Although Jerome consistently denies any change of human nature, this timehe uses an overstatement by saying that we sow in the Spirit as men, “but whenwe begin to reap eternal life, we will perhaps cease to be men” (homo fortasseesse desistit).35

He emptied himself of the fullness and form of God andassumed the form of a servant so that the fullness of divinity might dwell in us and sothat we might go from being servants to masters.23

he purpose behind the Word becoming flesh (see Jn 1:14) is “thatwe might pass from the flesh into the Word.” The Word does not cease to bedivine; our human nature is not changed but “the glory is increased.” 32While we live in this earthly life, our participation in God consists in pur-suing moral excellence. If we fail to reach perfection, then the whole processof that growth is worthless. Jerome, again, gives us the image of the grape andits maturation “through many stages between the vine and the winepress.”Similarly, the Christian goes through stages of “infancy, childhood, adoles-cence, and young adulthood, until he becomes a mature man.” If the work isnot brought to an end, which indicates perfection and moral excellence, and“if the work lacks that final touch,” the whole effort is in vain. 33

Jerome links adoptive sonship with participation in divine life. In a pas-sage from the Tractates on the Psalms, Jerome uses “adoption” and “participa-tion” as parallel terms. “There is only one true God and many are called ‘gods’by participation in Him, just as there is the only Son of God and many arecalled ‘sons’ by adoption.” 29

For Jerome, the Christian’s growth is theimitation of Christ who “emptied himself and took on the form of a servantand was found in appearance as a man [see Phil 2:6–8], so that we ‘becomegods from humans’ [ut nos dii fieremus ex hominibus, see Ps 81:6] and no lon-ger die but be raised with Christ [see 1 Cor 3:1] and be called his friends [seeJn 15:15] and brothers [see Jn 20:17].” 22

Jerome is much less willing to callthe saints and the perfect Christians “gods,” as if they ceased to be men, 19 andrepeatedly emphasizes that God and men do not share the same nature.

erome states that we “are gods” not by our nature but by grace (quoddii sumus, non sumus natura, sed gratia)

Therefore, “we should believe that we are nowalready what we will become.” 26 This is “a new creation [see Gal 6:15], intowhich our lowly body is being transformed into the glorious body of Christ[see Phil 3:21].” 27 Our future body can be neither circumcised nor kept uncir-cumcised (see Gal 5:6). It is “not to say that its substance changes; it is just dif-ferent in glory.” 28

Despite his vast knowl-edge of Greek literature, his fondness for analyzing Hebrew and Greek words,and his affection for comparing Greek and Latin translations, Jerome neveruses any of the Greek expressions for deification. 1 Neither does he use theLatin words deificare, deificatio, or their derived forms. 2

He suggested that theincarnation was not only a theophany, but at the same time, “an anthropoph-any: the perfect exhibition before God of the beauty and excellencies of man-hood when framed without sin, developed without flaw, and continuouslymaintained in personal union with the eternal Son of God.

Hilary’s ideas of individual, rather than collective, transformation at the es-chaton have received little attention,

Jerome linksdeification—or rather, “becoming gods” —with adoptive sonship, a participa-tion in divine life that is not merely a figure of speech but a reality bestowedas a gift not possessed by right.87 Like Ambrose and Leo, Jerome refers to ourbecoming “partakers of divine nature,” “not in the realm of nature but in therealm of grace” (non naturae esse, sed gratiae).8

All the Greek Fathers after Origen who discuss redemption in terms ofdeification are, at least in this respect, his heirs. It was Origen who trimmedaway Clement’s more exotic utterances and presented deification as the prod-uct of Christian discipleship, namely, the attainment of immortality througha dynamic participation in the Son through the Holy Spirit.

The apparent thinness of the Latin tradition in comparison withthe Greek that some scholars have noticed owes something to the scarcenessof translations but more to the kind of audience the Latin authors were ad-dressing. The readers or hearers of many of the texts we have been consideringwere the simpliciores rather than the spiritually advanced (Eriugena seems tohave been right on that score). 86 The sermons of Augustine or the catechet-ical addresses of Ambrose were addressed to beginners. There was a learnedreadership in the Western provinces of the Empire, but just when the riches ofOrigen’s approach to deification might have been made available to Westernreaders, his texts began to come under suspicion for doctrinal error.

A comparison of the Greek and Latin approaches to deification up tothe time of Gregory the Great reveals a strong common tradition. Deificationis the raising of the Christian to a new level of being by faith in Christ andparticipation in the ecclesial body.

and the culmination of Leo’s theology of deification.” 12 Leo envisages the ad-vancement (provectio) of humanity, by means of this exchange, to the veryperfection of the Godhead (ad summa Deitatis).13

In Ambrose’s own words, Christ “offered himself according to our nature thathe might accomplish a work beyond our nature.”

