The One Christ: St. Augustine's Theology of Deification
Ecclesial Reception of the Divine Life 187 self . . . connected to them (connexus eis). Recall that episode during the birth of a child of which we spoke: the hand came before the head, but it belonged to the head and was under the head's command."16 Although the hand is not the head, they are parts of the same person, and although the head obviously possesses the power and the superiority, the hand is nonetheless an organic and invaluable member. Israel is born before the Christian body and before the head takes on human flesh. Augustine nonetheless discerns an inseparable connection between head and body in this birth, and herein sees how God's activity in history aims toward unifying all peoples.
In this way, Old Testament figures become representatives of the foreshadowed church of Christ. Each character represents a particular narrative and therein Augustine sees some particular quality of Christ's church symbolized by way of prolepsis. Anticipating its constant martyrdom, the church at one time was present only in Abel; representing its singular goodness surrounded by a malicious foe, the church existed in Enoch; and it later shone through Noah and his family who stood for the safe destination promised only by Christ's church.17 Although he will enlist many Old Testament figures as foreshadows of Christ's church in this way, the person of Abel is most often reformulated as an emblem of the church. Why so? Once the church began its pilgrimage in time and throughout all the nations, it was forced to deal with the struggle of sin. As the first victim of fratricide, would Abel's story not evoke images of both Remus and Jesus, the slain founders of the two cities?18
Using Abel as the fitting preamble and persecuted channel of the Messianic church founded by Christ is a very origi-
16. en. Ps. 61.4; Boulding, Expositions (III/17), 205. So as to stress the unity implicit in Augustine's connexus eis, Boulding adds the adverb "organically."
17. Cf. en. Ps. 128.2. 18. Cf. ciu. Dei 15.6.