I do not have the background to be able to read all the Latin, Greek, Spanish, French, etc. wording in the text. I gradually figured out enough of it to pick up my rate of reading.
The previous reviewer sounds like he/she is critical of the Catholic Church to begin with, taking potshots at a controversy about whether doctrine changes in the Church. I think the author's point of view is that, due the the size of Augustine's intellectual output, some 4.5 million words, there has been considerable misunderstanding and misquoting of Augustine. To rectify this situation, to our benefit, the author reviews all the citations in Augustine's work about the concept of deification.
Meconi's thesis is that deification is a metaphor for the Christian life. He discusses how deification fits in with the standard teaching of the church. Meconi is not advocating Mormonism, quite the contrary. Deification rests on the notion that man was created in the image and likeness of God; the "likeness" was lost due to the sin of Adam and Eve; through Jesus Christ's incarnation mankind has the opportunity to be restored to that status of godliness that it possessed originally.
Salvation in Christ does not change human nature into divine nature. But, salvation restores the unity between humanity and God. (Of course, not all humanity is looking for such restoration.) The most precious thing to God is His likeness, and His plan of salvation is to enable mankind to regain that likeness. This restoration occurs as a result of the incarnation of Christ, the baptism and Holy Communion in each believer, and the maintenance of oneself in a Christian life.
Augustine is a major theologian in the Church and this book is a high quality analysis of this topic.
