Talk:Apostles' Creed

Whoever wrote this, please clarify: "For this reason, it was held to predate the Nicene Creed in medieval Latin tradition." Was its predating of the Nicene Creed held/believed during medieval Latin tradition? By whom? Or was it vaguely (when?) held/believed to predate a version of the Nicene Creed that came from a medieval Latin tradition? By whom? Or something else? Whatever the meaning, can the writer please clarify? (And cite?) Misty MH (talk) 14:13, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Can someone who actually knows this topic – without a church tradition to support – please clarify, clean it up, and remove wording that creates apparently internal inconsistencies?

Perhaps just some examples:

• "A creed that is virtually identical to the current one is recorded by Faustus of Riez", before 495 CE.

and

• "the earliest appearance of what we know as the Apostles' Creed was in the De singulis libris canonicis scarapsus ("Excerpt from Individual Canonical Books") of St. Pirminius (Migne, Patrologia Latina 89, 1029 ff.), written between 710 and 714."

and

• Other things referring to other dates.

Having these and other dates all over the place is extremely confusing.

The article should perhaps be reorganized BY DATE, because acting like the present form is actually a creed of the Apostles, when the earliest appearance of it is 600 years after the last apostle was dead, makes little sense to a common reader, the way it has been worded.

Please word and reword the article in a scholarly way vs. from some believer or church position? Thank you! Misty MH (talk) 14:28, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Summarize Timeline Fact Check

This phrase all of a sudden appears in this article – about the so-called Apostles Creed – with no warning: "The phrase "descendit ad inferos" ("he descended into hell") is not found in the Nicene Creed.". Why? It is in a paragraph that compares the Apostles' Creed document to other documents, but without stating this, without giving a reason, and without any kind of transition. Is it trying to show evolution of the document? Differences that are considered contradictory? Expansion of one document compared to another? Just simple interest in seeing random or significant differences between creeds? The document needs some flow, and some rearranging of information – and transitions – so that the readers don't get frustrated or confused. Misty MH (talk) 14:42, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. The part about Hell vs Lower regions of the earth is super interesting, it would be a great mitzvah for someone knowledgeable to expand and clean up. Several versions are mentioned; if they are to be mentioned, there should be at least one sentence describing the most significant variation.

It's very likely that qualified editors are walking by saying "golly that sounds interesting but I only know how to clean up or complete parts of that section, but I can't see how to do so without removing or muddying other parts."

Would it be appropriate to move this section to an article on "Variations in the Apostle's creed"? I suspect that it would have just the right amount of incompleteness plus "SOMEONE ON THE INTERNET IS WRONG" energy to better allow incremental improvement.

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To help motivate that SOMEONE ON THE INTERNET IS WRONG energy, here is my best guess for the story it's telling, with placeholders for indirections I cannot understand and/or resolve:

> ... A version that is identical to the current one with the single exception of "descendit ad inferos" ("he descended into hell", in the Apostles' Creed) in place of !something~ ("lower earthly regions", in the Nicene creed) is recorded in the late 5th century. The Nicene creed echoes Ephesians 4:9, "κατέβη εἰς τὰ κατώτερα μέρη τῆς γῆς" ("he descended into the lower earthly regions"). This phrase (WHICH PHRASE) first appeared in one of the two versions of Rufinus (d. 411), the Creed of Aquileia, and then did not appear again in any version of the creed until AD 650. However, the Old Roman Creed (WHICH ONE IS THIS LIKE) remained the standard liturgical text of the Roman Church throughout the 4th to 7th centuries. It was replaced by the "Gallic" version of the Apostles' Creed (WHICH ONE IS THIS LIKE) only in the later 8th century, under Charlemagne, who imposed it throughout his dominions. Mrflip (talk) 20:17, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Rufinus of Aquileia writing in the 4th century CE said the phrase is not part of the Roman Church's liturgy of his time, but it's accepted in his own church suggesting not all church bodies recognized the phrase. How many churches did or didn't use the phrase (or even the Creed) can't be known with current historical evidence. Yet, he explicitly says that the Christian concept of Hell isn't intended by the phrasing, either. Rather, it's in context of the Greek concept of hades being the spirit world or the grave since the original texts are all in Greek - not Latin. Rufinus, Commentary on the Apostle's Creed sect. 18 (pg 17 of linked PDF) Many denominations that use the Apostle's Creed therefore translate the phrase from a Greek context "descended to the grave" ie: "was buried".

"Hell" appears to be a misapplication of a Christian concept of a place of punishment beyond the grave onto a language structure that doesn't appear to imply anything but the grave and a vague concept of a generalized spirit world beyond death. (Or in other contexts the name of the Greek pantheon's god that watches over the dead.) ~2026-87457-0 (talk) 22:00, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

There is no mention of holy catholic church being substituted by holy universal church in some Church of England churches of evangelical persuasion because for newcomers catholic is misunderstood as to it's meaning. REVUpminster (talk) 10:20, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

To my knowledge, the creed is said at the end of the liturgy of the word, not during the Eucharistic rite. 80.192.227.82 (talk) 22:51, 16 February 2023 (UTC)