The One Christ: St. Augustine's Theology of Deification
The Son's Descent 121 between 415 and 417.95 The overall subject matter of this work is, first, to distinguish the attributes of divine from human longsuffering (chs. 1–14) and then to account for the origin of all patience (chs. 15–26), which is duly located in divine wisdom. Patience unites human persons with divine persons because true patience is always motivated by charity, which God is by nature and which creatures can become only through his grace. Where does Augustine see this best played out?
Martyrs appear as the best examples of patience. Their integrity and trust show the world what God can do in those who allow him. Unlike the lustful and the wicked who only mimic patience in their tenacity fostered by a self-originating concupiscence, the Christian's patience comes from God and allows him or her to endure all sorts of trials unequivocally and magnanimously. It is here deificare enters. Contrasting the superficial similarities between a concupiscence which keeps a seeker indefatigably after that which he seeks, and the true patience which fuels Christian integrity, Augustine maintains:
There exists a concupiscence, which is not from the Father but from the world, and the more vehement and ardent it has been in a human person, the more is each person (on account of what he desires) able to endure all troubles and pains. But, as we said above, this is not the type of patience descending from above; for true patience comes to us from the Father of lights above. That first type is earthly, the second heavenly; that animal, this spiritual; that devilish, this deified [illa diabolica, ista deifica]. Concupiscence, by which sinners endure trials tenaciously, is from this world, but charity, by which those who live right endure all things patiently, is from God.96
95. Cf. ep. 231.7. Its omission from the Retractationes should not cast its authenticity into question, as an aged Augustine writes to Count Darius telling him that he will soon send him a copy of a treatise bearing the same title.
96. pat. 14 (my translation): "igitur concupiscentia quae non est ex Patre, sed ex mundo, quanto fuerit in homine uehementior et ardentior, tanto fit quisque pro eo quod concupiscit, omnium molestiarum dolorumque patientior. Idcirco, sicut supra diximus, non est ista patientia desursum descendens: patientia uero piorum
122 The Son's Descent
Living rightly means living for the glory of God and accordingly ordering all one's pursuits toward him. True to its etymology, the diabolical scatters while the deified life integrates and unifies all under the Father. These two ways of life could not be clearer for Augustine. Whereas the life of concupiscence is still sadly attached to the ever changing and fanciful, the life of the Christian is insistent on the matters of heaven. The former still acts similarly to a brute [animalis] while the Christian is now living in accord with the spirit of God [spiritalis]. The contrast gets even stronger when he names the former state of life devilish and the latter deified. Here we receive the first instance of the practical implications of a deified life.
The deified life is led by the Spirit, ordered toward God, cognizant that all is a gift from above. It is a result of the humility examined earlier. True patience admits that one is not the author of reality but is dependent upon the one who in fact is. For true patience can be informed only by charity: it is neither a matter of endurance or longsuffering, nor is it simply acting proper in external matters, but it is a matter of loving from and unto God.
The next instance of ethical deification likewise stresses the charity which patience brings, changing both how we see this world and how, therefore, we choose to act in it. In a homily dated 417 A.D., the Bishop of Hippo selected John 5:19 to show how the Son can do only that which he sees the Father doing. Augustine crafts his thoughts into a treatise on the importance of faith and takes for his starting point "God's everyday miracles" [quotidiana miracula Dei]. He finds it sad that we are so astonished by the miracle of Cana, but remain thoroughly unimpressed when God turns water into wine every day through desursum est, descendens a Patre luminum. Itaque illa terrena est, ista coelestis; illa animalis, ista spiritalis; illa diabolica, ista deifica. Quoniam concupiscentia, qua fit ut peccantes omnia pertinaciter patiantur, ex mundo est; caritas autem, qua fit ut recte uiuentes omnia fortiter patiantur, ex Deo est"; CSEL 41.679.