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St. Justinian the Great ca. 483-565
This is how we understand the doctrines we hold; and in order to give concise form to the confession of the Orthodox Faith and the condemnation of heretics we consider it beneficial to include [the following] chapters:
1. If anyone does not confess the consubstantial Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, worshipped as one Godhead or nature or essence, or one power or authority in three hypostases or prosopa, let him be anathema.
2. If anyone does not confess the Divine Logos who was begotten of the Father before the ages in a timeless manner, who in these last days came down from heaven and was incarnate of the holy, glorious Theotokos and ever-Virgin Mary, and who became man and was born of her, and that therefore there are two generations of the same Logos of God, the one incorporeally before the ages, the other in these last days in the flesh, let him be anathema.
3. If anyone says that the Divine Logos Who worked miracles and the Christ Who suffered are different from one another, or says that the Divine Logos was joined to the Christ when He came into existence in the Virgin, or that He [the Logos] is in him [the Christ] as one in another, and that our Lord Jesus Christ is not one and the same Logos of God Who was incarnate and became man, and that the miracles and the Passion which He voluntarily endured in the flesh are [not] of the same [Person], let him be anathema.
4. If anyone says that the union of the Divine Logos with man was either by grace, or by energy, or by dignity, or by equality of honor, or by authority, or by relation, or disposition, or virtue, or a sharing of the same name, according to which the Nestorians say that Christ is one because he shares the same name, giving the title Christ separately to the Divine Logos and to the man, calling them both Christ, or if anyone says that the union was according to the good pleasure [of God], in accordance with what the heretic Theodore says, viz. that the Divine Logos was pleased with the man because he [the man] was well disposed towards Him [the Logos], but does not confess the hypostatic union of the Divine Logos with flesh animated with a rational and intellectual soul, and therefore [does not confess] His one composite hypostasis, let him be anathema.
5. If anyone says that the term Theotokos is simply a means of reference, or constitutes a misuse of language, and confesses that the holy, glorious, and ever-Virgin Mary is Birth-giver of man, or Birth-giver of Christ as though Christ is not God, but that she is not properly Theotokos in reality inasmuch as the Divine Logos Who was begotten of the Father before the ages was also begotten of her in these last days and was incarnate, let him anathema.
6. If anyone does to confess that our Lord Jesus Christ Who was crucified in the flesh is not true God, the Lord of Glory and one of the Holy Trinity, let him be anathema.
7. If anyone confesses or says that our one Lord Jesus Christ is not the Logos of God incarnate in two natures, in divinity and humanity, and takes this expression concerning the mystery of Christ to indicate not the difference of the natures from which He is composed, but rather their division as though each of the natures exists separately in its own hypostasis as Theodore and Nestorius blasphemously taught, let him be anathema.
8. If anyone uses the number of natures in our one Lord Jesus Christ who is the Divine Logos incarnate to confess that the difference of the natures of which He is composed is not in thought, since the [notion of number] is maintained even in the union, and to divide the [natures], let him be anathema.
9. If anyone who says, “One nature of God the Word incarnate,” does not understand it to mean that one Christ is produced from the divine nature and the human nature, the same [Person] being of the same nature as the Father in His divinity, and as we in His humanity, but rather takes it to mean that one nature or essence of Christ was produced of divinity and flesh in accordance with the heretical belief of Apollinaris and Eutyches, let him be anathema. For both those who divide and separate [Christ] as well as those who confuse the Mystery of the Divine Economy have turned away from Christ, and the Catholic Church anathematizes [them].
10. If anyone does not anathematize Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, Apollinaris, Nestorius, and Eutyches, and those who have believed teachings like theirs, either now or in the past, let him be anathema.
11. If anyone defends Theodore of Mopsuestia who said that the Divine Logos is other than Christ, Christ being the one who was troubled by the passions of the soul and the desires of the flesh, who was made more excellent through progress in [good] works, who was baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who received the grace of the Holy Spirit through baptism and was deemed worthy of adoption as son and is worshipped in the prosopon of the Divine Logos as in the likeness of the royal image, who became altogether sinless and steadfast in his intentions after the Resurrection; and who said that the union of the Divine Logos with the Christ was in the manner described by the Apostle concerning the [union] of man and woman, “which two become one flesh”; and who, along with his other innumerable blasphemies, also dared to say that when the Lord had breathed on his disciples after the Resurrection and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” he did not bestow upon them the Holy Spirit, but breathed only in a figurative manner; and who also taught that when Thomas handled the Lord’s hands and side after His Resurrection, he confessed, “My Lord and My God!” not in reference to Christ ( for he said Christ is not God), but rather in reference to God because he was amazed at the miracle of the Resurrection, whom he therefore glorified for having raised up Christ; and (what is worse) who compared Christ to Plato, Manichaeus, Epicurus, and Marcion in his commentary to the Acts of the Apostles, stating that just as each one of them found disciples, who were called Platonists, or Manichaeans, or Epicureans, or Marcionites, because they were instructed in their teaching, in the same way those who follow the teachings of Christ are called Christians; therefore, if anyone defends Theodore who blasphemously taught such things, and does not anathematize him and his writings and all those who now or ever have believed teachings like his, let him be anathema.
12. If anyone defends the writings of Theodoret which, he published in defense of the heretic Nestorius and which are opposed to the Orthodox faith, the first holy synod of Ephesus, and the Twelve Chapters of St. Cyril, in which impious writings this same Theodoret stated the union of the Divine Logos was a type of relationship he held with a particular man, which led him [Theodoret] to blasphemously state that Thomas handled [Christ] who was raised but worshipped [the Logos] Who raised him, so that he called those teachers of the Church who confess the hypostatic union of the Divine Logos with the flesh impious, and in this regard he denied that the holy, glorious, and ever-Virgin Mary is Theotokos; therefore, if anyone defends these writings of Theodoret and does not anathematize them, let him be anathem. For it was on account of these blasphemies that he was expelled from his episcopate, and later he was compelled by the holy Synod of Chalcedon to receive all the teachings his writings had opposed, and to confess the true faith.
13. If anyone defends the impious letter which is said to have been written by to the heretic Maris the Persian, which denies that the Logos of God became man and says that the Divine Logos was not incarnate of theVirgin, but that she gave birth only to a man, whom it calls a temple since the Divine Logos and the man are different from one another; and in regard to these [blasphemies], the letter slanders the first Synod of Ephesus because it condemned Nestorius without any investigation or examination, and calls St. Cyril a heretic, and labels his Twelve Chapters impious, and praises and defends Nestorius and Theodoret along with their impious writings; therefore, as we said, if anyone defends this impious letter or says that it is orthodox, or even part of it, and does not anathematize it, let him be anathema. (The Edict on the True Faith)
