The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

8. To make more clear the train of reasoning which results in the
doctrine of the Communion of properties, certain logical presuppositions,
and certain definitions should be held in mind. In the incarnation it is not
two persons, to wit, a divine person and a human person, which assume
each other, as if there were two co-ordinates, which equally took each
other; nor does one person, to wit, the divine, take another person, to wit, a
human person, so that there are two persons in the union, the divine person
assuming, and the human person assumed: but one person, having the
divine nature, assumes a human nature, so that there results a person in
which two natures are constituent, but in different ways -the divine nature
absolutely and independently personal, and the human nature secondarily
and dependently personal; the divine nature still has, as it ever had, its own
intrinsic personality; the human nature is assumed to the divine nature, and
neither had, nor has any other personality than the one divine personality,
which it has in virtue of the union. The human nature of Christ does not
subsist per se, as does the humanity of every other one of our race, but
subsists in the person of the Son of God. Hence, though the natures be
distinct, the person is inseparable. This complex divine-human person did
not exist before the union, and cannot exist except in and by the union;
and the second nature in the complex person has not existed as a nature
before or separate from this union, and never had, nor has, nor can have,
personality apart from that union. The Communicatio idiomatum is
therefore no giving away, so that the giver ceases to have, and the receiver
retains for itself apart henceforth from the giver, but is the fellowship of
attributes, which the two natures possess in the one person, the divine
nature having these attributes intrinsically, and the human nature having
them in and because of its personal identification with the divine nature. In
this relation the word "communicate" employed actively, means to "confer
a joint possession," that is, the divine nature confers on the human a joint
possession of attributes in the person. The word "communicate," used as a
neuter verb, means to "have something in common with another;" the
human nature has the attributes