Purpose
In 341, approximately 90 Eastern bishops met in Antioch and produced the Dedication Creed. The Eastern church previously exiled Athanasius and Marcellus, Athanasius in 335 for violence against the Melitians, and Marcellus for Sabellianism. However, in 340, the Western Church declared Athanasius blameless and Marcellus orthodox. Therefore, the Easteners met in 341 to discuss these events.
Both the Nicene and Dedication Councils were attended only by Eastern delegates, but the two creeds are very different.
While homoousios was the key term in the Nicene Creed, the Dedication Creed does not mention it at all.
While the Nicene Creed can be read as Sabellian, the Dedication Creed is strongly anti-Sabellian.
This article explains why these creeds differ. It also shows that, although the Easterners are accused of being Arians, the Creed is explicitly anti-Arian, describes the Son as God, but still presents the Son as subordinate to the Father.
| In 341, approximately 90 Eastern bishops met in Antioch and produced the Dedication Creed. |
They produced four documents. The second, known as the Dedication Creed because the Council met to celebrate the dedication of a new church built by Emperor Constantius, is the most important.
This article quotes mainly from books published during the last 50 years by world-class Catholic scholars, specializing in the fourth-century Arian Controversy:
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- R.P.C. Hanson – The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God – The Arian Controversy 318-381, 1987
- Rowan Williams – Arius: Heresy and Tradition, 2002/1987
- Lewis Ayres – Nicaea and its legacy, 2004
Extracts from the Dedication Creed
Hanson provides the entire Creed (see below). Some important parts are as follows:
“We believe in one God Father Almighty,
artificer and maker and designer of the universe;
And in one Lord Jesus Christ his only-begotten Son, God,
Through whom are all things,
Who was begotten from the Father before the Ages,
God from God … Lord from Lord …
Unchanging and unaltering,
Exact image of the Godhead and the substance and will and power and glory of the Father,
First-born of all creation, who was in the beginning with God, God the Word according to the text in the Gospel [‘and the Word was God’, by whom all things were made, and in whom all things exist;]
And in the Holy Spirit …
They are three in hypostasis but one in agreement.”
The Creed condemns all who say that:
“Either time or occasion or age exists or did exist before the Son was begotten.”
“The Son is a creature like one of the creatures” (Hanson, p. 286).
Purpose of the Council
| The Council met to discuss the decision of the Western Church to vindicate Athanasius and Marcellus. |
The Eastern church previously exiled Athanasius and Marcellus, Athanasius in 335 for violence against the Melitians in his see (see here), and Marcellus for Sabellianism. Show More
| “About ten years after the Council of Nicaea he (Marcellus) was deposed by a council held in Constantinople” (Hanson, p. 217).
“Marcellus of Ancyra had produced a theology … which could quite properly be called Sabellian.” (Hanson, p. xix) |
However, in 340, the Western church, at a council in Rome, declared Athanasius blameless and Marcellus orthodox. Their vindication caused significant tension between the East and West. Show More
| “The West’s vindication of the manifestly heterodox Marcellus increased the disquiet which N had already created, for N appeared to favour the near-Sabellianism of Marcellus.” (Hanson, p. 272) |
That tension was heightened by the letter that Julius, the bishop of Rome, wrote to the Eastern Church earlier in 341. In that letter, he accused the Eastern ‘Eusebians’ of Arianism, meaning that they are followers of Arius’ already discredited theology. The main purpose of the Dedication Council was to discuss these events. Show More
| “There can be little doubt that this Council of Antioch was conceived by those who organized it as an answer to Julius’ Council of Rome and the letter which he wrote to the Eusebian party after it.” (Hanson, p. 285)
The council was “an immediate response” to “Julius’ letter to ‘those around Eusebius’.” (Ayres, p. 117) |
Like Nicaea, an Eastern Council
| Both the Nicene Council of 325 and the Dedication Council were essentially councils of the Eastern Church. |
The Dedication Council consisted exclusively of bishops from the Eastern part of the Empire. Show More
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The Dedication Creed “represents the nearest approach we can make to discovering the views of the ordinary educated Eastern bishop.” (Hanson, p. 290-1)
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Similarly, almost all bishops attending Nicaea were from the East. Show More
| “Very few Western bishops took the trouble to attend the Council (of Nicaea). The Eastern Church was always the pioneer and leader in theological movements in the early Church. … The Westerners at the Council represented a tiny minority.” (Hanson, p. 170)
The delegates at Nicaea were “drawn almost entirely from the eastern half of the empire” (Ayres, p. 19). |
But a Different Creed
Although the two meetings were held only 16 years apart and represented the views of the same people, there are significant differences between the Nicene and Dedication Creeds:
No Homoousios
| While homoousios was the key term in the Nicene Creed, the Dedication Creed does not mention it at all. |
The Nicene Creed describes the Son using the terms ousia and homoousios. While these terms are viewed today as crucial, they are absent from the Dedication Creed.
