54. Cf. en. Ps. 30, exp. 2.3; cf. ord. 2.18.48.
158 The Holy Spirit's Indwelling rendered through the body, becomes either an act of praise or an act of rebellion; certainly Paul's stress on tempering the senses as well as the strong sexual ethos surrounding 1 Corinthians 6 was not lost on Augustine. In becoming a temple, human flesh both receives and points to the Spirit. Texts such as Enchiridion 15.56 should dispel any doubt as to whether the human body is also caught up in the process of sanctification.
Here we see Augustine accounting for the union between God and participatory gods in a way that both accomplishes unity between the human and divine natures, as well as maintains the ontological difference between both divine archetype and divinized derivative. The key to this free identity is the Holy Spirit as love. One can only truly inhere in another with and through charity. This is how Augustine constantly melds Rom. 5:5 with this sense of personal union: "Let us love him and cling to him with the charity that has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."53 Only love can unite individuals while simultaneously respecting the alterity of the other. The presence of the Holy Spirit as caritas unites us with God and God with us. The Spirit is never presented by Augustine as absorbing or negating human individuality but rather fulfilling it by perfecting the love for which the human person has been created. We abide in God as he abides in us and we are remade in Christ only through the bond of charity [connexione caritiatis], uniting the body with the head into one living self.54
This inseparable connection between unity and charity is particularly Augustinian and he uses it on both a corporate and an individual level. Corporately, it fuels his polemic against what he sees to be the Donatists' fracturing of charity and unity, a theme we will return to when exploring Augustine's ecclesiology. For now, however, we can appreciate how
53. Trin. 7.3.5; Hill, Trinity, 223. 54. Cf. en. Ps. 30, exp. 2.3; cf. ord. 2.18.48.