The Council’s Fourteen Anathemas

Anathema 1. If anyone does not confess that the nature or essence of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is one, and their might and power one; if anyone does not confess a Trinity of one substance, one Godhead to be worshiped in three subsistences or persons: let him be anathema. For there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things; and one Holy Spirit, in whom are all things. [a]

Anathema 2. If anyone does not confess that the Word of God has two births: the one from the Father, from all eternity, outside time and without a body; the other in these last days, when he came down from heaven and was made flesh of the holy and glorious Mary, Mother of God and ever virgin, and was born of her: let him be anathema.

Anathema 3. If anyone says that the Word of God who worked miracles is one person and the Christ who suffered is another; or says that God the Word was with the Christ born of a woman, or was in him as one person is in another, and not that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, who took flesh and became man, is one and the same, and that the miracles and the sufferings he willingly endured in the flesh belong to one and the same person: let him be anathema.

Anathema 4. If anyone says that the union of the Word of God with man was only a union of grace, or of working, or of dignity, or of equal honor, or of authority, or of relation, or of effect, or of power; or a union of good pleasure, in the sense that God the Word was pleased with a man, that is, that he loved him for his own sake, as the senseless Theodore says; or if anyone claims that the union is only a matter of sharing a name, as the Nestorians understand it, who call the Word of God Jesus and Christ, and also give the man the names of Christ and of Son. In this way they plainly speak of two persons, and only pretend to speak of one person and one Christ when they are talking about his honor, or his dignity, or the worship given him. If anyone does not acknowledge, as the holy fathers teach, that the union of God the Word is made with flesh given life by a rational and living soul, and that this union is made by composition and hypostatically, and that therefore there is only one person, namely our Lord Jesus Christ, one of the Holy Trinity: let him be anathema. For the word “union” has many meanings. The followers of Apollinaris and of Eutyches have claimed that these natures are blended into each other, and have taught a union produced by mixing the two. On the other hand, the followers of Theodore and of Nestorius, delighting in the division of the natures, have taught only a union of relation. But the holy church of God, condemning the impiety of both kinds of heresy alike, recognizes the union of God the Word with the flesh by composition, that is, hypostatically. For in the mystery of Christ the union by composition not only keeps the united natures without confusion, but also allows no separation. [b]

Anathema 5. If anyone understands the phrase “the one person of our Lord Jesus Christ” to mean a union of many hypostases, and in this way tries to bring two hypostases, or two persons, into the mystery of Christ; and if, having brought in two persons, he speaks of one person only in respect of dignity, honor or worship, as both Theodore and Nestorius have madly written; if anyone slanders the holy Council of Chalcedon, claiming that it used the expression “one hypostasis” in this impious sense, and will not acknowledge instead that the Word of God is united with the flesh hypostatically, and that therefore there is only one hypostasis, or one person, and that it was in this sense that the holy Council of Chalcedon confessed the one person of our Lord Jesus Christ: let him be anathema. For when one of the Holy Trinity, God the Word, became man, the Holy Trinity was not increased by the addition of another person or hypostasis.

Anathema 6. If anyone calls the holy, glorious, and ever-virgin Mary the Mother of God only in a false sense and not in the true sense, or calls her so only in a relative sense, believing that she bore only a mere man and that God the Word did not take flesh of her, but that the incarnation of God the Word came about only from his uniting himself to that man who was born of her; if anyone slanders the holy synod of Chalcedon, as though it called the Virgin Mother of God in the impious sense of Theodore; or if anyone calls her the mother of a man or the mother of Christ, as if Christ were not God, and does not confess that she is exactly and truly the Mother of God, because God the Word, who was born of the Father before all ages, was in these last days made flesh and born of her; and if anyone does not confess that it was in this sense that the holy synod of Chalcedon acknowledged her to be the Mother of God: let him be anathema. [c]

Anathema 7. If anyone uses the expression “in two natures” and does not confess that our one Lord Jesus Christ has been made known in his divinity and in his humanity, so as to mark by that expression the difference of the natures from which the indescribable union was made without confusion, a union in which neither the nature of the Word was changed into that of the flesh, nor that of the flesh into that of the Word, for each remained what it was by nature, the union being hypostatic; but instead takes the expression, with regard to the mystery of Christ, in a sense that divides the parts; or, recognizing the two natures in the one Lord Jesus, God the Word made man, is not content to take the difference between the natures that make him up only in thought, a difference that is not destroyed by the union, since one is made up of both and both are in one, but uses the number two to divide the natures, or to make them persons in the proper sense: let him be anathema. [d]

