtle himself manages to explain away all reference to the parousia in the promises of what will happen in the lifetirrie of Jesus' hearers. Is it totally inconceivable that, since Jesus did not know when the parousia would occur, he tended to think and say that it would occur soon? Would riot the inability to correct contem­porary views on this   be the logical effect of ignorance?

That God would make Jesus victorious and would eventually establish his own reign was a basic conviction of Jesus' life and mission, Because there is evidence, nay even a statement, that Jesus did not know when the ultimate victory would take place, many Catholic theologians would propose that such knowledge was not an essential of Jesus' mission. Could theologians then also admit that Jesus was not protected from the confused views of his era about the time of the parousia? An exegete cannot solve such a question; lie can only point out the undeniable confusion in the statements attributed to Jesus.

1V. Jesus' Understanding of Himself and of His Mission

We come now to the most sensitive of all areas-an area with theological repercussions for the understanding of the hypostatic union and an area where the Church has shown herself consistently opposed to a minimalist solution. The modern biblical discussions in this area have centered on the titles of Christ (whether he himself claimed to be the Messiah, the Son of Man, the Son of God, God, etc.). In this essay we cannot attempt even to summarize what has been written on these subjects. Practicality demands that we be selective; and so we have chosen one title, "Messiah," that might be a key to Jesus' knowledge of his salvific mission to men, and another title, "Son of God," that might be a key to Jesus' knowledge of his relationship to Yahweh.

A. Jesus as the Messiah

There are two questions that we must keep distinct: (1) In what way did the early Christians accept Jesus as the Messiah? (2) When and/or to what extent did Jesus think of himself as the Messiah?

1. There is no doubt that the early Church confessed Jesus as the Messiah. A Christian was one who accepted Jesus as Messiah, and so popular was this designation of Jesus that "Christ" became part of his name. Yet within the NT there are conflicting indications as to what facet of Jesus' career brought men to confess him as Messiah. One is tempted to take these indications and to arrange them so that NT Christology develops from earlier inadequate concepts to later adequate concepts. Yet, while one may suspect that certain Christologies are more primitive than others, we cannot be certain of a sequence, nor that adequate and inadequate views did not originate at the same time. (The very use of the term reflects the judgment of later orthodoxy.)

There arc two christologies best attested in the kerygmatic sermons that Acts dates to the early days of the Church; and so for external as well as internal reasons these christologies are considered primitive. According to Acts 3,20-21, when Jesus comes back from heaven in the parousia, he will be the appointed Messiah sent by God. The earthly ministry of Jesus was only a preparation for his coming as the Messiah expected in Jewish thought, i.e., a Messiah coming to earth in power and glory. The future moment in which Jesus will appear is described as the time when there will be established "all that God spoke by the mouth of his prophets from of old." This has been called the oldest christology in the NT, for it implies virtually no change from the best-established late Jewish expectations of the Messiah. The other christology is voiced in Acts 2,36 (cf. also 5,31) which says that it is the risen-ascended Jesus whom God has made Messiah. God seated the risen Jesus at his right hand, and this glorification made him Messiah. Here we have a partial modification of the Jewish concept: the Messiah remains a glorious, victorious figure, but his reig-n is in heaven, not on earth.

In the christology of the Gospels Jesus is seen as Messiah during his public ministry. The classical text for this appears in the Synoptic scene of Peter's confession (Mk 8,29 and par.). It is interesting to note, however, that the Johannine form of this scene (6,69) does not mention Messiah but "the Holy One of God; the Johannine confession of Jesus as the Messiah occurs when Andrew speaks to Peter ( 1,41 ; also 11,27). Such christology required a radical reinterpretation of the Jewish concept of Messiah, a reinterpretation in terms of a suffering figure. This is implied in the relationship between the messianic confession in Mk 8,29 and the first of the predictions of the passion, death, and resurrection of the Son of Man in 8,31.

