Wording of the Apostles' Creed

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We don’t say the Apostles’ Creed at Mass. At least not anywhere I attend. Does your church use it at Mass somehow?

We say the Profession of Faith at Mass, which is quite different from the Apostles’ Creed. I believe (though I haven’t checked wording) that the Profession of Faith is actually the Nicene Creed. I don’t remember ever hearing the Apostles’ Creed at OF Mass in my lifetime, it was always the Profession of Faith.

The typical use of Apostles’ Creed is at the beginning of the Rosary. In recent years it is also said as one of the opening prayers of the Divine Mercy. That’s the only two places I ever hear it said, and as I mentioned in the first post, the two priests were praying at the beginning of the Rosary.

Those who pray Apostles’ Creed with the Rosary typically used the “old” version on Dovekin’s sheet (linked above) and now they use the current version which is almost the same as the old version (Spirit instead of Ghost).
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
We don’t say the Apostles’ Creed at Mass. At least not anywhere I attend. Does your church use it at Mass somehow?

We say the Profession of Faith at Mass, which is quite different from the Apostles’ Creed. I don’t remember ever hearing the Apostles’ Creed at OF Mass in my lifetime, it was always the Profession of Faith.

The typical use of Apostles’ Creed is at the beginning of the Rosary. In recent years it is also said as one of the opening prayers of the Divine Mercy. That’s the only two places I ever hear it said, and as I mentioned in the first post, the two priests were praying at the beginning of the Rosary.

Those who pray Apostles’ Creed with the Rosary typically used the “old” version on Dovekin’s sheet (linked above) and now they use the current version which is almost the same as the old version (Spirit instead of Ghost).
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Ah, yes, now you bring up a good point. You’re right, the United States has typically used the Nicene Creed. I grew up in the Philippines where the Apostles’ Creed was the norm, as does Canada, where I live now. That’s why I would have heard “to the dead” all the time.

The term “profession of faith” applies to the Nicene Creed, the Apostles’ Creed, or the Roman renewal of baptismal vows. What you call the profession of faith is the Nicene Creed. In my territories, the profession of faith was the Apostles’ Creed.
 
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Ah, I see. That’s a good observation. It may very well be that one or both of these priests spent time in the Philippines or Canada, or has many Filipino parishioners, and got used to saying “To the dead”.

It’s interesting because when I was a child the Apostles’ Creed was printed in the Missalette in the Order of Mass, along with the Profession of Faith (which I don’t remember if it was labeled “Nicene Creed” or just called “Profession of Faith”). I was never quite sure why it was in there as we never said it at Mass, but I realize the Missalettes were probably also used in Canada at least, and they would have been saying the Apostles’ Creed instead. I do not remember what the wording of it was since we never said it at Mass, so when I learned it, I learned it from my personal old prayer books for children that my mom gave me.
 
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It is the same in my Canadian parish. I assume because the original Latin: 'descendit ad inferos" translates to descended into Hell.
 
Interesting comment. . . We must ask why Christ descended into hell; what would he accomplish? Hell is forevermore, the saints that (and everyone else) was not allowed Heaven because of Original Sin, were dead, but not in Hell. It therefore seems that he would have gone to the place of the dead (purgatory) to free souls restricted from heaven by Original Sin.
 
As I said this was what we were told when we were very young.

But your version makes more sense.

I still prefer “into Hell” because that’s what it always was (in our house).
 
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I remember the Creed, and a lot of other things changed in 2011, took a while to adapt and remember them, but now I can’t remember how it was before, but I think it was dead, not hell.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
Using “to the dead” sounds like a typical 1970s thing. There was a general motivation to remove mentions of “hell” on the basis that it would either scare children or make them giggle
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The problem is actually that hell is typical “Dark Age” language. This is not a translation issue as much as it is a text critical issue. The original text was ad inferos which was changed to ad inferna beginning in the 4th century. Infer- Is the root for inferior, low, beneath. Infern- survives as inferno, evoking flames and hell more than the root meaning of under the earth. In its earliest form, it is probably a synonym for buried. See 1 Cor 15. Hell as a concept developed into the place of punishment, flames, etc., and is arguably a corruption of the original rather than a legitimate development.

This was not someone in the 1970s deciding not to use hell; it was people in the 4th century and after deciding not to use under.
 
