ly identical in all Christian
congregations, and that in the course of time various changes and
additions were made. "Tradition," says Tertullian with respect to the
baptismal confession, received from the apostles, "has enlarged it,
custom has confirmed it, faith observes and preserves it." (Zahn, 252.
381.) When, therefore, Tertullian and other ancient writers declare that
the rule of faith received from the apostles is "altogether one,
immovable, and irreformable," they do not at all mean to say that the
phraseology of this symbol was alike everywhere, and that in this
respect no changes whatever had been made, nor that any clauses had been
added. Such variations, additions, and alterations, however, involved a
doctrinal change of the confession no more than the Apology of the
Augsburg Confession implies a doctrinal departure from this symbol. It
remained the same Apostolic Creed, the changes and additions merely
bringing out more fully and clearly its true, original meaning. And this
is the sense in which Tertullian and others emphasize that the rule of
faith is "one, immovable, and irreformable."

The oldest known form of the Apostles' Creed, according to A. Harnack,
is the one used in the church at Rome, even prior to 150 A.D. It was,
however, as late as 337 or 338, when this Creed, which, as the church at
Rome claimed, was brought thither by Peter himself, was for the first
time quoted as a whole by Bishop Marcellus of Ancyra in a letter to
Bishop Julius of Rome, for the purpose of vindicating his orthodoxy.
During the long period intervening, some changes, however, may have
been, and probably were, made also in this Old Roman Symbol, which reads
as follows:--

_Pisteuo eis theon patera pantokratora; kai eis Christon Iesoun [ton]
huion autou ton monogene, ton kupion hemon, ton gennethenta ek
pneumatos hagiou kai Marias tes parthenou, ton epi Pontiou Pilatou
staurothenta kai taphenta, te trite hemera anastanta ek [ton] nekron,
anabanta eis tous ouranous, kathemenon en dexia tou patros, hothen
erchetai krinai zontas kai nekrous; kai eis pneuma hagion, hagian
ekklesian aphesin hamartion, sapkos anastasin._ (Herzog, _R. E._ 1,
744.)

13. Present Form of Creed and Its Contents.

The complete form of the present _textus receptus_ of the Apostles'
Creed, evidently the result of a comparison and combination of the
various preexisting forms of this symbol, may be traced to the end of
the fifth century and is first fo