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So, by the composition of De fide et symbolo, at the latest, Augustine has begun to articulate a theology of the Incarnation beyond merely an example of

448 See Vannier, ‘Creatio’, ‘Conversio’, Formatio’, 78 for a good discussion of the connection between similitudine and imago in Augustine.

449 See David Vincent Meconi, S.J., ‘The Incarnation and the Role of Participation in St Augustine’s Confessions’, Augustinian Studies 29:2 (1998) 67. While, as will be seen, I do not accept the basic thrust of Meconi’s argument here, he does provide (here and his other articles) one of the best discussions to be found of the concept of participation in Augustine.

450 See, diu qu. 83 57.1 where Augustine speaks of the Holy Spirit bringing perfection ‘while we yet walk in the flesh’.

451 See Lewis Ayres, ‘”Remember That You Are Catholic (Serm. 52.2): Augustine on the Unity of the Triune God,’ Journal of Early Christian Studies 8:1 (2000) 52.

452 fid. et sym. 9.19 (CSEL 41.24).

453 fid. et sym. 9.19 (CSEL 41.24).

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humility and to incorporate some explicit idea of participation. What apparently led him to this express this idea more explicitly was his grappling with Romans and Galatians, particularly the Pauline language of adoption. It is here that the language of participation becomes more apparent. Central to that understanding of

participatory redemption is the identity of Christ as mediator. 1 Tim. 2.5,⁴⁵⁴ which becomes for Augustine a Christology text of great importance, is cited for the first time in Expositio epistulae ad Galatas 24 where he argues that as there is no need for a mediator between God and God, Christ must be a mediator between God and humankind.⁴⁵⁵ Here he recalls his earlier language in a manner that suggests a rhetorical contest: ‘It remains, therefore, that anyone who was cast down by the Devil, the proud mediator, persuading (persuadente) him to pride, is raised up by Christ, the humble mediator, persuading (persuadente) him to humility’.⁴⁵⁶ But, just as it seems that the Incarnation will again be described in exemplary terms, Augustine adds a new element:

And so God’s only Son became a mediator between God and human beings when the Word of God, God with God, both laid down his own majesty to the level of the human and exalted human lowliness to the level of the divine, in order that he—a human being who through God was beyond human beings—

might be the mediator between God and human beings.⁴⁵⁷

It is significant how similar the flow of this passage is to that of De fide et symbolo 4.6: both begin by noting Christ’s humility and conclude with his transformation of humanity. But here for the first time Augustine explicitly articulates how Christ’s humility functions to redeem humankind: by laying down his majesty (again, an echo

454 ‘For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.’

(RSV)

455 ex. Gal. 24.5.

456 ex. Gal. 24.6 (CSEL 84.86-87).

457 ex. Gal. 24.8.

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of Phil. 2.4-8) to the level of humanity, Christ elevates human lowliness to the ‘level of the divine’. This is effectively an echo of Athanasius: ‘For he was made man that we might be made God’.⁴⁵⁸ As Gerald Bonner points out, this is really only

explicable in terms of participation.⁴⁵⁹ It is by both Christ’s participation in human lowliness and humanity’s subsequent participation in Christ’s divinity that human redemption can be achieved.⁴⁶⁰

Any doubt about the participative nature of the Incarnation is laid to rest a little later in Augustine’s commentary on Galatians. He writes:

But the clause that we might receive the adoption as sons refers to the earlier phrase: made of a woman. For we receive adoption because the only Son did not scorn participation in our nature—he was made of a woman so as to be not only the only-begotten, without any brothers, but also the first-born among many brothers.⁴⁶¹

Notice what Augustine has now done. Within the Neoplatonic scheme, the only means for ascent is for the lower to participate in the higher. At no point does the higher descend in order to elevate the lower. That is in fact anathema to Plotinus’s whole scheme. Augustine has now (and, it is safe to say that this dates to at least 393) broken entirely with Plotinus in this respect. Now, for the lower (humankind) to be able to participate in the higher (God), Christ (the higher) first participates in human nature (the lower). Apparently, this is why humility was of such importance to Augustine. He came to understand the paradox that ascent can only come about through an a priori descent.