Deificationis the raising of the Christian to a new level of being by faith in Christ andparticipation in the ecclesial body.

n both the Eastern and Western traditions, deification is Christological-ly based, ecclesiologically expressed, and eschatologically oriented. The dif-ferences of emphasis are due mainly to the different ways in which Origen’sheritage was received, either directly or through writers influenced by him.Despite his condemnation by an ecumenical council in 553, he remained acommon Father who never ceased to be studied eagerly, particularly in monas-tic circles, in both the Greek East and the Latin West. If Irenaeus was the firstto enunciate the exchange formula and to speak of the baptized as gods, it wasOrigen who taught the church at large how Christian discipleship could leadeven in this world to sharing in the divine life.

Leo was asked to adjudicate the caseof Eutyches, the Constantinopolitan archimandrite who held that after theincarnation the human and divine elements in Christ formed a single naturebecause the human had been totally divinized by the divine. Leo was quiteclear that the human and the divine in Christ remained two distinct but in-separable natures. “The terminology of deification,” as Keating suggests, “mayhave seemed to Leo to give unhelpful support and encouragement to what hesaw as a quasi-docetic approach to Christ.” 57

Dunkle has noticed that Ambrose avoids deification terms in his catecheticalmaterial but uses them in texts intended for more advanced Christians.56 Notunreasonably, Ambrose may have regarded deification as a misleading conceptfor catechumens.

The unwillingness of many of the Latin writers we have been consideringto use the technical language of deification is a puzzling feature that several ofthe contributors to this volume have addressed. Brian Dunkle notes that Am-brose omits deification terms even when he comes across them in the Greeksources he is using.52 Vít Hušek is surprised that despite “his vast knowledgeof Greek literature, his fondness for analyzing Hebrew and Greek words, andhis affection for comparing Greek and Latin translations, Jerome never usesany of the Greek expressions for deification.” 53 Peter Chrysologus and PopeLeo the Great, although not Hellenists like Ambrose and Jerome, also attractcomment for their avoidance of the technical terms of deification.54

Eriugena, Periphyseon 5, 1015C.

3 . B E H O L D I N G C H R I S T I N T H E O T H E RA N D I N T H E S E L FDeification in Benedict of Nursia and Gregory the Great

2 . E V E R Y H A P P Y M A N I S A G O DDeification in Boethiu

Daniel Keating

“made every Christian to be what Christ is.” 105 Christ was inthe world like leaven in dough, he says, and Christians share in that, spreadinggrace throughout the whole world. “Whoever, therefore, sticks to the leavenof Christ becomes in turn leaven as useful to himself as he is helpful to every-one else and, certain of his own salvation, he is made sure of the redemptionof others.” 106

When we fast often, part of God’s power dwells in us sinceit is God himself who fasts.” 104

“we have become not only Christians, but Christ himself.” 100

he who did not disdain to take us up into himself, did not dis-dain either to transfigure us into himself [transfigurare nos in se], and to speak in ourwords, so that we in our turn might speak in his.

that the divine birth might shine forthin you, that the deifying discipline [deifica disciplina] might respond to God, the Fa-ther, that in the honour and praise of living, God may be glorified in man.93

PopeGelasius says: “Certainly the sacraments of the body and blood of Christ,which we receive, is a divine thing. On account of this and through the same‘we are made partakers of the divine nature’ (2 Pet. 1:4).” 86

Augustine relates, “I heard Your voice from onhigh: ‘I am the food of grown men; increase and you will eat Me. You will notchange Me into you as food of your flesh, but you will be changed into Me.’ ” 82

What is more awesome . . . that He Himself is born into your state of slavery, or thatHe makes you to be free children of His own? That He takes your poverty upon Him-self, or that He makes you His heirs, yes, co-heirs of His unique Self ? It is indeed moreawesome that earth is transformed into a heaven, that man is changed by a deification[deitate], and that those whose lot is slavery get the rights of domination.5

Yet the merciful God wanted to help the creature “made in his own image” [Gn 1:27]through his only Son Jesus Christ—in such a way that the restoration of its natureshould not be outside of that nature, and that the second creation should advance be-yond the dignity of its original state. . . . It was a great thing to have received a formfrom Christ, but greater still to have its substance in Christ.38Our re-creation in baptism is an advance upon our original creation becausewe now not only have form from Christ (our human nature), but share in hisvery own divine substance.

Verona supports this idea: “not only do you make alive our earthly andmortal material which had died out” —that is, God not only restores the lifewhich was lost in the Fall—“but you even make it divine.” 37

Verona Sacramentary

hey would have known, asAugustine strikingly says, that God “makes his worshipers into gods.”

n the available Latin liturgies, deif-words do not appear (nor do they appear in the Greek ones either), though thecontent of deification is alluded to throughout in both metaphysical and poeticlanguage.

