The twelve apostles did not write the Apostles' Creed
The Pentecost legend was already circulating by the 6th century; the creed's name first appears in a letter from the year 390.
Where did the Apostles' Creed come from? One often-repeated answer says the twelve composed it at Pentecost, one line each. Britannica and the Catholic Encyclopedia tell a different story, with dates and documents.
The verdict is myth, and the paper trail backs it up.
What the legend says
The Catholic Encyclopedia documents that during the Middle Ages people believed each apostle had contributed one clause, and it places the legend in the 6th century. The story has an earlier root in a sermon attributed to Ambrose. Around the year 400, Rufinus of Aquileia reported that the twelve had drafted it together on the day of Pentecost. From there came the habit of attaching a name to each phrase; a 13th-century illumination shows the twelve with pens in hand. In the Reformed tradition, the Heidelberg Catechism called it "the Twelve Articles." That is why a young person who recited it as a child may take it for a first-century text.
«The church did not invent the faith it confesses: it received it.»
What the documents show
The name "Apostles' Creed" is first documented around the year 390, in a letter the Council of Milan sent to Pope Siricius. It is not in the New Testament. Britannica explains that the creed grew out of baptism: the bishop asked questions and the person preparing for baptism answered. Hippolytus's Apostolic Tradition preserves questions of this kind that were used in Rome around the year 200; the bishop wanted to know whether the candidate believed in God the Father almighty. Those answers, turned into affirmations, gave birth to the baptismal creed. What we recite today closely follows the Roman creed of the 3rd and 4th centuries. Its final form was set in southwest France, at the turn of the 6th and 7th centuries.
Philip Schaff, a church historian, puts it bluntly: as to its form, the creed "is not the production of the apostles, as was formerly believed," but a popular summary of what they taught, the work of the Western church in its first four centuries. Eric Kampen, of Valle de Gracia, adds two clues: if the apostles had written it, Acts or the letters would mention it, and the churches of the East, with Constantinople as their center, neither knew nor used it. The text reached its current form around the year 725.
Why the name is not a signature
This does not leave believers without footing. The church did not invent the faith it confesses: it received it. The New Testament is full of short formulas that were repeated aloud. Paul writes to the Corinthians: "For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures" (1 Corinthians 15:3-4, ESV). That is a summary passed from hand to hand.
The baptismal formula in Matthew 28:19 (ESV), "baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit," gives the creed its three-part structure. And Romans 10:9 (ESV) shows that confessing with the mouth was part of the faith from the beginning: "if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."
Schaff concludes that the creed, though it did not come from the apostles' pens, breathes the same spirit as the New Testament and even follows its wording. Calvin doubted that its composition was strictly apostolic; even so, he regarded it as an admirable and deeply biblical summary of the Christian faith. The name does not work as an author's signature: it says that what is confessed there is what the apostles taught. Britannica notes that Protestant confessions that have creeds receive it and recite it in worship, and it is still used in Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican and Methodist congregations.
The next time you recite it, stop asking who signed the paper and ask yourself what you are confessing when you say "I believe." Read it slowly, line by line, and look up the biblical text behind each one. The faith it declares is still the apostles' faith, even if the paper arrived centuries later.
Sources
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, «Apostles' Creed»
- Philip Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, vol. I (CCEL)
- Enciclopedia Católica, «Credo de los Apóstoles»
- Eric Kampen, «¿Cómo obtuvimos el Credo de los Apóstoles?» (Valle de Gracia)
- Credo Magazine, «The Apostle's Creed»
- BITE, «Credo de los Apóstoles»
- Bible Gateway, Reina-Valera 1960 (1 Corintios 15:3-4)
