Timothy classifies heresies based on the requirements for admission that the orthodox church placed on their members. In his first category were those heretics who would need to be baptised before they could be accepted into the church; in the second, those who needed to be anointed but not baptised; and in the third, those who only needed to abjure all heresy (including their own former beliefs) by pronouncing an anathema. The same three categories were used by Theodore the Studite writing one or two centuries later.
