The Ecumenical Creeds
The Apostles’ Creed
Symbolum Apostolicum · Received Form
The Apostles’ Creed is the oldest and simplest of the church’s confessions, a baptismal summary of the faith that took shape in the early centuries and reached its received form by the eighth. The medieval legend that the twelve apostles each supplied a clause isn’t history, but the title rightly marks the creed as a faithful digest of apostolic teaching.
Reformed Christians have always treasured it. The Heidelberg Catechism walks through its articles one by one, and it’s the confession most often spoken in worship. What you read below is the traditional received text, the wording generations have known by heart.
Date: Received form by the eighth century; roots in the second-century Old Roman Symbol
Type: Baptismal confession of the Western church
Structure: Three articles: on the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit
Text: Traditional received English, from Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, vol. II
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 from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth at 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.
More Ecumenical Creeds
The Nicene Creed 325 / 381
The Athanasian Creed 5th to 6th c.
Reformed Confessions The full hub
Text from Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, vol. II (1877), now in the public domain. Formatted for Reformed Dogmatika. Spelling Americanized; wording unaltered.
