Etymology of 'Catholic'
The word Catholic (katholikos from katholou
- meaning 'throughout the whole, universal') occurs in the Greek
classics, e.g., in Aristotle and Polybius, and was freely used by the
earlier Christian writers.
Etymology & Origins of 'The Catholic Church'
The words "the Catholic Church" (he katholike ekklesia) is found for the first time in the letter of St. Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans, written about the year 110. The words run:
Wheresoever
the bishop shall appear, there let the people be, even as where Jesus
may be, there is the universal [katholike] Church.
 However,
in view of the context, some difference of opinion prevails as to the
precise connotation of the italicized word, and Kattenbusch, the
Protestant professor of theology at Giessen, is prepared to interpret
this earliest appearance of the phrase in the sense of mia mone, the
"one and only" Church [Das apostolische Symbolum (1900), II, 922].
From
this time forward the technical signification of the word Catholic
meets us with increasing frequency both East and West, until by the
beginning of the fourth century it seems to have almost entirely
supplanted the primitive and more general meaning. The earlier examples
have been collected by Caspari (Quellen zur Geschichte des Taufsymbols,
etc., III, 149 sqq.). Many of them still admit the meaning "universal".
The reference (c. 155) to "the bishop of the catholic church in Smyrna"
(Letter on the Martyrdom of St. Polycarp, xvi), a phrase which
necessarily presupposes a more technical use of the word, is due, some
critics think, to interpolation. On the other hand this sense
undoubtedly occurs more than once in the Muratorian Fragment (c. 180),
where, for example, it is said of certain heretical writings that they
"cannot be received in the Catholic Church".
A
little later, Clement of Alexandria speaks very clearly. "We say", he
declares, "that both in substance and in seeming, both in origin and in
development, the primitive and Catholic Church is the only one,
agreeing as it does in the unity of one faith" (Stromata, VII, xvii; P.
G., IX, 552).
The one clear idea underlying all is orthodox as
opposed to heretical, and Kattenbusch does not hesitate to admit that
in Cyprian we first see how Catholic and Roman came eventually to be
regarded as interchangeable terms. (Cf. Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, II,
149-168.)
Among
the Greeks it was natural that while Catholic served as the distinctive
description of the one Church, the etymological significance of the
word was never quite lost sight of. Thus in the "Catechetical
Discourses" of St. Cyril of Jerusalem (c. 347) he insists on the one
hand (sect. 26): "And 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
the church is, but where is the Catholic Church. For this is the
peculiar name of the holy body the mother of us all." On the other hand
when discussing the word Catholic, which already appears in his form of
the baptismal creed, St. Cyril remarks: (sect. 23) "Now it [the Church]
is called Catholic because it is throughout the world, from one end of
the earth to the other."
 A
more or less definite theory of the Catholic Church and its marks was
gradually evolved by St. Optatus (c. 370) and St. Augustine (c. 400).
These doctors particularly insisted upon the note of Catholicism, and
they pointed out that both the Old and the New Testament represented
the Church as spread over all the earth. Moreover, St. Augustine
insists upon the consensus of Christians in the use of the name
Catholic.
" Whether they wish or no", he says, "heretics have to call the
Catholic Church Catholic" ("De vera religione", xii). "Although all
heretics wish to be styled Catholic, yet if any one ask where is the
Catholic place of worship none of them would venture to point out his
own conventicle" (Contra Epistolam quam vocant Fundamenti, iv). Of
later exponents of this same thesis the most famous Vincent of Lerins
(c. 434). His canon of Catholicism is "That which has been believed
everywhere, always, and by all." "This", he adds, "is what is truly and
properly Catholic" (Commonitorium, I, ii).
Although
belief in the "holy Church" was included in the earliest form of the
Roman Creed, the word Catholic does not seem to have been added to the
Creed anywhere in the West until the fourth century. Kattenbusch
believes that our existing form is first met with in the "Exhortatio"
which he attributes to Gregorius of Eliberis (c. 360).
It is
possible, however, that the creed lately printed by Dom Morin (Revue
Bénédictine, 1904, p. 3) is of still earlier date. In any case the
phrase, "I believe in the holy Catholic Church" occurs in the form
commented on by Nicetas of Remesiana (c. 375). With regard to the
modern use of the word, Roman Catholic
is the designation employed in the legislative enactments of Protestant
England, but Catholic is that in ordinary use on the Continent of
Europe, especially in Latin countries. Indeed, historians of all
schools, at least for brevity's sake, frequently contrast Catholic and
Protestant, without any qualification.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03449a.htm
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