The new Apostles' Creed

[Talevita]

Why must we now say that Jesus Christ descended into hell? This was nowhere in the Apostles’ Creed that I grew up with. And where in the Bible does it say that Jesus Christ went to hell before he rose from the dead?

Thank you.

 

[Zenas]

Hell is the traditional term used for the abode of the dead–both the just and the unjust–what the poets Virgil and Dante called the Underworld. Scripture is very clear that this is where Jesus went after He died and before He arose.

For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison. 1 Peter 3:18-19.

Now this expression, “He ascended,” what does it mean except that He also had descended into the lower parts of the earth? Ephesians 4:9.

I always understood that the Apostles Creed uniformly had that language until around the middle of the 20th Century when some versions of it appeared that said, “He descended to the dead.”

 

[Church_Militant]

It will help if one looks at the Latin version of the Apostle’s Creed.

CREDO in Deum Patrem omnipotentem, Creatorem caeli et terrae. Et in Iesum Christum, Filium eius unicum, Dominum nostrum, qui conceptus est de Spiritu Sancto, natus ex Maria Virgine, passus sub Pontio Pilato, crucifixus, mortuus, et sepultus, descendit ad inferos, tertia die resurrexit a mortuis, ascendit ad caelos, sedet ad dexteram Dei Patris omnipotentis, inde venturus est iudicare vivos et mortuos. Credo in Spiritum Sanctum, sanctam Ecclesiam catholicam, sanctorum communionem, remissionem peccatorum, carnis resurrectionem, vitam aeternam. Amen.

The bolded words do not say descended into hell. They say “He descended to the dead.” and the English translation uses hell only in the Judaic sense of “Sheol”, the abode of the dead.

Symbolum Apostolorum Apostles’ Creed

 

[maryj]

Why must we now say that Jesus Christ descended into hell? This was nowhere in the Apostles’ Creed that I grew up with. And where in the Bible does it say that Jesus Christ went to hell before he rose from the dead?

Thank you.

The nuns taught us this in second grade!

 

[Talevita]

Thank you for your responses. Maybe what I was taught about this prayer without hell is part of Utah.

 

[ahs]

It’s not a “new” creed, but a corrected translation. The English translation has been faulty since Vatican II. All other languages reflect the proper translastion from Latin. The Latin word “infernos” translates to “hell”, in English. Other problems in the previous faluty English were the mis-translation of the Nicene Creed, for example, “visibilium et invisibilium” was incorrectly translated to “seen and unseen” when it should have been (and is now) “visible and invisible”. There were MANY faulty mis-translations in the English version of the Mass until now…so many that it almost seems deliberate…but I suppose that is a whole different topic.

Zenas has given a pretty clear explanation.

 

[John7]

Why must we now say that Jesus Christ descended into hell? This was nowhere in the Apostles’ Creed that I grew up with. And where in the Bible does it say that Jesus Christ went to hell before he rose from the dead?

Thank you.

Here’s the ‘Old Roman Creed’ (which is what
the Apostle’s creed was based on). There’s
no ‘descended into hell’ in this creed, along with
other things.

i don’t think its likely you would have been
reciting this though, unless you lived somewhere
between the 2nd and 4th cent.

“I believe in God the Father Almighty;
and in Christ Jesus his only Son our Lord,
who was born of the Holy Spirit, and the Virgin Mary,
who, under Pontius Pilate, was crucified and buried,
the third day he rose again from the dead,
he ascended into heaven,
and sitteth at the right hand of the Father
from thence he shall come
to judge the living and the dead.
And *I believe *in the Holy Spirit,
the holy Church,
the forgiveness of sins,
and the resurrection of the body.”

 

[rotlex]

Strange. I attended Catechism classes in the early to mid 70’s, 44 years old now, and we were always taught “descended into Hell”. I’ve thought it has always been this way; or at least, that is how I have always said it.