Irenaeus' Proto-Apostle's Creed

This is a repost from the blog Freedom In Orthodoxy:

The Apostle's Creed was officially penned at the Council of Milan in about AD 390. While it is popularly thought that Christian doctrine was decided at these councils, Craig Evans (along with a host of other scholars) have argued church councils simply recognized Christian doctrine--they didn't fabricate it. Remarkably, we see strong evidence for this in the case of the Apostle's Creed. Irenaeus of Lyons, writing more than two centuries earlier in Against Heresies, wrote the following:

The Church, though dispersed throughout the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith: 

[She believes] in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God, and the advents, and the birth from a virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, and His [future] manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father “to gather all things in one,” and to raise up anew all flesh of the whole human race, in order that to Christ Jesus, our Lord, and God, and Saviour, and King, according to the will of the invisible Father, “every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess” to Him, and that He should execute just judgment towards all; that He may send “spiritual wickednesses,” and the angels who transgressed and became apostates, together with the ungodly, and unrighteous, and wicked, and profane among men, into everlasting fire; but may, in the exercise of His grace, confer immortality on the righteous, and holy, and those who have kept His commandments, and have persevered in His love, some from the beginning [of their Christian course], and others from [the date of] their repentance, and may surround them with everlasting glory.

Now compare that with the Apostle's Creed written 200 years later:

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son Our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into Hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen.  

The continuity is incredible. What the Church recognized as Orthodoxy in the 2nd century, remained and has continued to remain Orthodoxy throughout the two millennia of Christendom. As we recite the creed we join in the "communion of the saints" across the ages. That's a tradition I can hold to.