The Apostles' Creed was formulated as a refutation of Gnosticism.
It developed from the "Old Roman Creed", an earlier and shorter
version of the Apostles' Creed.

Gnosticism is from the Greek word --- gnosis ---, or knowledge.
It held that the physical universe is evil; and that God did
not make it.

Per the Gnostic's, Jesus was never a man at all, but only the
appearance of a man. The Spirit descended upon him at his
baptism; and that the Spirit left him before his crucifixion,
so that the Spirit had only a brief and tenuous association
with matter and humanity.

The Gnostic's considered that what man needed was not forgiveness,
but enlightenment. Ignorance, not sin, was the problem. Only a
few (their group) were able, through knowledge, to become free
forever from the taint of matter and the shackles of the body;
and to return to the heavenly real as Pure Spirits. They totally
rejected any idea of the resurrection of the body.

From page 322, Always Growing in the Faith, by Gene Dirr.
Available at www.amazon.com.