Anathema 8. If anyone uses the expression “of two natures,” confessing that a union was made of the Godhead and the manhood, or the expression “the one nature of God the Word made flesh,” and does not understand these expressions as the holy fathers have taught, namely that a hypostatic union was made of the divine and the human nature, from which there is one Christ, but from these expressions tries to bring in one nature or substance made by mixing the Godhead and manhood of Christ: let him be anathema. For when we teach that the only Son, the Word, was united hypostatically, we do not mean that the natures were blended into each other. Rather, we understand that the Word was united to the flesh while each nature remained what it was. That is why there is one Christ, God and man, of one substance with the Father in his Godhead, and of one substance with us in his manhood. So the church of God condemns and anathematizes alike those who divide or cut apart the mystery of Christ’s divine plan of salvation, and those who bring confusion into that mystery. [e]

Anathema 9. If anyone takes the expression “Christ is to be worshiped in his two natures” in a sense that brings in two worships, one belonging to God the Word and the other to the man; or if anyone, to do away with the flesh, that is, the humanity of Christ, or to mix together the Godhead and the manhood, monstrously speaks of one nature or essence of the united natures, and worships Christ in that way, and does not venerate God the Word made man, together with his own flesh, with one worship, as the holy church has taught from the beginning: let him be anathema.

Anathema 10. If anyone does not confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, who was crucified in the flesh, is true God and the Lord of glory and one of the Holy Trinity: let him be anathema.

Anathema 11. If anyone does not anathematize Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, Apollinaris, Nestorius, Eutyches and Origen, together with their impious writings, and all the other heretics already condemned and anathematized by the holy catholic and apostolic church and by the four holy synods already named; and if anyone does not likewise anathematize all who have held or hold the same opinions as the heretics just mentioned, or who in their impiety persist in them to the end: let him be anathema. [f]

Anathema 12. If anyone defends the impious Theodore of Mopsuestia, who said that the Word of God is one person, and Christ another; that this Christ was troubled by the sufferings of the soul and the desires of the flesh, was separated little by little from what is lower, became better by progress in good works, and blameless in his way of life; that as a mere man he was baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and through this baptism received the grace of the Holy Spirit and became worthy of sonship and of being worshiped out of regard for the person of God the Word, just as one worships the image of an emperor; and that after the resurrection he became unchangeable in his thoughts and altogether without sin. This same impious Theodore also said that the union of God the Word with Christ is like the union that, according to the teaching of the apostle, exists between a man and his wife: “The two shall become one flesh.” Among many other blasphemies, he dared to say that when the Lord breathed on his disciples after the resurrection, saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” he did not really give them the Holy Spirit, but breathed on them only as a sign. He also said that the confession of faith Thomas made after the resurrection, when he had touched the hands and side of the Lord, “My Lord and my God,” was not said of Christ; rather, Thomas, filled with wonder at the miracle of the resurrection, was thanking God who had raised Christ up. And what is more scandalous still, this same Theodore, in his commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, compares Christ to Plato, Mani, Epicurus and Marcion. He says that just as each of these men discovered his own teaching and gave his name to his disciples, who were called Platonists, Manichaeans, Epicureans and Marcionites, so Christ, having discovered his teaching, gave the name Christians to his disciples. So if anyone defends this most impious Theodore and his impious writings, in which he vomits out the blasphemies mentioned above and countless others besides against our great God and Savior Jesus Christ; and if anyone does not anathematize him and his impious writings, and all who protect or defend him, or who say that his interpretation of scripture is orthodox, or who write in favor of him and his impious works, or who share the same opinions, or who have shared them and continue in this heresy to the end: let him be anathema. [g]

Anathema 13. If anyone defends the impious writings of Theodoret against the true faith, against the first holy synod of Ephesus, and against Saint Cyril and his twelve anathemas, and what he wrote in defense of the impious Theodore and Nestorius and of others who held the same opinions as Theodore and Nestorius; if anyone accepts them or their impiety, or calls impious the teachers of the church who confess the hypostatic union of God the Word; and if anyone does not anathematize these impious writings, and those who have held or hold these opinions, and all who have written against the true faith or against Saint Cyril and his twelve chapters, and who die in their impiety: let him be anathema. [h]

Anathema 14. If anyone defends the letter that Ibas is said to have written to Maris the Persian: the letter that denies that the Word of God, who took flesh of Mary, the holy Mother of God and ever virgin, became man, and says instead that a mere man was born of her, whom it calls a temple, as though the Word of God were one person and the man another. In this letter he also accuses Saint Cyril of heresy when he teaches the right faith of Christians, and charges him with writing things like those of the wicked Apollinaris. Besides this, he denounces the first holy Council of Ephesus, claiming that it deposed Nestorius without discernment and without examination. This impious letter calls the twelve chapters of Cyril of blessed memory impious and contrary to the right faith, and defends Theodore and Nestorius and their impious teachings and writings. So if anyone defends this letter and does not anathematize it and those who defend it and say that it, or any part of it, is right; or if anyone defends those who have written or will write in its favor, or in defense of the impieties it contains; or those who presume to defend it, or the impieties in it, in the name of the holy fathers or of the holy synod of Chalcedon, and who remain in these offenses to the end: let him be anathema. [i]