The One Christ: St. Augustine's Theology of Deification (continued)
The Son's Descent 117
The third aspect stressed by Augustine is the remuneration, characterizing this "exchange" in terms of a great "payoff" received by humanity. Christ "sells" his divinity in order to purchase the human race (described as a qualia commercial).84 This is "the wonderful exchange [mira commutatio], the divine business deal [diuina commercia], the transaction effected in this world by the heavenly dealer . . . . Without him, we are nothing, but in him we too are Christ."85 Every transaction has a price and Augustine points to the cross to show us what this grande commercium costs.86 This also shows us our own worth: "Consider the price he is paying, and then you will see what he is buying."87 God's chosen people are shown their worth when purchased by God and are thus made into Christ. The dignity of humanity is paradoxically demonstrated through Christ's cross.
The "great exchange" imagery as a divine business deal reaches fever pitch in a late (though undated) sermon in which Augustine depicts Judas and the Jews as seller and buyers involved in a bitter deal over the fair price of humanity, the commodity of Jesus himself:
Let Christ the redeemer sing, let Judas the seller groan, let the Jews, the buyers blush for shame. Look, there you are; Judas sold him, the Jews bought him, they made a bad bargain, both lost out on it, both seller and buyers ruined themselves by it. You wanted to be buyers; how much better to have been bought and redeemed! . . . Rejoice, Christian, at the deal struck by your enemies; you are the one who gained by it. What that man sold and they bought, you, yes, have acquired.88
By going to the cross, Christ assumes human brokenness in all its dimensions. He takes to himself all that the wayward chil-
84. s. 80.5; PL 38.496. 85. en. Ps. 30, exp. 2.3; Boulding, Expositions (III/15), 323; my emphasis. At ep. 148.17, the same mira commutatio is used to describe the transformation of the carnal into the spiritual body: it will acquire new powers without loss of its former identity.
86. s. 329.1; PL 38.1454. 87. en. Ps. 147.16; Boulding, Expositions (III/20), 458. 88. s. 336.4; Hill, Sermons (III/9), 268–69; slightly adjusted.