All of the messianic theories thus far mentioned allow of (or, in the case of the first two, imply) an adoptionist interpretation-there was a time when Jesus was not the Messiah; he became or would become Messiah. Adoptionism is ruled out in the infancy narratives of Mt and Lk where it is proposed that Jesus was the Messiah from the time of his incarnation. Obviously here we are moving toward a divine Messiah.

This diversity of early Christian views would, a priori, make one think that Jesus himself did not make lucidly affirmative messianic claims during his ministry. The standard explanation, however, has been that his lucid claims were not understood because of the obtuseness or hardness of heart of his hearers. It is suggested that it took time for the Jewish presuppositions -about the Messiah to be modified and tailored to suit Jesus' career, so that men could  recognise him as Messiah.

2. When we turn to the question of Jesus' thought about himself as the Messiah, we are in an area for which Scripture gives us little evidence. Even if the infancy narratives are accepted at face value, they do not directly answer the question of whether the young Jesus (in the womb [!], as an infant, or after the age of reason) thought of himself as the Messiah. If we turn to the Gospel accounts of the ministry, a frequently proposed, sophisticated thesis is that Jesus' baptism revealed to him that he was the Messiah. However, such a thesis faces two formidable objections from modern biblical science.

First, the thesis presupposes that Jesus did accept Messiah as a designation for himself. Often in Catholic circles it is not sufficiently emphasized that in the oldest tradition of Peter's confession (Mk 8,29; Lk 9,20)4C Jesus did not affirm Peter's estimate of him as the Messiah, but ordered silence and spoke of suffering.

To the point-blank question of the high priest, "Are you the Messiah?" Jesus answers in a qualified manner, "You have said so." This probably means that, while Jesus will not refuse the title and thus deny his unique role before the high priest, nevertheless, the phraseology is not what we would spontaneously choose and he is not happy about its implications. At any rate, Jesus is depicted as answering the high priest, not by quoting a passage about the Messiah but by quoting a passage about the Son of Man.

Only in one instance in the Gospels does Jesus accept the title of Messiah without reservation (Jn 4,25-26). Even if one accepts this dialogue between Jesus and the Samaritan woman as straight historical material (an assumption not to be made lightly in peculiarly Johannine material), one must recognize that he is accepting a Samaritan concept of Messiaship, which was apparently less nationalistic than the Jewish concept. In Mt 23,10 Jesus indirectly identifies himself as the Messiah: he instructs the disciples that they are not to be called masters, for they have one master, the Messiah (= Jesus, presumably). This passage appears only in Mt, and the situation envisaged seems to be that of the later Church. One would be hard put to defend this saying as the unvarnished ipsissimta verba of Jesus.

It is possible that this consideration of the problems in the individual passages does not do justice to the totality of the evidence and that more emphasis should be put on the argument that Jesus would not have been so universally acclaimed as Messiah in the early Church if he had been so wary of the title. Nevertheless, at least an intelligent case can be made out for the thesis that Jesus never really accepted Messiah as a correct or adequate designation for his role, even though he would not categorically refuse the title.

Second, the thesis is objectionable because it is impossible from the biblical accounts to tell whether the baptism revealed anything at all to Jesus. The speculation behind the thesis is that Jesus came to John the Baptist as one among a crowd, not knowing himself to be different from the others or, at least, not knowing in what way he was different. At the baptism he was told by God: "You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased," and thus lie learned that he was the Messiah. The difficulty of establishing scientifically the historical character of a theophany is enormous; but leaving that aside, let us ask whether the thesis of a revelation to Jesus corresponds with the intent of tile narratives. Certainly it does not correspond with Mt and Lk, for the existence of infancy narratives in these Gospels means that the two evangelists did not think of  baptism as a first revelation to Jesus. One may argue that in Mk the situation is different; and also in Mk (alone) both the vision and the voice in the baptismal scene are directed to Jesus. Yet the variance between Mk and the other Gospels on the latter point is not really meaningful, for the scene is not directed to Jesus but to the Christian reader of the Gospel. It is designed to tell him at the beginning of the Gospel and on the highest authority who Jesus is, namely, the Messiah, and the Servant of Yahweh, and God's own Son. D. E. Nineham has summed up the situation admirably: "He [Mark] makes no attempt, for example, to say what effect these events had on Jesus himself; did they, for example, constitute a 'call' or a sudden revelation about himself, or only a confirmation of views he had already formed about himself? On the basis of St Mark's account it is impossible to be sure and even idle to speculate."

