The
Apostle’s Creed
I
believe in God, the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus
Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of
the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was
buried; he descended into hell; on the third day he rose again from the dead;
he ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of God the Father
almighty; from there he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I
believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.
Amen.
Background
“The Apostle’s Creed (Symbolum Apostolorum) is a
formula containing in brief statements, or "articles," the fundamental
tenets of Christian belief.
Throughout the Middle Ages it was generally believed
that the Apostles, on the day of Pentecost, while still under the direct
inspiration of the Holy Ghost, composed our present Creed between them, each of
the Apostles contributing one of the twelve articles. This legend dates back to
the sixth century (see Pseudo-Augustine in Migne, P.L., XXXIX, 2189, and
Pirminius, ibid., LXXXIX, 1034), and it is foreshadowed still earlier in a
sermon attributed to St. Ambrose (Migne, P.L., XVII, 671; Kattenbusch, I, 81),
which takes notice that the Creed was "pieced together by twelve separate
workmen". About the same date (c. 400) Rufinus (Migne, P.L., XXI, 337)
gives a detailed account of the composition of the Creed, which account he
professes to have received from earlier ages (tradunt majores nostri). Although
he does not explicitly assign each article to the authorship of a separate
Apostle, he states that it was the joint work of all, and implies that the
deliberation took place on the day of Pentecost. Moreover, he declares that
"they for many just reasons decided that this rule of faith should be
called the Symbol", which Greek word he explains to mean both indicium,
i.e. a token or password by which Christians might recognize each other, and
collatio, that is to say an offering made up of separate contributions. A few
years before this (c. 390), the letter addressed to Pope Siricius by the
Council of Milan (Migne, P.L., XVI, 1213) supplies the earliest known instance
of the combination Symbolum Apostolorum ("Creed of the Apostles") in
these striking words: "If you credit not the teachings of the priests . .
. let credit at least be given to the Symbol of the Apostles which the Roman
Church always preserves and maintains inviolate." The word Symbolum in
this sense, standing alone, meets us first about the middle of the third
century in the correspondence of St. Cyprian and St. Firmilian, the latter in
particular speaking of the Creed as the "Symbol of the Trinity", and
recognizing it as an integral part of the rite of baptism (Migne, P.L., III,
1165, 1143). It should be added, moreover, that Kattenbusch (II, p. 80, note)
believes that the same use of the words can be traced as far back as
Tertullian. Still, in the first two centuries after Christ, though we often
find mention of the Creed under other designations (e.g. regula fidei,
doctrina, traditio), the name symbolum does not occur. Rufinus was therefore
wrong when he declared that the Apostles themselves had "for many just
reasons" selected this very term. This fact, joined with the intrinsic
improbability of the story, and the surprising silence of the New Testament and
of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, leaves us no choice but to regard the
circumstantial narrative of Rufinus as unhistorical.
Among recent critics, some have assigned to the
Creed an origin much later than the Apostolic Age. Harnack, e.g., asserts that
in its present form it represents only the baptismal confession of the Church
of Southern Gaul, dating at earliest from the second half of the fifth century
(Das apostolische Glaubensbekenntniss, 1892, p. 3). Strictly construed, the
terms of this statement are accurate enough; though it seems probable that it
was not in Gaul, but in Rome, that the Creed really assumed its final shape
(see Burn in the "Journal of Theol. Studies", July, 1902). But the
stress laid by Harnack on the lateness of our received text (T) is, to say the
least, somewhat misleading. It is certain, as Harnack allows, that another and
older form of the Creed (R) had come into existence, in Rome itself, before the
middle of the second century. Moreover, as we shall see, the differences
between R and T are not very important and it is also probable that R, if not
itself drawn up by the Apostles, is at least based upon an outline which dates
back to the Apostolic age. Thus, taking the document as a whole, we may say
confidently, in the words of a modern Protestant authority, that "in and
with our Creed we confess that which since the days of the Apostles has been
the faith of united Christendom" (Zahn, Apostles' Creed, tr., p, 222). The
question of the apostolicity of the Creed ought not to be dismissed without due
attention being paid to the following five considerations:
(1) There are very suggestive traces in the New
Testament of the recognition of a certain "form of doctrine" (typos
didaches, Romans 6:17) which molded, as it were, the faith of new converts to
Christ's law, and which involved not only the word of faith believed in the
heart, but "with the mouth confession made unto salvation" (Romans
