Monday, October 22, 2007

Apostles' Creed

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 Spirit,
  born of the virgin Mary,
  suffered under Pontius Pilate,
  was crucified, died, and was buried.
  He descended into hell.
  The third day he rose again from the dead.
  He ascended into heaven
    and sits at the right hand of God
    the Father Almighty.
  From thence he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
  the holy Christian Church,*
  the communion of saints,
  the forgiveness of sins,
  the resurrection of the body,
  and the life everlasting. Amen

* The original says "the holy Catholic Church", and some people capitalize "catholic" and some don't. As I'm getting this out of a Protestant hymnal (mostly to make sure I have the punctuation right), I decided to put it this way as it showed a few more variations than could be shown otherwise.

Commentary:
- Probably the most used and commonly memorized of the creeds, at least amoung denominations I am familiar with. Short and fairly simple, it is well suited to act as a quick guide to Christian beliefs without causing too many disagreements among the various denominations.
- Originally written in Latin - if your version is different from mine, it might be due to differences in translation (ex. I learned it as "From thence he will come to judge the quick and the dead.").

1 comment:

Christine said...

I'm used to a more modern wording:

I believe in God, the father almighty, creator of Heaven and Earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only son our Lord. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died and was buried.
He descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again.
He ascended into Heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the Holy Catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the dead,
and life everlasting. Amen.

Much the same in French, inasmuch as I can tell archaic French from modern.

In the States (and therefore in my confirmation text) they use the Nicene Creed during mass.