Did Christ Know Himself To Be God?

[Byzantine]

CCC seems ambiguous, or maybe I'm not looking in the right place. I was under the understanding that Jesus always knew that He was and is God. Right?

[cappie]

A belief which is occasionally challenged, even today, is that Jesus knew that He was God. Some argue that Jesus grew in the knowledge that He was God, but was not born knowing this, however He must have been born knowing all things, including that He is God. If He were born not knowing this, then He could not be God.

The only real objection to this belief is based on the human idea that a baby is born knowing virtually nothing. How, people ask, could Jesus be a baby and yet know that He is God? The answer is that it is just as easy for God to be a baby as it is for Him to be an adult man. In each case, the infinite God takes on a limited, weak human nature at the same time that He is infinite God.

Pope Pius XII taught, in his Encyclical Mystici Corporis ("The Mystical Body" - 1943): "By means of the Beatific Vision (the sight of God in Heaven), which He enjoyed from the time when he was received into the womb of the Mother of God, He has for ever and continuously had present to Him all the members of His mystical Body, and embraced them with His saving love." (N.D. 661).

In other words Jesus possessed, in His human soul, the same immediate vision of God which all the saints and angels in heaven have. This means that Jesus was, at the same time, both a pilgrim on earth like us and a possessor of the immediate vision of God. Even His human nature is endowed with an abundance of supernatural gifts. He knows all things - past, present and future.