COMMUNICATION OF PROPERTIES

Communication of properties is a Christological concept about the interaction of the divinity

and and humanity in the person of Jesus Christ. It maintains that in view of the unity of
Christ's person, his human and divine attributes and experiences might properly be referred
to his other nature so that the theologian may speak of "the suffering of God". This is the
classical Text book definition. However we have to understand that St. Athanasius avoided to
spoke about “divinity” and “humanity” but rather of the Word and His Flesh.
The concept is very old, as old as St. Ignatius, also ascertained by St. Hippolytus of
Rome and other ante-Nicene fathers. But it was St. Athanasius who elaborated on it in his
struggle against Arianism. St. Cyril also elaborated on this doctrine in his struggle with
Nestorius and it is not consistent with the Tome of Leo and the definitions of Chalcedon.

Being God, He had His own body, and using this as an instrument, He became
man for our sakes. And on account of this, the properties of the flesh are said
to be His, since He was in it, such as to hunger, to thirst, to suffer, to weary, and
the like, of which the flesh is capable; while on the other hand the works proper
to the Word Himself, such as to raise the dead, to restore sight to the blind, and
to cure the woman with an issue of blood, He did through His own body. And
the Word bore the infirmities of the flesh, as His own, for His was the flesh; and
the flesh ministered to the works of the Godhead, because the Godhead was in
it, for the body was God's.1

Whence it was that, when the flesh suffered, the Word was not external to it;
and therefore is the passion said to be His: and when He did divinely His
Father's works, the flesh was not external to Him, but in the body itself did the
Lord do them. Hence, when made man, He said, "If I do not the works of the
Father, believe Me not; but if I do, though ye believe not Me, believe the works,
that ye may know that the Father is in Me and I in Him." (John 10.37, 38) And
thus when there was need to raise Peter's wife's mother, who was sick of a fever,
He stretched forth His hand humanly, but He stopped the illness divinely. And
in the case of the man blind from the birth, human was the spittle which He
gave forth from the flesh, but divinely did He open the eyes through the clay.
And in the case of Lazarus, He gave forth a human voice as man; but divinely,
as God, did He raise Lazarus from the dead. These things were so done, were
so manifested, because He had a body, not in appearance, but in truth; and it
became the Lord, in putting on human flesh, to put it on whole with the
affections proper to it; that, as we say that the body was His own, so also we may

1
Saint Athanasius, Four Discourses Against The Arians, Discourse III 31, Nicene
and Post-Nicene Fathers Series II, Volume IV

1
 say that the affections of the body were proper to Him alone, though they did
not touch Him according to His Godhead. If then the body had been another's,
to him too had been the affections attributed; but if the flesh is the Word's (for
"the Word became flesh"), of necessity then the affections also of the flesh are
ascribed to Him, whose the flesh is. And to whom the affections are ascribed,
such namely as to be condemned, to be scourged, to thirst, and the cross, and
death, and the other infirmities of the body, of Him too is the triumph and the
grace. For this cause then, consistently and fittingly such affections are ascribed
not to another, but to the Lord; that the grace also may be from Him, and that
we may become, not worshippers of any other, but truly devout towards God,
because we invoke no originate thing, no ordinary man, but the natural and true
Son from God, who has become man, yet is not the less Lord and God and
Saviour.2

If the works of the Word’s Godhead had not taken place through the body, man
had not been deified; and again, had not the properties of the flesh been
ascribed to the Word, man had not been thoroughly delivered from them;... But
now the Word having become man and having appropriated what pertains to
the flesh, no longer do these things touch the body, because of the Word who
has come in it, but they are destroyed by Him, and henceforth men no longer
remain sinners and dead according to their proper affections, but having risen
according to the Word’s power, they abide ever immortal and incorruptible.3

When He had become man, having a flesh that was in terror. For the sake of
this flesh He combined His own will with human weakness, that destroying this
affection He might in turn make man undaunted in face of death. ... And so the
Blessed Apostles after Him from such words of His conceived so great a
contempt of death, as not even to care for those who questioned them, but to
answer, ‘We ought to obey God rather than men.’ And the other Holy Martyrs
were so bold, as to think that they were rather passing to life than undergoing
death. ...For as He abolished death by death, and by human means all human
evils, so by this so-called terror did He remove our terror, and brought about
that never more should men fear death.4

2
Saint Athanasius, Four Discourses Against The Arians, Discourse III 34, Nicene
and Post-Nicene Fathers Series II, Volume IV
3
Ibid 33
4
Ibid 56

2
Saint Cyril, following his great teacher St. Athanasius reaffirms this doctrine:

Accordingly, the union of the Word with humanity can reasonably be compared
with our condition. Just as the body is of a different nature to the soul, still from
both we say that one man results, so too from the perfect hypostasis of God the
Word and from a humanity perfect in its own right there is one Christ, and the
selfsame is at once God and man. As I said earlier, the Word appropriated the
affairs of his own flesh because it is his body, no one else's. And He
communicates, as to his own flesh, the operation of his own divine powers. This
was how He was able to give life to the dead and to heal the sick.5

Now let us examine the Tome of Leo! But, before we do that let us examine Leo himself.
According to the editors of the NPNF series, he was born around 400 AD. He was ignorant
of Greek which means he could not read the great fathers of the church from Ignatius to Cyril
except in the few Latin translations that were available to him.
In 440, bishop Sixtus III died and according to the editors of NPNF: “On Sept. 29 he
was ordained both priest and 47th bishop of Rome.” As soon as he became bishop he “gave
proof of his conception of his office, as investing him with an authority which extended over
the whole of Christendom as the successor of S. Peter.”6
In the first year of his bishopric he sent a letter to the bishop of Aquileia in reproof of
his and his fellowbishops’ remissness in dealing with Pelagianism in that province.

