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Apostles' Creed

Symbolum Apostolorum

Written in the second century to about 725; the place is not known. The date is disputed or rests on weak evidence.

The short creed of the Western church, used at baptism.

Creed · first written in Latin · a major work

The corpus has a record but no English text file.

Translated by Philip Schaff (the received English form, with his notes) (1877). Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, vol. 2 (New York: Harper, 1877), "Symbolum Apostolicum", the received form Public domain. Source and rights

About this text (3 notes)

The English is the received form in common church use, far older than 1877. Schaff added the words in square brackets and notes 45 and 46.

1877 is the first edition of the book. CCEL does not say which printing its file is from, and this row did not compare it with a scan of 1877.

The corpus has a record but no English text file.

How we know the date and place
Date written not sure
The Old Roman Creed is from the second or third century; the words we use now are first found in Pirminius, about 710 to 724 (Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, 3rd ed. 1972)
The story that the twelve apostles wrote it is a legend (Rufinus, about 404).
Place written not known
It grew in more than one place: the old form at Rome, the final form probably in southern Gaul (Kelly 1972)

821 words. 1 section.

Apostles' Creed

§ 1

I. THE APOSTLES' CREED. (a) RECEIVED FORM.

I believe in God the Father Almighty; Maker of heaven and earth.

And in Jesus Christ his only (begotten) Son our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary; suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into hell [Hades, spirit-world];45 the third day he rose from the dead; he ascended into heaven; and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy catholic Church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body [flesh];46 and the life everlasting. Amen.

2 notes
  1. 45 Descendit ad inferna (other Latin copies: ad inferos , to the inhabitants of the spirit-world; so also in the Athanasian Symbol), katelthonta eis ta katotata (other Eastern creeds: eis hadou , viz., topon , or eis ton haden ), he descended into Hades. This clause was unknown in the older creeds, though believed in the Church, and was transferred into the Roman symbol after the fifth century, probably from that of Aquilcia, A.D. 390, where it first appears among Latin creeds, as we learn from Rufinus. In the East it is found before in Arian creeds (about 360). After this we meet it again in the Creed of Venantius Fortunatus, A.D. 590, who had the Creed of Rufinus before him. The words katotata and inferna, taken from Eph. iv. 9, correspond here to the Greek Haides , which occurs eleven times in the Greek Testament, viz., Matt. xi. 23; xvi. 18; Luke x. 15; xvi. 23; Acts ii. 27, 31; 1 Cor. xv. 55; Rev. i. 18; vi. 8; xx. 13, 14, and is always incorrectly translated hell in the English Version, except in 1 Cor. xv. 55. Hades signifies, like the Hebrew Sheol, the unseen spirit-world, the abode of all the departed, both the righteous and wicked; while hell (probably from the Saxon word helan, to cover, to conceal), at least in modern usage, is a much narrower conception, and signifies the state and place of eternal damnation, like the Hebrew gehenna, which occurs twelve times in the Greek Testament, and is so translated in the English Bible, viz., Matt. v. 22, 29, 30; x. 28; xviii. 9; xxiii. 15, 33; Mark ix. 43, 45, 47; Luke xii. 5; James iii. 6. The American editions of the Book of Common Prayer leave it optional with the minister to use, in the Creed, hell, or the place of departed spirits; but it would be much better to restore or popularize the Greek Hades. The current translation, hell, is apt to mislead, and excludes the important fact—the only one which we certainly know of the mysterious triduum —that Christ was in Paradise in the time between the crucifixion and the resurrection, according to his own declaration to the penitent thief, Luke xxiii. 43. Some connect the descent into Hades with the resurrection in one article; while others, on the contrary, connect it with the preceding article by placing a (,) after buried. It forms rather a separate article, and should be included in (;), as above. The clause has been explained in three different ways: 1. It is identical with sepultus (Rufinus), or means 'continued in the state of death and under the power of death' till the resurrection (Westminster divines). This makes it a useless repetition in figurative language. 2. It signifies the intensity of Christ's sufferings on the cross, where he tasted the pain of hell for sinners (Calvin and the Heidelberg Catechism). This is inconsistent with the order of the clause between death and resurrection. 3. An actual self-manifestation of Christ after the crucifixion to all the departed spirits, Luke xxiii. 43; Acts ii. 27, 31; 1 Pet. iii. 18, 19; iv.6; comp. Eph. iv. 8, 9; Col. ii. 15; Phil. ii. 10; Rev. i. 18. As such the descent is a part of the universality of the scheme of redemption, and forms the transition from the state of humiliation to the state of exaltation. This is the historical explanation, according to the belief of the ancient Church, but leaves much room for speculation concerning the object and effect of the descent.
  2. 46 'Resurrection of the body.' The older English translations of the Creed had the literal rendering flesh ( caro , sarx ), by which the ancient Church protested against spiritualistic conceptions of the Gnostics. But this may be misunderstood in a grossly materialistic sense, while the resurrection of the body is unobjectionable; comp. 1 Cor. xv. 50. According to Heurtley, l.c. p. 147, the change of flesh into body was first made 1543, in 'The necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian Man,' set forth by Henry VIII.; but in the Interrogative Creed, used at Baptism and at the Visitation of the Sick, flesh is retained.