The One Christ: St. Augustine's Theology of Deification
228 Ecclesial Reception of the Divine Life which is taken from the fruits of the earth" has been changed by being "consecrated by mystic prayers" (prece mystica consecratum) in a way that the spoken and written word cannot be. In the Eucharist a unique divine causality is at play in a way that does not exist in preaching and letter writing wherein signs still only point to God but do not themselves become divine. The bread and wine of the Eucharist, however, have been consecrated and thus changed from visible created goods into the body and blood of Christ (corpus Christi et sanguinem).106 This is signification at an entirely different level than the other Christian signs used to proclaim the Kingdom of God.
Augustine's Eucharistic spirituality never underscores the divine presence independent of the human person's reception and communion with the consecrated elements, but this should not lead to the conclusion that his Eucharistic theology is purely symbolic. He instead stresses the reception and effect of the subsequent union between recipient and Christ's body and blood in the lives of the Christian. As we have just seen, there are different levels and types of divine signs, and the bread and wine consecrated in the Eucharist alone is called the body and blood of Christ because it alone is uniquely divine in a way other sacraments and signs are not. For example, one incident attests to the Eucharist as the continuation of Christ the great physician's incarnate presence on earth, but also lacks the type of piety and care much more evident later on in the church's life and worship.
Augustine tells us about young Acatius whose blindness was a puzzle to the local doctors. These men wanted to try a savage medical procedure and to pry the young boy's eyes open with a metal scalpel. Instead of submitting her son to such an ordeal, Acatius's pious mother instead had his eyes cured by bathing them in some sort of Eucharistic paste. Hav-
106. Trin. 3.4.10; CCL 50.136.