460 and 590 concerning mainly the relationship between Frankish bishops and rul- (continued)
88 The Son's Descent the Arian heresy, Victorinus depicts himself speaking to the learned and holy bishops of Nicaea (o docti episcopi, o sancti). Victorinus turns to address these pro-Nicenes and, thanking them for keeping the integrity of the Catholic faith unsullied, informs them that it is "through your confession and through your lectionem deificam of homoousion this term has been approved."24 Similar to how Augustine uses it against the Donatists, the "deifying word" of Victorinus has to do with the content of a sanctioned text transmitted through the church. For both, it points to an authoritative teaching expecting the assent of the Christian body.
It is only when Augustine turns to the work of Jesus Christ that his uses of deificare take on any real importance in his theology. A creature's becoming godly is obviously the work of the incarnate Lord. In tracing these next eleven instances chronologically, we begin to see how Augustine's choice to use deification language soteriologically is always contextualized by a wider metaphor: recapitulation, adoption, the "exchange" between God's humanity for our divinity, as well as the subsequent ability to now live as God lives, with hearts and minds (and eyes) renewed. As such, deification proves diversely delineated, with Augustine at times stressing the lowliness of Christ in achieving humanity's greatness, while at other times stressing the language of the participation of Christians in divinity, the role of grace, or of ecclesial incorporation.
The purpose of this next section is to show how Augustine uses deificare to explain the Christian life. Given the relative paucity of the term's appearance within his overall writings, it could surface as an incidental term. However, when examining each use of deificare we come to understand how Augustine relies on it and weaves it into other more standard soteriological images. That is, when following these later eleven
24. Marius Victorinus, Aduersus Arium 2.11; PL 8.1096–97.