The One Christ: St. Augustine's Theology of Deification
176 Ecclesial Reception of the Divine Life
Gerald Bonner echoes the same sentiment, labeling Augustinian deification "an ecclesial process [taking] place within the communion of the Church, to which the Christian is admitted by baptism. For this reason it can be called a sacramental process, in that the Christian grows in grace by being nourished by the eucharist, which he receives as part of the worship of the Church."2 The Son's life is transmitted to his faithful by the Spirit in his church, and it is particularly through the sacraments of union the Christian sees in himself Christ.
The unifying power of the church and the sacraments celebrated therein cannot be overemphasized for Augustine. This is because the church is nothing other than "the whole Christ," a continuation of the incarnation where union with the perfect man Jesus Christ is made possible. For this reason we shall root our reflections on the church and the sacraments first in the union of humanity and divinity in Christ. Can the humanity of Christ unite human persons with the Godhead? Do the faithful become one with Christ in his humanity or in his divinity, or both? We must attempt to answer these questions before we move on to the nature and the function of the church and the sacraments celebrated therein.
In turning to Augustinian ecclesiology we incorporate the previous chapters. As we have seen, chapter 1 ended by discussing the "quare fecerit?" of creation. God freely chose to act ad extra in order to share his life with a wholly other order of being, and in this way the church appears as the fulfillment of all creation. God created in order to raise up a unified body of praise (chapter 2). In response to these creatures' disobedience and consequent shattering of the union God offered them, the Son of God took on humanity in order to bestow divinity (chapter 3). To communicate this exchange, he sent
2. Bonner, "Augustine's Conception of Deification," 383. For an excellent survey of recent works on Augustinian ecclesiology, see Michael Fahey, "Augustine's Ecclesiology Revisited," Augustine: From Rhetor to Theologian, edited by Joanne McWilliam, 173–81.
Ecclesial Reception of the Divine Life 177 the Holy Spirit to unite all the divinized into one family of like-minded lovers (chapter 4). This new family is the church, where those now filled with grace and charity are united with both God and one another.
This chapter is divided into three main sections. We shall start by examining Augustine's understanding of the church as the called and gathered people of God. His multivalent notion of ecclesia is crucial to his understanding of deification. Appearing first as a chorus of angelic praise, the church continues in fallen time so as to draw all of humanity into a unified worship. The second section treats the notion of unity of the Godhead and humanity in the person of Jesus Christ. Although this section cannot serve as an exhaustive treatise on Augustine's Christology, the question of how the union of divinity and humanity in Christ achieves the union of human persons with God must be addressed. Here we shall explore the unity of God and humanity in Christ so as to better understand the union of the Son and the church in Augustine's reliance on the concept of the totus Christus, Christ's gracious admittance of his followers into himself. Finally, this mystical body of Christ on earth exists in order to unite believers sacramentally, both with God and with one another. For Augustine, this is why the church has been established and this is the goal of all the sacraments: to make Christ present and accessible to all. This new life begins in baptism and is sustained by the grace imparted in the Eucharist. We shall therefore concentrate exclusively on these two sacraments.
The Genesis of the Church
The ecclesia is a very expansive reality for Augustine. When he speaks of the church he does not mean simply the clearly discernible body of believers before him. The church is much more than the walls of the local congregation, much more than any one group of people, and, perhaps surprisingly, much
178 Ecclesial Reception of the Divine Life more than historical Christianity. So, if the church precedes even its incarnate founder, what exactly is it? Augustine sees the church as the first instance of creaturely worship, where the good angels first bring forth their liturgical song of praise. From that original angelic adoration, the church continued through the Old Testament, up through Pentecost, and now extends throughout the entire world. The ecclesia reaches from the first creature to any present-day congregation. As such, the church is not simply the visible body of believers, but something much more. Augustine marks three distinct moments running throughout the church's expansion. First, the church is the primordial praise of all creation, concomitant with the first existence of creatures able to worship consciously and freely. Here the good angels first adored God in liturgical unison. The second use of ecclesia Augustine utilizes arises with the appearance of the human race. The church ab Abel is now the place where salvation is being worked out, the arena where God's chosen people hear of the Lord's ways and foreshadow his Son's perfect offering. This leads to the third and most comprehensive use of church for Augustine, the church as the body of Christ.
It may be startling to learn that the incarnation does not alone account for the existence of the mystical body. The Word's assumption of flesh is the church's consummation and perfection, but its beginning is traced to wherever spiritual beings yearn for fulfillment and completion. The church is understood to be the goal of all of God's activity ad extra, the culmination of all creation because it is here we are caught up personally and perfectly in the Son's response to the Father. In order to understand the mission of this divinely-appointed body, let us now take up each of the three instances of church found throughout Augustine's thought.