Christ Wholly and Always Everywhere: Augustine on Christ <i>Extra Carnem</i> in <i>Ep</i> . 187

Abstract In general narratives of Christological development, Augustine is considered to have contributed nothing significant. While the formation of Conciliar Christology occurred without him, Augustine offered a thorough defence and articulation of the Son’s existence extra carnem, beyond the flesh, impacting Western Christology from the late antique period to the Reformation. Augustine’s ep. 187 offers a doctrine of Christ’s divine omnipresence and true embodiment in light of his two natures united in a single person. Responding to Dardanus’ query regarding the promise to the thief on the cross, Augustine reflects on Christ’s presence during the triduum, the period between his death and resurrection. He analyses the person of the Son’s relation to spatiality according to each nature and articulates a hermeneutic of reduplicative predication to explain how Christ’s one person can be simultaneously in the tomb, in hell, and in paradise according to his divinity and humanity respectively. Augustine concludes that the person of Christ is both divinely omnipresent, wholly everywhere, and uniquely located in his human body while remaining present to the Church, always everywhere.