But of that day and that hour knows no man, no, not the angels who are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.
All Commentaries on Mark 13:32 Go To Mark 13
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
I am by no means of the opinion that a figurative mode of expression can be rightly termed a falsehood. For it is no falsehood to call a day joyous because it makes people joyous. A lupine seed is not sad because it lengthens the face of the eater because of its bitter taste. So also we say that God “knows” something when he makes his hearers know it (an instance quoted by yourself in the words of God to Abraham, “Now I know that you fear God”). These are by no means false statements, as you yourself readily see. Accordingly, the blessed Hilary threw light on an obscure point by this kind of figurative expression, showing how we ought to understand the words that “he did not know the day,” with no other meaning than this: In proportion as he had made others ignorant by concealing his meaning, he spoke of it figuratively as his own lack of knowledge. So by concealing it, he so to speak caused others not to know it. He did not by this explanation condone lying, but he proved that it was not lying to use the common figures, including metaphors, as a form of speech available to all, a mode of expression entirely familiar to all in daily conversation. Would anyone call it a lie to say that vines are jeweled with buds, or that a grainfield waves, or that a young man is in the flower of his youth, because he sees in these objects neither waves nor precious stones, nor grass, nor trees to which these expressions would literally apply? Letter , To Oceanus
