The Word "catholic", And Also The Bible

[Guest Wondering]

When was the word "Catholic" first used, when and by whom and where. What does it mean?

Also, when was the Bible first collected? I mean when were all the inspired books (especially the Gospels) gathered into one book and available to people? How did the word spread before that?

Thanks!

[BLAZEr]

From the [url="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/"]Catholic Encyclopedia[/url]

[quote]The word Catholic (katholikos from katholou -- throughout the whole, i.e., universal) occurs in the Greek classics, e.g., in Aristotle and Polybius, and was freely used by the earlier Christian writers in what we may call its primitive and non-ecclesiastical sense. Thus we meet such phrases as the "the catholic resurrection" (Justin Martyr), "the catholic goodness of God" (Tertullian), "the four catholic winds" (Irenaeus), where we should now speak of "the general resurrection", "the absolute or universal goodness of God", "the four principal winds", etc. The word seems in this usage to be opposed to merikos (partial) or idios (particular), and one familiar example of this conception still survives in the ancient phrase "Catholic Epistles" as applied to those of St. Peter, St. Jude, etc., which were so called as being addressed not to particular local communities, but to the Church at large.

The combination "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). From this and other passages which might be quoted, the technical use seems to have been clearly established by the beginning of the third century. In this sense of the word it implies sound doctrine as opposed to heresy, and unity of organization as opposed to schism (Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, Part II, vol. I, 414 sqq. and 621 sqq.; II, 310-312). In fact Catholic soon became in many cases a mere appellative--the proper name, in other words, of the true Church founded by Christ, just as we now frequently speak of the Orthodox Church, when referring to the established religion of the Russian Empire, without adverting to the etymology of the title so used. It was probably in this sense that the Spaniard Pacian (Ep. i ad Sempron.) writes, about 370: "Christianus mihi nonem est, catholicus cognomen", and it is noteworthy that in various early Latin expositions of the Creed, notably that of Nicetas of Remesiana, which dates from about 375 (ed. Burn, 1905, p. lxx), the word Catholic in the Creed, though undoubtedly coupled at that date with the words Holy Church, suggests no special comment. Even in St. Cyprian (c. 252) it is difficult to determine how far he uses the word Catholic significantly, and how far as a mere name. The title, for instance, of his longest work is "On the Unity of the Catholic Church", and we frequently meet in his writings such phrases as catholica fides (Ep. xxv; ed. Hartel, II, 538); catholica unitas (Ep. xxv, p. 600); catholica regula (Ep. lxx, p. 767), etc. 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.) Moreover it should be noted that the word Catholica was sometimes used substantively as the equivalent of ecclesia Catholica. An example is to be found in the Muratorian Fragment, another seemingly in Tertullian (De Praescrip, xxx), and many more appear at a later date, particularly among African Writers. [/quote]


The books of the scriptures were put together in a Canon (official list) at the Councils of Hippo (393 AD) and Carthage (397 AD) where they also confirmed the Septuagint as the Old Testament. For many years following this council, different groups (especially the Protestants) disputed various books or parts of various books. The council of Trent (13 December, 1545, and closed there on 4 December, 1563) set the canon offically at what it stands as now, and held that the Canon must be accepted with divine and Catholic faith (its proclamaion was infallible).

A "bible" or book of the scriptures did not become available until the 1400's when the Catholic publisher Johannes Guttenburg began printing mass copies of the bible on his recently invented printing press. Before then, it was not common for most people to be literate, and bibles were very expensive and difficult to produce, so they were owned only by the very rich, and of course there were copies in most Catholic churches.

Before the bible was available the Word of God was spread by preaching.