To sum up the question of Jesus as the Messiah, it is dubious whether we should speak in any strict sense of "messianic" knowledge on Jesus' part since he may never have really identified his role as that of the Messiah. (We are not denying of course, the existence of a more basic problem that one often speaks of as "messianic" consciousness: Jesus' consciousness of himself as the unique salvific agent-see below.) Moreover, any attempt to trace a beginning or development of a "messianic" claim runs afoul of the complete lack of evidence for this type of speculation.

B. Jesus as the Son of God

Often theologians prefer to study the problem of Jesus' knowledge of his divinity in terms of the question: "Did Jesus know he was God?" From a biblical viewpoint this question is so badly phrased that it cannot be answered and should not be posed. The NT does call Jesus "God,” but this is a development of the later NT books. In the Gospels Jesus never uses the title "God" of himself; indeed in Mk 10,18 (a text that is almost certainly a genuine saying of Jesus) he refuses to be given a mark of respect that belongs to God alone. There are many passages in the NT writings that distinguish between God and Jesus. We do not mean that such passages prove that Jesus was not God; rather they reflect the terminological problem in the question that we are asking. For the Jew "God" meant God the Father in heaven; and to apply this term to Jesus who was not the Father and who had come down to earth made no sense. Later, precisely under the necessity of giving proper honor to Jesus, especially ill the liturgy, it was understood that "God" was a broader term that could include both the Father and Jesus. This designation became more frequent for Jesus ill the last third of the first century, as far as our evidence permits us to determine.

Therefore, when we ask whether during his ministry Jesus, a Palestinian Jew, knew that he was God, we are asking whether he identified himself and the Father-and, of course, he did not. Undoubtedly some would wish to attribute to Jesus an anticipated understanding of the later broadness of the term "God (or, indeed, expect him to speak in trinitarian terminology), but can serious scholars simply presume that Jesus could speak and think in the vocabulary and philosophy of later times? And does one ignore a text like Mk 10,18?

In a biblical framework it is preferable to discuss the question of Jesus' divinity in terms of his claiming to be the unique Son of God. That the early Church confessed Jesus as the Son of God is admitted by all, and this confession may be quite ancient (see 1 Thes 1,10 and Acts 9,20).11 Does it have its roots in the way Jesus described himself? To prevent confusion, it is well to remind ourselves that "son of God" is a sonlewhat ambiguous term, for often it does not mean real divine filiation but only a special relationship to God (e.g., the OT use of the term for angels, the king, and the nation of Israel). In particular, in the NT it appears as a messianic designation, flowing from its use in the OT for the king;11 such a usage would collie under our previous discussion of Jesus as Messiah.