The reason is that the term homoousios disappeared from the Controversy soon after Nicaea and was not mentioned for more than 20 years by anybody, not even Athanasius. Show More
| “What is conventionally regarded as the key-word in the Creed homoousion, falls completely out of the controversy very shortly after the Council of Nicaea and is not heard of for over twenty years.” (Hanson Lecture)
“Even Athanasius for about twenty years after Nicaea is strangely silent about this adjective (homoousios) which had been formally adopted into the creed of the Church in 325.” (Hanson, p. 58-59)
“During the years 326–50 the term homoousios is rarely if ever mentioned.” (Ayres, p. 431) See here for more information. |
Athanasius brought the Nicene Creed and the term homoousios back into the Controversy in the 350s. Show More
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“Athanasius’ decision to make Nicaea and homoousios central to his theology has its origins in the shifting climate of the 350s.” (Ayres, p. 144)
“He began to use it first in the De Deeretis … in 356 or 357.” (Hanson, p. 438)
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The Dedication Council of 341 and the Council of Serdica of 343 were both held during the period when nobody mentioned the term.
Anti-Sabellian
| While the Nicene Creed is pro-Sabellian, the Dedication Creed is anti-Sabellian. |
The main difference between the two creeds is that, while the Nicene Creed is open to a Sabellian reading, the main purpose of the Dedication Creed is to oppose Sabellianism. Eminent recent scholars confirm the pro-Sabellian nature of the Nicene Creed. Show More
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RPC Hanson: “If we are to take the creed N at its face value, the [Sabellian] theology of Eustathius and Marcellus was the theology which triumphed at Nicaea. That creed admits the possibility of only one ousia and one hypostasis. This was the hallmark of the theology of these two men.” (Hanson, p. 235)
Lewis Ayres: After Nicaea, the Creed was associated “with the theology of Marcellus of Ancyra. … The language of that creed seemed to offer no prophylactic (prevention) against Marcellan doctrine, and increasingly came to be seen as implying such doctrine.” (Ayres, p. 96, 97)
Manlio Simonetti [La Crisi Ariana nel IV secolo (1975)]: “Simonetti estimates the Nicene Council as a temporary alliance for the defeat of Arianism between the tradition of Alexandria led by Alexander and ‘Asiatic’ circles (i.e., Eustathius, Marcellus) whose thought was at the opposite pole to that of Arius. … Alexander … accepted virtual Sabellianism in order to ensure the defeat of Arianism. … The ‘Asiatics’ … were able to include in N a hint of opposition to the three hypostases theory.” (Hanson, p. 171)
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One indication of the Sabellian nature of the Nicene Creed is the use of the term homoousios. Before Nicaea, the term was preferred only by Sabellians. (See here) Sabellius himself, the Libyan Sabellians, Dionysius of Rome, and Paul of Samosata used it to say that Father and Son are one single Person. Show More
| “The word homoousios, at its first appearance in the middle of the third century, was therefore clearly connected with the theology of a Sabellian or monarchian tendency.” (P.F. Beatrice)
In the year 268, about 70 years before the Dedication Council, another council in the same city (Antioch) condemned both the Sabellianism of Paul of Samosata and the term homoousios. |
A second indication of the Sabellian nature of the Nicene Creed is that it states, in one of its anathemas, that the Father and Son are a single hypostasis (a single individual existence), which is the hallmark of Sabellianism. Show More
| “If we are to take the creed N at its face value, the theology of Eustathius and Marcellus was the theology which triumphed at Nicaea. That creed admits the possibility of only one ousia and one hypostasis. This was the hallmark of the theology of these two men.” (Hanson, p. 235)
