CATHOLIC
450
CATHOLIC
Lenns (c. 434). His canon of Catholicity is "That
which has been believed everywhere, always, and by
all." "This", he adds, "is what is truly and prop-
erly 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, how- ever, that the creed lately printed by Dom Morin (Revue Benedictine, 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, es- pecially in Latin countries. Indeed, historians of all schools, at least for brevity's sake, frequently con- trast Catholic and Protestant, without any qualifica- tion. In England, since the middle of the sixteenth century, indignant protests have been constantly made against the "exclusive and arrogant usurpa- tion" of the name Catholic by the Church of Rome. The Protestant, Archdeacon Philpot, who was put to death in 1555, was held to be very obstinate on this point (see the edition of liis works published by the Parker Society) ; and among many similar controver- sies of a later date may be mentioned that between Dr. Bishop, subsequently vicar Apostolic, and Dr. Abbot, afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, regarding the "Catholicke Deformed", which raged from 1599 to 1614. According to some, such combinations as Ro- man Catholic, or Anglo-Catholic, involve a contradic- tion in terms. (See the Anglican Bishop of Carlisle in "TheHibbert Journal", January, 1908, p. 287.) From about the year 1580, besides the term papist, em- ployed with opprobrious intent, the followers of the old religion were often called Romish or Roman Cath- olics. Sir William Harbert, in 1585, published a "Letter to a Roman pretended Catholique", and in 1587 an Italian book by G. B. Aurellio was printed in London regarding the different doctrines "dei Prot- estanti veri e Cattolici Romani". Neither do the Catholics always seem to have objected to the appel- lation, but sometimes used it themselves. On the other hand, Protestant writers often described their opponents simply as "Catholics". A conspicuous instance is the "Pseudoniartyr" of Dr. John Donne, printed in 1610. Moreover, if only for brevity's sake, such burning questions as "Catholic Emancipation" have commonly been discussed by both sides without any qualifying prefix. In connexion with this matter we may call attention to a common Anglican view represented in such a popular work of reference as Hook's "Church Dictionary" (1854), s.v. "Catholic" — " Let the member of the Church of England assert his right to the name of Catholic, since he is the only person in England who lias a right to that name. The English Romanist is a Roman Schismatic and not a Catholic." The idea is further developed in Blunt's "Dictionary of Sects and Heresies" (1874), where "Roman Catholics" are described as "a sect organ- ised by the Jesuits out of the relics of the Marian party in the reign of Queen Elizabeth". An earlier and less extreme view will be found in Newman's "Essays Critical and Historical", published by him as an Anglican (see No. 9, "The Catholicity of the Anglican Church "). The Cardinal's own note on this essay, in the last revised edition, may be read with advantage.
So far we have been considering only the history and meaning of the name Catholic. We turn to its theological import as it has been emphasized and
formalized by later theologians. No doubt the enu-
meration of four precise " notes" by which the Church
is marked off from the sects is of comparatively recent
development, but the conception of some such ex-
ternal tests, as pointed out above, is based upon the
language of St. Augustine, St. Optatus, and others,
in their controversies with the heretics of their time.
In a famous passage of St. Augustine's treatise " Con-
tra Epistolam quam vocant Fundament! ", directed
against the Donatists, the holy doctor declares that
besides the intrinsic acceptability of her doctrine
" there are many other tilings which most justly keep
me within the bosom of the Church", and after indi-
cating the agreement in faith among her members, or,
as we should say, her Unity, as well as " the succession
of priests from the installation of Peter the Apostle,
to whom our Lord after His resurrection entrusted
His sheep to be fed, down to the present episcopate",
in other words the quality which we call Apostolicity
(q. v.), St. Augustine continues in a passage pre-
viously cited in part, " Lastly there holds me the very
name of Catholic which not without reason so closely
attaches to the Church amid the heresies which sur-
round it, that although all heretics would fain be
called Catholics, still if any stranger should ask where
the Catholic service is held, not one of these heretics
would dare to point to his own conventicle" (Corpus
Scrip. Eccles. Lat., XXV, Pt. I, 196). It was very
natural that the situation created by the controver-
sies of the sixteenth century should lead to a more
exact determination of these "notes". English
theologians like Stapleton (Principiorum Fidei Doc-
trinalium Demonstratio, Bk. IV, cc. hi sqq.) and
Sander (De Visibili Monarchia, Bk. VIII, cap. xl)
were foremost in urging this aspect of the question
between the Churches, and foreign scholars like Bel-
larmine, who engaged in the same debates, readily
caught the tone from them. Sander distinguished
six prerogatives of the Church instituted by Christ.
Stapleton recognized two primary attributes as con-
tained in Christ's promises — to wit, universality in
space and perpetuity in time — and from these he de-
duced the other visible marks. Bellarmine, starting
with the name Catholic, enumerated fourteen other
qualities verified in the external history of the institu-
tion which claimed this title (De Conciliis, Bk. IV,
cap. iii). In all these varying schemes, it may be re-
marked, the universality of the Church was given a
foremost place among her distinctive marks. How-
ever, already in the fifteenth century the theologian
John Torquemada had set down the notes of the
Church as four in number, and this more simple ar-
rangement, founded upon the wording of the familiar
Mass Creed (Et unam, sanctain, catholicam et apostol-
icam Ecclesiain), eventually won universal accept-
ance. It is adopted, for instance, in the "Catechis-
mus ad Paroclios", which in accordance with a de-
cree of the Council of Trent was drawn up and pub-
lished in 1566 with the liighest official sanction (see
Doctrine, Christian). In this authoritative docu-
ment we read: —
"The third mark of the Church is that she is Catho- lic, that is, universal; and justly is she called Catholic, because, as St. Augustine says, 'she is diffused by the splendour of one faith from* the rising to the setting sun'. Unlike republics of human institution, or the conventicles of heretics, she is not circumscribed within the limits of any one kingdom, nor confined to the members of any one society of men, but em- braces within the amplitude of her love, all mankind, whether barbarians or Scythians, slaves or freemen, male or female."
In confirmation of this, various prophetic utter- anoes of Holy Scripture are quoted, after which the Catechism proceeds: "To this Church, built on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets (Ephes., ii, 20) belong all the faithful who have existed from