10:8-10). In close connection with this we must recall the profession of faith
in Jesus Christ exacted of the eunuch (Acts 8:37) as a preliminary to baptism
(Augustine, "De Fide et Operibus", cap. ix; Migne, P.L., LVII, 205)
and the formula of baptism itself in the name of the Three Persons of the
Blessed Trinity (Matthew 28:19; and cf. the Didache 7:2, and 9:5). Moreover, as
soon as we begin to obtain any sort of detailed description of the ceremonial
of baptism we find that, as a preliminary to the actual immersion, a profession
of faith was exacted of the convert, which exhibits from the earliest times a
clearly divided and separate confession of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
corresponding to the Divine Persons invoked in the formula of baptism. As we do
not find in any earlier document the full form of the profession of faith, we
cannot be sure that it is identical with our Creed, but, on the other hand, it
is certain that nothing has yet been discovered which is inconsistent with such
a supposition. See, for example, the "Canons of Hippolytus" (c. 220)
or the "Didascalia" (c. 250) in Hahn's "Bibliothek der
Symbole" (8, 14, 35); together with the slighter allusions in Justin
Martyr and Cyprian.
(2) Whatever difficulties may be raised regarding
the existence of the Disciplina Arcani in early times (Kattenbusch, II, 97
sqq.), there can be no question that in Cyril of Jerusalem, Hilary, Augustine,
Leo, the Gelasian Sacramentary, and many other sources of the fourth and fifth
centuries the idea is greatly insisted upon; that according to ancient
tradition the Creed was to be learned by heart, and never to be consigned to
writing. This undoubtedly provides a plausible explanation of the fact that in
the case of no primitive creed is the text preserved to us complete or in a
continuous form. What we know of these formulae in their earliest state is
derived from what we can piece together from the quotations, more or less
scattered, which are found in such writers, for example, as Irenaeus and
Tertullian.
(3) Though no uniform type of Creed can be surely
recognized among the earlier Eastern writers before the Council of Nicaea, an
argument which has been considered by many to disprove the existence of any
Apostolic formula, it is a striking fact that the Eastern Churches in the
fourth century are found in possession of a Creed which reproduces with
variations the old Roman type. This fact is fully admitted by such Protestant
authorities as Harnack (in Hauck's Realencyclopädie, I, 747) and Kattenbusch
(I, 380 sq.; II, 194 sqq., and 737 sq.). It is obvious that these data would
harmonize very well with the theory that a primitive Creed had been delivered
to the Christian community of Rome, either by Sts. Peter and Paul themselves or
by their immediate successors, and in the course of time had spread throughout
the world.
(4) Furthermore note that towards the end of the
second century we can extract from the writings of St. Irenæus in southern Gaul
and of Tertullian in far-off Africa two almost complete Creeds agreeing closely
both with the old Roman Creed (R), as we know it from Rufinus, and with one
another. It will be useful to translate from Burn (Introduction to the Creeds,
pp. 50, 51) his tabular presentation of the evidence in the case of Tertullian.
(Cf. MacDonald in "Ecclesiastical Review", February, 1903):
THE OLD ROMAN CREED AS QUOTED BY TERTULLIAN
(c. 200)
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De Virg. Vel., 1
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De Praecept., 13 and 26
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(3) born of the Virgin Mary,
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(3) born of the Virgin,
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(4) Him suffered died, and buried,
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(4) fastened to a cross.
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(5) on the third day brought to life from
the dead,
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(5) brought back to life,
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(5) He rose the third day,
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(7) sitting now at the right hand of the
Father,
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(7) sits at the right hand of the Father,
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(7) set at the right hand of the Father,
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(8) will come to judge the living and the
dead
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(8) will come to judge the living and the
dead
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(10) to govern believers (In this passage
articles 9 and 10 precede 8)
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Such a table serves admirably to show how incomplete
is the evidence provided by mere quotations of the Creed, and how cautiously it
must be dealt with. Had we possessed only the "De Virginibus
Velandis", we might have said that the article concerning the Holy Ghost
did not form part of Tertullian's Creed. Had the "De Virginibus
Velandis" been destroyed, we should have declared that Tertullian knew nothing
of the clause "suffered under Pontius Pilate". And so forth.
