Catholicism, What is it? History of it and The Bible?

Question

curious

Answer 1

+ Catholicism +

The Church has referred to itself as the “Catholic Church” at least since 107 AD (about 10 years after the last book of the New Testament was written), when the term appears in the Letter of St. Ignatius of Antioch to the Smyrnaeans:

"Wherever the bishop appear, there let the multitude be; even as wherever Christ Jesus is, there is the Catholic Church."

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/ignatius-smyrnaeans-hoole.html

We do not know how long they had been using the term "Catholic" before it was included in this letter.

All of this was long before the Council of Nicea and the Nicene Creed from 325 A.D. which states, "We believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church."

+ History +

Warning: All written history is a little biased.

Here are some Catholic Church history websites:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07365a.htm
http://www.catholic-pages.com/dir/history.asp
http://www.shc.edu/theolibrary/history.htm
http://catholicism.about.com/cs/history/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Roman_Catholic_Church

+ With love in Christ.

Answer 2

people have written entire BOOKs on this.

Catholicism is the original church founded by Jesus at Pentecost with Peter as its head. It is the only apostolic church. I will give just two main points in history for clairification. When Constantine was ruler he accepted the Church and was 'converted' (in a manner of speaking) and made the church reputable and gave it the name 'catholic' which means universal. In the 1500's the church was corrupt and a priest named Martin Luther led a reformation that started Protestantism.

History of the Bible.
Oral tradition handed down for centuries
Written down on scrolls eventually---would become known as the Torah and the Prophets.
Jesus came.
People write about Jesus after his death
It is compiled and liturgically some are kept and others disgarded.
A cannon is formed.
In the 1500's Luther decides to discard some Old Testament books that the Jews of that day were not using.

Answer 3

Up until the 4th Century CE, there was not a single christian sect that ever believed Simon (Peter) the Zealot was ever the founding patriarch of Christianity.

The Orthodox Churches of the East, the first churches always considered James the Just, the brother of Jesus was the first legitimate Patriarch (Pope) until his murder. All the early christian writers testify to this being the truth.

In contrast, the role of Simon (Peter) the Zealot was clouded in mystery, particularly when one of the key leaders of the rebellion against the Sadducees and Romans in the siege of Jerusalem was Simon (Peter) the Zealot.
See:
http://one-faith-of-god.org/new_testament/apocrypha/josephus_wars/josephus_wars_0110.htm

But in the 4th Century, the Roman christian bishops found themselves in increasingly more powerful position than their Eastern counterparts.

Desperate to become the controllers of all christianity, they faked a false history concerning papal succession- claiming Peter was the first Pope, ignoring the historic first Bishop Linus and then creating imaginary Popes up until the end of the second century.

Now this was a brilliant move by the Romans, for no christian group, including the orthodox has ever wanted to debate the truth concerning Peter being the leader of the Zealots that destroyed the Temple of Herod in 70 CE.

Answer 4

Catholicism was, essentially, organized by Constantine in Constantinople (Istambul, Turkey) in 300 AD by organizing and systemtizing the original churches founded by Peter and Paul between 6 AD and 60 AD.

These churches, at best, were a "confederacy" in organization, sharing a common ancestry, some common values and practises, but each evolving on their own with no central government.

Constantine devised the central government with a common Bible constructed by representatives of each of the Churchs (Greeks, Italians/Romans, Turkish, etc.) who basically drafted a Bible by political lobbying and playing poltiics.

Each of the indivudal Churchs had original writings from Paul some of these got included, some, like 2 Romans didn't.

This Necean counsil then when to to formulate other rituals and rules and they established a central goverment of Bishops and CArdinals under the leadership of a Pope who is a surrogate Jesus/Peter/Paul and sets church doctrine.

From here the governing body continued to evolve the Church. Eventually some, such as the Greeks and Russians and Romainians broke away over conflicts on central goverment edicts, such as those forbidding Priests to marry (Greeks, Russsians and Romaians allow marriage of Priests.

At one point the Catholic (Byzantine) control exerted through most of Europe and parts of the Near East and Middle East and into some of Africa

The demands from the Catholics, now in Rome as Constantinople fell to the Muslims, weighed heavily on various goverments with tribute (taxation), crusades (liberation wars in the Middle East) and finally it came to an impass over a two centrury point in time with King Henry VIII who wanted a divorce and the Chruch wouldn't let him have one so he broke England away and made his own Church (now known as Angelicans) and started a feud with the Catholics and in 1500 Martin Luther, a Catholic Priest, got made at the Church concept of buying out of sin in advance by rich people so He, with the help of German royalty members, started a church, the PRoestant (reformist) Lutheran church that began to dominate parts of GErmany, Sweden, Denmark.

This broke the back of the Byzantine who between the losses in the Middle East and now the losses in Europe became about half the size of what they were in 1,000 AD

It also paved the way for other reformist (Protestant) organziations such as the Calvanists, Anabaptists, Puritans, Congregationalists, PResbyterians, etc.

The Protestants then re-worked the CAtholic Bible purging things they felt were added purely for the CAthlolic needs.

Answer 5

The religion of catholicism was started by gregory the great around 300 A.D. the maine difference is they believe in salvation by works, and we (Baptists) believe in salvation by grace. there is nothing mentioned in the bible about then except that it said there would be many false chuches... they are one of them.....

Christ started the baptist Church.


Jay

Answer 6

what a loaded question. i'm afraid that's a bit too heavy for me right now. just don't wanna forget this question, as the answers you get may be interesting. i'll be checking back...

Answer 7

factual information on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholicism

Answer 8

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:History_of_Catholicism_in_Europe