The One Christ: St. Augustine's Theology of Deification
204 Ecclesial Reception of the Divine Life
Christ is Head and body" (et omnes in illo et Christi et Christus sumus quia quomodo totus Christus caput et corpus est).44
As such, Christ is not incomplete without his believers (non quia sine corpore non est integer). Nevertheless Augustine stresses how it is the Lord's free decision to include created persons into his own self (sed quia et nobis cum integer esse dignatum est).45 In the economy of salvation, Christ chooses to rely on his mystical body for a full and complete offering to the Father. Tarsicius van Bavel has shown how Augustine saw more than a simile or a mere comparison in 1 Cor. 12:12–27. In Augustine's use of Pauline "mystical body" imagery, van Bavel sees an illustration of how strong the union between Christ and Christian actually is: "Since the moment Jesus left this world, He needs our hands to reach out to the destitute, He needs our eyes to see the needs of the world, He needs our ears to listen to the misery of others, He needs our feet to go to the persons to whom nobody goes. Salvation cannot be 'extramundane'; Christians have to build up the very beginning of the Reign of God in this world."46 An advancement has clearly been made over Tyconius's head and body dualism: the whole Christ is now understood to be both head and body, organic and inseparable, both divine and human, both Savior and sinner.
Commenting on the priestly prayer of Christ in John 17:14– 19, for example, we hear how the Son brings the faithful to the Father: "For what is 'And for them do I sanctify myself' since they themselves, too, are myself?"47 The Son is in no need of sanctification but his willingness to submit himself to such a process is achieved for those creatures now found within himself. In his own person he sanctifies himself in himself, thereby
44. en. Ps. 26, exp. 2.2; Boulding, Expositions (III/15), 275; CCL 38.155. 45. s. 341.11; PL 39.1499. 46. Tarcisius van Bavel, "The 'Christus Totus' Idea: A Forgotten Aspect of Augustine's Spirituality," Studies in Patristic Christology, edited by Thomas Finan and Vincent Twomey (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1998), 84–94; 86.
47. Jo. eu. tr. 108.5; Rettig, Tractates, 4.281.