(5) It must not be forgotten that while no explicit
statement of the composition of a formula of faith by the Apostles is
forthcoming before the close of the fourth century, earlier Fathers such as
Tertullian and St. Irenæus insist in a very emphatic way that the "rule of
faith" is part of the apostolic tradition. Tertullian in particular in his
"De Praescriptione", after showing that by this rule (regula
doctrinoe) he understands something practically identical with our Creed,
insists that the rule was instituted by Christ and delivered to us (tradita) as
from Christ by the Apostles (Migne. P.L., II, 26, 27, 33, 50). As a conclusion
from this evidence the present writer, agreeing on the whole with such
authorities as Semeria and Batiffol that we cannot safely affirm the Apostolic
composition of the Creed, considers at the same time that to deny the
possibility of such origin is to go further than our data at present warrant. A
more pronouncedly conservative view is urged by MacDonald in the
"Ecclesiastical Review", January to July, 1903.
The
old Roman creed
The Catechism of the Council of Trent apparently
assumes the Apostolic origin of our existing Creed, but such a pronouncement
has no dogmatic force and leaves opinion free. Modern apologists, in defending
the claim to apostolicity, extend it only to the old Roman form (R), and are
somewhat hampered by the objection that if R had been really held to be the
inspired utterance of the Apostles, it would not have been modified at pleasure
by various local churches (Rufinus, for example, testifies to such expansion in
the case of the Church of Aquileia), and in particular would never have been
entirely supplanted by T, our existing form. The difference between the two
will best be seen by printing them side by side (Creeds R and T):
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R.
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T.
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(7) Sitteth at the right hand of the
Father,
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(7) From thence He shall come to judge the
living and the dead.
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(8) Whence He shall come to judge the
living and the dead.
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(12) life everlasting.
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Neglecting minor points of difference, which indeed
for their adequate discussion would require a study of the Latin text, we may
note that R does not contain the clauses "Creator of heaven and
earth", "descended into hell", "the communion of
saints", "life everlasting", nor the words
"conceived", "suffered", "died", and "Catholic".
Many of these additions, but not quite all, were probably known to St. Jerome
in Palestine (c. 380.--See Morin in Revue Benedictine, January, 1904) and about
the same date to the Dalmatian, Niceta (Burn, Niceta of Remesiana, 1905).
Further additions appear in the creeds of southern Gaul at the beginning of the
next century, but T probably assumed its final shape in Rome itself some time
before A.D. 700 (Burn, Introduction, 239; and Journal of Theol. Studies, July,
1902). We know nothing certain as to the reasons which led to the adoption of T
in preference to R.
Articles of the creed
Although T really contains more than twelve
articles, it has always been customary to maintain the twelvefold division
which originated with, and more strictly applies to, R. A few of the more
debated items call for some brief comment. The first article of R presents a
difficulty. From the language of Tertullian it is contended that R originally
omitted the word Father and added the word one; thus, "I believe in one
God Almighty". Hence Zahn infers an underlying Greek original still partly
surviving in the Nicene Creed, and holds that the first article of the Creed
suffered modification to counteract the teachings of the Monarchian heresy. It
must suffice to say here that although the original language of R may possibly
be Greek, Zahn's premises regarding the wording of the first article are not
accepted by such authorities as Kattenbusch and Harnack.
