The One Christ: St. Augustine's Theology of Deification (continued)
136 The Holy Spirit's Indwelling stricted (infirmus et angustus) presence available to all in the age before Christ, and the fullness of the Spirit which converts individual Christians into God's holy temples and, collectively, into his living body of praise.2 Augustine reconciles any tension between the Spirit's older mode of presence and the post Pentecostal indwelling by confessing that the glorification of Christ leads to a giving of the Spirit to men and women, "as there had never been before" [qualis numquam antea fuerat]. That is, this new outpouring of the Spirit is seen not as something completely novel in history but as the consummation of divine union between God and creatures initiated at creation: "It is not that there had been none before, but none of this kind. If the Holy Spirit had not been given at all before, what were the prophets filled with when they spoke?"3 The Holy Spirit at Pentecost is, quite fittingly, linked to the ascended Lord's new way of being present to his body on earth and Augustine thus uncovers an important pedagogical image.
In transcending space and time, Christ continues to teach his disciples that not everything which pertains to their salvation can be seen with the eyes or touched with the hands. This is why Jesus refuses Mary Magdalene's longing embrace: she must not think that he was only that which could be seen or touched.4 Furthermore, with an overly carnal mind [carnali cogitatione] one refuses to believe in the coming of another Paraclete and thus needs to understand that the Spirit is consubstantial with both the Father and the Son, with the Spirit being the lover [dilector] whose descent is brought about by the Son's ascent.5 Jesus ascended in order to remove such desideria carnalia from his followers, so "the Holy Spirit might
2. Jo. eu. tr. 92.2; CCL 36.557. 3. Trin. 4.20.29; Hill, Trinity, 174; CCL 50.200. 4. Cf. Trin. 1.9.18: "Ideoque nolebat in eo esse finem intenti cordis in se ut hoc quod uidebatur tantummodo putaretur"; CCL 50.54; cf. s. 143.4.
5. Trin. 1.9.19; Hill, Trinity, 79; CCL 50.55. While no "carnally minded" heretics are here named, Augustine could very well have had in mind those who were still