ABSTRACT
It is true that Ecumenical Councils did not exist in order to systematically list heretical doctrines, especially if such doctrines did not need to be censured due to previous condemnations by Fathers or Doctors of the Church. Though there is truth to the idea that chiliasm fell out of favor in the fourth-century Church, one would expect the ruling of an Ecumenical Council if the rejection of chiliasm were as definitive as Ayer suggests. The origins of the Apostles' Creed are far older than the fourth century, though not traceable to the Apostles themselves in any explicit sense. William Shedd's statement that the Apostles' Creed precludes a premillennial reading of the Last Days is not as clear as he expresses. Montanism was referenced in the canons of the Council of Constantinople using the terminology of "Phrygians", and officially described it as a condemned belief system in 381 ce.