Another textual difficulty turns upon the inclusion
of the word only in the second article; but a more serious question is raised
by Harnack's refusal to recognize, either in the first or second article of R,
any acknowledgment of a pre-existent or eternal relation of Sonship and
Fatherhood of the Divine Persons. The Trinitarian theology of later ages, he
declares, has read into the text a meaning which it did not possess for its
framers. And he says, again, with regard to the ninth article, that the writer
of the Creed did not conceive the Holy Ghost as a Person, but as a power and
gift. "No proof can be shown that about the middle of the second century
the Holy Ghost was believed in as a Person." It is impossible to do more
here than direct the reader to such Catholic answers as those of Baumer and
Blume; and among Anglicans to the very convenient volume of Swete. To quote but
one illustration of early patristic teaching, St. Ignatius at the end of the
first century repeatedly refers to a Sonship which lies beyond the limits of
time: "Jesus Christ . . . came forth from one Father", "was with
the Father before the world was" (Letter to the Magnesians 6-7). While,
with regard to the Holy Ghost, St. Clement of Rome at a still earlier date
writes: "As God lives, and the Lord Jesus Christ lives, and the Holy
Spirit, the faith and hope of the elect" (cap. lviii). This and other like
passages clearly indicate the consciousness of a distinction between God and
the Spirit of God analogous to that recognized to exist between God and the
Logos. A similar appeal to early writers must be made in connection with the
third article, that affirming the Virgin Birth. Harnack admits that the words
"conceived of the Holy Ghost" (T), really add nothing to the
"born of the Holy Ghost" (R). He admits consequently that "at
the beginning of the second century the belief in the miraculous conception had
become an established part of Church tradition". But he denies that the
doctrine formed part of the earliest Gospel preaching, and he thinks it
consequently impossible that the article could have been formulated in the
first century. We can only answer here that the burden of proof rests with him,
and that the teaching of the Apostolic Fathers, as quoted by Swete and others,
points to a very different conclusion.
Rufinus (c. 400) explicitly states that the words
descended into hell were not in the Roman Creed, but existed in that of
Aquileia. They are also in some Greek Creeds and in that of St. Jerome, lately
recovered by Morin. It was no doubt a remembrance of 1 Peter 3:19, as
interpreted by Irenaeus and others, which caused their insertion. The clause,
"communion of saints", which appears first in Niceta and St. Jerome,
should unquestionably be regarded as a mere expansion of the article "holy
Church". Saints, as used here, originally meant no more than the living
members of the Church (see the article by Morin in Revue d'histoire et de
litterature ecclesiastique. May, 1904, and the monograph of J.P. Kirsch, Die
Lehre von der Gemeinschaft der Heiligen, 1900). For the rest we can only note
that the word "Catholic", which appears first in Niceta, is dealt
with separately; and that "forgiveness of sins" is probably to be
understood primarily of baptism and should be compared with the "one
baptism for the forgiveness of sins" of the Nicene Creed.
Use and authority of the creed
As already indicated, we must turn to the ritual of
Baptism for the most primitive and important use of the Apostles' Creed. It is
highly probable that the Creed was originally nothing else than a profession of
faith in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost of the baptismal formula. The fully
developed ceremonial which we find in the seventh Roman Ordo, and the Gelasian
Sacramentary, and which probably represented the practice of the fifth century,
assigns a special day of "scrutiny", for the imparting of the Creed
(traditio symboli), and another, immediately before the actual administration
of the Sacrament, for the redditio symboli, when the neophyte gave proof of his
proficiency by reciting the Creed aloud. An imposing address accompanied the
traditio and in an important article, Dom de Puniet (Revue d'Histoire Ecclesiastique,
October, 1904) has recently shown that this address is almost certainly the
composition of St. Leo the Great. Further, three questions (interrogationes)
were put to the candidate in the very act of baptism, which questions are
themselves only a summary of the oldest form of the Creed. Both the recitation
of the Creed and the questions are still retained in the Ordo baptizandi of our
actual Roman ritual; while the Creed in an interrogative form appears also in
the Baptismal Service of the Anglican "Book of Common Prayer".
Outside of the administration of baptism the Apostles' Creed is recited daily
in the Church, not only at the beginning of Matins and Prime and the end of
Compline, but also ferially in the course of Prime and Compline. Many medieval
synods enjoin that it must be learnt by all the faithful, and there is a great
deal of evidence to show that, even in such countries as England and France, it
was formerly learnt in Latin. As a result of this intimate association with the
liturgy and teaching of the Church, the Apostles' Creed has always been held to
have the authority of an ex cathedra utterance. It is commonly taught that all
points of doctrine contained in it are part of the Catholic Faith, and cannot
be called in question under pain of heresy (St. Thomas, Summa Theologica,
II-II:1:9). Hence Catholics have generally been content to accept the Creed in
the form, and in the sense, in which it has been authoritatively expounded by
the living voice of the Church. For the Protestants who accept it only in so
far as it represents the evangelical teaching of the Apostolic Age, it became a
matter of supreme importance to investigate its original form and meaning. This
explains the preponderating amount of research devoted to this subject by Protestant
scholars as compared with the contributions of their Catholic rivals.”
