THE APOSTLES’ CREED

This page uses the familiar Catholic English form. Approved local liturgical books govern the wording used in public worship.

Early Christians confessed a rule of faith received from apostolic preaching. Baptism required a public confession of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and the Church developed concise formulas for catechumens.

The Apostles’ Creed grew from the ancient Roman baptismal tradition, especially the Old Roman Symbol. Its present form developed over time, but its doctrinal substance belongs to the apostolic faith.

An old tradition associated the twelve articles with the Twelve Apostles. That symbolism expresses apostolic fullness, but it should not be turned into a claim that each Apostle personally dictated one article in the exact later wording.

The Creed belongs first to Baptism. The candidate is asked whether he believes in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The response is not merely intellectual agreement; it is a personal entrusting of oneself to God and entry into the faith of the Church.

This explains why the Creed says “I believe.” The believer personally professes the one faith received from the Church. Faith is personal but never private.

The Trinitarian order also reflects the baptismal command of Christ: “Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Matthew 28:19, Douay-Rheims).

The Creed begins with one God, the Father almighty. Divine fatherhood is not derived from human fatherhood; human fatherhood reflects imperfectly the eternal source and goodness of God.

God creates heaven and earth freely from nothing. Everything that exists depends upon Him, yet He is not part of creation. His almighty power is never arbitrary because it is identical with His wisdom and goodness.

Faith in creation gives meaning to the rest of the Creed. The God who redeems us is the same God who created us, and the body destined for resurrection is His good creation.

Jesus is not merely a prophet adopted by God. He is the eternal Son who truly became man. “Lord” applies to Him the divine title and confesses His authority over creation, history, sin, death, and every human life.

He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. The conception is virginal, the humanity is real, and Mary is truly His Mother. Because the Person she bore is God the Son, she is rightly called Mother of God.

The mention of Pontius Pilate anchors the Passion in public history. The Creed does not speak about a timeless myth but about the incarnate Son who suffered under a known Roman governor.

The phrase does not mean that Christ suffered the punishment of the damned after His Death. “Hell” here translates the realm of the dead, often called Sheol or Hades.

Christ truly died and entered the state of the dead. He opened heaven to the just who had gone before Him and manifested the victory of His saving Death.

This article protects the reality of Christ’s Death. The Resurrection is not a recovery from apparent death; the crucified Lord truly died and truly rose.

“Catholic” means universal according to the whole. The Church is catholic because Christ is present in her, because she possesses the fullness of the means of salvation, and because she is sent to every nation.

The word in the Creed should not be reduced to a modern label. It confesses the universal Church founded by Christ, built on the Apostles, enlivened by the Holy Spirit, and extended throughout the world.

The communion of saints includes communion in holy things—faith, sacraments, charisms, and charity—and communion among holy persons: the faithful on earth, the souls being purified, and the saints in glory.

Christ entrusted the forgiveness of sins to His Church. Baptism remits original sin and personal sins committed before Baptism. The sacrament of Penance restores baptized persons who fall into serious sin afterward.

Forgiveness is neither denial of guilt nor permission to continue in evil. It is the merciful work of God that reconciles the sinner, heals the wound, and calls him to conversion.

The Creed places forgiveness beside the Church because reconciliation with God also restores ecclesial communion.

Christian hope is not escape from the body. God created man as a unity of body and soul. At death the soul is separated from the body, but at the final resurrection God will raise the body and reunite it with the soul.

The risen body will be transformed, yet it will truly be the body of the person. Christ’s bodily Resurrection is the cause and pledge of our resurrection.

This article opposes both materialism, which denies the soul, and spiritualism, which treats the body as unimportant.

Reciting the Creed can become mechanical unless the mind and heart accompany the words. Pause at each article. Give thanks for creation, adore the Incarnate Son, remember His Passion, rejoice in the Resurrection, invoke the Holy Spirit, love the Church, seek forgiveness, and hope for eternal life.

When the Apostles’ Creed is prayed during the Rosary, it places the mysteries of Christ and Mary within the whole confession of Christian faith.

The word “Amen” means that the believer assents firmly: this faith is true, and by God’s grace I entrust myself to it.

• Do not claim the exact later wording was written directly by the Twelve Apostles.
• Do not interpret “descended into hell” as further punishment of Christ.
• Do not reduce “catholic” to a merely sociological label.
• Do not treat the communion of saints as only friendship among living Christians.
• Do not replace resurrection of the body with survival of the soul alone.
• Do not recite the Creed as though it were detached from Baptism and the Church.

• Holy Bible, Douay-Rheims: Matthew 28:19; Luke 23–24; John 20; Romans 10:9; First Corinthians 15.
• Catechism of the Catholic Church, 185–197.
• Catechism of the Catholic Church, 631–637, 946–962, and 988–1065.
• St. Hippolytus of Rome, Apostolic Tradition, baptismal interrogation.
• St. Ambrose, Explanatio Symboli.
• Rufinus of Aquileia, Commentary on the Apostles’ Creed.
• Roman Catechism, Part I, The Creed.