Description:
Dr. Keefe's English translation of Text 9 from the Latin which appears in her Explanationes Symboli Aevi Carolini (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012), 50–53. The translation includes notes and brief commentary. Dr. Keefe left both in draft form and may have intended to update or add certain portions prior to publication. The text has been checked and edited by Katie Benjamin, Divinity Archive Fellow. Text 9 intersperses brief comments with various articles of the Apostles' Creed. Dr. Keefe's commentary is more a collection of notes on this and other texts she has been studying. She raises questions about some texts' focus on the doctrine of Christ's descent into hell (or "to the dead"), and includes a chart comparing the various commentaries she has translated that treat the Apostles' Creed. She notes that they vary greatly in terms of which articles they include and which they pass over. Following J. N. D. Kelly's work in the book Early Christian Creeds, Dr. Keefe notes that there is a great deal of evidence in the creed commentaries she has translated to substantiate the idea of widespread (possibly regional) variations in the text of the Apostles' Creed prior to some sort of standardization during perhaps the ninth century, which resulted in the "textus receptus" that is recognizably the same text used in churches to the present day. Dr. Keefe notes that liturgical uniformity was a priority in the Carolingian reformation, so a concerted effort to eliminate idiosyncrasies during this time seems to be in keeping with other trends already observed.
