Is Christ Literally Sitting on God’s Right Hand? – Saint Augustine Explains

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Tomorrow is the Ascension of Christ and this holy day sometimes prompts the question, “When Christ ascended to the Father how exactly did He sit at His right hand if God the Father doesn’t have a hand?”
Saint Augustine of Hippo answers this question for us in his homily on the Creed. He explains first how sedit need not literally mean sit down. This is important since St Stephen saw Christ “standing” at the right hand of the Father. Sitting refers to His habitation, not His position. 
Regarding whether God the Father has a fleshly hand – well this is clearly anthropomorphic metaphor. Saint Augustine explains:

He ascended into heaven: believe. He sits at the right hand of the Father: believe. By sitting, understand dwelling: as [in Latin] we say of any person, In that country he dwelt (sedit) three years. The Scripture also has that expression, that such an one dwelt (sedisse) in a city for such a time. Not meaning that he sat and never rose up? On this account the dwellings of men are called seats (sedes). Where people are seated (in this sense), are they always sitting? Is there no rising, no walking, no lying down? And yet they are called seats (sedes). In this way, then, believe an inhabiting of Christ on the right hand of God the Father: He is there. And let not your heart say to you, What is He doing? Do not want to seek what is not permitted to find: He is there; it suffices you. He is blessed, and from blessedness which is called the right hand of the Father, of very blessedness the name is, right hand of the Father. For if we shall take it carnally, then because He sits on the right hand of the Father, the Father will be on His left hand. Is it consistent with piety so to put Them together, the Son on the right, the Father on the left? There it is all right-hand, because no misery is there.

from Saint Augustine’s “A Sermon to Catechumens on the Creed”

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