“Greek-speaking theologians of the early fourth century had three words for something that really exists, and exists in itself, as distinguished from an accident or a quality. The words are ousia, hypostasis, and hyparxis. … As the fourth century progressed, hypostasis became, more and more, the one term that was the center of controversy.” (Lienhard) |
Thirdly, after Nicaea, the Sabellians claimed the Nicene Creed as support for their theology. Show More
| The Creed was associated “with the theology of Marcellus of Ancyra. … The language of that creed seemed to offer no prophylactic (prevention) against Marcellan doctrine, and increasingly came to be seen as implying such doctrine.” (Ayres, p. 96, 97) (See here)
After Nicaea, the leading Sabellian Eustathius disputed with Eusebius the meaning of the term homoousios. Some believed it implies the theology of Sabellius, in which the Son is not a distinct Being. Eusebius argued that the term must not be understood in a corporeal sense. Eustathius rejected that explanation. Eusebius accused Eustathius of teaching Sabellianism, in which homoousios is understood as ‘one substance’:
“The fifth-century ecclesiastical historian Sozomen reports a dispute immediately after the council, focused not on Arius, but … concerning the precise meaning of the term homoousios. Some thought this term … implied the non-existence of the Son of God; and that it involved the error of Montanus and Sabellius. … Eustathius accused Eusebius [of Caesarea] of altering the doctrines ratified by the council of Nicaea, while the latter declared that he approved of all the Nicaean doctrines, and reproached Eustathius for cleaving to the heresy of Sabellius.” (Ayres, p. 101)
Eusebius wrote in his letter after Nicaea: “Thus also the declaration that ‘the Son is consubstantial with the Father’ having been discussed, it was agreed that this must not be understood in a corporeal sense, or in any way analogous to mortal creatures … That he is consubstantial [homoousios] with the Father then simply implies that the Son of God has no resemblance to created things, but is in every respect like the Father only who begat him; that he is of no other substance or essence but of the Father.” (See here)
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This is not to say that the Nicene Creed is clearly Sabellian, but at the least, it can be said that it does not exclude Sabellianism. Elsewhere, Hanson describes it as “a drawn battle. Show More
| “It is going too far to say that N is a clearly Sabellian document. … It is exceeding the evidence to represent the Council as a total victory for the anti-Origenist opponents of the doctrine of three hypostases. It was more like a drawn battle.” (Hanson, p. 172). |
Note that Hanson above associates Sabellianism with a one-hypostasis theology. Sabellianism is one form of one-hypostasis theology, which is the teaching that the Father, Son, and Spirit are a single Person with a single Mind. Monarchianism and Modalism are other one-hypostasis theologies. The main dividing line in the fourth-century Controversy was between one- and three-hypostases theologies. In other words, the main dispute was whether the Son exists as a distinct Person (See here).
While the Nicene Creed seems to support Sabellianism, which is the denial of a distinction between the three within the Godhead, the main purpose of the Dedication Creed is to oppose Sabellianism. Show More
| The Dedication Creed’s “chief bête noire [the thing that it particularly dislikes] is Sabellianism, the denial of a distinction between the three within the Godhead.” (Hanson, p. 287)
The Dedication creed is “strongly anti-Sabellian.” (Hanson, p. 287)
“The creed has a clear anti-Sabellian and anti-Marcellan thrust.” (Ayres, p. 119) |
In contrast to the single hypostasis of Sabellianism, the Dedication Creed explicitly asserts that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are “three in hypostasis but one in agreement” (Ayres, p. 118) “One in agreement” indicates the existence of three distinct ‘Minds’.
