The Apostolic Creed

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Louis L Sorenson
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The Apostolic Creed

Post by Louis L Sorenson »

Legend has it the apostles created this creed 10 days after Christ's resurrection (most likely false). The creeds are easy reading and use accusative participles extensively. Rod Decker has the creeds at the end of his reader. The text linked to Perseus LSJ Hopper and parser can be found at http://www.letsreadgreek.com/texts/apostoliccreed/. A pdf with vocabulary can be found at http://www.letsreadgreek.com/texts/apos ... sCreed.pdf. All corrections are posted in that file also. Here is the text (which is also corrected from any previous errors originally posted.)

Πιστεύω οὖν εἰς Θεόν
Πατέρα, παντοκράτορα,
ποιητὴν οὐρανοῦ καὶ γῆς.
Καὶ εἰς Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν,
υἱὸν αὐτοῦ τὸν μονογενῆ,
τὸν κύριον ἡμῶν,
τὸν συλληφθέντα ἐκ πνεύματος ἁγίου,
γεννηθέντα ἐκ Μαρίας τῆς παρθένου,
παθόντα ἐπὶ Ποντίου Πιλάτου,
σταυρωθέντα,
θανόντα,
καὶ ταφέντα,
κατελθόντα εἰς τὰ κατώτατα,
τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ ἀναστάντα ἀπὸ τῶν νεκρῶν,
ἀνελθόντα εἴς τοὺς οὐρανούς,
καθεζόμενον ἐν δεξίᾳ θεοῦ πατρὸς παντοδυνάμου,
ἐκεῖθεν ερχόμενον κρῖναι ζῶντας καὶ νεκρούς.
Πιστεύω εἰς τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ Ἅγιον,
ἁγίαν καθολικὴν ἐκκλησίαν,
ἁγίων κοινωνίαν,
ἀφεσιν ἁμαρτίων,
σαρκὸς ἀνάστασιν,
ζωὴν αἰώνιον.
Αμήν.

The earliest attested form can be found in theInterrogatory Creed of Hippolytus found in On the Apostolic Tradition 21.12-18. It reads:

Πιστεύεις εἰς θεόν πατέρα παντοκράτορα;
Πιστεύεις εἰς Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν, τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ θεοῦ, τὸν γεννηθέντα διὰ πνεύματος ἁγίου ἐκ Μαρίας τῆς παρθένου, τὸν σταυρωθέντα ἐπὶ Ποντίου Πιλάτου καὶ ἁποθανόντα, καὶ ἀναστάντα τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ ζῶντα ἐκ νεκρῶν, καὶ ἀνελθόντα εἰς τοὺς οὐρανού, καὶ καθίσαντα ἐκ δεξιῶν τοῦ πατρός, ἐρχόμενον κρῖναι ζῶντας καὶ νεκρούς;
Πιστεύεις εἰς τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον ἐν τῇ ἁγίᾳ ἐκκλησίᾳ;

English Translation of Apostle's Creed

I believe in God the Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth.

And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord;
who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, dead, and buried;
he descended into hell;
the third day he rose again from the dead;
he ascended into heaven,
and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Ghost;
the holy catholic Church;
the communion of saints;
the forgiveness of sins;
the resurrection of the body;
and the life everlasting.
AMEN.
Stephen Carlson
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Re: The Apostolic Creed

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Louis L Sorenson wrote:ξωὴν αἰώνιον.
This should be, of course, ζωὴν αἰώνιον. Also, αγίων is missing its initial rough breathing.

I was able to trace the first typo goes back to a 19th century edition of the Greek. It is often copied and rarely corrected. Instead, it has made its way on the web and now has a second life there, even entering some textbooks (such as Mounce's third edition). (Another issue with Mounce's text of it is that it omitted the line κατελθόντα εἰς τὰ κατώτατα, but my students, being Methodist, never noticed the omission.)

I had my Greek students memorize the Apostles' Creed in Greek last year. When I noticed the typo, I decided to see what the text in TLG said. The Apostles' Creed was not to be found. That's when I realized that the Apostles' Creed was originally composed in Latin and translated into Greek during the Middle Ages.

I don't really know who, if anyone, had actually recited Apostles' Creed in Greek as part of their liturgy. If you want something more like what was actual practice, then I would recommend the Nicene or Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed.

Stephen
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
Louis L Sorenson
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Re: The Apostolic Creed

Post by Louis L Sorenson »

Thanks, yes the text was from the internet, but I had to add the breathings and accents. I've seen versions without οὖν.

