68. Manifestly, therefore, the ignorance of God is not ignorance but a mystery: in the economy of His actions and words and manifestations, He does not know and at the same time He knows, or knows and at the same time does not know. But we must ask, whether it may not be through the Son’s infirmity that He knows not what the Father knows. He could perhaps read the thoughts of the human heart, because His stronger nature can unite itself with a weaker in all its movements, and by the force of its power, as it were, pass through and through the feeble nature. But a weaker nature is powerless to penetrate a stronger: light things may be penetrated by heavy, rare by dense, liquid by solid, but the heavy are impenetrable to the light, the dense to the rare, and the solid to the liquid: the strong are not exposed to the weak, but the weak are penetrated by the strong. Therefore, the heretics say, the Son knew not the thoughts of the Father, because, being Himself weak, He could not approach the more powerful and enter into Him, or pass through Him.

68. Christum, etsi humana penetret ut potior, paterna penetrare nolunt ut inferiorem.---Quamquam 0335C igitur non obscurum sit, ignorationem Dei non ignorationem esse, sed sacramentum: dum per dispensationem aut agendi, aut protestandi, aut demonstrandi sic nescit, ut sciat; et sic non nescit, ut nesciat: tamen videndum est, ne forte et ita infirmus sit, ut ea, quae Pater scit, scire non possit: potente quidem eo cogitationes humanorum cordium nosse: quia natura potior motibus se naturae inferioris admisceat, eamque tamquam imbecillam vehementi virtute transcurriat: sed impotens sit vehementiorem sui naturam infirmior ipsa penetrare; quia ut levia gravibus, et rara densis, et liquida solidis sunt pervia; ita contra et grav ia levibus, et densa raris 0336A et solida liquidis non cedant; quia cum non pateant valida infirmibus, validis tamen infirma penetrantur. Ob id ergo cogitationes Dei patris ignorare Filius ab impiis dicitur, quia infirmus ipse cum sit, non adeat ineundo potiorem, nec valentem invalidus transcurrat.