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RESURRECTION AND REINCARNATION<br />

M.M.NINAN<br />

"I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the<br />

forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen."<br />

(This is considered to be the earliest seed of all later creeds. By tradition it is<br />

attributed to the twelve Apostles. The earliest written version of the creed is perhaps<br />

the Interrogatory Creed of Hippolytus (ca. A.D. 215). The current form is first found in<br />

the writings ofCaesarius of Arles (A.D542).<br />

When the Apostles’ Creed was formulated, no explicit mention was made of the<br />

soul. But this omission was intended to guard against any idea that the soul dies<br />

and is raised up again with the body. One other reason for speaking only of the<br />

resurrection of the body was to refute the first-century heresy of Hymeneus and<br />

Philetus. They claimed that biblical references to the resurrection are not concerned<br />

with the body, but only with the soul’s rising from the death of sin to the life of grace.<br />

What we have in the Creed, therefore, is a profession of belief in the real<br />

resurrection of the body.<br />

The Nicene Creed<br />

"We confess one baptism for the forgiveness of sins; we look for a resurrection of<br />

the dead and life in the age to come. Amen" (Nicene Creed A.D. 381).<br />

Nicene Creed simply states that all men will come back to life and will have a life in<br />

the coming age.<br />

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