For our purposes the question "Did Jesus consider himself the Son of God?" must refer to a unique sonship that is not shared by ordinary men. To support an affirmative answer to the question it has been customary to argue that Jesus spoke of God as ”my Father” and that he never joined himself to others in speaking of "our Father." The argument is not without weakness. First of all, the expression "my Father" never appears in Mk; it appears only four times in Lk; the frequent usage is a Matthean feature, and for not a single one of the Matthean usages of "my Father" is there a Synoptic parallel. Moreover, if in Mt Jesus speaks of "my Father," he also speaks frequently to his disciples of "your Father." What right has the exegete to assume that "my Father" implies a more intimate relationship to God than "your Father" Implies ? J Jeremias has argued eloquently that Jesus' custom of addressing God as "Abba" ("Father") in prayer is distinctive; the Aramaic word is a caritative (= "Daddy") and implies familiar, family rclationship. Since this is undoubtedly one of the ipsissima verba of Jesus, one must admit that Jesus claimed a special relationship to God as his Father beyond the general relationship postulated in contemporary Judaism. But Jesus offered to share this relationship with his followers: he taught them to pray to God as "Abba" (Lk 11,2, the original form of the address in the Lord's Prayer84) and they carried this custom even into the Greek-speaking world (Gal 4,6; Rom 8,15). The Johannine tradition also implies a sharing of sonship, for the Prologue (1,12) speaks of all who believe in Jesus' name becoming children of God. In Jn 20,17 the risen Jesus says: "I am ascending to my Father and your Father." Drawing on the analogy of a similar phrase in Ru 1,16, F-M. Catharinet has shown that Jesus means "my Father who is now your Father" -through the post-resurrectional gift of the Spirit, God becomes the Father of those who believe in Jesus. Now some of the NT theologians carefully distinguished between the type of sonship that Jesus communicated to those who believed in him and Jesus' own divine sonship that was unique. Yet it is not easy to prove scientifically that such a distinction existed in Jesus' own words and promises. At 1east, however, one may suspect that if Jesus presented himself as the first of many to stand in a new and special relationship to God as Father, that very claim implies that his sonship was in some way, superior to the sonship of all who would follow him.

Perhaps the proof we seek can be found if we turn from the passages where Jesus speaks of God as Father to the passages where he speaks of himself as Son. Are there any instances in the Synoptic accounts of the ministry where Jesus speaks of himself absolutely as "the Son" of God ? There is one instance in the "Q" tradition and one instance in Mk. The former is the famous "Johanine" logion shared by Mt 11,27 and Lk 10,22: "No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him." This saying, so Johannine in style, has many Semitic features and could well be an adapted form of an original saying of Jesus. We say "adapted" because J. Jeremias has made a very convincing suggestion that the original was parabolic in style. Jesus is drawing on the maxim that a father and son know each other intimately and a soli is the best one to reveal the innermost thoughts of the father. In this case, the definite article before "Son" is the definite article of parabolic style indicating a generic situation, e.g., "The sower went out to sow seed." English tends to use an indefinite article in such a situation, but the definite article is good Aramaic. This suggestion makes us wary of assuming that Jesus meant to describe himself as "the Son" in an absolute sense (although that is not excluded since many of the parables have allegorical features as well and Jesus could be playing on his being "the Son").

The other saying is Mk 13,32: "Of that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." It is curious that the very passage that speaks of Jesus absolutely as the Son of God is the most famous passage in the Gospels for indicating that Jesus' knowledge was limited ! We discussed this passage above and saw that it is not without difficulty. Another Synoptic passage that s thought to claim unique sonship for Jesus occurs ill the Parable of the Vinedressers. There the son (= Jesus) who is finally sent tocollect the rent, only to be killed, is designated as "uniquely beloved" (agapitos) in Mk 12,6 and Lk 20,13. Although the indirectness of the description of Jesus is a difficulty, the fact that agap~tos tends to be used for an only son would make this an extremely important passage were not agapitos missing from the Matthean form of the parable (21,37). The form without agapitos may well be original, for it is easier to posit an addition by the other traditions than an omission by Mt.

To sum up, the way in which Jesus speaks of God as Father certainly indicates that he claimed a special relationship to God. But it remains difficult to find in the Synoptic account of the public ministry an incontrovertible proof that he claimed a unique sonship that other men could not share. However, it may well be here that the quest for absolutely scientific proof causes us to miss the woods for the trees. One could argue for a convergence of probabilities that Jesus did claim to be God's unique Son. It is when we stand before such a question that we realize the frustrating limitations imposed on research by the nature of the material we work with -material magnificently illuminated by post-resurrectional faith, but for that very reason far from ideal for scientific study.

