Folio 36

The Apostolic Creed

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THE APOSTOLIC CREED1

Most Ancient Forms of the Apostolic Creed

1. THE creed which is called Apostolic is composed essentially of (1) a Trinitarian part, three articles professing faith in three divine persons; (2) a Christological part which was added to the first section.

There are extant, however, certain formulae composed in the manner of creeds, but lacking the Christological part. These formulae seem to be more ancient than the Apostolic Creed. An achristological formula of this kind—which seems to be the most ancient of all—exists in a work infected with Gnosticism written between the years 150 and 180, Testamentum in Galilaea D.N.I. Christi (or in an almost identical work Gespräche Jesu mit seinen Jüngern nach der Auferstehung) where the short Creed (reads):

"[I believe] in the Father almighty,—and in Jesus Christ, our Savior; —and in the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, in the holy Church, and in the remission of sins."

Another achristological formula, perhaps already used in the liturgy of Egypt probably in the third century, is shown by a papyrus discovered in Dér-Balyzeh, written in the seventh or eighth century (cf. Dict. d'Archéol. chrét. et de Lit. s. v. Canon, II, 2, 1882 ff.):

  1. Of the Catholic authors, cf. S. Baeumer O.S.B., Das Apostolische Glaubensbekenntnis. Seine Geschichte und sein Inhalt (Mainz: 1893); Cl. Blume S.J., Das Apostolische Glaubensbekenntnis (Freiburg:1893); W. M. Peitz S.J., Das Glaubensbekenntnis der Apostel [Stimmen der Zeit 94 (1918), 553 ff.]; A. Nussbaumer O. Cap., Das Ursymbolum nach der Epideixis des hl. Irenäus und dem Dialog Justins (Paderborn: 1921); B. Capelle O.S.B., Le Symbole romain au second siècle [Revue Bénédictine 39 (1927), 33 ff.]; idem, Les origines du Symbole romain [Rech. de Théol. anc. et médiév. 2 (1930), 5 ff.].—Items which are marked by an asterisk (*) are considered at least as the more probable. ↩