Through participationin the sacraments, meditation on scripture, and the practice of virtue, believersgrow in union with and likeness to God.

For this is the night which has knowledge of the saving sacraments, the night in whichyou offer pardon to sinners, make new men from old, from worn out old men restorefull-grown infants, whom you bring from the sacred font renewed unto a new crea-ture. On this night your people are new born and brought forth unto eternal day, thehalls of the kingdom of heaven are thrown open, by your blessed ordinance human con-versation is changed to divine.29

Christ was made a man of our race, so that we might be able to become “partakers ofthe divine nature.” He placed in the font of Baptism that very origin which he had as-sumed in the Virgin’s womb. He gave to the water what he had given to his Mother.For, the same “power of the Most High” and “overshadowing” of the Holy Spirit thatcaused Mary to bear the Savior makes the water regenerate the believer.2

it does, it is true, awaken very profound and very tender emotions and impulses, but it leaves them hidden. There are certain feelings of surrender, certain aspects of interior candor which cannot be publicly proclaimed, at any rate in their entirety, without danger to spiritual modesty. The liturgy has perfected a masterly instrument which has made it possible for us to express our inner life in all its fullness and depth, without divulging our secrets--"secretum meum mihi." We can pour out our hearts, and still feel that nothing has been dragged to light that should remain hidden.7

Either the people who use it will take it seriously, and probably will then feel obliged to force themselves into acquiescence with an emotion that they have never, generally speaking, experienced, or which, at any rate, they are not experiencing at that particular moment, thus perverting and degrading their religious feeling. Or else indifference, if they are of a phlegmatic temperament, will come to their aid; they then take the phrases at less than their face value, and consequently the word is depreciated.

he liturgy is emotion, but it is emotion under the strictest control.

Only thought is universally current and consistent, and, as long as it is really thought, remains suited, to a certain degree, to every intelligence. If prayer in common, therefore, is to prove beneficial to the majority, it must be primarily directed by thought, and not by feeling. It is only when prayer is sustained by and steeped in clear and fruitful religious thought, that it can be of service to a corporate body, composed of distinct elements, all actuated by varying emotions.We have seen that thought alone can keep spiritual life sound and healthy. In the same way, prayer is beneficial only when it rests on the bedrock of truth. This is not meant in the purely negative sense that it must be free from error; in addition to this, it must spring from the fullness of truth. It is only truth--or dogma, to give it its other name--which can make prayer efficacious

The claim that the liturgy should be taken as the exclusive pattern of devotional practice in common can never be upheld. To do so would be to confess complete ignorance of the spiritual requirements of the greater part of the faithful. The forms of popular piety should rather continue to exist side by side with those of the liturgy, and should constitute themselves according to the varying requirements of historical, social, and local conditions.

The liturgy is and will be the "lex orandi." Non- liturgical prayer must take the liturgy for its model, and must renew itself in the liturgy, if it is to retain its vitality. It cannot precisely be said that as dogma is to private religious opinion, so is the liturgy to popular devotion; but the connection between the latter does to a certain degree correspond with that special relation, characteristic of the former, which exists between the government and the governed. All other forms of devotional practice can always measure their shortcomings by the standard of the liturgy, and with its help find the surest way back to the "via ordinaria" when they have strayed from it. The changing demands of time, place, and special circumstance can express themselves in popular devotion; facing the latter stands the liturgy, from which clearly issue the fundamental laws--eternally and universally unchanging--which govern all genuine and healthy piety.

If private devotion were non-existent, and if the liturgy were the final and exclusive form of spiritual exercise, that exercise might easily degenerate into a frigid formula; but if the liturgy were non-existent--well, our daily observations amply show what would be the consequences, and how fatally they would take effect.

side by side with the liturgy there must continue to exist that private devotion which provides for the personal requirements of the individual, and to which the soul surrenders itself according to its particular circumstances. From the latter liturgical prayer in its turn derives warmth and local color.

Both methods of prayer must co-operate. They stand together in a vital and reciprocal relationship. The one derives its light and fruitfulness from the other. In the liturgy the soul learns to move about the wider and more spacious spiritual world. It assimilates

Each one is bound to strive within himself, and to rise superior to self. Yet in so doing he is not swallowed up by, and lost in, the majority; on the contrary, he becomes more independent, rich, and versatile.

When we pray on our own behalf only we approach God from an entirely personal standpoint, precisely as we feel inclined or impelled to do according to our feelings and circumstances. That is our right, and the Church would be the last to wish to deprive us of it.

We are, however, not only individuals, but members of a community as well; we are not merely transitory, but something of us belongs to eternity, and the liturgy takes these elements in us into account. In the liturgy we pray as members of the Church; by it we rise to the sphere which transcends the individual order and is therefore accessible to people of every condition, time, and place.