Sect. 243The Catholicity of the ChurchThe Catholicity of the Church

The word “Catholic” (καθολικός, κάθολος) means “general” or “universal.” When we say that the Church of Christ is Catholic, we maintain that she is universal as regards time, space, and doctrine. That is to say: (1) she has always existed since she was originally founded, and she will continue to exist for all time; (2) she is not confined to any special place or nation, but is spread over the whole earth; and (3) she teaches the whole of the doctrine revealed by Jesus Christ. It is, however, with the second of these meanings that we have here to deal. We should, moreover, carefully note that it is of moral universality, not of physical, that we speak; and that in the beginning the Church was not, of course, actually spread throughout the whole world, but only tended to be so spread, inasmuch as the Apostles received the commission to teach all nations.

I. In the Old Testament universality is expressly foretold as a mark of the Church which the Messiah is to found. “I will give Thee the Gentiles for Thy inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for Thy possession” (Ps. 2:8); “He shall rule from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth” (ibid. 71:8); “All the kings of the earth shall adore Him, all nations shall serve Him” (ibid. 71:11); “All the ends of the earth shall remember, and shall be converted to the Lord, and all the kindreds of the Gentiles shall adore in His sight” (ibid. 21:8); “Behold, I have given Thee to be the Light of the Gentiles, that Thou mayest be My salvation, even to the furthest part of the earth” (Isa. 49:6); “All nations shall flow into the house of the Lord” (ibid. 2:2). Daniel speaks of the Church as “the stone” which “became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth” (2:35). “I have no pleasure in you [the Jews], saith the Lord of Hosts, and I will not receive a gift of your hands. For from the rising of the sun even to the going down My Name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to My Name a clean oblation: for My Name is great among the Gentiles” (Mal. 1:10, 11). Our Lord, when reminding His Apostles that all the prophecies concerning Him must be accomplished, said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise again from the dead the third day, and that penance and remission of sins should be preached in His Name unto all nations.” His commission to them was, “Go ye into the whole world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15); “Go ye and teach all nations (πάντα τὰ ἔθνη)” (Matt. 28:19); “You shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judæa, and Samaria, and even to the uttermost parts of the earth (ἕως ἐσχάτου τῆς γῆς)” (Acts 1:8). Hence, the Apostles “going forth, preached everywhere” (Mark 16:20)—at first, indeed, to those of the Jewish faith, “devout men of every nation under heaven” (Acts 2:5), but afterwards to the Gentiles (Acts 10; 15:7 sqq.). And St. Paul says, “We have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith in all nations for His Name” (Rom. 1:5); and that “God will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of truth; for there is one God and one Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, Who gave Himself a redemption for all” (1 Tim. 2:4, 5).

II. Already as early as the end of the first and the beginning of the second century, the Church of Christ was called “Catholic.” “Where the bishop is,” says St. Ignatius, “there let the multitude of believers be; even as where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church (ἡ καθολικὴ ἐκκλησία)” (Ad Smyrn., n. 8). And St. Justin, “There is no race of men—whether of barbarians or of Greeks, or in fine, bearing any other name, whether because they live in waggons or without a fixed habitation, or dwell in tents, leading a pastoral life—among whom prayers and eucharists are not offered to the Father and Maker of the universe through the Name of the crucified Jesus” (Dial. cum Tryph, n. 117). “Having received this faith, the Church, though spread over the whole world (ἐν ὅλῳ τῷ κόσμῳ διεσπαρμένη, and elsewhere Ἡ μὲν γὰρ ἐκκλησία καίπερ καθʼ ὅλης τῆς οἰκουμένης ἕως περάτων τῆς γῆς διεσπαρμένη), guards it sedulously, as though dwelling in one house; and these truths she uniformly holds as having but one soul, and one and the same heart; and these she proclaims and teaches, and hands down uniformly, as though she had but one mouth. For though throughout the world the languages are various, still the force of the tradition is one and the same. And neither do the Churches founded in Germany, nor those in Spain, in Gaul, in the East, in Egypt, in Africa, nor in the regions in the middle of the earth, believe or deliver a different faith; but as God’s handiwork, the sun, is one and the same throughout the universe, so the preaching of the truth shines everywhere, and enlightens all men that wish to come to the knowledge of the truth” (St. Irenæus, Adv. Hæres., l. i. c. 10, n. 2). “You, Parmenianus, have said that the Church is with your party only … consequently, for it to be with you in a small portion in Africa, will it not be with us in another part of Africa? Will it not be in Spain, in Gaul, in Italy, where your party is not?… Where will be the propriety of the name ‘Catholic,’ since the Church is called Catholic from this, that it is according to reason and everywhere diffused? For if you thus at your pleasure narrow the Church into so straitened limits, if you withdraw from it all nations, where will that be which the Son of God merited? Where that which the Father freely of His bounty bestowed on Him, saying, in the second Psalm, ‘I will give thee,’ etc.?” (St. Optatus of Milevis, De Schism. Donat., 1. ii. n. 1.) Many passages might be quoted from St. Augustine: “The question between us undoubtedly is, Where is the Church? whether with us or with them (the Donatists)? That Church assuredly is one, which our ancestors called the Catholic, that they might show by the name itself that it is throughout the whole. For throughout (or according to) the whole is expressed in Greek by καθʼ ὅλον. But this Church is the body of Christ.… Whence assuredly it is manifest that he who is not in the members of Christ cannot have Christian salvation” (De Unit. Eccles., n. 2). “The agreement of peoples and of nations keeps me; an authority begun with miracles, nourished with hope, increased with charity, strengthened by antiquity, keeps me; the succession of priests from the chair itself of the Apostle Peter—unto whom the Lord, after His resurrection, committed His sheep to be fed—down even to the present bishop keeps me; finally, the name itself of the Catholic Church keeps me (tenet postremo ipsum Catholicæ nomen)—a name which, in the midst of so many heresies, this Church alone has, not without cause, so held possession of (obtinuit) as that, though all heretics would fain have themselves called Catholics, yet to the inquiry of any stranger, ‘Where is the assembly of the Catholic Church held?’ no heretic would dare to point out his own basilica or house” (Contra Ep. Manichæi Fundam., n. 5). “If ever thou art sojourning in any city, inquire not simply where the Lord’s house is (for the sects of the profane also attempt to call their own dens houses of the Lord), nor merely where is the Church, but where is the Catholic Church? for this is the peculiar name of this holy (Church) and mother of us all, which is, indeed, the spouse of our Lord Jesus Christ” (St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech., xviii. 25).