Requiescente Verbo : Melanchthon’s Patristic Reframing of the Communicatio idiomatum (1530–1560)

Abstract

This article reconstructs the divergent configurations of the christological concept of the communicatio idiomatum in Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchthon, and traces their transformation within the fractured landscape of pre-Concordistic Lutheran theology. Luther binds predication directly to the soteriological event, interpreting the unity of Christ as the condition enabling the “joyful exchange” in which divine and human properties are truly communicated. Melanchthon retains this centre but reorganises its grammar in response to the anti-Trinitarian debates of the 1530s and the Eucharistic conflicts of the 1550s, anchoring the mediator in the person and regulating predication through medieval distinctions such as in concreto and in abstracto . In his final phase, he retro-dates this linguistic-ontological framework into a patristic idiom, deploying Irenaeus’ requiescente verbo and Athanasius’ non colligatus to anchor his position in conciliar authority. The article thus shows how a conceptually novel christological grammar is retrospectively legitimated as a continuation of the ancient tradition.