The One Christ: St. Augustine's Theology of Deification (continued)
150 The Holy Spirit's Indwelling tinante nos Spiritu Sancto, imagines the Holy Spirit as the glue who unites us to the unchangeable good. Christ both exemplifies and offers the invitation to divine unity, while the Holy Spirit effects it. The Spirit is the only alternative to our feeble attempts to "cling feebly to any temporal things." The Spirit is the divine person who is particularly able to free our human nature from all such temporal conditions and limitations [qui nostram naturam a temporalibus liberauit], collecting us and bringing us to the Father's own right hand [collocauit ad dexteram patris].33
Given the sense of unity suggested by Augustine here, it is telling that in the next line of the primary text for this chapter the Holy Spirit is called the "friendship of God." Returning to that passage at De Trinitate 6.5.7 for a moment, we read: "So the Holy Spirit is something common to the Father and Son, whatever [he] is, or is their very commonness or communion, consubstantial and coeternal. Call this friendship if it helps, but a better word for [him] is charity."34 While caritas may still be a more appropriate term, Augustine will allow us to see the Spirit as the eternal friendship which unites Father and Son. For, glued together by likeness and love, friends become like one another and slowly take on the attributes of the other. But why is Augustine here slow to insist on the Holy Spirit as divine amicitia? Perhaps this is because friendship implies two pre-existing persons who only come to a new mutuality and shared closeness in time enriching both parties. However, by at least allowing us to call the Spirit "friendship," even if somecitur; uinciente et tamquam agglutinante nos Spiritu Sancto, quo in summo atque incommutabili bono permanere possimus"; CCL 32.28.
33. doc. Chr. 1.34.38: "Ex quo intellegitur quam nulla res in uia tenere nos debeat, quando nec ipse dominus, in quantum uia nostra esse dignatus est, tenere nos uoluerit, sed transire, ne rebus temporalibus, quamuis ab illo pro salute nostra susceptis et gestis, haereamus infirmiter, sed per eas potius curramus alacriter, ut ad eum ipsum, qui nostram naturam a temporalibus liberauit et collocauit ad dexteram patris, prouehi atque peruehi mereamur"; CCL 32.28.
34. Trin. 6.5.7; Hill, Trinity, 209: "Spiritus ergo sanctus commune aliquid est patris et filii, quidquid illud est, aut ipsa communio consubstantialis et coaeterna; quae si amicitia conuenienter dici potest, dicatur, sed aptius dicitur caritas"; CCL 50.235.