Christ and the Altar Fire: Sacrifice as Deification in Matthias Scheeben

For renowned nineteenth-century German dogmatic theologian Matthias Scheeben, the divinely instituted liturgical cult of the Old Testament is replete with soteriological import, figuratively signifying not only Christ’s saving work and the sacramental worship of the New Testament, but also the transformation and elevation of the rational creature by divine grace. Scheeben’s distinctive use of sacrificial concepts is rooted in his underlying view of sacrifice as primarily perfective—directed to the glorification of God and constituted by the conversion of the offering into a pleasing and acceptable aroma via ritual burning with God-given fire. In Christ and the Altar Fire, David Augustine offers an in-depth study of Scheeben’s soteriology of sacrifice, providing a comprehensive analysis of his theology of sacrifice as well as a detailed examination of his sacrificial construal of Christ’s person, his saving work, and its application to others. At the heart of this account is Scheeben’s understanding of Christ’s sacrifice as encompassing his entire paschal mystery—passion, death, resurrection, and ascension—itself a passage of glorification that serves as the site and source of deifying and latreutic nuptial union. As he shows, Scheeben employs the altar fire typology to establish a unity of cross and glory that fully maintains the atoning and meritorious significance of Christ’s saving death. Displaying careful attentiveness to Scheeben’s historical context and to the contours of his substantial corpus, Augustine also brings Scheeben’s biblically inflected dogmatic theology into dialogue with contemporary biblical and theological scholarship, showcasing the enduring relevance of his thought.