III. I add a table, with critical notes, to show the difference between the original Roman creed, as given by Rufinus in Latin (about A.D. 390), and by Marcellus in Greek (A.D. 336-341), and the received form of the Apostles' Creed, which came into general use in the seventh or eighth century. The additions are inclosed in brackets.
The old Roman Form. The Received Form. 1. I believe in God the Father Almighty [31]
1. I believe in God the Father Almighty [Maker of heaven and earth]. [32] 2. And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord; 2. And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord;
3. Who was born by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary; [33]
3. Who was [conceived] by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary; [34] 4. Was crucified under Pontius Pilate and was buried;
4. [Suffered] [35] under Pontius Pilate, was crucified [dead], and buried
[He descended into Hell (Hades)]; [36] 5. The third day he rose from the dead; 5. The third day he rose from the dead;
6. He ascended into heaven; and sitteth on the right hand of the Father;
6. He ascended into heaven; and sitteth on the right hand of [God] the Father [Almighty]; [37]
7. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
7. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. 8. And in the HOLY GHOST; 8. [I believe] [38] in the Holy Ghost;
9. The Holy Church; 9. The Holy [Catholic] [39] Church
[The communion of saints]; [40] 10. The forgiveness of sins; 10. The forgiveness of sins; 11. The resurrection of the body (flesh). [41] 11. The resurrection of the body (flesh); 12. [And the life everlasting]. [42]
Note on the Legend of the Apostolic Origin of the Creed.--Till the middle of the seventeenth century it was the current belief of Roman Catholic and Protestant Christendom that the Apostles' Creed was 'membratim articulatimque' composed by the apostles in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, or before their separation, to secure unity of teaching, each contributing an article (hence the somewhat arbitrary division into twelve articles). [43] Peter, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, commenced: 'I believe in God the Father Almighty;' Andrew (according to others, John) continued: 'And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord;' James the elder went on: 'Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost;' then followed John (or Andrew): 'Suffered under Pontius Pilate;' Philip: 'Descended into Hades;' Thomas: 'The third day he rose again from the dead;' and so on till Matthias completed the work with the words 'life everlasting. Amen.'
The first trace of this legend, though without the distribution alluded to, we find at the close of the fourth century, in the Expositio Symboli of Rufinus of Aquileja. He mentions an ancient tradition concerning the apostolic composition of the Creed ('tradunt majores nostri'), and falsely derives from this supposed joint authorship the name symbolon (from sumballein, in the sense to contribute); confounding sumbolon, sign, with sumbole, contribution ('Symbolum Græce et indicium dici potest et collatio, hoc est, quod plures in unum conferunt'). The same view is expressed, with various modifications, by Ambrosius of Milan (d. 397), in his Explanatio Symboli ad initiandos, where he says: 'Apostoli sancti convenientes fecerunt symbolum breviter;' by John Cassianus (about 424), De incarnat. Dom. VI. 3; Leo M., Ep. 27 ad Pulcheriam; Venantius Fortunatus, Expos. brevis Symboli Ap.; Isidorus of Seville (d. 636). The distribution of the twelve articles among the apostles is of later date, and there is no unanimity in this respect. See this legendary form in the pseudo-Augustinian Sermones de Symbolo, in Hahn, l.c. p. 24, and another from a Sacramentarium Gallicanum of the seventh century, in Heurtley, p. 67.
The Roman Catechism gives ecclesiastical sanction, as far as the Roman Church is concerned, to the fiction of a direct apostolic authorship. [44] Meyers, l.c., advocates it at length, and Abbé Martigny, in his 'Dictionnaire des antiquitées Chrétiennes,' Paris, 1865 (art. Symbole des apôtres, p. 623), boldly asserts, without a shadow of proof: 'Fidèlement attaché à la tradition de l'Église catholique, nous tenons, non-seulement qu'il est l'oeuvre des apôtres, mais encore qu'il fut composé par eux, alors que réunis à Jérusalem, ils allaient se disperser dans l'univers entier; et qu'ils volurent, avant de séparer, fixer une règle de foi vraiment uniforme et catholique, destinée à être livrée, partout la même, aux catéchumènes.'
