35. Tarcisius van Bavel, s.v. "Church," Augustine Through the Ages, 171. (continued)
Ecclesial Reception of the Divine Life 197
The Union of Divinity and
Humanity in Christ
Both Johannes Quasten as well as Tarcisius van Bavel position Augustine's totus Christus in the personal unity of the Word made flesh. According to Quasten, at "the heart of Augustine's ecclesiology" is his notion of the totus Christus, "according to which Christ, as head, is always present and active in his body, the Church; the Church and Christ [form] one single person."34 Van Bavel agrees, maintaining that the totus Christus idea is "more than a simple comparison or metaphor; it is a personal unity. . . ."35 But how are we to understand this stress on the personal unity between Christ and his church? Is there a correlation between the way a human person becomes a Christian and the way the Word became human? Are the elect united to Christ in the same way he is united to humanity? Augustine was aware of this connection between the humanity of Christ and the dispensation of grace which brings others into the totus Christus.
In On the Predestination of the Saints, for example, he asks why the reality of grace should be different in the Word's humanity from the grace that brings about the new humanity Christians enjoy in Christ, as both the man Jesus and the rest of the elect share the same human nature. The Spirit who unites the Son to his humanity is the same Spirit who unites Christians to Christ.36 So, if the humanity of the enfleshed Son did not merit such an elevated dignity (that is, not pre-existing as a man, and thus in no way deserving to be united personally to the Word by the merits of Jesus's foreseen works), it is preposterous for individual Christians to think they must somehow merit their new graced state. Still, while neither Christ
34. Johannes Quasten, Patrology, 4.447. 35. Tarcisius van Bavel, s.v. "Church," Augustine Through the Ages, 171. 36. Cf. praed. sanct. 15.31; PL 44.982.