The One Christ: St. Augustine's Theology of Deification
The Holy Spirit's Indwelling 137 fill them with a spiritual love, removing their fleshy yearnings."6 Since a uisus interior is always to be preferred [melior] over a human body which is limited to a particular place and time, the Son ascended so the Holy Spirit could comfort them "by infusing [infusurus] himself into the hearts of those who were believing" and thereby manifest his divine presence.7 Even in this introductory sketch we begin to see how the Holy Spirit unites God and his followers. This unity between persons is why the Holy Spirit has come into the world: to descend softly from on high and unite all peoples to the incarnate Word.
In order to discuss the Spirit's role in unifying the elect with God, a passage from De Trinitate 6 serves as a point of departure. Within Augustine's refutation of Arian logic against the consubstantiality of the Son appears a rich discussion on the nature of unity within the Godhead. In this one passage we encounter the three functions of the Holy Spirit on which I shall concentrate throughout this chapter. We shall see how the proper role of the Holy Spirit is to effect his own divine attributes of (1) unity, (2) holiness, and (3) charity. Before we turn to this text, however, let us treat two preliminary factors that are important in how we approach Augustine's pneumatology.
The first relates to how he exegetes the biblical images used to describe the Spirit, discovering a significant theology of symbols surrounding those illustrations used in scripture to describe the Spirit's presence. While active since the beginning of time, the Spirit is now "demonstrated by perceptible signs (e.g., the dove, parted tongues of flame) to show that the whole world and all nations with their variety of languages holding on to a form of Ulfilan Arianism which relegated the Holy Spirit to a tertiary ranking merely awaiting the Son's dictates. Cf. William A. Sumruld, Augustine and the Arians: The Bishop of Hippo's Encounters with Ulfilan Arianism (London: Associated University Presses, 1994), 55–56.
6. s. 264.4; Hill, Sermons (III/7), 229. 7. Jo. eu. tr. 94.4; Rettig, Tractates, 4.183.