Andrew Hofer: Augustine’s Mixture Christology

The identification of Christ as a mixture, as Anthony Briggman ventures to say in a study on Tertullian, is “the most common philosophically influenced explanation of the Christological union in the first four centuries of the Church.” Does Augustine of Hippo express a mixture Christology? Marcia Colish posits that Augustine makes use of the Stoic doctrine of krasis with “only one reference to the topic in his entire oeuvre”, citing ep. 137, to Volusianus. She calls Augustine “virtually the only Latin Christian transmitter” of this Stoic teaching, briefly comparing his work with Tertullian’s.
            This communication studies Augustine’s limited, but still significant, use of mixture language for describing the Incarnation—and situates his thinking in the complex matrix of mixture language (e.g., Enneads 1.1.4; 2.7; 4.3.22). Undoubtedly, his densest use of mixture language for the Incarnation occurs in ep. 137.3.11 (permixtus sit, misceatur, mixtura, commisceri, permixtio, misceri, mixtionis vel mixturae), which should be read in conjunction with Augustine’s critique against a materialist view in that same letter, ep. 137.2.4. Moreover, Augustine uses mixture language positively elsewhere, such as miscentum in conf. 7.8.24, commixtus in de trin. 4.13.16 and 4.20.30, and permixta in de trin. 13.1.2, all regarding the Incarnation.
            Appreciating Augustine’s use of mixture language allows us to see how he cautiously adapts a long and varied tradition to press his soteriological emphasis on the closeness of the eternal Word to humanity in the Incarnation—before Chalcedon’s rejection of krasis (ACO 2.1.2.128-9).