37. praed. sanct. 15.30; Teske, The Predestination of the Saints (I/26), 174.
198 Ecclesial Reception of the Divine Life nor Christians can be said to deserve their graced humanity, Christ's humanity is nonetheless unique precisely as cause and exemplar of the new creation.
Augustine rhetorically asks, "And did he not rather have it to a greater degree to the extent that he was more unable to be a slave to sin?" This "greater degree" (tanto magis) is next explained by the fact that in Christ, human nature, our nature (nostra natura), "was received in a singular manner, without any preceding merits on its part. . . ."37 In this way we learn that in Christ's graced humanity Christians find the pattern of their own sanctity. His unique assumption of humanity is the cause of all grace received by men and women. As On the Predestination of the Saints 15.30–31 attempts to clarify, the human person is joined to Christ by the very same grace that united the Son to his humanity. As such, how creatures are enabled to share in Christ, their incorporation into the totus Christus, is patterned on the Son's incarnation. By assuming humanity to himself, the Son of God is thereby able to impart divine life to those sharing the same human nature.
While this text is one of the last things Augustine would compose (428–29), he began to delineate this distinction between the way in which divinity and humanity are united in the incarnate Son and the way the gift of grace unites the created person to God rather early on. In his study of patristic Christology, Aloys Grillmeier roots this very necessary distinction in an early phrase appearing in Augustine's commentary on Gal. 3:26 regarding the faithful who become children of God by "putting on Christ". While Grillmeier cites only one line, let us quote Augustine's thought more fully:. . . by putting on Christ through faith that all are made sons [and daughters]—not by nature (as is the case with the only Son, who is indeed the Wisdom of God), and not by superior or a unique as-
37. praed. sanct. 15.30; Teske, The Predestination of the Saints (I/26), 174.