The Apostles’ Creed
February 10th, 2006I 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 Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried. On the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall 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 eternal.
I have removed the phrase about Christ descending into Hell, since I don’t believe that.
I have also made slight adjustments in capitalization to suit my own habits.
I found a couple of versions (at least), one more modern than the other. What I have written here is in between the two I found. (”quick” became “living”, for example)
Those versions are, after all, translations.
Yeah, I remember feeling like I should stop reciting and think a moment the last time the “descended into Hell” thing came up. What do you think that really means, anyway?
I wonder why the emphasis is on suffering under Pontius Pilate. I never think of him as enjoying his role very much, for one.
A very powerful statement, nonetheless. Is this a hill to die on for you?
The legend is that the apostles wrote the creed soon after Jesus ascended into heaven or on Pentecost (the latter would make it inspired). That is why you will often see it divided into twelve parts (ignoring the fact that there were only 11 apostles at that point). It likely started out in different places and in different forms before evolving into what is today called The Apostle’s Creed. Below is an early form called the Old Roman Creed:
I believe in God the Father Almighty;
And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord;
Who was born of the Holy Spirit and of the virgin Mary;
Crucified under Pontius Pilate and buried;
The third day he rose again from the dead,
He ascended into heaven,
Sits at the right hand of the Father,
From where he will come to judge the living and the dead.
And in the Holy Spirit,
The holy church,
The forgiveness of sins,
The resurrection of the body.
The two Latin texts that I checked both had ‘vivos’ which is best translated ‘living’ today. They both used the same capitalization that I used above.
I was wrong about the eleven apostles for the Pentecost version of the legend - Matthias was chosen before Pentecost.