APOSTLES' CREED (a-pos's'ls kred).
The creed thus named is not to be ascribed to the Apostles themselves.
It has been a growth or evolution of the doc trine (or commission) given by Christ to the Apostles (Matt. xxviii :19).
From this simple acknowledgment of the three fold name have sprung all the more elabOrated creeds of the Christian churches. The Apostles' Creed has never been regarded and treated as Scripture, but has been subjected at various times to changes or modifications.
One of the first expansions of the creed after the manner of the Apostles is to be found in a Greek writer, Epiphanius, who, in the seventy second book of his "Treatise on Heresies," quotes the Confession of Faith, presented by Marcellus, Bishop of Ancyra in Galatia, to Julius, Bishop of Rome, in which one small change is made, and afterward is thus quoted in one of our own Church hymns, i. e., "and sitteth at the right hand of God." The definite authority of the Apostles' Creed has been supposed to be St. Augustine, but this is in obscurity. However, no authority places its origin farther back than the fifth century. Its growth extended over four hundred years, from the first conception of a creed, when Jesus spoke to Peter at Cxsarea Philippi, saying, "But whom say ye that I am ? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God" (Matt. xvi :DS). These forms and ex pressions of belief were set forth again and again by Peter and Paul.
On the day of Pentecost (Acts ii :22, 36) Peter was filled with the Holy Ghost and spoke of Christ's supernatural life, of the crucifixion, the resurrection, ascension, and that Christ had re ceived of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, and the remission of sins. Paul, as he preached at Antioch in Pisidia (Acts xiii :27-38) gives the same doctrine in substance, but adds that the people desired that Pilate should crucify Jesus, though he was without fault. And in the
book of Acts (ill :12-22 and iv :to-ta) Peter speaks on all the points before touched upon. And later Peter, before Cornelius (Acts x:36-43), says, "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost . . . and he . . . was ordained of God to be the judge of the quick and the dead." The simplicity and vivid appeal of the Apostles' Creed to the uneducated mind, and to children, impresses all, and probably it was its short, terse sentences, so full of faith, of tragedy, of light upon the here and the hereafter, that attracted the men of great minds and diverse beliefs, as Calvin, \Vesley, Luther, St. Augustine. and hosts of others. It is conceded by all authorities to be the concen trated essence of scriptural belief. How simple and concrete are all its expressions! The divine life of Christ is emphasized and faith centered in him through the promise of remission of sins and the assurance of the resurrection—the sure foun dation of the hope of immortality. The creed is not a definite statement in regard to the difference between the corruptible mortal body and the in corruptible body which shall finally clothe the soul. It does express absolute belief in the life everlasting and the personal or individual identity hereafter. And we understand at once the divin ity and the humility of Christ in the words, as we say them reverently, "Conceived of the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary." The great purpose of the creed is thus to make prominent the supernatural character of the Christian re ligion.
A full and satisfactory account of the creed will be found in Lord King's History of the Apostles' Creed, with Critical Observations on Its Several Articles; ll'hat is the Apostles' Creed? by Prof. NV. E. C. Wright, Bib. Sacra, Apr., 19oo, P. 327, sq.