Even among Protestants the old tradition has occasionally found advocates, such as Lessing (1778), Delbrück (1826), Rudelbach (1844), and especially Grundtvig (d. 1872). The last named, a very able but eccentric high-church Lutheran bishop of Denmark, traces the Creed, like the Lord's Prayer, to Christ himself, in the period between the Ascension and Pentecost. The poet Longfellow (a Unitarian) makes poetic use of the legend in his Divine Tragedy (1871).
On the other hand, the apostolic origin (after having first been called in question by Laurentius Valla, Erasmus, Calvin [45] ) has been so clearly disproved long since by Vossius, Rivetus, Voëtius, Usher, Bingham, Pearson, King, Walch, and other scholars, that it ought never to be seriously asserted again.
The arguments against the apostolic authorship are quite conclusive:
1. The intrinsic improbability of such a mechanical composition. It has no analogy in the history of symbols; even when composed by committees or synods, they are mainly the production of one mind. The Apostles' Creed is no piece of mosaic, but an organic unit, an instinctive work of art in the same sense as the Gloria in Excelsis, the Te Deum, and the classical prayers and hymns of the Church.
2. The silence of the Scriptures. Some advocates, indeed, pretend to find allusions to the Creed in Paul's 'analogy' or 'proportion of faith,' Rom. xii. 7; 'the good deposit,' 2 Tim. i. 14; 'the first principles of the oracles of God,' Heb. v. 12; 'the faith once delivered to the saints,' Jude, ver. 3; and 'the doctrine,' 2 John, ver. 10; but these passages can be easily explained without such assumption.
3. The silence of the apostolic fathers and all the ante-Nicene and Nicene fathers and synods. Even the oecumenical Council of Nicæa knows nothing of a symbol of strictly apostolic composition, and would not have dared to supersede it by another.
4. The variety in form of the various rules of faith in the ante-Nicene churches, and of the Apostolic Symbol itself down to the eighth century. This fact is attested even by Rufinus, who mentions the points in which the Creed of Aquileja differed from that of Rome. 'Such variations in the form of the Creed forbid the supposition of any fixed system of words, recognized and received as the composition of the apostles; for no one, surely, would have felt at liberty to alter any such normal scheme of faith.' [46]
5. The fact that the Apostles' Creed never had any general currency in the East, where the Nicene Creed occupies its place, with an almost equal claim to apostolicity as far as the substance is concerned.
[16] This change was observed already by Rufinus (l.c. § 36), who says: 'Non dicit "In Sanctam Ecclesiam," nec "In remissionem peccatorum," nec "In carnis resurrectionem." Si enim addidisset "in" præpositionem, una eademque vis fuisset cum superioribus. . . . Hac præpositionis syllaba Creator a creaturis secernitur, et divina separantur ab humanis.' The Roman Catechism (P. I. c. 10, qu. 19) also marks this distinction, 'Nunc autem, mutata dicendi forma, "sanctam," et non "in sanctam" ecclesiam credere profitemur.'
[17] Augustine calls the Apostolic Symbol 'regula fidei brevis et grandis; brevis numero verborum, grandis pondere sententiarum.' Luther says: 'Christian truth could not possibly be put into a shorter and clearer statement.' Calvin (Inst., Lib. II. c. 16, § 18), while doubting its strictly apostolic composition, yet regards it as an admirable and truly scriptural summary of the Christian faith, and follows its order in his Institutes, saying: 'Id extra controversiam positum habemus, totam in eo [Symbolo Ap.] fidei nostræ historiam succincte distinctoque ordine recenseri, nihil autem contineri, quod solidis Scripturæ testimoniis non sit consignatum.' J. T. Müller (Lutheran, Die Symb. Bücher der Evang. Luth. K., p. xvi.): 'It retains the double significance of being the bond of union of the universal Christian Church, and the seed from which all other creeds have grown.' Dr. Semisch (Evang. United, successor of Dr. Neander in Berlin) concludes his recent essay on the Creed (p. 28) with the words: 'It is in its primitive form the most genuine Christianity from the mouth of Christ himself (das ächteste Christenthum aus dem Munde Christi selbst).' Dr. Nevin (Germ. Reformed, Mercersb. Rev. 1849, p. 204): 'The Creed is the substance of Christianity in the form of faith . . . the direct immediate utterance of the faith itself.' Dr. Shedd (Presbyterian, Hist. Christ. Doctr., II. 433): 'The Apostles' Creed is the earliest attempt of the Christian mind to systematize the teachings of the Scripture, and is, consequently, the uninspired foundation upon which the whole after-structure of symbolic literature rests. All creed development proceeds from this germ.' Bishop Browne (Episcopalian, Exp. 39 Art., p. 222): 'Though this Creed was not drawn up by the apostles themselves, it may well be called Apostolic, both as containing the doctrines taught by the apostles, and as being in substance the same as was used in the Church from the times of the apostles themselves.' It is the only Creed used in the baptismal service of the Latin, Anglican, Lutheran, and the Continental Reformed Churches. In the Protestant Episcopal and Lutheran Churches the Apostles' Creed is a part of the regular Sunday service, and is generally recited between the Scripture lessons and the prayers, expressing assent to the former, and preparing the mind for the latter.
