 Since the time of the apostles, the term 'anathema' has come to mean a form of extreme religious sanction, known as excommunication.The earliest recorded instance of the form is in the Council of Elvira (c. 306), and thereafter it became the common method of cutting off heretics; for example, the Synod of Gangra (c. 340) pronounced that Manicheanism was anathema.Cyril of Alexandria issued twelve anathemas against Nestorius in 431.