And jjust this difficulty has forced us to ignore two bodies of Gospel material which, if taken at face value, could settle the question of whether Jesus claimed a unique divine sonship. There is absolutely no doubt that the Jesus of the Fourth Gospel claims to be God's Son who alone has seen and heard God and who has come to earth to reveal God to man. He even describes himself as God's "only Son." The present writer believes strongly that there is a core of historical material in the Fourth Gospel, but he also recognizes that this material has been rethought in the light of late first century theology. The Gospel was written to prove that Jesus is the Son of God, and the evangelist accomplishes this by letting Jesus speak as he is now in glory. The words may often be the words of Jesus of the ministry, but they are suffused with the glory of the risen Jesus. The use of Jn to determine scientifically how much Jesus knew of himself during his lifetime is far more difficult than the use of the other Gospels.

         The second body of material to which we refer consists of the two, independent infancy narratives of '.\It and Lk. These agree that Jesus is God's Son in a unique manner, for God Himself begot Jesus. The virgin birth reflects indirectly on Jesus' knowledge of his sonship, for in the scheme of these two Gospels one could scarcely imagine that Mary would riot have told Jesus of his divine pa­ternity (or of his messiahship). Despite the fact that there are undoubtedly some very old Semitic in these infancy narratives, most non-Catholiccritics do not consider them seriously as sources for the life of Jesus; and there are conflicts between the infancy narratives and the Gospel accounts of the ministry. There has been little in the way of truly critical Catholic study of these narratives and until that has been done, Catholic scholarship is hampered in judging how much they can contribute to a scientific solution of the problem under consideration.

C.    A Better Approach to the Problem

Before we close this discussion of Jesus' understanding of himself, we .should like to suggest sorne very important distinctions, one theological and one exegetical, that may supply a key to the whole problem.

First, in the theological field. Often a certain confusion is introduced into the discussion of this topic by the equation of consciousness and knowledge. The question "Did Jesus identify himself as Messiah ?" is described as the question of Jesus' messianic self-consciousness. Yet consciousness is not always the same as express knowledge; and while a study of the Messiah passages in the Gospels may tell us whether or not Jesus expressed himself in terms of Messiahship, this study need not necessarily tell us much about his self-consciousness. Without embarking on a psychological discussion, perhaps we may say that consciousness is often an intuitive awareness and thus is distinct from an ability to express by formulating concepts and words, which is generally what people mean when they speak of knowledge. In human experience, especially in artistic matters or in one's awareness of oneself, there may be a lag between consciousness and express knowledge-one may be vividly conscious of something long before one finds a reasonably adequate way to express that consciousness.

Of the two titles we have discussed, we chose "Messiah" because it was an early formulation for describing Jesus in his salvific mission to men. Now we have seen that in the Gospels there is insufficient evidence that Jesus claimed the title or that he fully accepted it when it was offered to him. But this would not necessarily imply that he had no consciousness of a salvific mission to men (the type of mission that the Church called Messiahship when it had reinterpreted that term in a spiritual way). It could simply mean that he found Messiahship, as the term was understood in his time, an inadequate way to give expression to the mission of which lie was conscious. One might ask about other titles given to Jesus by the Church, e.g., Suffering Servant. or Savior. Again scholars would argue whether or not Jesus himself ever formulated his mission in such terms; but even if one thought that Jesus did not use such formulations, the question of his consciousness of a mission would not be solved.

         If we turn to the title "Son of God," the question of Jesus' consciousness of a special relationship to God is not solved negatively if we cannot prove in a fully scientific manner that he claimed to be the unique Son of God. In the judgment of the later Church, "Son" was accepted as a reasonably adequate image through which to describe Jesus' relationship to Yahweh, but it is possible that in his lifetime Jesus never came to full use of this image. Still this does not necessarily mean that he was not conscious of the reality behind the relationship we call Sonship. In scholastic terminology concepts like "Son" and "Messiah" are the products of the intellect, and man is said to come into the world with an intellect that is a tabula rasa. Against Apollinarianism the Church maintained that Jesus had a human soul and thus a human intellect (DS 146). Can theology admit that this intellect Was also a tabula rasa, activated not by infused knowledge but by human experiences, as are other men's intellects? In this case it would have taken Jesus time to formulate concepts, and lie might have found some of the concepts of his day inadequate to express what he wanted to say. One would then be able to say that his knowledge was limited, but such limitation would not at all exclude an intuitive consciousness of a unique relationship to God and of a unique mission to men." The struggle of his life could have been one of finding the concepts and the words to express that relationship -and that mission. Proving such a theory obviously goes far beyond the task and the capabilities of exegesis. For the most part exegesis can explore only the end product, i.e., the formulation and words used by Jesus. But we do wish to insist that if exegesis gives us a picture of rather limited formulations, one should not jump to conclusions about consciousness.

