The One Christ: St. Augustine's Theology of Deification
Ecclesial Reception of the Divine Life 229 ing been born with eyelids that would not open, the then five year old boy's eyes were healed when touched with this Eucharistic cataplasmate.107
Such a Eucharistic realism comes out less spectacularly when Augustine exhorts his flock to become the body of Christ on earth. This is why his strongest words claiming that the Eucharist is literally the body and blood of Jesus Christ come when he urges his congregation to see, to touch, and to become the one they see before them: "That bread which you can see on the altar, sanctified by the word of God, is the body of Christ. That cup, or rather what the cup contains, sanctified by the word of God, is the blood of Christ . . . . If you receive them well, you are yourselves what you receive."108 Within the Eucharistic liturgy itself, the Christian faithful are encouraged to meet their Christ under the guise of bread and within a cup, and in so doing to become the one they encounter there. At times, Augustine also relies on this union of Christians with Christ in order to goad his congregation to moral virtue and heroic action. In the hope of prohibiting any promiscuity among his people (abstine te a fornicationibus), the Bishop of Hippo directs all eyes to the Lord who gave everything for their own lives and, as is his tendency, stresses the real and sacrificial presence before them, soon to be living inside them: "You know very well what price was paid for you, you know very well what you are approaching (quid accedis), what you are about to eat (quid manducas), what you are about to drink (quid bibas), or rather whom you are about to eat (immo quem manduces), whom you are about to drink (quem bibas)."109
In chapter 4 we saw how the Holy Spirit is depicted as the
107. c. Jul. imp. 3.162; PL 45.1315. 108. s. 227; Hill, Sermons (III/6), 254. 109. s. 9.14; Hill, Sermons (III/1), 271: "Iam nosti pretium tuum, iam nosti quo accedis, quid manduces, quid bibas; imo quem manduces, quem bibas. Abstine te a fornicationibus."; PL 38.85.