Why do these creeds differ?
| The Nicene Creed is pro-Sabellian because Emperor Constantine sided with the Sabellians. |
Since almost all delegates at Nicaea were from the East and since almost all Easterners were ‘Arians,’ Alexander joined forces with the Sabellians. Similar to the Sabellians, Alexander believed that the Son is part of the Father and does not have an existence distinct from the Father. The Nicene Creed is pro-Sabellian because Emperor Constantine took Alexander’s part in the dispute. Consequently, the Sabellians were able to influence the wording of the Creed significantly. Show More
| Constantine determined the outcome.
“Constantine took part in the Council of Nicaea and ensured that it reached the kind of conclusion which he thought best.” (Hanson, p. 850)
Constantine forced the Council to accept homoousios.
“The Origenists had considerable reservation about homoousios and the other phrases containing the term ousios (substance), but the emperor exerted considerable influence. Consequently, the statement was approved.” (Erickson)
The emperor took Alexander’s part.
“Constantine had taken Alexander’s part.” (Ayres, p. 89)
Alexander joined forces with the Sabellians.
“Eustathius and Marcellus … certainly met at Nicaea. and no doubt were there able to join forces with Alexander of Alexandria and Ossius.” (Hanson, p. 234)
“Marcellus, Eustathius and Alexander were able to make common cause against the Eusebians.” (Ayres, p. 69)
Eustathius and Marcellus were later exiled for Sabellianism.
“Marcellus of Ancyra had produced a theology … which could quite properly be called Sabellian.” (Hanson, p. ix)
Marcellus of Ancyra “cannot be acquitted of Sabellianism” (Hanson’s Lecture).
Eustathius attended the Nicene Council (Hanson, p. 208) but was deposed soon after Nicaea (“in 330 or 331”) (Hanson, p. 210) primarily “for the heresy of Sabellianism” (Hanson, p. 211).
The Sabellians influenced the Nicene Creed.
“Marcellus of Ancyra … had been an important figure at the council and may have significantly influenced its wording.” (Ayres, p. 431)
“Eustathius of Antioch, Marcellus of Ancyra, and Alexander must all have been key players in the discussions.” (Ayres, p. 89)
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| The Dedication Creed is strongly anti-Sabellian because the Nicenes were Sabellians. |
It is traditional to think that the Controversy was between the Nicenes and the Arians. However, both these terms are misleading:
Nicene theology was similar to Sabellianism. Both taught that the Son does not have a distinct existence but is part of the Father. Therefore, the Father and Son are a single hypostasis (one Person). Show More
| The Nicenes declared Sabellianism as orthodox.
“That Julius and later the Westerners at Sardica should have declared him (Marcellus) orthodox was bound to appear to the Eastern theologians to be a condoning of Sabellianism.” (Hanson Lecture)
Athanasius, the leading Nicene, believed that the Son is in the Father.
“In the Father we have the Son: this is a summary of Athanasius’ theology.” (Hanson, p. 426)
“Athanasius’ argument speaks not of two realities engaged in a common activity, but develops his most basic sense that the Son is intrinsic to the Father’s being.” (Ayres, p. 114)
Athanasius believed that the Father and Son constiture a single Person.
“Athanasius’ most basic language and analogies for describing the relationship between Father and Son primarily present the two as intrinsic aspects of one reality or person.” (Ayres, p. 46)
“The fragments of Eustathius that survive present a doctrine that is close to Marcellus, and to Alexander and Athanasius. Eustathius insists there is only one hypostasis.“ (Ayres, p. 69) See here for a discussion of Athanasius’ theology.
The Westerners believed the Father and Son are a single Person.
At the failed Council of Serdica in 343, the Western delegates explicitly formulated a one-hypostasis manifesto. (See here)
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The ‘Arians’ were not Arians because they did not follow Arius. They followed Origen. Since the Nicenes were accused of Sabellianism, which was already formally rejected, the Nicenes accused the Oigenists of Arianism, which was also already formally rejected (at Nicaea), but this was a false accusation. See here.
Anti-Arian
| The Dedication Creed is anti-Arian. |
Following Athanasius, the West accused the East of following Arius. For example, Julius, the bishop of Rome, in his letter to the Eastern Church, accused the Easterners of following Arius’ already discredited theology.
