to experience, one whose implications are not or
cannot be fully deduced, in fact, the incomplete cognition of an idea.
In neither case does it involve imperfection in the instrument or moral
fault. On the contrary ignorance is a mark of the normal in cognition.
If ignorance and limitation of knowledge were not found in Christ, we
should be forced to agree with Apollinaris that the divine Logos had
superseded His human intellect.

Ignorance in so far as it is a positive attribute is far from being a
mark of imperfection. It is a true paradox that ignorance like
obliviscence forms part of the process of human cognising. Probably in
the truth of things memory is of the essence of mind. Thoughts
naturally and spontaneously reproduce themselves. The past of
experience tends automatically to carry forward into the present. The
function of the brain then, or of a mental faculty intimately
co-operating with the brain is to discriminate, to sift and select, to
prolong into present consciousness what is of importance for action and
to relegate the irrelevant to partial or total oblivion. From this
psychological standpoint ignorance and obliviscence are seen to be
achievements of the intellect. The presence of all facts in a human
consciousness is unthinkable. If it were possible, it would paralyse
action. If we exempt Christ from the law of ignorance and
obliviscence, we _ipso facto_ dehumanise his cognition. When we say
that Jesus was ignorant of much scientific truth, or that his
prescience was limited, we do not compromise His dignity. We simply
assert the naturalness of His intellect and the true humanity of that
element of His nature. To do otherwise, to claim omniscience for His
human intellect is gross monophysitism. His knowledge was deeper,
surer, more penetrating than ours, because the light of His divine
intuition streamed through the veil of sense and illumined the lower
phases of intelligence. This is an instance of the _communicatio
idiomatum_. The properties of the two natures act and react upon one
another. But we must make the distinction of natures our
starting-point, or fusion will take place. There must be _idiomata_
first, or the _communicatio_ is meaningless.

THE PRESENT EXISTENCE OF CHRIST'S HUMAN NATURE

The view taken of the Christ of the past necessarily affects belief in
the Christ of the present. It is scarcely possible to realise the
present existence of a human Christ, unl