Hilary of Poitiers

Hence we are not permitted to doubt that the knowledge of God is adapted to the time rather than to the result of a change, since in connection with that which God knew it is a question of the opportune moment to divulge what is known rather than to acquire it. [This] we are also taught by the words that were spoken to Abraham: “Do not lay your hand on the boy, and do nothing to him, for I know now that you fear your God, and have not spared your beloved son for my sake.” Accordingly, God knows now, but to know something now is an admission of previous ignorance. Since it is a contradiction for God not to know that Abraham had been previously faithful to him and of whom it had been said, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as justice,” that which he knew at this moment is the time when Abraham received this testimony, and not the time when God also began to acquire this knowledge. By bringing his son as a holocaust, Abraham manifested the love that he had for God. God was aware of it then when he speaks. And, since we are not to believe that he had been ignorant of it up to that moment, we must understand that he knew of it then because he speaks of it. Of the many passages in the Old Testament that contain references to the knowledge of God, we have cited only this one as an example that we may realize that God’s ignorance of anything does not arise from a lack of knowledge but from the occasion.

O holy and blessed patriarch, Jacob, be with me, be with me now by the spirit of your faith against the poisonous hissing of infidelity, and, while you prevail in the struggle with the man, plead with him as the stronger to bless you. What is this that you are asking from one who is weak? What do you expect from one who is feeble? This one for whose blessing you pray is the one whom you, as the more powerful, weaken by your embrace. The activity of your soul is not in harmony with the deeds of your body, for you think differently from the way you act. By your bodily motions during this struggle you keep this man helpless, but this man is for you the true God, not in name but in nature. You do not ask to be sanctified by adoptive but by true blessings. You struggle with a man, but you behold God face to face. You do not see with your bodily eyes what you perceive with the glance of your faith. In comparison with you he is a feeble man, but your soul has been saved by the vision of God.During this struggle you are Jacob, but after your faith in the blessing for which you prayed you are Israel. The man is subject to you according to the flesh in anticipation of the sufferings in the flesh. You recognize God in the weakness of his flesh in order to foreshadow the mystery of his blessing in the spirit. His appearance does not prevent you from remaining steadfast in the fight, nor does his weakness deter you from seeking his blessing. Nor does the man bring it about that he is not God who is man, nor is he who is God not the true God, because he who is God cannot but be the true God by the blessing, the transfer and the name.