Tertullian and the Crucified God

Abstract

The Christological doctrine of the “communicatio idiomatum” requires that whatever is predicated of one nature of Christ — human or divine — may be predicated of either. It was a major feature of the thought of Cyril of Alexandria and the Alexandrian school generally but denied by most of the Antiochene school. It was accepted in a restricted sense by Leo of Rome but largely ignored in the documents of the mid-fifth century Council of Chalcedon. It appears nowhere in that council's Definition of Faith. This paper suggests that an early form of the doctrine is evident in the works of Tertullian of Carthage, writing in the early years of the third century. Whether Tertullian understood the full, logical implications of what he wrote in relation to the “communicatio”, however, cannot be said with any certainty.