The One Christ: St. Augustine's Theology of Deification (continued)
The Son's Descent 85
Religione (the last work written before Augustine's priestly ordination in January of 391), we receive a very Christian understanding of "leisure" which (citing George Lawless's work on Augustine's monasticism of this same period) has more to do with Christian meditatio than with pagan theoria.16 Teske astutely points us to De Vera Religione 35.65, which is the claim that God has given humanity the power to become his children [quoniam dedit eis potentiam filios Dei fieri].17 Serge Lancel likewise follows Teske's argument and refers to this first use of deification as an "initial Neoplatonic perspective." But Lancel also sees how this "perspective" can be baptized by De Vera Religione and its understanding of otium as well as Augustine's later, more Christianized, uses of the language of deification.18
This alternative reading of Teske and Lancel is raised because they help to shed light on Augustine's straining to establish a properly Christian sense of human divinization. While the Neoplatonic context of deificari in otio is beyond question, it can also be read as a term used by a Christian neophyte to describe what he and his new community in Numidia were attempting to achieve: divine communion through their leisurely pursuits of study, asceticism, and common worship.
Literary Deification (397–406)
During the years from his Confessions up to the time he begins his commentary on John (397 to 406), Augustine's reliance on some form of deificare reveals an intriguing pattern. Appearing only six times, it (1) is always used adjectivally, (2) refers each time to the authority of a canonical text, (3) is
16. Roland Teske, "Augustine's Epistula X: Another Look at Deificari in Otio," Augustinianum 32 (1992): 290; see also George Lawless, Augustine of Hippo and His Monastic Rule (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 51.
17. Cf. Teske, "Augustine's Epistula X: Another Look at Deificari in Otio," Augustinianum 32 (1992): 296–97.
18. Serge Lancel, St. Augustine, translated by Antonia Nevill (London: SCM Press, 2002), 132.