OLD ROMAN SYMBOL

In the ancient Church, a symbolum was a concise profession by which the baptized recognized and confessed the faith of the Church. At Rome, candidates for Baptism learned the rule of faith, received the creed, memorized it, and returned it publicly in a profession before Baptism.

The Symbol followed the Trinitarian shape of the baptismal command in Matthew 28:19. It confessed the Father almighty, Christ Jesus His only Son and our Lord, the principal events of Christ’s Incarnation and Paschal mystery, and the Holy Spirit together with the Church, forgiveness, and resurrection.

The word “old” distinguishes this earlier Roman form from the expanded medieval form commonly called the Apostles’ Creed. It does not imply that the older form was defective. It was concise because it served a particular baptismal and catechetical purpose.

This brief excerpt represents the opening structure attested by ancient Western witnesses. Complete English renderings vary according to the witness and editorial reconstruction.

No single witness supplies every historical question with equal certainty. Several sources together allow historians to identify the Roman pattern.

These witnesses should not be flattened into one mechanically identical text. Local Churches used related forms, and later scribes transmitted documents through their own textual histories.

The Symbol begins with God the Father almighty. It then confesses Jesus Christ as the only Son and Lord, born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate, buried, risen on the third day, ascended into heaven, seated at the Father’s right hand, and coming to judge the living and the dead.

Representative English reconstruction; wording varies among ancient witnesses and modern editions.

The final part confesses the Holy Spirit, the holy Church, forgiveness of sins, and resurrection of the body or flesh. These articles form a compact account of creation’s Lord, the Incarnation, the saving Paschal mystery, ecclesial life, and final hope.

Representative English reconstruction; some witnesses and translations arrange the concluding clauses differently.

Even in this short form, the Creed is not merely a biography of Jesus. It is a theological confession. Jesus is the Father’s only Son and our Lord; His earthly history is interpreted as the saving action of the divine Son.

The familiar Apostles’ Creed includes phrases not present in the simplest reconstructed Roman form. These include “Creator of heaven and earth,” “He descended into hell,” “the communion of saints,” and “life everlasting.”

Such additions do not replace an earlier religion. They make explicit truths already contained in Scripture, worship, and Catholic teaching. “Creator of heaven and earth” unfolds the Father’s almighty lordship. The descent clarifies Christ’s real Death and victory among the dead. The communion of saints expresses ecclesial participation in holy things and union among Christ’s members. Eternal life states the goal implied by resurrection.

The growth of the text is therefore an example of legitimate doctrinal and liturgical development: increased explicitness while preserving identity.

Baptism joins a person to Christ and the Church. The candidate therefore professes not a private spirituality but the Church’s faith. The Creed identifies the God into whose name the person is baptized and the saving mysteries into which he enters.

The Roman Symbol also functioned as a boundary. A person could not substitute a Gnostic, Marcionite, Arian, or merely philosophical account of God and Christ while claiming the same baptismal faith.

Because the creed was learned and professed, it joined doctrine with discipleship. The baptized pledged himself to live under the Father’s providence, Christ’s lordship, the Spirit’s sanctification, the Church’s communion, forgiveness, resurrection, and judgment.

Early Christian writers frequently appeal to a rule of faith before the later creeds reached fixed universal wording. The rule is not a second revelation beside Scripture. It is the Church’s apostolic pattern for receiving and confessing the scriptural mystery.

The Old Roman Symbol is one concrete baptismal expression of that rule. Its sequence corresponds to the economy of salvation: the Father sends the Son; the Son becomes man, suffers, rises, and reigns; the Holy Spirit forms the Church and leads believers toward resurrection.

This relationship helps explain why Scripture and Creed belong together. The Creed does not replace biblical language. It identifies the Church’s coherent reading of biblical revelation.

The Old Roman Symbol is not an Ecumenical Council’s decree and is not ordinarily recited as a separate creed in the present Roman liturgy. Its authority is historical, baptismal, patristic, and doctrinal rather than the authority of one later promulgating act.

Its importance comes from its place in the Church of Rome, its antiquity, its connection with Baptism, and its organic relationship to the Apostles’ Creed.

Readers should therefore avoid two extremes. It should not be treated as an infallible critical reconstruction with every syllable certain. It also should not be dismissed as an antiquarian curiosity. It is a major witness to the continuity of Catholic profession.

The Symbol answers the claim that basic Catholic dogma was invented only after Constantine. Long before medieval scholasticism, Christians were baptized into a confession of the Father, the divine Son’s Incarnation and saving work, the Holy Spirit, the Church, forgiveness, resurrection, and judgment.

It also corrects the claim that creeds displaced Scripture. The ancient symbol condenses scriptural preaching for sacramental use. Its articles echo the Gospels, Acts, the Pauline letters, and the baptismal command of Christ.

At the same time, apologetics must remain historically honest. The later Apostles’ Creed should not be projected word for word into the second century, and the Twelve Apostles should not be presented as having assigned one article to each Apostle in the surviving medieval form.

• Do not claim that one complete autograph titled “Old Roman Symbol” survives.
• Do not confuse the Roman form with every local Western baptismal creed.
• Do not project all later Apostles’ Creed phrases into the earliest reconstruction.
• Do not treat textual development as doctrinal contradiction.
• Do not detach the Symbol from Baptism and catechesis.
• Do not say the Nicene Creed replaced the Roman baptismal tradition.
• Do not use the Symbol as though every historical question about its wording were settled.

• Holy Bible, Douay-Rheims: Matthew 28:19; Acts 2:22–39; Romans 10:9; First Corinthians 15:1–8.
• Catechism of the Catholic Church, 185–197.
• St. Hippolytus of Rome, Apostolic Tradition, baptismal interrogation.
• Marcellus of Ancyra, creedal profession preserved by St. Epiphanius, Panarion.
• Rufinus of Aquileia, Commentary on the Apostles’ Creed.
• St. Ambrose, Explanation of the Creed and On the Sacraments.
• Heinrich Denzinger and Peter Hünermann, Enchiridion Symbolorum, ancient Roman symbols.
• J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds.