The One Christ: St. Augustine's Theology of Deification (continued)
86 The Son's Descent limited to an apologetic work, and (4) within these texts, it is never Augustine who uses some form of deificus; instead, each time he places it in the mouth of one of his interlocutors. As such, the appearances of deificus within these texts are: 397–98 Contra Faustum 32.7 sermonem deificum19
Contra Faustum 32.19 sermonem deificum
398 Contra Felicem 1.13 per scripturas deificas20
400–01 De Baptismo 6.15.24 ex scripturis deificis
405–06 Contra Cresconium ab exustione instrumentorum 3.70.80 deificorum21
Contra Cresconium 3.70.80 scripturas deificas
From each of these occurrences we can safely ascertain that a "deified word" is a formalized phrase used in late antiquity to prove the orthodoxy of anyone who would grant a canonical writing such godly status.
19. Cf. retr. 2.33. The Contra Faustum (397–99) is Augustine's most extensive work against the Manichees and his first work after the start of the Confessions. It details the proceedings between Augustine and Faustus mainly on the unity of scripture; cf., C. Basevi, La interpretación del Nuovo Testamento: Criterios exegéticos propuestos por S. Agostino in el "De Doctrina Christiana" en el "Contra Faustum" y en el "De Consensu Evangelistarum" (Pamplona: Eunsa, 1977).
20. The c. Fel. appears immediately after the c. Faust. in the Retractationes (2.34). Controversies surrounding scholarly debate remain regarding the dating of this text. Scholars disagree whether the c. Fel. should be dated at December 398 (as in the standard biographies by Bonner, Bourke, and Brown) or 404 (as in J. Kevin Coyle, "Felicem Manicheum, Contra," Augustine Through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, edited by Allan Fitzgerald (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1999), 358; Decret, "Felicem, Manichaeum (Contra-)," Augustinus Lexikon, edited by Cornelius Mayer (Basel: Schwabe & Co., 1986–), 2.1256–63; 1257; Teske, The Manichean Debate, (I/19) 271); while Lancel (unknowingly?) lists both (Lancel, Augustine, "7 and 12 December 404" on 273 and "398" on 534). The discrepancy stems from dating the work's introductory line: "Honorio Augusto sexies consule, septimo idus decembris;" see also Goulvan Madec, Introduction aux "Révisions" et à la lecture de saint Augustin (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1996), 150–53 and François Decret, Aspects du manichéisme dans l'Afrique romaine (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1970), 76–78.
21. In referring to both scripture and the writings of recognized churchmen as sacred "instruments," Augustine may here be following Tertullian's lead at De Praescriptione Haereticorum §38 (CCL 1.218) where Tertullian names the church's emerging canon an "instrument" against a diversity of heterodox opinion.