How about if we get back onto the original topic?

I don't believe the first Christian church was Catholic. Certainly not the Catholic Church that we know today, nor even the Catholic Church of very ancient times. The best way to see this is by a close comparison of the NT church to the Catholic Church as it first emerged about 150 to 300 AD.

Catholic = universal



I think you're talking about the Roman Catholic church.

The true church (first church) has always experienced opposition from Rome.
First from the Roman emperors and then from the popes.

When Jesus revealed to His disciples the fate of Jerusalem and the scenes of the second advent, He foretold also the experience of His people from the time when He should be taken from them to His return in power and glory for their deliverance. From Olivet the Saviour beheld the storms about to fall upon the apostolic church, and, penetrating deeper into the future, His eye discerned the fierce, wasting tempests that were to beat upon His followers in the coming ages of darkness and persecution.

And in the days of the apostles He wrought mightily for His church through the agency of the Holy Spirit. The same power that sustained the patriarchs, that gave Caleb and Joshua faith and courage, and that made the work of the apostolic church effective, has upheld God's faithful children in every succeeding age.

The religious belief of the Waldenses was founded upon the written word of God, the true system of Christianity, and was in marked contrast to the errors of Rome. But those herdsmen and vine-dressers, in their obscure retreats, shut away from the world, had not themselves arrived at the truth in opposition to the dogmas and heresies of the apostate church. Theirs was not a faith newly received. Their religious belief was their inheritance from their fathers. They contended for the faith of the apostolic church, --" the faith once delivered to the saints."

It was apostasy that led the early church to seek the aid of the civil government, and this prepared the way for the development of the papacy--the beast. Said Paul: "There" shall "come a falling away..., and that man of sin be revealed." 2 Thessalonians 2:3.

So apostasy in the church will prepare the way for the image to the beast. {Maranatha 165.3}

Christianity had different proto-orthodox group and other side groups with more diverse beliefs: but the Roman Catholic Church apperently was one of these proto-orthodox groups which became prominant. But there were the churches that became the Eastern Orthodox churches, and there was say to Coptic, Arminians, and other smaller religions. St. Patrick came from one of these early churches that was not part of the Roman Catholic Church, and the ideas he brought to Ireland had much in common with Protestantism.

Roman Catholics think they are the first (and only) true church and claim that all other churches must come into unity with them. They are quite consistent and insistent on this. And more and more they are successful.

Pope Benedict XVI has created an “apostolic constitution” – the highest form of pontifical decree – to make it easier for Anglicans, individually or in groups, to join the Roman Catholic Church.

The British Guardian wrote:

It will be the first time since the Reformation in the 16th century that entire communities of Protestants have reunited with Rome. The first group to take advantage of the new rules is expected to be the Traditional Anglican Community (TAC), which separated from the rest of the Anglican community in 1991 and has more than 500,000 members worldwide.

[Benedict's chief theological adviser, the US cardinal William Levada,] said that, under the new arrangements, Anglican communities that joined the Catholic church would be able to keep their own liturgy while remaining outside the existing dioceses. Their pastoral care would be entrusted instead to their own senior prelates, who would not necessarily become Catholic bishops. This is a way around the problem that in the Catholic church, as in the Orthodox churches, married men are not allowed to become bishops.

The result is a new home for traditional Anglicans who are dissatisfied with growing acceptance of homosexuals and of women priests and bishops. Ruth Gledhill and Richard Owen of the London Times correctly term it a move by the Roman Catholic Church “to poach” thousands of traditional Anglicans.

Revelation indicates that the first church became what we know as the Roman Catholic Church.

It is a sad day in Protestantism when Protestants have to join the Catholic church to escape false doctrine. It isn't the Catholic doctrine that has gotten closer to the truth but rather the Protestant doctrine that has diverged.

The first Christian church is composed of those persons who state that Jesus is the literal "Son of the Living God" and those persons to whom the "Father which is in heaven" has revealed this knowledge to them.

See Matthew 16: 16-17