Sorry . . . there IS NO upper part of Hell. Hell is all levels of permanent suffering for major sins. You may mean Purgatory, where sins are eventually washed-away or cleansed from the soul.
 
joecaro said:
Sorry . . . there IS NO upper part of Hell. Hell is all levels of permanent suffering for major sins. You may mean Purgatory, where sins are eventually washed-away or cleansed from the soul.
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I"m talking about: hades/sheol/underworld/hell/abyss…

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
ARTICLE 5
“HE DESCENDED INTO HELL. ON THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE AGAIN”

Paragraph 1. Christ Descended into Hell

The frequent New Testament affirmations that Jesus was “raised from the dead” presuppose that the crucified one sojourned in the realm of the dead prior to his resurrection.This was the first meaning given in the apostolic preaching to Christ’s descent into hell: that Jesus, like all men, experienced death and in his soul joined the others in the realm of the dead. But he descended there as Savior, proclaiming the Good News to the spirits imprisoned there.

Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, “hell” - Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek - because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God.Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the Redeemer: which does not mean that their lot is identical, as Jesus shows through the parable of the poor man Lazarus who was received into “Abraham’s bosom”: “It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Savior in Abraham’s bosom, whom Christ the Lord delivered when he descended into hell.” Jesus did not descend into hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation, but to free the just who had gone before him.
continue-
 
“The gospel was preached even to the dead.” The descent into hell brings the Gospel message of salvation to complete fulfillment. This is the last phase of Jesus’ messianic mission, a phase which is condensed in time but vast in its real significance: the spread of Christ’s redemptive work to all men of all times and all places, for all who are saved have been made sharers in the redemption.

Christ went down into the depths of death so that "the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live."Jesus, “the Author of life”, by dying destroyed "him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and [delivered] all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage."Henceforth the risen Christ holds “the keys of Death and Hades”, so that “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth.”

Today a great silence reigns on earth, a great silence and a great stillness. A great silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. . . He has gone to search for Adam, our first father, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow Adam in his bonds and Eve, captive with him - He who is both their God and the son of Eve. . . “I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. . . I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead.”
 
Tis_Bearself said:
Might have been official, but I never in my life heard anybody in the USA pray it that way until last month.
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That’s because when praying the Rosary, the vast majority of US Catholics use the pre-1970 versions of the prayers (except most typically using Holy Spirit instead of Holy Ghost)

It is the same with the Glory Be… Most of use use the pre-1970 version:
  • Glory be to the Father, and to the Son:
    and to the Holy Spirit;
    As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be:
    world without end. Amen.
While the official ICET version (from 1970) used in the Liturgy of the Hours is:
  • Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:
    as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.
 
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I’ve heard it … and I thought they had changed it.
 
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IIRC, the Greek text says something like “in the deepest place”.

In French, we say “il est descendu aux enfers”, “les enfers”, plural, being evocative of a neutral place a bit like the Greek Hades, while “l’enfer”, singular, is “Hell”.

I am not aware of other translations; the bit where it can vary, in French, is “la résurrection de la chair” (I believe the English text is “the resurrection of the body”, but Greek and French have “the resurrection of the flesh”) – some translations having replaced that by “the resurrection of the dead”.
 
In Italian language, we say Inferi and Inferno (that derive from Inferos and Infernum). The first word means the Kigdom of the Dead, the Hebrew Sheol. The second one is a Christian concept and it means the place for the damned souls.

P.S. The Italian word “inferiore” (in English, there is “inferior”, but i think “lower” is more used) is a word connected with Inferos/Inferi.
 
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Why didn’t the Liturgy of the Hours change it back in 2008 when apparently the Church changed it back to something close to the old version (using Spirit and not Ghost)?

See Dovekin’s post above with the PDF showing the 3 versions. Apparently the 1970s ICET/ ICEL version was dropped in 2008.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
Why didn’t the Liturgy of the Hours change it back in 2008 when apparently the Church changed it back to something close to the old version (using Spirit and not Ghost)?

See Dovekin’s post above with the PDF showing the 3 versions. Apparently the 1970s ICET/ ICEL version was dropped in 2008.
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There are three English versions of the Liturgy of the Hours (there used to be only two).

The UK English (Divine Office) version and the African Breviary (Kenyan) version of the Liturgy of the Hours both use the “old version.”

The North American English version (USA version of Liturgy of the Hours) is till using the 1975 translation as the the US Bishops are still working on their new version.

And I think the British version always used the “old version”

http://stutler.cc/russ/african_breviary.html
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
Why didn’t the Liturgy of the Hours change it back in 2008 when apparently the Church changed it back to something close to the old version (using Spirit and not Ghost)?

See Dovekin’s post above with the PDF showing the 3 versions. Apparently the 1970s ICET/ ICEL version was dropped in 2008.
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The Liturgy of the Hours is a separate translation project currently ongoing. The end result is expected to bring it up to a style consistent with the current translation of the Mass.

It is expected to be done sometime before the world ends.
 
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