Divinization (Christian) - Patristic Writings

Patristic Writings

There were many varied references to divinization in the writings of the Church Fathers, including the following:

• Irenaeus (c. 130-200)
  • "he Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who did, through His transcendent love, become what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself."
  • "'For we cast blame upon, because we have not been made gods from the beginning, but at first merely men, then at length gods; although God has adopted this course out of His pure benevolence, that no one may impute to Him invidiousness or grudgingness."
  • "For it was necessary, at first, that nature should be exhibited; then, after that, that what was mortal should be conquered and swallowed up by immortality, and the corruptible by incorruptibility, and that man should be made after the image and likeness of God."
• Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-215)
  • "he Word of God became man, that thou mayest learn from man how man may become God."
  • "For if one knows himself, he will know God; and knowing God, he will be made like God"
  • "is is beauty, the true beauty, for it is God; and that man becomes God, since God so wills. Heraclitus, then, rightly said, “Men are gods, and gods are men.” For the Word Himself is the manifest mystery: God in man, and man God"
  • "e who listens to the Lord, and follows the prophecy given by Him, will be formed perfectly in the likeness of the teacher—made a god going about in flesh."
• Justin Martyr (c. 100-165)
  • " were made like God, free from suffering and death, provided that they kept His commandments, and were deemed deserving of the name of His sons, and yet they, becoming like Adam and Eve, work out death for themselves; let the interpretation of the Psalm be held just as you wish, yet thereby it is demonstrated that all men are deemed worthy of becoming “gods,” and of having power to become sons of the Highest."
• Athanasius of Alexandria (c. 296-373)
  • "Therefore He was not man, and then became God, but He was God, and then became man, and that to deify us"
  • "for as the Lord, putting on the body, became man, so we men are deified by the Word as being taken to Him through His flesh."
  • "For He was made man that we might be made God."
• Augustine of Hippo (c. 354-430)
  • "'For He hath given them power to become the sons of God.' If we have been made sons of God, we have also been made gods."