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The famous addition to the Trisagion, "who wast crucified for us," which for a time won recognition as sound and catholic, was first made by the monophysite Bishop of Antioch. Both these phrases have scriptural authority, and they are justified by the communicatio idiomatum. But they are liable to misuse and misinterpretation. All depended on how they were said and who said them.
Theologians talk of a communicatio idiomatum as between the human and the divine elements in Christ. There is an analogous passage of the attributes of either to the other, in the relation of the believer to his Saviour.
This is an instance of the communicatio idiomatum. The properties of the two natures act and react upon one another. But we must make the distinction of natures our starting-point, or fusion will take place. There must be idiomata first, or the communicatio is meaningless. The view taken of the Christ of the past necessarily affects belief in the Christ of the present.
The old Roman digest interprets nature with philosophic accuracy when it describes marriage as "Conjunctio maris et feminae et consortium omnis vitae, divini et humani juris communicatio". "The union of man and woman and the companionship of all life, the sharing of right, human and divine."
The monophysite confounds the natures, and so he has no right to appeal to the communicatio idiomatum. Unless the idiomata are admitted as such, unless they are preserved in their distinctness, there can be no communicatio between them. If they are fused, they cannot act and react upon each other.
* Ponere enim corpus transire in spiritum est omnino impossibile. Non enim transeunt invicem nisi quæ in materia communicant. Spiritualium autem et corporalium non potest esse communicatio in materia, cum substantiæ spirituales sint omnino immaterialia.
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