| Did Ignatius mean the Roman Catholic Church?

Did Ignatius mean the Roman Catholic Church?

Edge asked the question:


I often see people, especially Catholic Crusader, post that Ignatius mentions the Catholic church in a document written as early as 107 AD. This comes from Ignatius’ letter to the Smyrnaeans. I have read this quote and if you look at it, it has nothing to do with the denomination known as Catholicism. Instead it reflects what Protestants teach. That the church is all believers not a denomination. He refers merely to a universal church. Catholics have changed this to point to their denomination. Below is the specific quote only I changed it a bit. The letter was written in greek and the word Catholic should have been translated as well but was not.

“Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude [of the people] also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the universal Church.”

The Catholic church puts Catholic instead of universal. They leave it untranslated to try and support the Catholic church. What do you think?
When fully translated the quote merely means a universal church of believers. Thus all believers are the church. Not a denomination. And yes I know Catholics say they are a universal church. This is not true as any thinking person can see.
The Cub - First I don’t really care what Luther said. Second that unbroken line of pope is hilarious. At times there were multiple popes. Some popes have been declared heretics. At times the Catholic church admits they are not sure who was pope. The term pope was not even used till the 3rd or 4th century. Thus Peter could not have been a pope. The unbroken line of popes is a lie of the Catholic church that they insist is truth in order to give them legitimacy to claim they are the true church. When the true church is all Christians and not a denomination.
MaH - Actually I would say the protestant churches teach more like the early church. We have not taking man made traditions and made them equal to the Bible as others have.

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2 Responses to “Did Ignatius mean the Roman Catholic Church?”

  1. Buffy on December 28th, 2008 8:57 am

    Translated, catholic(small c) means, “universal.” There was no other Christian church at the time that Ignatius wrote. The early church was more like the Acts of the Apostles. It operated more from scripture and witness rather than culture , tradition and creed. The early home or community church was quite different from the corporation that exists, today. Protestants exist today, because of what many thought were deviations in interpretation from that of the early church. After translators like Luther, Wycliffe, and Tyndale, the common people could read the Bible and make up their own minds. Authority moved away from the Church and became more centered on the home and family.

  2. MaH on January 1st, 2009 11:42 am

    You are correct that the Church is not a denomination.

    To come up with the idea of a universal Church, you have to compare what the Church referenced by Ignatius believed, and what the Church of today believes. Those two will be the line of the “universal” Church. Other assemblages of those who profess to be Christians who do not believe as that Church believes may be Christians (though imperfect in belief), but are not part of the Church as Ignatius referred to it.

    When those belief sets are compared, only two groups meet those standards, and that is commonly referred to in these days as the Catholic Church (including the Roman and the body of Eastern Catholic Churches) and the Orthodox Churches.

    The idea of “denomination” is a sad result of the fracturing of the Church and its unity of belief.