Theologians and Augustine of Hippo: A Twentieth Century Dialogue (Oxford: Inter-
Conclusion 239 and (3) a sensible inciting of sinners toward repentance.4 Burns nowhere entertains the possibility of Augustine's explaining the Son's incarnation in terms of humanity's divinization, and at times even suggests against it. His essay is brilliant in that it shows how Augustine weaves the best of Antiochene and Alexandrian soteriologies into a North African idiom, but what further insights could have been offered if the awareness that Augustine's ascribing "the recreation of an immortal humanity to the divine power operative in the resurrection of Christ" could also be understood as a process of deification?5
The second way my work may contribute to wider theological concerns is in its ecumenical potential. In Augustine and Russian Orthodoxy, Myroslaw Tataryn aims to show how there has been much in Augustine's thought that has been overlooked by his students. Consequently, Tataryn bemoans that we have a stunted view of the great Bishop today. From the organic unity between and mutual action of body and soul to redemption as theosis, Tataryn shows the many ways Orthodox theologians have relied on aspects of Augustine not appreciated even in his own Latin tradition.6 While admitting that there have been and are still many ambiguous approaches and appreciations of Augustine (especially, Tataryn notes, in the disparaging remarks made by Pavel Florensky), Tataryn encourages us to rediscover Augustinian deification. Overcoming the bias against Augustine on this point can only help to advance ecumenical dialogue between the East and the West as well as the various Christian communities within each.
4. J. Patout Burns, "How Christ Saves: Augustine's Multiple Explanations," Tradition & The Rule of Faith in the Early Church: Essays in Honor of Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J. (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2010), 193–210.
5. Burns, "How Christ Saves," 210. 6. Myroslaw I. Tataryn, Augustine and Russian Orthodoxy: Russian Orthodox Theologians and Augustine of Hippo: A Twentieth Century Dialogue (Oxford: International Scholars Publication, 2000), 16–17; 114–18. See also the recent essay by A. G. Roeber, "Western, Eastern, or Global Orthodoxy? Some reflections on St. Augustine of Hippo in Recent Literature," Pro Ecclesia 17.2 (2008): 210–23.