Still clearer proofs were soon forthcoming. Not to speak of a letter in a similarly
dictatorial strain to the bishops of the home provinces of Campania, Picenum,
and Etruria, which belongs to the year 443, we find him in 444 interfering,
though more guardedly, with the province of Illyricum, which was then
debatable ground between the East and West; in 445 dictating church
regulations to S. Cyril’s new successor asserting his authority on various
pretexts.7

It is this letter to St. Dioscorus that we will discuss below:

Leo, the bishop, to Dioscorus, bishop of Alexandria, greeting. How much of the
divine love we feel for you, beloved, you will be able to estimate from this, that
we are anxious to establish your beginnings on a surer basis, lest anything should

5
1Saint Cyril of Alexandria: Scholia on the Incarnation, in: John McGuckin: Saint
Cyril of Alexandria and the Christological Controversy p. 300-301
6
NPNF2-12 Leo the Great
7
Ibid

3
 seem lacking to the perfection of your love, since your meritorious acts of
spiritual grace, as we have proved, are already in your favor. Fatherly and
brotherly conference, therefore, ought to be most grateful to you, holy brother,
and received by you in the same spirit as you know it is offered by us. For you
and we ought to be at one in thought and act, so that as we reads, in us also
there may be proved to be one heart and one mind. For since the most blessed
Peter received the headship of the Apostles from the LORD, and the church of
Rome still abides by His institutions, it is wicked to believe that His holy disciple
Mark, who was the first to govern the church of Alexandria, formed his decrees
on a different line of tradition: seeing that without doubt both disciple and
master drew but one Spirit from the same fount of grace, and the ordained
could not hand on aught else than what he had received from his ordainer. We
do not therefore allow it that we should differ in anything, since we confess
ourselves to be of one body and faith, nor that the institutions of the teacher
should seem different to those of the taught.8

Basically this megalomaniac was telling St. Dioscorus that since Peter was the boss of St. Mark,
and since I am the successor of St. Peter and you are the successor of St. Mark, it follows that
I am your boss and you have to follow my orders. Then he gives a list of orders:

That therefore which we know to have been very carefully observed by our
fathers, we wish kept by you also, viz. that the ordination of priests or deacons
should not be performed at random on any day: but after Saturday, the
commencement of that night which precedes the dawn of the first day of the
week should be chosen on which the sacred benediction should be bestowed on
those who are to be consecrated, ordainer and ordained alike fasting.9

What Leo did not know is that St. Dioscorus was ordaining bishops also. The next order is the
most bizzare:

Again, that our usage may coincide at all points, we wish this thing also to be
observed, viz. that when any of the greater festivals has brought together a
larger congregation than usual, and too great a crowd of the faithful has
assembled for one church to hold them all at once, there should be no hesitation
about repeating the oblation of the sacrifice: lest, if those only are admitted to
this service who come first, those who flock in afterwards, should seem to be
rejected: for it is fully in accordance with piety and reason, that as often as a

8
Letter of Leo to Dioscorus NPNF2-12
9
Ibid

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 fresh congregation has filled the church where service is going on, the sacrifice
should be offered as a matter of course. Whereas a certain portion of the people
must be deprived of their worship, if the custom of only one celebration be kept,
and only those who come early in the day can offer the sacrifice. We admonish
you, therefore, beloved, earnestly and affectionately that your carefulness also
should not neglect what has become a part of our own usage on the pattern of
our fathers’ tradition, so that in all things we may agree together in our beliefs
and in our performances. Consequently, we have given this letter to our son
Possidonius, a presbyter, on his return, that he may bear it to you, brother; he
has so often taken part in our ceremonials and ordinations, and has been sent
to us so many times that he knows quite well what Apostolic authority we
possess in all things.10

One has to admire the humility of Leo! Needless to say that St. Dioscorus, who received the
letter just ignored it. Now let us come to the Council of Chalcedon. This council was to be
assembled to look at the heresy of Eutychus, a venerable old monk whose only mistake was
that he said “I confess that our LORD had two natures before the union but after the union
I confess but one,” which he learned from St. Cyril. (We will discuss this in a later article). His
accusers were Nestorians including the patriarch of constantinople, and he wrote complaining
to Leo. Leo answered him:

Leo, the bishop, to his dearly-beloved son, Eutyches, presbyter.

