Kimberly Baker - “Transfiguravit in se: The Sacramentality of Augustine’s Doctrine of the Totus Christus

This paper argues that Augustine’s choice of verb tense in the phrase transfiguravit in se gives a sacramental dimension to his doctrine of the totus Christus, the whole Christ with Christ as Head and the Church as body.  It begins by outlining the grammatical changes that Augustine makes to the words of the apostle Paul to speak of Christ’s transformation of the Church in the union of the totus Christus:  “[Christus] transfigurabit corpus humilitatis nostrae, conforme corpori gloriae suae” (Philippians 3:21).  While Paul chooses the future tense, transfigurabit, to locate the transformation of the Church in eternity, Augustine shifts the verb tense to the perfect, thus grounding the transformation in the past.  His writings emphasize, however, that the transformation culminates in eternity, thus giving rise to the question of why he chooses the perfect tense.  After considering the arguments of Marie-Josèphe Rondeau and Michael Cameron on the question, the paper asserts that the grammatical shift is a theological move that reveals the sacramental dimension of the totus Christus.  It considers Augustine’s use of the word transitus to describe Christ’s passage through life on earth in the Incarnation.  It is in his transitus that Christ transformed the Church into his body.  As the body of Christ, the Church extends Christ’s passage through earthly life, thus the transitus that was completed with the resurrection and ascension of Christ actually continues to take place in the present.  And neither the transitus nor the transformation it brings will be complete until the Church follows Christ in his ascension into heaven.  Thus, the union of the totus Christus is a sacramental reality that transcends time, bringing eternal realities into the present because of past actions.  Augustine faces a grammatical dilemma as Latin provides no tense for an action that is both completed yet continues, an action that is now but not yet.  That is, there is no verb tense for a sacramental reality.  The paper concludes, then, that Augustine intentionally manipulates the verb tense in order to express the sacramental dimension of the union of Christ and the Church as each generation of Christians is transformed anew by Christ in his transitus.