But the Easterners did not follow Arius. In the Dedication Creed, they said:
“We have not been followers of Arius.” (Ayres, p. 117-8)
“We have rather approached him as investigators and judges of his belief than followed him.” (Hanson, p. 285)
It is true that the Easterners did not follow Arius. Arius did not leave a school of followers. He was of little significance. Show More
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“Arius’ own theology is of little importance in understanding the major debates of the rest of the century (after Nicaea).” (Ayres, p. 56-57)
“The views of Arius were such as … to bring into unavoidable prominence a doctrinal crisis which had gradually been gathering. … He was the spark that started the explosion. But in himself he was of no great significance.” (Hanson, p. xvii)
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Consequently:
“’Arianism’ as a coherent system, founded by a single great figure and sustained by his disciples, is a fantasy … based on the polemic of Nicene writers, above all Athanasius.” (Rowan Williams, p. 82) (Read More.)
Indeed, the Dedication Creed explicitly condemns some of Arius’ more extreme statements. Show More
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It “deliberately excludes the kind of Arianism professed by Arius and among his followers by Eusebius of Nicomedia/Constantinople.” (Hanson, p. 290)
It “does anathematize doctrines associated … with Arius.” (Ayres, p. 120)
For example, the Creed anathematizes all who say: “that either time or occasion or age exists or did exist before the Son was begotten” (Hanson, p. 286)
“True-blue Arians would have found it impossible to accept the statement that the Son is ‘the exact image of the substance (ousia) … of the Godhead of the Father’” (Hanson, p. 287)
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The following describes the Dedication Creed:
It “represents the nearest approach we can make to discovering the views of the ordinary educated Eastern bishop who was no admirer of the extreme views of Arius but who had been shocked and disturbed by the apparent Sabellianism of N [the Nicene Creed], and the insensitiveness of the Western Church to the threat to orthodoxy which this tendency represented.” (Hanson, p. 290-1)
Subordinate
| The Dedication Creed claims that the Son is subordinate to the Father. |
“The names of the Three signify the particular order and glory of each.” (Hanson, p. 287)
The Father alone is “Almighty.”
The Son is the Father’s agent in creation. The Father is “maker and designer of the universe,” but the Son is the One “through whom are all things” and “by whom all things were made.”
In contrast to the Father identified as the “one God,” the Son is the “one Lord.”
However, the subordination in the Creed is not a concession to Arius’ theology. At the time, all theologians, including the Nicenes, even Athanasius, regarded the Son as subordinate to the Father. Subordination was the orthodoxy at the time. Show More
| Before Nicaea
“’Subordinationism’, it is true was pre-Nicene orthodoxy” [Henry Bettenson, The Early Christian Fathers p. 239.]
The East
”Almost everybody in the East at that period would have agreed that there was a subordination of some sort within the Trinity.” (Hanson, p. 287)
The East and West
“Indeed, until Athanasius began writing, every single theologian, East and West, had postulated some form of Subordinationism.” [RPC Hanson, “The Achievement of Orthodoxy in the Fourth Century AD” in Rowan Williams, ed., The Making of Orthodoxy (New York, NY: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1989) p. 153.] (Read More)
Nicenes
“In all the previous discussions (before Basil of Caesarea) of the term (homoousios) … a certain ontological subordination is at least implied.” In other words, Basil was the first to teach ontological equality. (Ayres, p. 206)
Alexander
“The initial debate (i.e., between Arius and Alexander) was not about the rightness or wrongness of hierarchical models of the Trinity, which were common to both sides” (Williams, 109).
Athanasius
Athanasius always described the Son as belonging to the Father, never the other way round, for example, “the Father’s own wisdom.” (Ayres, p. 206)
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Image of the Father’s substance
| The Dedication Creed interprets homoousios as meaning the Son is an image of the Father’s substance. |
The Nicene Creed says that the Son is of the same substance as the Father (homoousios), which was understood by the Sabellians as means ‘one substance.’ The Dedication Creed claims that the Son is the image of the Father’s substance:
“The Son is ‘the exact Image of the Godhead, the ousia and the will and the power and the glory of the Father’.” (Hanson, p. 288)
This implies that the Son is distinct from the substance of the Father. Later in the fourth century, “image of the Father’s substance” became the catchphrase of the Homoiousians (meaning ‘similar substance’).