[18] Tertullian, De corona militum. c. 3: 'Dehinc ter mergitamur, amplius aliquid respondentes, quam Dominus in Evangelio determinavit.' The amplius respondentes refers to the Creed, not as something different from the Gospel, but as a summary of the Gospel. Comp. De bapt., c. 6, where Tertullian says that in the baptismal Creed the Church was mentioned after confessing the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.
[19] Augustine (Op., ed. Bened., VI. Serm., 58): 'Quando surgitis, quando vos ad somnum collocatis, reddite Symbolum vestrum; reddite Domino. . . . Ne dicatis, Dixi heri, dixi hodie, quotidie dico, teneo illud bene. Commemora fidem tuam: inspice te. Sit tanquam speculum tibi Symbolum tuum. Ibi te vide si credis omnia quæ te credere confiteris, et gaude quotidie in fide tua.'
[20] Kanon tes pisteos, k. tes aletheias, paradosis apostolike, to archaion tes ekklesias, sustema, regula fidei, reg. veritatis, traditio apostolica, prædicatio ap., fides catholica, etc. Sometimes these terms are used in a wider sense, and embrace the whole course of catechetical instruction.
[21] See the older regulæ fidei mentioned by Irenæus: Contra hær., lib. I. c. 10, § 1; III. c. 4, § 1, 2; IV. c. 33, § 7; Tertullian: De velandis virginibus, c. 1; Adv. Praxeam, c. 2; De præscript. hæret., c. 13; Novatianus: De trinitate s. de regula fidei (Bibl. P. P., ed. Galland. III. 287); Cyprian: Ep. ad Magnum, and Ep. ad Januarium, etc.; Origen: De principiis, I. præf. § 4-10; Const. Apost. VI. 11 and 14. They are given in Vol. II. pp. 11-40; also by Bingham, Walch, Hahn, and Heurtley. I select, as a specimen, the descriptive account of Tertullian, who maintained against the heretics very strongly the unity of the traditional faith, but, on the other hand, also against the Roman Church (as a Montanist), the liberty of discipline and progress in Christian life. De velandis virginibus, c. 1: 'Regula quidem fidei una omnino est, sola immobolis et irreformabilis, credendi scilicet in unicum Deum omnipotentem, mundi conditorem, et Filium ejus Jesum Christum, natum ex virgine Maria, crucifixum sub Pontio Pilato, tertia die resuscitatum a mortuis, receptum in cælis, sedentem nunc ad dexteram Patris, venturum judicare vivos et mortuos, per carnis etiamresurrectionem. Hac lege fidei manente cætera jam disciplinæ et conversationis admittunt novitatem correctionis, operante scilicet et proficiente usque in finem gratia Dei.' In his tract against Praxeas (cap. 2) he mentions also, as an object of the rule of faith, 'Spiritum Sanctum, paracletum, sanctificatorem fidei eorum qui credunt in Patrem et Filium et Spiritum Sanctum.' We may even go further back to the middle and the beginning of the second century. The earliest trace of some of the leading articles of the Creed may be found in Ignatius, Epistola ad Trallianos, c. 9 (ed. Hefele, p. 192), where he says of Christ that he was truly born 'of the Virgin Mary' (tou ek Marias, hos alethos egennethe), 'suffered under Pontius Pilate' (alethos ediochthe epi Pontiou Pilatou), 'was crucified and died' (alethos estaurothe kai apethanen,) and 'was raised from the dead' (hos kai alethos egerthe apo nekron, egeirantos auton tou patros, autou.) The same articles, with a few others, can be traced in Justin Martyr's Apol. I. c. 10, 13, 21, 42, 46, 50.