Ignatius, the disciple of John, describes the Church as Catholic in 110 A.D. Ignatius, a disciple of the apostle John, was martyred in Rome under Emperor Trajans rule. It was during the journey to Rome in 110 A.D. that he wrote his famous letters that contain invaluable information about the early Church. This was 20 years after John wrote his Gospel. Catholic, referring to the Whole Church was a term in common use at the time and Ignatius writing is the oldest still existing text which contains a specific form of the phrase we still use today as a proper name. That of ekklesia katholicos , which means Universal Church. The terms holen ten ekklesian which means The Whole Church and e kklesia kathholes which means The Church throughout the whole of were also in use by the Apostles and others in the early Christian community. What did Constantine do? We must remember that Constantine did not actually become a Christian until he was an old man on his death bed. That was when he was baptised and professed that Jesus is Lord. During his life he did not surrender to Christ. He simply changed the law so that it was no longer illegal to be Christian. This was quite prudent of him given that Christianity was steadily growing and might have turned into an ugly rebellion against him. catholicbridge/.../did_constantine_invent...
Posted on: Fri, 20 Jun 2014 06:50:58 +0000