The One Christ: St. Augustine's Theology of Deification (continued)
The Son's Descent 101
Another specific theme found within Augustinian recapitulation is the medicinal. Augustine was certainly not the first to transform basic Aesculapian imagery into Christ the divine physician, but he does make such a transformation an essential part of his soteriology: "indeed the humble doctor came, he found the patient lying sick, he shared his infirmity with him, summoning him to share his own divinity."48 Rudolph Arbesmann's classic study, in fact, opens by stating that, "Augustine easily holds the first place among those patristic writers of the West who made use of the Christus medicus figure."49 In Augustine's hands, this healer is known not so much by his strength but by his humility. God's ontological descent parallels humanity's moral humility and in such moral humility is found humanity's ontological exaltation:
Do you wish to lay hold of the loftiness of God? First catch hold of God's lowliness. Deign to be lowly, to be humble, because God has deigned to be lowly and humble on the same account, yours, not his own. So catch hold of God's humility, learn to be humble, don't be proud. Confess your infirmity, lie there patiently in the presence of the doctor. When you have caught hold of his humility, you start rising up with him.50
But why is such medicinal imagery recapitulative? The image of Christ as the great physician recapitulates because his cure is applied not only through the reversal of the sickness brought
48. s. 341A; Hill, Sermons (III/10), 30. 49. Rudolph Arbesmann, "The Concept of Christus Medicus in St. Augustine," Traditio 10 (1954): 1–28; 2. For more on the medicinal soteriology, see Carol Harrison, Beauty and Revelation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 221, n. 170. There is also a helpful section treating this imagery in Eoin Cassidy, "Per Christum Hominem ad Christum Deum: Augustine's Homilies on John's Gospel," Studies in Patristic Christology, edited by Thomas Finan and Vincent Twomey (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1998), 122–43; 127–30.
50. s. 117.17; Hill, Sermons (III/4) 220; "Vis capere celsitudinem Dei? Cape prius humilitatem Dei. Dignare esse humilis propter te, quia Deus dignatus est humilis esse propter eumdem te; non enim propter se. Cape ergo humilitatem Christi, disce humilis esse, noli superbire. Confitere in firmitatem tuam, iace patienter ante medicum. Cum ceperis humilitatem eius, surgis cum illo"; PL 38.671.