COMMUNICATIO IDIOMATUM.
Doctrine before the Reformation (§ 1). Luther (§ 2).
Brenz, Chemnitz, and their Followers (§ 3). The Formula of Concord (§4). Later Lutheran Theology (§5).
In Lutheran dogmatics Communicatio Idiomatum (" communication of the attributes or properties ") is a term referring to the relation between the divine and the human nature as united in the one person of Christ. The thought which it expresses aims to establish the connection between the unio personalis and the communio naturarum. Having for its purpose to illustrate the undivided personal life and work of the God-man on the basis of the twofold nature united in him, it stands in the closest connection with the historical appearance of Jesus, since it undertakes to give the final dogmatic declaration concerning the person of Christ.
The doctrine starts with the assertion that by virtue of the incarnation of the Son of God as the second person of the Divine Trinity there exists an undivided subject of the God-man by virtue of the initiative of tfie Logos assuming the human nature so that both natures, the divine and the human, are indissolubly and perfectly connected with one another in personal unity. The dogmatic formu-
Oonununioatio Idlomatum Oommuuion of Saints
THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
lation of the ancient Church limited itself to fixing the fact of the incarnation— one divine-human person (Gk. hen prosopon or mia hypostasis) of perfect and like essence with God
1. Doctrine according to the divine nature, of perbefore feet and like essence with man accord-
the Ref- ing to the human nature, vindicating onnation. the integrity of both natures in the union and within the personal unity and retaining its plainly indissoluble connection (Chalcedonian Statement of 451). When the question as to the natures of the God-man turned into that concerning the will and volition in the Monothelitic controversy, it was natural that the statement of the integrity and absolute connection already made concerning the natures should also be extended to the thelemata and energeia, as adhering to the natures, constituting their essence (Constantinopolitan Creed of 680-681; cf. R. Seeberg, Dogmengeschichte, i., Leipsic, 1895, pp. 221- 222, 230). John of Damascus tried to define more clearly the communication of the properties. By virtue of the " penetration " (Gk. perichoresis) of both natures in the personal unity each communicates to the other of its own, and it may therefore be said: " the Lord of glory was crucified," and on the other hand: " this man is uncreated " (Z)e fide orthodoxa, iii. 3-4). The penetration proceeds indeed from the deity (iii. 7, end), but after the di\ine nature has once penetrated the flesh it allows also the flesh to penetrate it. The penetration is so far mutual; the human, without abrogating its essence, becomes divine, the human knowledge of Christ is enriched with all wisdom, the human will becomes almighty by means of the permeating divine will, the flesh making alive. An advance in this direction in medieval scholasticism was the less possible as the notion of God became more and more opposed to everything changeable, creature-like, human, and as the disinclination grew to revise the foundations on which rests the doctrine of the communicdtio idiomatum.
It was with no theological scientific interest, but to help faith, that Luther from the very start emphasized the fact that the Son of God had assumed 60 much of our flesh and blood that we have now become one flesh with him. To this end he emphasized the truly human being and human development of Christ, without limiting thereby the divine essence of tlu^ Logos; every-
2. Luther, thing that Christ does or suffers he
refers back as Ijeing done and suffered by God, but without an equal extension to both natures. Starting with the unity of the God-man, he went so far in the assertion of the union of natures and the communication of the properties that he supposed that the divine nature gives its proportyto the human, and again the humanity also to the divine nature. Influenced especially by the controversy over the Lord's Supper, he gav(> the human nature of Christ a share in the illocal exist enee of the Loiios, and this since the unity of persons on which this communication rests exists from the moment of the incarnation.
The WiirttemlxTg theologians, headed by Johann Brcnz, took up Luther's conception most decidedly
and carried it to its logical conclusion, viz., that by means of the personal union of both natures in the incarnation the humanity of Christ is also everywhere where the divinity is, so that all communication of the natures and their properties actually existed with this accomplished unity; and that for the subsequent exaltation of Christ there remained only the emerging and mani-
3. Brenz, festation of what actually existed. Chemnitz, Hereby the truth of the human nature and their and development was the less ob- FoUowers. scured, since they retained not only
the statement " God has suffered and died," but also advanced to the assertion that even the divine nature has in its way taken part in the suffering of Christ. " The properties and acts of these natui-es have their condition, that one communicates its properties or acts to the other, which is called the ' communicatio idiomatum ' " (Brenz, De libello Bullingeri, p. 105). The Lower Saxon theologians, headed by Martin Chemnitz, shrank from this logical carrying out of the unity of person with reference to the communion of the natures and their properties, and endeavored to maintain in spite of the unity of the person the lasting difference of the na,tures as well as that of the two states of Christ. But this does not mean that an essential difference existed between the Saxon and Swabian doctrine with reference to the suppositions and foundations themselves. For Chemnitz himself expressly denied that the hypostatic union or the personal indwelling of the entire fulness of the deity in the assumed human nature had become " in the course of years, progressively greater, closer, fuller, and more perfect," and rather asserted this indwelling " from the first moment of the hypostatic union " {De duabus naturis, p. 216), and most decidedly declared against the assumption that God can be placed somewhere without placing there also the humanity assumed by him (p. 203).
The statement of the doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum as developed in the Formula of Concord is thus plainly unintelligible in all points, if detached from the immediate interest of faith. Starting therefore with the so-called propositiones personates (God is man, man is God) concerning which, according to the statement, no difference existed between the Philippistic and the Swiss theologians, they proceeded to the statement of the communicatio idiomatum based upon the generally acknowledged personal union of the natures and to be interpreted by it. They asserted first the genus idiomaticum, that kind of communi-
4. The cation of properties whereby the Formula common properties are to be ascribed
of Concord, to the person of the God-man with distinction of the natures. For example, the son of God was born according to the human nature, the son of man is almighty according to the divine nature. Here, too, there was agreement with their opponents, but the difference of the meaning which was discerned in the expression results from this, that on the part of the Reformed this communicatio was only considered as a dialcctica prmlicatio, not as a rcnlis communicatio.
It is evident that in the confession of the Luthera*