Α great book on the Creeds is Creeds of the Churches, Third Edition: A Reader in Christian Doctrine from the Bible to the Present by John H. Leith, Westminster John Knox Press, 1982, ISBN: 9780804205269.

Also the Oecumenical Documents of Faith by T. Herbert Bindley, 1899 is available on Google Books at http://books.google.com/books?id=ogMUAA ... th&f=false. It has creeds in Greek.

Schaff's Work is available on Internet Archive: THE CREEDS OF CHRISTENDOM, WITH A HISTORY AND CRITICAL NOTES. PHILIP SCHAFF, D.D., LL.D., SIXTH EDITION—REVISED AND ENLARGED. VOLUME I: THE HISTORY OF THE CREEDS, THE CREEDS OF CHRISTENDOM. Copyright, 1905, 1919, by David S. Schaff http://www.archive.org/details/bibliothecasymbo01scha

I know there are others out there.
Stephen Carlson
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Re: The Apostolic Creed

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Yes, Schaff is the one responsible for the typo. You can see it here: http://books.google.com/books?id=15sPAA ... 22&f=false

The CCEL version seems to have fixed the typo: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/creeds2.iv.i.i.i.html

The text published by Archbishop Ussher on the Apostles' Creed is here (no typo but gnarly font):

http://books.google.com/books?id=W4JBAA ... &q&f=false

A discussion of the text in German is found here:

http://books.google.com/books?id=2c8rAA ... ii&f=false

Stephen
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
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Louis L Sorenson
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Re: The Apostolic Creed

Post by Louis L Sorenson »

Here is a note from Schaff on the Greek text:
The Latin and Greek texts of the Apostles' Creed are taken from the Psalterium Græcum et Romanum, erroneously ascribed to Pope Gregory the Great, first published from a MS. preserved in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, by Archbishop Ussher: De Romanæ Ecclesiæ Symbolo Apostolico vetere, London, 1647. I used the Geneva edition, 1722, pp. 6, 7. The MS. is written in two parallel columns, the one Latin, the other Greek, but the Greek likewise in Latin characters. The same text is given by Hahn, Biblioth. der Symb. p. 10, and Heutley (in Greek), Harmonia Symb. pp. 81–83. The Latin text agrees with the creed of Pirminius (d. 758) in Heurtley, p. 71. Caspari discovered and published four other Greek translations from mediæval MSS. with slight variations, Vol. III. pp. 11 sqq.
timothy_p_mcmahon
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Re: The Apostolic Creed

Post by timothy_p_mcmahon »

Does the ἐπὶ in παθόντα ἐπὶ Ποντίου Πιλάτου mean something like 'at the hands of'?
David Lim
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Re: The Apostolic Creed

Post by David Lim »

timothy_p_mcmahon wrote:Does the ἐπὶ in παθόντα ἐπὶ Ποντίου Πιλάτου mean something like 'at the hands of'?
Could it be a more indirect "suffered before Pontius Pilate"?
δαυιδ λιμ
Jason Hare
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Re: The Apostolic Creed

Post by Jason Hare »

timothy_p_mcmahon wrote:Does the ἐπὶ in παθόντα ἐπὶ Ποντίου Πιλάτου mean something like 'at the hands of'?
From LSJ:
c. gen. pers., before, in presence of, ἐ. μαρτύρων . . πράσσεταί τι Antipho 2.3.8; ἐξελέγχεσθαι ἐ. πάντων D.25.36; so, before a magistrate or official, ἐ. τοῦ στρατηγοῦ POxy. 38.11 (i A.D.), cf. UPZ71.15 (ii B.C.), Ev.Matt.28.14; γράψομαί σε ἐ. Ῥαδαμάνθυος Luc.Cat.18; τινὰ εἰς δίκην καὶ κρίσιν ἐ. τῶν στρατοπέδων προκαλεῖν Jul.Or.1.30d; πίστεις δοῦναι ἐ. θεῶν D.H.5.29; but ἐπὶ δικασταῖς is f.l. in D.19.243 (leg. ἔπη).
Jason A. Hare
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Louis L Sorenson
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Re: The Apostolic Creed

Post by Louis L Sorenson »

A pdf with vocabulary can be found at http://www.letsreadgreek.com/texts/apos ... sCreed.pdf. Any errors people note are corrected and posted in this version; The above text of the creed also incorporates any corrections.
James Ernest
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Re: The Apostolic Creed

Post by James Ernest »

τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρα
Missing an iota subscript?
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James D. Ernest, PhD
VP, Editor-in-Chief
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
Grand Rapids, MI

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