The Son is God.
| The Dedication Creed describes the Son as God. |
The Creed regards the Son both as subordinate and as “God from God” (theos). However, the term theos in the Bible and in the 4th century was not equivalent to the modern word “God.” While we use the term “God” only for the Almighty, there were many theoi in ancient Greek:
“In the fourth century the word ‘God’ (theos, deus) had not acquired the significance which in our twentieth-century world it has acquired … viz. the one and sole true God. The word could apply to many gradations of divinity.” (Hanson, p. 456)
Commenting on the Council of Serdica in 343, where the ‘Arians’ issued a statement condemning “those who say … that Christ is not God,” Ayres says: “This reminds us of the variety of ways in which the term ‘God’ could be deployed at this point.” (Ayres, p. 124)
See here for a more detailed discussion.
The Fourth Creed
| The fourth creed avoids all non-Biblical language. |
It was intended to serve as a means of reconciliation, and avoided all the terms derived from Greek philosophy, ousia and hypostasis. Show More
| The Fourth Creed of Antioch “was intended to function as a reconciling formula obnoxious to nobody and capable of being accepted by all.” (Hanson, p. 291)
This creed “was destined to be used for nearly fifteen years as the basis for all other creeds which were designed to be ecumenical.” (Hanson, p. 292) |
It condemns both Marcellus and Arius. “It has a special clause inserted against Marcellus” (Hanson, p. 292) and ends with an anathema against Arius:
“But those who say that the Son is from non-existence or of a different hypostasis, and not from God, and that there was once a time or age when he did not exist, these the holy Catholic Church recognizes as alien’.” (Hanson, p. 292)
It does not even address the crucial aspect of the number of hypostases in God. “it makes no attempt to establish the distinctness of the ‘Persons’ in an anti-Sabellian manner.” (Hanson, p. 292)
Full Dedication Creed
Hanson gives the Dedication Creed as follows:
“Following the evangelical and apostolic tradition, we believe in one God Father Almighty, artificer and maker and designer of the universe:
And in one Lord Jesus Christ his only-begotten Son, God,
through whom are all things,
who was begotten from the Father before the Ages,
God from God, whole from whole, sole from sole, perfect from perfect, King from King, Lord from Lord, living Wisdom, true Light, Way, Truth, unchanging and unaltering,
exact image of the Godhead and the substance and will and power and glory of the Father, first-born of all creation, who was in the beginning with God, God the Word according to the text in the Gospel [quotation of John 1:1, 3 and Col 1:17]
who at the end of the days came down from above and was born of a virgin, according to the Scriptures, and became man, mediator between God and men, the apostle of our faith, author of life, as the text runs [quotation of Jn 6:38], who suffered for us and rose again the third day and ascended into heaven and is seated on the right hand of the father and is coming again with glory and power to judge the living and the dead:
And in the Holy Spirit, who is given to those who believe for comfort and sanctification and perfection, just as our Lord Jesus Christ commanded his disciples, saying [quotation of Matt 28:19], obviously (in the name) of the Father who is really Father and the Son who is really Son and the Holy Spirit who is really Holy Spirit, because the names are not given lightly or idly, but signify exactly the particular hypostasis and order and glory of each of those who are named, so that they are three in hypostasis but one in agreement.
Since we hold this belief, and have held it from the beginning to the end, before God and Christ we condemn every form of heretical unorthodoxy.
And if anybody teaches contrary to the sound, right faith of the Scriptures, alleging that either time or occasion or age exists or did exist before the Son was begotten, let him be anathema.
And if anyone alleges that the Son is a creature like one of the creatures or a product like one of the products, or something made like one of the things that are made, and not as the Holy Scriptures have handed down concerning the subjects which have been treated one after another,
or if anyone teaches or preaches anything apart from what we have laid down, let him be anathema. for we believe and follow everything that has been delivered from the Holy Scriptures by the prophets and apostles truly and reverently.”
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