Second, in the exegetical field. Since formulation is to some extent reflective of consciousness, perhaps if Messiahship and Sonship have not proved sufficiently fruitful fields of investigation, we are not approaching the problem of formulation correetly. These titles were certainly popular in the early Church; yet our precise difficulty is that there are relatively few passages in the oldest Synoptic tradition wherein Jesus could be considered to accept the title of Messiah or to describe himself as the unique Son of God. Suppose that instead of starting out with a prefabricated question, we begin by studying the most ancient Gospel traditions to see how Jesus does describe his mission and his relationship to God. There we might have sufficient formulation to tell us something about his consciousness of himself.

I do not plan here to go into great detail, but it seems that an irreducible historical minimum in the Gospel presentation of Jesus is that he claimed to be the unique agent in the process of establishing God's kingship over men. He proclaimed that in his preaching and through his deeds God's kingship over men was making itself felt. From the beginning of Jesus' ministry to the end he exhibits unshakeable confidence that lie could authoritatively interpret the demands that God's kingship puts on  men who are subject to it. We have seenabove  that when Jesus spoke of the next life  or of the signs of the last times, he spoke with startling originality. This was his metier,     and here he brooked no opposition. He could and did declare sins forgiven, modify the Law of Moses, violate the Sabbath ordinances, offend against the proprieties (eat with tax collectors and sinners), make stringent demands (for­       bid divorce; challenge to celibacy and to leave family ties), defy common sense (encouragement to turn the other cheek)-in short, teach as no teacher of his      time taught. And if one allows that he worked miracles-an allowance that has         sound exegetical backing, no matter how much it offends liberal philosophical presuppositions-then what he did in the interests of the kingship of God was also astonishing, for lie acted against evil with a power that went far beyond the range of ordinary experience.

All of this certainly implies a consciousness of a unique ministry to men. Among the holy men of Israel's past one may find parallels to Jesus as regards individual sayings or deeds (Jeremiah, Elijah), but the total picture of Jesus breaks the mold. Moreover, the certainty with which Jesus spoke and acted lmplies a consciousness of a unique relationship to God. We have seen above that his conviction about the ultimate success of his mission (perhaps accompanied by a lack of knowledge about just how that victor), would be achieved) resembles to some extent the conviction of the OT prophets. But no prophet broke with the hallowed past in so radical a way and with so much assurance as did Jesus. The Gospel traditions agree in depicting him as a man who thinks lie can act and speak for God.

Thus, while a scientific study may point out many limitations in the manner of expression attributed to Jesus in the most reliable Gospel material, such a study also portrays a man who defied ordinary limits in his claim to be the unique agent for establishing God's kingly rule. And in considering this very important evidence for Jesus' consciousness of himself, we should emphasize that there is no indication in the Gospels of a development of Jesus' basic conviction. From the very beginning of his ministry he proclaims the kingdom of God, and finally he is crucified on a charge growing out of that proclamation. Perhaps the time when he  would begin to preach was determined by the baptismal scene. Perhaps the place and the emphasis of his preaching were determined by considerations stemming from the social and political structures of his tinle a ministry outside of Herod's territory after Herod's action against john the Baptist). Perhaps (and this is a much more problematic assumption) lie did not foresee in detail the way in which the kingship of God would be established. But there is not the slightest evidence that his own role in the kingdom had to be revealed to hirn. As far as Scripture is concerned, the awareness or the consciousness that God's rule over men would be established through hint could spring from his innermost being, for from the first moment he speaks he has this consciousness.

