50. These points had to be inserted into the creed because Photinus, against whom the synod was held, denied them. They were inserted lest any one should dare to assert that the Son of God did not exist before the Son of the Virgin, and should attach to the Unborn God with the foolish perversity of an insane heresy all the above passages which refer to the Son of God, and while applying them to the Father, deny the Person of the Son. The clearness of these statements absolves us from the necessity of interpreting them.

XVII. “If any man says that the Lord and the Lord, the Father and the Son, are two Gods because of the aforesaid words: let him be anathema. For we do not make the Son the equal or peer of the Father, but understand the Son to be subject. For He did not come down to Sodom without the Father’s will, nor rain from Himself but from the Lord, to wit, by the Father’s authority; nor does He sit at the Father’s right hand by His own authority, but because He hears the Father saying, Sit Thou on My right hand34    Ps. cx. 1..”

50. Photini sententia.---Haec quia Photinus, adversus quem tum conventum erat, negabat, inserenda fidei fuerunt: ne quis auderet non ante Dei filium quam virginis filium praedicare, et superiora omnia, quae propria Dei filio sunt, stultissima haereticae insaniae perversitate Deo innascibili coaptaret; et dum haec ad Patrem referret, Filio substantiam denegaret. Quae quia absoluta sunt, necessitatem nobis interpretandi non reliquerunt.

XVII. «Si quis Dominum et Dominum Patrem et Filium (quia Dominus a Domino), duos dicat deos: anathema sit. Non enim exaequamus vel comparamus Filium Patri, sed subjectum intelligimus. Neque 493 enim descendit in Sodomam sine Patris voluntate; 0517C neque pluit ex sese, sed a Domino, auctoritate scilicet Patris; nec sedet in dextera a semetipso, sed audit dicentem Patrem, Sede ad dexteram meam (Ps. CIX, 1).»