You have brought to our knowledge, beloved, by your letter that through the
activity of some the heresy of Nestorius has been again reviving. We reply that
your solicitude in this matter has pleased us, since the remarks we have received
are an indication of your mind. Wherefore do not doubt that the LORD, the
Founder of the catholic Faith, will befriend you in all things. And when we have
been able to ascertain more fully by whose wickedness this happens, we must
make provision with the help of GOD for the complete uprooting of this
poisonous growth which has long ago been condemned. GOD keep thee safe,
my beloved son.11

Eutychus adversary Flavian, archbishop of Constantinople who was a Nestorian wrote back to
Leo but Leo was not convinced and wrote to the Emperor defending Eutychus and accusing
Flavian12

10
Letter of Leo to Dioscorus NPNF2-12
11
Letter of Leo to Eutychus NPNF2-12
12
Letter of Leo to Theodosius II NPNF2-12

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Flavian wrote again to Leo telling him what Eutychus believed in “I confess that our LORD
had two natures before the union but after the union I confess but one,” Leo then turned 180
degrees and sent a letter to Flavian attacking Eutychus for saying this!

But when during your cross-examination Eutyches replied and said, “I confess
that our LORD had two natures before the union but after the union I confess
but one,” I am surprised that so absurd and mistaken a statement of his should
not have been criticized and rebuked by his judges, and that an utterance which
reaches the height of stupidity and blasphemy should be allowed to pass as if
nothing offensive had been heard: for the impiety of saying that the Son of
GOD was of two natures before His incarnation is only equaled by the iniquity
of asserting that there was but one nature in Him after “the Word became
flesh.”13

Ignorant in Greek, Leo had not read the writings of St. Cyril on “The One Incarnate Nature
of the word” (will be treated in a separate article) and unwittingly called the teachings of this
great saint with “the height of stupidity and blasphemy”! He then started explaining his own
views which are in variance with what we have been discussing, namely the “Communication
of properties.”

For each form does what is proper to it with the co-operation of the other; that
is the Word performing what appertains to the Word, and the flesh carrying out
what appertains to the flesh. One of them sparkles with miracles, the other
succumbs to injuries.14

Here he does not even refer to “natures” but says each “form” does what is proper to it. The
word doing the miracles, while the flesh suffers. In this sentence Leo ignored what the fathers
of the church from the time of Ignatius to St. Cyril wrote and taught and reverted to what
Nestorius erroneously taught, that in Christ the Word and the flesh are two “forms” acting
independently but co-operating with each other. He later adds:

To be hungry and thirsty, to be weary, and to sleep, is clearly human: but to

satisfy 5,000 men with five loaves, and to bestow on the woman of Samaria living
water, droughts of which can secure the drinker from thirsting any more, to walk
upon the surface of the sea with feet that do not sink, and to quell the risings of
the waves by rebuking the winds, is, without any doubt, Divine.15

13
Letter of Leo to Flavian known as the “Tome” NPNF2-12
14
Ibid
15
Ibid

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 It is not part of the same nature to be moved to tears of pity for a dead friend,
and when the stone that closed the four-days' grave was removed, to raise that
same friend to life with a voice of command.... the Only-begotten is co-eternal
and con-substantial with the Father, but in His weak human nature that He
suffered these things.16

No wonder when the bishops attending the council of Chalcedon was coerced by the emperor
to accept the Tome or go to exile, St. Dioscorus chose the latter. When he was told “sign this
and you can keep your papacy” he told them “I rather see my hand cut and my blood staining
this paper befor signing it” St. Dioscorus anathematized and excommunicated Leo for his
Nestorian views that reversed the noble work that St. Cyril did to eradicate this heresy.
No wonder that Nestorius who was alive at the time of Chalcedon said to those around
him: “I have been vindicated!”
Saint Hippolytus17 who was bishop of Rome, and who lived two centuries before Leo
of Rome wrote this:

But the pious confession of the believer is that, with a view to our salvation, and
in order to connect the universe with unchangeableness, the Creator of all
things incorporated with Himself a rational soul and a sensible body from the
all-holy Mary, ever-virgin, by an undefiled conception, without conversion, and
was made man in nature, but separate from wickedness: the same was perfect
God, and the same was perfect man; the same was in nature at once perfect God
and man. In His deity He wrought divine things through His all-holy flesh,-such
things, namely, as did not pertain to the flesh by nature; and in His humanity He
suffered human things,-such things, namely, as did not pertain to deity by
nature, by the upbearing of the deity. He wrought nothing divine without the
body; nor did the same do anything human without the participation of deity.18

The Church of Rome claims that their Popes are “infallible”! Here we have two of them
speaking opposite to each other, so which one of them was infallible?
Today the Catholics exalt the “Tome” but they do not recognize the council of
Chalcedon because it gave Constantinople equal honour with Rome, while the Greek orthodox
are embarrassed by the Tome’s Nestorianism but they cling to the council of Chalcedon since
it gave their Ecumenical Patriarch equal honour to the Pope of Rome!

16
Letter of Leo to Flavian known as the “Tome” NPNF2-12
17
Commemorated in our Synaxarion on the 5th day of Meshir
18
Saint Hippolytus, Extant works and fragments, Part II. E. Fragment VIII,
Ante-Nicene Fathers Volume V