The One Christ: St. Augustine's Theology of Deification (continued)
The Holy Spirit's Indwelling 147
"Spirit" within the Trinity. Why so? Sanctification involves the removal of sin, elevation of the intellect, and a stabilization of the soul which God, of course, does not need. The third theme, the Spirit as not only the communion but also the charity of God eternally effecting the love between Father and Son, reflects the fact that Augustinian deification is always related to love.26
We see these same three effects in other writings roughly of this same period. For example, the Bishop of Hippo (sometime between 408 and 413) responded to a letter from Bishop Boniface of Catqua in Numidia regarding the effects of infant baptism. Boniface wonders how the efficacy of a sacrament can change and benefit someone who is not yet able to understand what Christ is doing through his appointed minister. Augustine answers that the infants who are baptized "are correctly understood to be presented by all who are pleased that they are presented and by whose holy and undivided love they are helped to come into the communion of the Holy Spirit."27 The baptized are sanctified and infused with charity by receiving the Spirit of Christ and, consequently, they experience a new degree of union with God. Since sanctity, charity, and unity tell us what happens through the sacramental waters and in the lives of the baptized, do they first tell us something of the Spirit himself?
The Holy Spirit as Union
By identifying the Spirit's nature as union, Augustine becomes the first to see him as the curvature or bend [s'infléchir] between the Father and the Son.28 Olivier du Roy's imagery here, the Spirit as the eternal incurvation uniting Father and
26. Cf. Trin. 15.21.41. 27. ep. 98.5; Teske, Letters (II/1), 429; my emphasis. 28. Olivier Du Roy, L'Intelligence de la Foi in la Trinité selon saint Augustin: Genèse de sa théologie jusqu'en 391 (Paris: Études augustiniennes, 1966), 416–19.