ore the gift of
immortality is itself a deification. This notion is distinctly adopted
by several Christian writers. Theophilus says (_ad Autol._ ii. 27)
"that man, by keeping the commandments of God, may receive from him
immortality as a reward ([Greek: misthon]), _and become God._" And
Clement (_Strom._ v. 10. 63) says, "To be imperishable ([Greek: to me
phtheiresthai]) is to share in Divinity." To the same effect
Hippolytus (_Philos._ x. 34) says, "Thy body shall be immortal and
incorruptible as well as thy soul. For _thou hast become God_. All the
things that follow upon the Divine nature God has promised to supply
to thee, for _thou wast deified in being born to immortality_." With
regard to later times, Harnack says that "after Theophilus, Irenaeus,
Hippolytus, and Origen, the idea of deification is found in all the
Fathers of the ancient Church, and that in a primary position. We have
it in Athanasius, the Cappadocians, Apollinaris, Ephraem Syrus,
Epiphanius, and others, as also in Cyril, Sophronius, and late Greek
and Russian theologians. In proof of it, Ps. lxxxii. 6 ('I said, Ye
are gods') is very often quoted." He quotes from Athanasius, "He
became man that we might be deified"; and from Pseudo-Hippolytus, "If,
then, man has become immortal, he will be God."

This notion grew within the Church as chiliastic and apocalyptic
Christianity faded away. A favourite phrase was that the Incarnation,
etc., "abolished death," and brought mankind into a state of
"incorruption" ([Greek: aphtharsia]) This transformation of human
nature, which is also spoken of as [Greek: theopoiesis] is the
highest work of the Logos. Athanasius makes it clear that what he
contemplates is no pantheistic merging of the personality in the
Deity, but rather a renovation after the original type.

But the process of deification may be conceived of in two ways: (a)
as essentialisation, (b) as substitution. The former may perhaps be
called the more philosophical conception, the latter the more
religious. The former lays stress on the high calling of man, and his
potential greatness as the image of God; the latter, on his present
misery and alienation, and his need of redemption. The former was the
teaching of the Neoplatonic philosophy, in which the human mind was
the throne of the Godhead; the latter was the doctrine of the
Mysteries, in which salvation was conceived of realistically as
something imparted or infused.

The notion that salvati