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From: "Paul Smith" <>
Subject: Re: [Q-R] Quaker versus Christian Church
Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2001 18:42:46 -0700
References: <3ACC527E.000005.43165@computer_2> <006301c0bdd1$2eb67d60$2b58b5cf@capppkhaddad> <002401c0bdd7$0e49a6a0$fba6b1d8@gvtc.com>





> What a great explanation! I certainly agree! What about the Catholic
> Church? Janet

This is from the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia
www.newadvent.org/cathen/03449a.htm

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
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.

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