Source:
Herbert Thurston, "Apostles' Creed," The Catholic Encyclopedia
See also:
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St. Thomas Aquinas on the Apostle's
Creed
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The Catechetical Instructions of St.
Thomas Aquinas
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Roman Catechism (i.e. Catechism of the
Council of Trent)
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The Douay Catechism of 1649
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Baltimore Catechism
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Catechism of St. Pius X
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Fr. John Hardon’s Catechism
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Compendium of the Catechism of the
Catholic Church
For Dogmatic Definitions see:
-
Enchiridion by Heinrich Denzinger
-
Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma by Ludwig
Ott
-
A Manual of Catholic Theology by Joseph
Wilhelm
-
Manual of Dogmatic Theology by
Pohle-Preuss
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Interrogatory Creed of St. Hippolytus
When
the person being baptized goes down into the water, he who baptizes him,
putting his hand on him, shall say:
"Do
you believe in God, the Father Almighty?" And the person being baptized
shall say: "I believe." Then holding his hand on his head, he shall
baptize him once. And then he shall say: "Do you believe in Christ
Jesus, the Son of God, who was born of the Virgin Mary, and was crucified
under Pontius Pilate, and was dead and buried, and rose again the third day,
alive from the dead, and ascended into heaven, and sat at the right hand of
the Father, and will come to judge the living and the dead?" And when he
says: "I believe," he is baptized again. And again he shall say:
"Do you believe in the Holy Spirit, in the holy church, and the
resurrection of the body?" The person being baptized shall say: "I
believe," and then he is baptized a third time.
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On
the Apostolic Tradition; Chapter 21:12-18.
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The Greek text of Marcellus of Ancyra
(c. 340):
Πιστεύω
οὖν εἰς θεòν πατέρα παντοκράτορα·
καὶ
εἰς Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν, τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ τὸν μονογενῆ, τὸν κύριον ἡμῶν,
τὸν
γεννηθέντα ἐκ πνεύματος ἁγίου καὶ Μαρίας τῆς παρθένου,
τὸν
ἐπὶ Ποντίου Πιλάτου σταυρωθέντα καὶ ταφέντα
καὶ
τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρα ἀναστάντα ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν,
ἀναβάντα
εἰς τοὺς οὐρανούς
καὶ
καθήμενον ἐν δεξιᾳ τοῦ πατρός, ὅθεν ἔρχεται κρίνειν ζῶντας καὶ νεκρούς·
καὶ
εἰς τò ἅγιον πνεῦμα,
ἁγίαν
ἐκκλησίαν,
ἄφεσιν
ἁμαρτιῶν,
σαρκὸς
ἀνάστασιν,
ζωὴν
αἰώνιον.
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The Latin text of Tyrannius Rufinus
(c. 404):
Credo
in deum patrem omnipotentem;
et
in Christum Iesum filium eius unicum, dominum nostrum,
qui
natus est de Spiritu sancto ex Maria virgine,
qui
sub Pontio Pilato crucifixus est et sepultus,
tertia
die resurrexit a mortuis,
ascendit
in caelos,
sedet
ad dexteram patris, unde venturus est iudicare vivos et mortuos;
et
in Spiritum sanctum,
sanctam
ecclesiam,
remissionem
peccatorum,
carnis
resurrectionem,.
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English Translation of the Latin Text:
I
believe in God the Father almighty;
and
in Christ Jesus His only Son, our Lord,
Who
was born from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary,
Who
under Pontius Pilate was crucified and buried,
on
the third day rose again from the dead,
ascended
to heaven,
sits
at the right hand of the Father,
whence
He will come to judge the living and the dead;
and
in the Holy Spirit,
the
holy Church,
the
remission of sins,
the
resurrection of the flesh
(the
life everlasting).
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Early
Christian Creeds
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