Church History in Plain Language (Plain Language Series)

by Bruce L. Shelley

We call the years between A.D. 70 and A.D. 312 the Age of Catholic Christianity because this thought dominates Christian history between the death of the apostles and the rise of the Christian emperors. Though the universality of Christianity is a common idea in the New Testament, the term catholic never appears. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch in the early second century, is apparently the first to use the word. He spoke of the “Catholic church,” when he said, “Wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic church.” By the end of the second century the term catholic was widely used of the church in the sense that the Catholic church was both universal, in contrast to local congregations, and orthodox, in contrast to heretical groups.