This, however, might be said generally of the
custom obtaining in the Church, without reference to the writer’s
own practice. Certainly the document appears to have no connexion
with those among which it stands, and to be an answer to some
particular request for a convenient summary couched in scriptural
terms. §
1. Hence it
does not contain the Homoousion, and the author gives his reason
for the omission—an omission which, he points out, is in
contrast with his other writings against heretics. §
1. Obviously, therefore, this
composition is to be placed in his later life. Yet he
describes the De Fideas being anterior to the
Moralia.