The place one first encounters participatory redemption as found in ex. Gal.

side by side with participatory existence is in the seventh chapter of Confessiones:

458 Athanasius, On the Incarnation 54.3.

459 Bonner, ‘Augustine’s Conception of Deification’, 373.

460 See Bonner, ‘Augustine’s Conception of Deification’, 377.

461 ex. Gal. 30.9-11.

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interestingly, in the midst of Augustine’s discussion of the merits of the ‘books of the Platonists’. In 7.9.14, Augustine confesses that while he discovered the eternal nature of the Word in these books, he did not find anything about that same Word becoming incarnate.⁴⁶² He continues by explaining that he learned from Neoplatonism that the Word ‘immutably abides’ with the Father and ‘that souls receive his fullness to be blessed, and that they are renewed to be wise by participation in wisdom abiding in them’. Again, we are reminded of Augustine’s language, surveyed earlier, about the need for humankind to participate in God in order to have being and virtues. Indeed, this is precisely the same notion expressed in q. 23 of De diversis quaestionibus 83 and 16.57 of De Genesi ad litteram imperfectus liber. It is also classical

Neoplatonism: the lower enjoys what it has by participating in the higher.

David Meconi makes much of this in his article, ‘The Incarnation and the Role of Participation in St. Augustine’s Confessions’, arguing that this is the last time that a purely Platonic approach to participation appears in Augustine.⁴⁶³ According to him, at this point, Augustine only conceives of participatio in the traditional

Neoplatonic sense of the lower deriving its goodness and being from the higher. He suggests that the use of participatio in 7.18.24, where Augustine stresses Christ’s participation in human nature, marks a significant development in Augustine’s thought.⁴⁶⁴

What Meconi fails to recognise is that Augustine has both participatory existence and redemption in mind in 7.9.14. Indeed, the logic of the passage only works if one accepts that Augustine is describing both participatory existence and redemption. Just as Augustine found in Plotinus a teaching about the eternal

462 By now one should not be surprised to find Augustine quoting Phil. 2.4-8!

463 Meconi, ‘The Incarnation and the Role of Participation’, 64.

464 Meconi, ‘The Incarnation and the Role of Participation’, 68-69.

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immutability of the Word but not about his Incarnation, or entry into human

existence, he likewise found a teaching about participatory existence (that our being and goods derive from God) but not about mediation by participatory redemption (in which Christ participates in the human condition). Augustine’s point is precisely that Platonism fails (and becomes proud) by its inability to accept the humility involved in the Word’s participation in the human condition and even in the nadir of Platonic scale: death.

What Meconi does rightly highlight is the unusual nature of 7.18.24. This passage, however, is not so much a change or a development in Augustine’s thought as it is an almost poetic encomium on participatory redemption:

Your Word, eternal truth, higher than the superior parts of your creation, raises those submissive to him to himself. In the inferior parts he built for himself a humble house (humilis domus) of our clay. By this he detaches from themselves those who are willing to be made his subjects and carries them across to himself, healing their swelling and nourishing their love. They are no longer to place confidence in themselves, but rather are to become weak.

They see at their feet divinity become weak by his sharing in our ‘coat of skin’. In their weakness they fall prostrate before this divine weakness which rises and lifts them up.⁴⁶⁵

It can be safely said that Augustine is now in command of his scheme. He begins here with a Neoplatonic statement of ascent away from pride/wickedness

/nothingness. Humankind is helpless, unable to ascend by its own means. It must be raised and this can only happen by submission to the Word. Humility is the gateway.

Gone now, however, is any suggestion of the Incarnation as primarily an exemplary admonition; now humanity is redeemed by the Word’s construction of a ‘humble cottage’ for himself out of human nature. In other words, it is by the Word’s humble participation in humanity that humanity is raised towards God. The result is that

465 conf. 7.18.24 (CCL 27.108).

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those who believe in Christ learn humility rather than pride, weakness rather than confidence, and receive both healing and nourishment. In actuality, nothing has been added here that has not been seen before. What is different is the confidence with which it is expressed. Augustine’s initial attraction to the humility of Christ has deepened into a fully articulated notion of participatory redemption.