In Christian theologycommunicatio idiomatum is a term from the theology of the Incarnation, attempting to define the relationship between two natures in one person. The theory is that the properties of the Divine Word can be ascribed to the man Jesus, and that the properties of the man Jesus Christ can predicated of the Divine Word - a "Communication of Idioms" or mutual interchange of attributes.
The assumption behind the theory, based on Scripture and the Church Fathers, is that God the Father and the Holy Spirit have the same rights and interest in all things created except in the human nature of Jesus Christ. His person is a result of the personal union between the two natures, God and man; in other words the human being has divine attributes and the divine being is the subject of human properties. It is this theory which makes it possible for Christians to say "Christ is God" or "God is man" — two otherwise mutually exclusive concepts have been united through the mutual exchange between the two natures.
The source of the communicatioidiomatum is not to be found in the close moral union between Christ and God as maintained by the Nestorians, nor in Christ's fullness of grace and supernatural gifts, nor, again, in the fact that the Word owns the human nature of Christ by right of creation.
The communicatioidiomatum is based on the oneness of person subsisting in the two natures of Jesus Christ.
There is no communicatioidiomatum between the two natures of Christ, or between the Word and the human nature as such or its parts.
Therefore, the communicatioidiomatum means "that the properties of both, the human and the divine natures, are now the properties of the person, and are therefore ascribed to the person."
The communicatioidiomatum does not mean, however, that anything particular to the divine nature was communicated to the human nature.
The answer is found in the communicatioidiomatum because in this teaching (as we have seen in the scriptures above), the quality and attributes of the divine nature were ascribed to the person of Christ.
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