The One Christ: St. Augustine's Theology of Deification (continued)
100 The Son's Descent recapitulate what disobedient humanity has ruined is to rely on the various recapitulative couplets of factor/refactor, formator/ reformator, and creator/recreator. We again see how Augustine's doctrine of creation informs all other aspects of his thought. Commenting on John 8:24, for example, moriemini in peccatis uestris, si enim non credideritis quia ego sum, Augustine has his listeners hear Christ, "If you do not believe that I am the Word of the Father [uerbum Patris], if you do not believe that I am the maker of the world [conditor mundi], if you do not believe that I am the fashioner and refashioner of humanity [hominis formator et reformator], the creator and recreator [creator et recreator], the maker and the remaker, you will certainly die in your sins."45 As mentioned, recapitulation involves the Son's lordship, now evidenced by the fact that there is nothing which he cannot make his own. Oftentimes these Augustinian couplets are cast into the context of communal prayer. At one point he has his congregation meditate on the power of God: "Be still [uacate]. To what purpose? And see that I am God. See that you are not God, but I am. I created you, and I recreate you; I formed you, and I form you anew; I made you, and I remake you. If you had no power to make yourself, how do you propose to re-make yourself?"46 At other times, such parallelisms simply become a prayer: "May the one who formed us, reform us, the one who created us recreate us, the one who installed us restore us to perfection."47 The same God who creates humanity is the same God who redeems humanity: unlike the Manichaean separation between maker and redeemer, the Christian God enters his own creation to reverse the narrative of disobedience.
45. Jo. eu. tr. 38.8; Rettig, Tractates, 3.110; slightly adjusted; "Nisi credideritis quia ego sum Christus; nisi credideritis quia ego sum Dei Filius; nisi credideritis quia ego sum Verbum Patris; nisi credideritis quia ego sum conditor mundi; nisi credideritis quia ego sum hominis formator et reformator, creator et recreator, factor et refactor: nisi hoc credideritis quia ego sum, moriemini in peccatis uestris"; CCL 36.342; cf. s. 125.4 where this formula corresponds to the creation of earth and the recreation of humanity.
46. en. Ps. 45.14; Boulding, Expositions (III/16), 322. 47. s. 301A; Hill, Sermons (III/8), 291.