ABSTRACT
At the patristic period the notion of admirable exchange of natures in the person of Jesus Christ was commonly employed to convey the essence of the Christian faith as a gratuitous partaking of the divine nature. This chapter explores the basic issue of how the terms 'divine nature' and 'human nature' are to be understood in the mystery of the hypostatic union. It discusses the complex doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum with the intention of affirming the validity of Pope Leo's Tome to Flavian of Constantinople, which was highly influential at the General Council of Chalcedon. The chapter includes the ecological model of evolutionary biology, the complex notion of Hegelian 'moments' and contemporary hermeneutical theory in an endeavour to shed light upon the manner in which the salvific and transformative character of death, as well as the relation of human freedom to divine freedom, should be thought.
