Catholic to Catholic?

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wmz13

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When did the ‘catholic’ church become the ‘Catholic’ church? I believe it has always been both (the universal church and the church begun by Christ and led on earth via our Pope w/ the Holy Spirit) but my Protestant brethen disagree.

MZ
 
wmz13 said:
When did the ‘catholic’ church become the ‘Catholic’ church? I believe it has always been both (the universal church and the church begun by Christ and led on earth via our Pope w/ the Holy Spirit) but my Protestant brethen disagree.

MZ
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The Term Catholic comes from St Ignatious of Antioch in 105 AD and described as “Universal” the religion that was founded by Jesus Christ on the Apostles - St John still being alive at the time. In 72 years it had spread throughout the known world and hense the term universal. Many of His writings still exist today.

pax
 
The church we call ‘Catholic’ today is the church that Christ founded…it wasn’t formally called the Catholic Church at first because there was no need to clarify. The Church was the Church was the Church.

In response to the various errors, schisms, splinter groups, etc. that began springing up early in the history, calling the ‘official’ Church ‘Catholic’ became more and more the norm to emphasize that it was the universal Church and the others were not. This became even more prevalent and ‘official’ following the Great Schism and the Protestant Reformation, to continue emphasizing that this is the Church founded by Christ.

Differentiation between the ‘catholic’ church (the original church founded by Christ) and the ‘Catholic’ church as we know it today is false differentiation. They are the same thing, evolved and grown over the intervening millennia. Other churches, except perhaps the Orthodox, cannot claim this kind of direct succession from Jesus and the Apostles.

God bless you.
 
wmz13 said:
When did the ‘catholic’ church become the ‘Catholic’ church? I believe it has always been both (the universal church and the church begun by Christ and led on earth via our Pope w/ the Holy Spirit) but my Protestant brethen disagree.

MZ
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I think your question could go in 2 directions.


  1. *]Re: Case sensitivity Lower case was introduced in the middle ages. Greek had lower case letters ~700’s. Prior to that all letters were upper case. For example: CATHOLIC CHURCH.
    *]I think your question though is, when did catholic become Catholic a proper name.The answer to that is when it was used for the Church as a proper name. Prior to the Church using it as a proper name, catholic had a generic understanding.

    When did it start being a proper name?

    St Ignatius bishop of Antioch used the name Catholic Church in his letter to the Smyrneans, to refer specifically to the name of the only Church built by Jesus and the apostles. While he wrote Catholic Church for the first time ~107 a.d., Ignatius was a bishop from the year ~69 a.d. It is not unreasonable to think Ignatius was using the name during his bishopric, and didn’t invent the name in 107 on his way to be martyred. The reason I say that, no one objected to the name of the Church being named the Catholic Church. And Ignatius wrote 6 letters to the Church in 6 locations, one of which was to the Church of Rome. As an aside, Ignatius was a disciple of St John the apostle.

    Polycarp bishop of Smyrna ~ 130 a.d.also a disciple of St John, also called the Church the Catholic Church

    ***Irenaeus of Smyrna, bishop of Lions ***~180 a.d. calls the Church the Catholic Church and writes a thorough apologetic ***“Against Heresies” ***defending the Catholic Church and her teachings.

    The list goes on and on with ECF’s calling the Church the Catholic Church… The Council of Nicea, in composing the creed, ~325, made it an article of faith, that we believe in One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.

    It goes without saying that if Catholic really meant catholic in a generic sense, there would be great confusion as to what is really and specifically the true Church that all the ECF’s belonged to and wrote about.
 
Thank you for your (name removed by moderator)ut. Aside from ‘Apostolic Succession’ and the responses above, are there any other facts that demonstrate that the pre-schism and pre-reformation ‘catholic’ or (as some like to say) ‘Christian’ church was the same as the Catholic Church today?
MZ
 
wmz13 said:
Thank you for your (name removed by moderator)ut. Aside from ‘Apostolic Succession’ and the responses above, are there any other facts that demonstrate that the pre-schism and pre-reformation ‘catholic’ or (as some like to say) ‘Christian’ church was the same as the Catholic Church today?
MZ
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As I mentioned, belief in the Catholic Church is an article of faith [Nicea creed].
 
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