David Vincent MECONI, SJ. The One Christ: St. Augustine’s Theology of Deification. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2013. pp. 280. $69.95 hc. ISBN 978-0-8132-2127-4. Reviewed by Ryan MARR, The National Institute for Newman Studies, Pittsburgh, PA 15237.

            Sometimes, in the field of theology, particularly within educational contexts, it’s necessary to employ broad generalizations that paper over historical nuances, but that provide a baseline understanding of key concepts. One of the most prominent examples of this practice can be found in historical treatments of the theological differences between Eastern and Western Christianity. So, for instance, in discussions about soteriology budding theologians often learn that while the Latin West developed an approach to salvation that emphasized human depravity and drew extensively on juridical categories, Eastern theologians tended to depict the process of salvation as one of theosis, or deification, in which the children of God are slowly healed from the malady of sin by being made like Christ. A common sub-feature of this narrative is that St. Augustine bears a large brunt of the responsibility for perpetuating this divide between Eastern and Western soteriologies.

            Fr. David Meconi’s The One Christ should motivate scholars to lay to rest the above narrative, or at least only to use it with substantial qualifications. Besides depicting too stark of a contrast between Eastern and Western understandings of salvation, it is simply inaccurate to depict Augustine as inimical to the idea of deification. To the contrary, “Deification of the human person is central to how St. Augustine presents a Christian’s new life in Christ” (xi). With his Eastern counterparts, Augustine unequivocally affirms that God became human so humans could become God, or as he specifically puts it, that “in order to make gods of those who were merely human, one who was God made himself human” (from Augustine’s Sermons, 192.1). In fact, as Meconi conclusively demonstrates, Augustine “uses the term deificare both in number and in ways unprecedented in the Christian West” (xv). Thus, rather than trying to pin Augustine with the charge of killing off the concept of deification in the West, we ought properly to view him as one of the central proponents of this soteriological framework.

            Meconi lends additional weight to his thesis by not delimiting his investigation to instances in which Augustine explicitly uses the term deificare. Through this secondary facet of his study he shows how “a wider metaphor of divine union runs throughout Augustine’s thought in ways indispensable to his overall theological concern” (xvi). The main body of Meconi’s argument proceeds along five steps, addressing the following key theological topics: creation, the imago Dei, Christology, the Holy Spirit’s indwelling, and ecclesial reception of the divine life. Over the course of these five chapters, Meconi meticulously lays out the relevant textual evidence from across the impressive array of sources that comprise Augustine’s body of work. To his credit, Meconi is also careful not to overplay his hand. As he notes near the end of the book, “Understood as one soteriological metaphor among many, deification assumed its proper place within Augustine’s overall theology: it is neither something disregarded by the Bishop of Hippo, nor is it something that begins to exhaust how he sees Christian salvation” (236). Overall, Meconi’s analysis is thorough, balanced, and engaging.

            In the spring of this year, CUA Press released a paperback version of The One Christ, which is listed at about half the price of the hardcover edition. This is a welcome development, as Meconi’s study deserves a broad audience. His monograph organically blends in-depth historical research with sound theological commentary in a way that naturally allows the past to speak to contemporary ecclesial concerns. I was particularly appreciative of Meconi’s conclusion, in which he explores the ecumenical potential of rediscovering Augustinian deification and also maps out possible directions for future scholarly research. In my view, this book is a must-read not only for Augustinian scholars, but also for ecumenical theologians as well as systematicians who regularly engage soteriological issues.