Conclusion

As we close, we must once more stress the limits of our discussion. This is a very short treatment of a very large subject, and there is much more that should be said. The evaluation of the biblical evidence represents one man's opinion, limited by his abilities as a scholar and open to challenge. But most important of all, the evaluation of the Gospel evidence given above does not Predetermine the theological interpretation to be drawn from it.

Some theologians are convinced that, because of the hypostatic union or because of special enlightenment given to him by the beatific vision and/or     infusion, Jesuscould not have been limited in what he knew, at least in matters of religion, matters of the future, and matters regarding himself. If a scriptural investigation points up the limitations in Jesus' statements about such matters, these theologians can simply say that, while Jesus actually knew what was correct and what would happen, he adapted him­self to of his time.

         Other theologians will argue that neither the hypostatic union nor other possible privileges extended to  the God-man necessarily endowed him with extraordinary knowledge in the matters just mentioned. They tend to at­tribute to      Jesus some sort of intuition or immediate awareness of what he was  but they recognise that the ability to express this in a communicable way,  had to be acquired gradually. Thus they distinguish between two forms of knowledge (or, as has been suggested above, between self-consciousness and expressible knowledge). These theologians would have no difficulty at all in accepting at face value the limitations of knowledge that scientific biblical criticism finds in Jesus' statements. For them whatever ignorance is implied in such statements is real rather than feigned, as it was for the first group of theologians. The exegete has no means to solve such a dispute, even though most modern Catholic exegetes would be far more at home with the second theological solution than with the first.

As a final comment on our discussion, let me insist that the evaluation of the Gospel evidence given above, if correct, does nothing to detract from the dignity of Jesus. The whole discussion has been predicated on an acceptance of him as "true God of true God." If in the Gospel reports his knowledge seems to have been limited, such limitation would simply show to what depths divine condescension went in the incarnation-it would show just how human was the humanity of Jesus. Perhaps there is a danger, however, that such a presentation as we have given may cause a generation already prone to reject authority to object that, if Jesus' knowledge was limited, his views are the views of his day and can be rejected by the much more learned twentieth century. A distinction is very necessary in response to such a contention. On the one hand, we have tried to indicate areas in which Jesus' views do seem to have been the limited views of his time. Perhaps these were areas in which he brought no new revelation to man. On the other hand, we have indicated an area where his views were not at all those of his time, namely, the area of be!ief and behavior called for by the coming of the kingdom. And in this area, in my personal opinion, his authority is supreme for every century, because in this area he spoke for God. No age can reject the demand that one must believe in Jesus as the unique agent for establishing God's kingship over men (a uniqueness which the Church at Nicaea finally came to formulate in terms of Jesus' being "true God of true God"). No age can reject the harsh moral demands that Jesus made in the name of that kingship, no matter how much they may offend against "the common consent of good men." Thus, at least in the mind of this writer, a critical biblical evaluation of Jesus' knowledge takes nothing from his authority in that area which he made his own, the area of the kingdom of God.

But when all is said and done, the great objection that will be hurled again and again against any exegete (or theologian) who finds evidence that Jesus' knowledge was limited is the objection that in Jesus Christ there is only one person, a divine person. And so, even though the divine person acted through a completely human nature, any theory that Jesus had limited knowledge seems to imply a limitation of the divine person. Perhaps the best answer to this objection is to call upon Cyril of Alexandria, that Doctor of the Church to whom, more than to any other, we are indebted for the great truth of'the oneness of person in Christ. It was that ultra-orthodox archfoe of Nestorianism (two persons or powers in Christ) who said of Christ, "We have admired his goodness in that for love of us he has not refused to descend to such a low position as to bear all that belongs to our nature, INCLUDED IN WHICH IS IGNORANCE.

RAYMOND E. BROWN, S.S.

St. Mary's Seminary

Roland Park, Baltimore