Twentieth-century theologians advanced a consensus position that the doctrine of deification was alien to Augustine’s theology—even impossible to square with his other commitments—and that even if traces of the doctrine could be detected, they were, at best, of marginal importance to his intellectual topography. This position, however, has been persuasively challenged by several investigations during the past three decades. This article builds upon these latter investigations to demonstrate how the notion of deification is prevalent throughout his corpus—whether linguistically evident by his use of technical terms such as deificare and cognates, or more often, conceptually in his reflections upon anthropology, Christology, and ecclesiology. The article concludes by noting two of Augustine’s distinctive contributions to the post-Nicene development of deification—that is, an emphasis upon the sacramental and ecclesiological contours of the doctrine.

This article explores the ways in which the thirteen ‘biographical superscriptions’ which are found throughout the Psalter contribute to the blending of the Davidic voice which they invoke and the corporate voice of the community which receives them. It suggests that by receiving these thirteen Psalms, the canonical community enters an intensive identification with David and participates in the Davidic life and experience. Once this is established, the discussion turns to examine these insights in a Christian theological context in conversation with Augustine's totus Christus principle. It is suggested that the hermeneutical situation created by the biographical superscriptions provides a way for the totus Christus principle to be re-invoked in contemporary interpretation.

Augustine's understanding of the church as part of the totus Christus – the ‘whole Christ’ – has become an important resource in contemporary theology, offering a robust vision of the church's union with God. Yet a key critique maintains that it threatens to elide the distinction between the perfected Christ and the created church. This article addresses this issue by asking how the totus Christus doctrine relates to the doctrine of participation. For Augustine, participation is a metaphysical category that expresses the creature's dependent, non-divine status, its essential being out of nothing. The totus Christus doctrine is most explicitly an exegetical, not metaphysical doctrine. Nevertheless, by putting these two facets of Augustine's thought together, we can see the way in which they mutually reinforce the view that the astonishing claims of unity in the totus Christus are structured by a larger theological grammar that distinguishes God and creature.

In this paper, I seek to articulate a positive role for the body in our eschatological joy in God. I draw on Augustine's thought to argue that the body makes a positive contribution to our joy in God by being a pedagogy for our imaginations, training us to imagine the beautiful character of God in Christ through embodiment. While Augustine might seem like a surprising choice for this task, I argue that his concepts of ubique totus and the totus Christus provide fertile soil for the growth of an eschatological theology of the body.