ABSTRACT
One typically reads that deication, or theôsis, was the view held among the Eastern Churches and something quite foreign to the West. In such works, one nds Augustine presented as the pre-eminent champion of ransom theory as the way of understanding redemption. But then one reads in the City of God, “God Himself, the blessed God, who is the giver of blessedness, became partaker of our human nature, and thus offered us a shortcut to participation in His own divine nature.” This sounds suspiciously like deication. Could this really be there? Yes, in fact, and it is what one should expect to nd in Augustine. How could others’ readings of Augustine have missed this? Such studies have arguably been preoccupied with only one portion of Augustine’s works – his books, unduly emphasized the anti-Pelagian writings – and confused Augustine’s doctrine of redemption with later formulations in the High Middle Ages and the Reformation, especially among the scholastic Reformers.
