The term 'Catholic'

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Alma

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I just read the interesting thread that someone posted yestarday about the origin of the term ‘Roman’ Catholic. 👍
I know ‘Catholic’ comes from the greek ‘Katholiko’ which means ‘universal’, but I would like to go a little further and ask how did the term ‘Catholic’ came into being?:hmmm:

Thanks!

Alma
 
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Alma:
I just read the interesting thread that someone posted yestarday about the origin of the term ‘Roman’ Catholic. 👍
I know ‘Catholic’ comes from the greek ‘Katholiko’ which means ‘universal’, but I would like to go a little further and ask how did the term ‘Catholic’ came into being?:hmmm:

Thanks!

Alma
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The first time it is used is by Ignatius of Antioch. We don’t know if anyone used it before that but the way Ignatius says it, it seems like it is not a new term to the recipients of the letter.
 
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jimmy:
The first time it is used is by Ignatius of Antioch. We don’t know if anyone used it before that but the way Ignatius says it, it seems like it is not a new term to the recipients of the letter.
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To expound on this a bit, the earliest instance of the term “Catholic Church” which has survived to this day was from the letter of St. Ignatius to the Smyrneans (*circa *AD 110), where he says:
You must all follow the bishop as Jesus Christ follows the Father, and the presbytery as you would the Apostles. Reverence the deacons as you would the command of God. Let no one do anything of concern to the Church without the Bishop. Let that be considered a valid Eucharist which is celebrated by the bishop, or one whom he appoints. Wherever the bishop appears, let the people be there, just as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.
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Catholic is the Anglicized (English) version of the Latin word Catholicus which is a Latinized version of the Greek word: καθολικη, transliterated into our alphabet as Katholikos. *Katholikos *means universal and is derived from kata (throughout) and holos (the whole).

In Acts 9:31, the Greek phrase: ekklesia kath olos, translated as “the church throughout all” (RSV) or “the church everywhere” (NCV), seems to me a likely origin of the phrase “the Catholic Church” (katholikos ekklesia) first documented in Ignatius of Antioch’s letter to the Smyraeans in A.D. 107.
 
Thank you for your answers,
you have been very helpful! :tiphat:

Alma
 
Todd Easton said:
*… *a Latinized version of the Greek word: καθολικη…
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How do you do the Greek characters in this forum?
 
Todd Easton:
In Acts 9:31, the Greek phrase: ekklesia kath olos, translated as “the church throughout all” (RSV) or “the church everywhere” (NCV), seems to me a likely origin of the phrase “the Catholic Church” (katholikos ekklesia) first documented in Ignatius of Antioch’s letter to the Smyraeans in A.D. 107.
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That is pretty interesting.
 
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DavidFilmer:
How do you do the Greek characters in this forum?
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I cut and pasted from another site, as jimmy, a previous poster, suggested.
 
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DavidFilmer:
How do you do the Greek characters in this forum?
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Most word processors have Greek letters under some variation of the “insert symbol” command.
So you should be able to do ΘΗΙΣ

For extended typing you could change the language settings on you computer

If your feeling adventurous use something like Babble fish to translate for you

Or if you’re a hard-core, old school geek you can use the ASCII codes

Oh yeah you could just cut and paste too 😉
 
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