Junius Against Bellarmine: The Human Knowledge of Christ in Early Reformed Orthodoxy

Abstract Although neglected in the contemporary historiography, the human knowledge of Christ was a major focus of debate between Roman Catholic and Reformed theologians during the post-Reformation era. Bellarmine argued that Catholics had always taught that Christ’s human knowledge was so perfect from his conception, that he afterwards learnt nothing that he had not known before. To contest this claim, Junius used a distinction drawn from Aquinas, between the beatific, infused, and acquired knowledge of Christ. He accepted that although Christ enjoyed fullness of knowledge from his conception as to his beatific and infused knowledge, Christ’s acquired knowledge progressed from ignorance to understanding in a natural human way. Innocent ignorance was consequently proper to Christ. Junius considered this essential to the biblical claim that Christ’s human nature was like ours in every respect but sin. Junius’s Reformed contemporaries, Zanchi, Ussher, and Sharp embraced similar positions. None of these authors’ writing on this topic has been previously studied. That such eminent Reformed theologians accepted the idea that Christ enjoyed the beatific vision during his earthly life has not been recognized hitherto. It testifies both to the creative use of scholastic distinctions by the Early Reformed Orthodox in their biblical and patristic exegesis, and to the diversity of the Reformed theological tradition.