book reviews

331

David Vincent Meconi

The One Christ: St. Augustines Theology of Deification, Washington, D.C.: The
Catholic University of America Press 2013, xx + 280 pp., ISBN 978-0-8132-2127-4,
US$ 64.95 (hardback with jacket).

Popular opinion still has it that deification is typical to Eastern theology and
virtually absent in Western theology. The main source to be blamed for this
nonappearance orat leastdeficiency would be Augustine.
Sound research has indicated more than once, however, that the notion of
deification occurs in Augustine, even as an integral element of his theology,
though it is only sparsely specified by the technical term deificare. While this
specific term is only used 18 times, so Meconi, the concept forms a constituent
part of Augustines theological system. In this respect Meconi is in line with
previous scholars such as Capnaga, Ladner and, more recently, Bonner.1 For
Augustine, deification is the same as that implied by the NT doctrine of the
sonship of the believers, i.e. sonship by adoption and not by nature, through
Gods participation in our humanity through Jesus Christ. In other words, deification is the consequence of humanity being assumed by God in Christs
incarnation. In this way, the divine imago in man is reformed, as is the similitudo. All this does not imply any ontological change (the created being remains
a created being, even though deified); also, it is not achieved in this life, but
only after the resurrection.
In the above lines I rather closely follow Gerald Bonner, who in two brief
and fairly identical summaries outlined the topic and indicated the essential
prooftexts.2 Meconi deals with the problem in five rather lengthy chapters, but
in essence he says the same. Perhaps one may remark that he lays somewhat
more stress on the Holy Spirits indwelling (the topic of ch. four) and constantly emphasises the fact that humankinds participation in God is seen
by Augustine as only taking place through Christs humanity (and not
his divinity).
All this sounds fairly theological and, indeed, such is the essential character
of Meconis rather long-winded but lucidly written book. The topic might have
been dealt with in a broader historical context and, also, based upon more
explicit philological analyses of the terms involved. Apart from the studies by
1 See e.g. Victorino Capnaga, La deificacin en la soteriologa agustiniana, Augustinus
Magister 2 (1954) 745-754; G.B. Ladner, The Idea of Reform, Cambridge, Mass. 1959, esp. 185203; G. Bonner, Augustines Conception of Deification, JTS 37 (1986) 369-386.
2 Bonner, Deificare, Augustinus-Lexikon 2, fasc.1/2, 1996, 265-267; Deification, Divinization,
Augustine Through the Ages, Grand Rapids, MI/Cambridge, UK 1999, 265-266.

koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 4|doi .6/577-474

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book reviews

Bonner, all these merits are characteristic of an earlier work on the topic, sc.
the 1952 Leiden doctoral dissertation by J.A.A.A. Stoop entitled Die deificatio
hominis in die sermones en epistulae van Augustinus.3 Meconi is aware of the
existence of this book (87 densely printed pages, plus title page and contents
and curriculum vitae auctoris),4 but at the same time asserts that his own work
is the first book-length study of Augustines theology of deification (xvi).
Scholars able to understand Dutch (or, more precisely, its cognate language
Afrikaans) may still very profitably consult the in-depth 1952 study by the not
only historically and theologically, but also philologically well-trained young
doctor theologiae (by then Stoop was only 26!).
The present book, finely produced by CUAP, contains a number of small
mistakes in French (the first one on p. ix: Oeuvres of Saint Augustine should
read: Oeuvres de saint Augustin), in some German and other names (read
Adolf for Adolph Harnack and Uwe Knorr for Knoor; Goulven for Goulvan
Madec) and, for instance, sometimes in the title of one of Bonners studies (e.g.
in the bibliography on p. 252 read Conception instead of Concept). These are
minor points, of course, and as a rule one may say that the author displays a
sound knowledge of both the primary Latin texts and a considerable number
of Augustinian studies in a whole range of languages. However, he incorrectly
states that Augustine put the words sermo deificus into the mouths of
Manichaeans like Faustus and Felix: both in c. Faust. 32,7 and 32,19 Augustine
is quoting from Faustus own Capitula, while in c. Fel. 1,13 it is, according to the
official acts of the dispute, the Manichaean doctor Felix who is speaking. All
this leads to the interesting question of what, in actual fact, sermo deificus may
have meant for a Latin Manichaean? Did it not have some specific meaning
different from its use in non-Gnostic Christianity? Be that as it may, Meconis
remark after enumerating these and some other appearances of deificus,
namely that [f]rom each of these occurrences we can safely ascertain that a
deified word is a formalized phrase in late antiquity to prove the orthodoxy of
anyone who would grant a canonical writing such godly status (86), does not
make much sense to me. Here one may delve deeper and ask precisely what a
Manichaean may have denoted by such a term. The same might go for the
sources of the Augustinian concept of the totus Christus, which is rightly so
often stressed by Meconi as being pivotal for understanding Augustines notion
of deificatio. Should we not evaluate the fact that this very same concept of
totus Christus, so essential in Augustines theology, was central to Manichaean
3 Printed and published by Drukkerij Luctor et Emergo, Leiden 1952.
4 See pp. xvi and 84 (although on the last mentioned page it is wrongly stated that Jan Stoops
work was a doctoral thesis for the Netherlands University of Groningen).

Vigiliae Christianae 68 (2014) 329-346

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theology as well? One may consult, among several other writings, the Coptic
Manichaean Psalter, or a foundational text such as the Greek Cologne Mani
Codex.
Johannes van Oort

University of Pretoria
j.van.oort@planet.nl

Vigiliae Christianae 68 (2014) 329-346