The Apostles' Creed, the Old Roman Symbol and the Cappadocian scoundrels

Wednesday, January 14, 2009, 11:50 AM

Origin of the Apostles Creed

"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 [sic! bias!] 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 [Rufinus] 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. ...

[Passage where it is explained that Rufinus was the first to refer to the Creed that he attributed to the direct authorship of the apostles with the expression " Symbolum Apostolorum" ("Creed of the Apostles")]

... Rufinus was therefore wrong when he declared that the Apostles themselves had "for many just reasons" selected this very term [symbolum]. This fact, joined with the intrinsic improbability of the story, [sic! bias!] 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"
[Catholic Encyclopedia, Apostles' Creed, Origin of the creed, first paragraph]

a. While the story that each of the 12 Apostles contributed a line of the Apostles’ Creed smacks of pious legend, to call the tradition of the genuinely Apostolic origin of the Apostles’ Creed a “legend” is manifest bias.

b. The reference of Rufinus (to whom we owe the first exposition of the Old Roman Symbol in Latin) to the Creed as Symbolum Apostolorum ("Creed of the Apostles") is considered by the author of the article of the Catholic Encyclopedia “wrong” on the weak account that, “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 word symbolum does not occur”.

c. Rufinus' exposition of the Old Roman Symbol (in Latin, circa 400 AD) is NOT the first, absolutely speaking. It is attested in Greek by the letter that Marcellus of Ancyra wrote to Pope Julius I on the occasion of a Synod held in Rome in 340 AD, to prove that the creed he held (and with him the whole Church of Asia Minor, viz. Anatolia, viz. modern day Turkey) was conforming to the one held in Rome. (see quotations ahead)

 The Apostles' Creed "in its present form" (known to scholars as Textus Receptus, "Reveived Text") became the universal standard of Western Christianity since the 7th, nay 8th century.

The Apostles' Creed, though, is much, much older: the s.c. "Old Roman Symbol" (which goes back to the 2nd century) is essentially indistinguishable from the Apostles' Creed in its present form, apart from few differences which are possibly later additions, and have very little bearing on its essence.

Herebelow I have put in italics and [square parentheses] the parts of the Apostles' Creed that do not appear in the Old Roman Symbol.

The Old Roman Symbol vs. the Apostles Creed [§]

I believe in God, the Father almighty, [creator of heaven and earth.]
I believe in Jesus Christ, God's 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 to the dead.] On the third day he rose again;
He ascended into heaven, he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come again 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 the life everlasting. [§]
[Amen.]

[§] The Old Roman Symbol is attested in two versions (one in Greek and the other in Latin), both from the 4th century (the same time when the original Nicene Creed of 325 AD, then the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed 381 AD were established): the one in Greek by Marcellus of Ancyra; the other, in Latin, by Tyrannius Rufinus (aka Rufinus of Aquileia). The two versions are "faithful, literal, verbatim translations of each other. The only outstanding difference is the concluding clause in the Greek text, ζωὴν αἰώνιον ([zoèn aionion] "life everlasting"), which has no equivalent in the Latin text. This clause is present in the Apostles' Creed."
Although the Apostles' Creed is not used, nowadays, in the Eastern Orthodox liturgy, nevertheless it would be wrong to affirm that the Apostles' Creed (to be accurate in its earlier version, essentially identical to the Old Roman Symbol) "has never been part of the liturgical tradition of the Eastern Orthodox". It certainly was at the time of Marcellus of Ancyra, well into the 4th century, as attested by the letter that he wrote to Pope Julius I on the occasion of a synod held in Rome in 340 AD, to prove that the creed he held (and with him the whole Anatolian Church) was conforming to the one held in Rome. Here is what Marcellus of Ancyra wrote to Pope Julius I:

"I though it necessary ... to write down faithfully in my own hand and to deliver to you my faith (την εμαυτου πιστιν), which I learned and was taught out of the holy Scriptures" ...

... and along with this his remark towards the end of the letter ...

"This is the faith (ταυτην την πιστιν) which I received from the holy Scripture, which I was taught by my parents in religion, and which I preach in the Church of God".

-- J.N.D. Kelly, [1950] (2006) Early Christian creeds, 3rd ed., London : Continuum, ISBN 0-82649-216-9, page 108

Only by an unfortunate (maybe not only unfortunate ...) series of circumstances, the Apostles' Creed, the only genuinely Apostolic Creed, which until the 4th century was (with minimal variants) adopted throughout all Christian Churches, East and West, received the following, devastating, spurious, heathen-philosophical additions:

Nicene Constantinopolitan metaphysical additions

[Jesus Christ] eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God,
begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.

[The Holy Spirit], the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified.

With these additions, the Church essentially gave in to the magic formula of the Cappadocian scoundrels:
 “"three persons/subsistencies (hypostases) in one essence (ousia)"” 
A form of verbal idolatry, closely matched by the parallel visual idolatry