Who Wrote the Apostles' Creed? The Apostles Didn't — Here's Where It Came From

The Apostles' Creed was not written by the apostles. The real origin of the Apostles' Creed runs from a Roman baptismal password to a handbook written by a German abbot a thousand years later — and we can name the cities that added each line. In 1438, at the Council of Ferrara-Florence, Mark Eugenikos of Ephesus told the Latin delegation that the Greeks neither possessed nor had ever seen a creed of the apostles. He was right. This video traces what actually happened. The medieval legend: twelve apostles, twelve articles, one line each Why Rufinus, the main source for that legend, accidentally destroys it The Greek word symbolon — the snapped tally-bone behind the word "creed" The Old Roman Symbol, and the oldest surviving copy (written in Greek, by a bishop under suspicion of heresy) Which clauses were added later: "maker of heaven and earth", "communion of saints", "he descended into hell" Why the descent clause first appears in a creed the East rejected as Arian Pirminius of Reichenau and the earliest complete text, c. 710–724 How a Gallic creed reached Rome last of all, via Charlemagne Lorenzo Valla, the Inquisition, and why the Catholic Church no longer claims apostolic authorship Why the Eastern Orthodox Church has never used it Which line of the creed have you never fully understood? Tell me in the comments — I suspect it's the same line the church was arguing about in the year 400. Sources: Primary: Rufinus of Aquileia, Commentarius in Symbolum Apostolorum, c. 404 — esp. §§3, 5, 18 (Aquileian additions; descent clause absent at Rome) Marcellus of Ancyra, letter to Pope Julius I, c. 337–341, preserved in Epiphanius, Panarion 72 Council of Milan to Pope Siricius, c. 390 (first use of Symbolum Apostolorum) Augustine, De symbolo ad catechumenos (sermo 398); Sermons 212–215 Fourth Formula of Sirmium ("Dated Creed", 359), quoted in Athanasius, De Synodis 8 Nicetas of Remesiana, Explanatio Symboli, c. 400 Pirminius, Dicta Abbatis Pirminii de singulis libris canonicis scarapsus, c. 710–724 Sylvester Syropoulos, Memoirs of the Council of Ferrara-Florence (partisan anti-unionist account) Catechism of the Catholic Church §194 Secondary: J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds Philip Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, vols. I–II Adolf von Harnack, Das apostolische Glaubensbekenntniss (1892) Bradshaw, Johnson & Phillips, The Apostolic Tradition: A Commentary (2002); replies by Brent and Stewart F.J. Badcock, The History of the Creeds (1938) St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology, "Jesus' Descent into Hell" #ApostlesCreed #ChurchHistory #Theology