Do Catholics think they were the first Christians?

Catholics think they are the only religion out there............It's best to just avoid them..............

1) Do Catholics think they were the first Christians?

That is what Roman Catholics are taught.

2) What about the gnostics before them

Understand that the Roman Catholics believe that the 12 apostles themselves were the first Roman Catholics. The Gnostics "that came before them" were not Christian Gnostics and so are not pertinent to this question.

3) And what about the millions of other non-Catholic Christians who have been around longer than Catholicism?

Unless you tell us when it is that you believe that Catholicism began, we cannot really answer this question. There are several possibilities. The problem is that your questions presume that Roman Catholic claims of being the first Christians are false, but you do not provide any frame of reference. In other words: without knowing when YOU think that Catholicism began, how can anyone address your claims that any sort of Christian sect preceded them, and when, etc.?

Jim, http://www.bibleselector.com/rc_versions.html

Please note that Jesus did NOT start multiple churches -- only ONE, and it was intended to be for the entire world, or the universal Church. The word "catholic" means "universal." It refers to the one Church ('universal church') that Jesus started.

Hence, there are no non-Catholic Christians that have been around longer than Catholicism. Catholics have had a unbroken chain of leadership that goes all the way back to Peter, who was instated by Jesus. Gnostics were an offshoot of this Church -- they didn't predate Catholicism.

The fact that we didn't use the word "catholic" for a while doesn't mean we're not the same Church that has always been. We started using the word "catholic" when other people styled churches of their own, and we had to delineate between their made-up churches and the one Jesus started.

GNOSTICISM - The theory of salvation by knowledge. Already in the first century of the Christian era there were Gnostics who claimed to know the mysteries of the universe. They were disciples of the various pantheistic sects that existed before Christ. The Gnostics borrowed what suited their purpose from the Gospels, wrote new gospels of their own, and in general proposed a dualistic system of belief. Matter was said to be hostile to spirit, and the universe was held to be a depravation of the Deity. Although extinct as an organized religion, Gnosticism is the invariable element in every major Christian heresy, by its denial of an objective revelation that was completed in the apostolic age and its disclaimer that Christ established in the Church a teaching authority to interpret decisively the meaning of the revealed word of God.

Of course the Catholics were the first Christians. It is the only Church founded by Jesus and the apostles. How could any other Christians make such a claim. There were no others calling themselves Christian until the sixtenth century when those in protest of Christ's Church tried to usurp the name.

The Gnostics were a Jewish sect and never were Christian. There are exactly no non-Catholic Christians that predate Catholic Christians or even are contemporary to Catholic Christrians. Where did you get such nonsense. I am a Protestant trained former professor of early ecclesiastical history and there is no biblical, historical or Patristic evidence supporting such a ridiculous claim. You claim millions of non-Catholic Christians that pre-date Pentecost, which is the date of the founding of the Catholic Church, yet you cannot name even one because there were not any.

You have heard of the biblical prohibition of bearing false witness in the Decalogue. Please check these things out before representing yourself as a fool and committing mortal sin. God bless!

In Christ

Fr. Joseph

NOTE:

Be Blessed made these false claims:

“Nowhere in the New Testament will you find the “one true church” doing any of the following: praying to Mary, praying to the saints, venerating Mary, submitting to a pope, having a select priesthood, baptizing an infant, observing the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper as sacraments, or passing on apostolic authority to successors of the apostles. “

Really, for most people who study the Scriptures these things should be easy to find.

“Pray” is defined as to ask and has nothing to do with worship should one foolishly infer that it is worship. When we ask someone to pray for us we are asking for their intercession and we are not worshipping them.

http://fiatvolvntastua.blogspot.com/2009/06/its-ok...

What is wrong with venerating the blessed mother of God that the Scriptures says is the most blessed among women and arguably all humanity. It is difficult how someone could justify NOT venerating her.

http://fiatvolvntastua.blogspot.com/2009/06/does-v...

How can one not submit to the Pope when it was Jesus Himself who appointed Him and subsequently his successors as the leader of the disciples and thus the Church? Jesus said Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church. The disciples knew what this meant so why don’t you accept this as well. Could it be that you have a disobedient spirit?

Yes Jesus did select a priesthood which He ordered the disciples to continue through apostolic succession.

http://fiatvolvntastua.blogspot.com/2009/06/how-im...

Infant Baptism is one of the most biblically supported of all

Church doctrines.

http://fiatvolvntastua.blogspot.com/2009/06/is-inf...

Yes Jesus provides for a great feast of His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. He told us as Christians that we are to receive the blessed Sacrament or that we have no life (eternal) in us. Why would anyone refuse or have no desire for what Jesus commands us to do which provides the grace for eternal life?

http://fiatvolvntastua.blogspot.com/2009/06/why-do...

It's been my observation that every Christian denomination, no matter how recent, claim to be the ones practicing what Jesus taught and that everyone else is wrong, that's why so many Protestants claim Catholics aren't even Christian. The usual claim is that they are doing it as "Jesus taught" and everyone else for the last however many centuries got everything wrong. For the record, the oldest Christian sect of which we have documentation is the Egyptian Coptics, the word "Catholic", fm the Gk "Katholikos" = "whole" or "complete" and referring to the entire body of believers, originated in the the 2nd century, and the Roman Catholic Church in it's modern sense with the Bishop of Rome as Pope only goes back to 1054. As to the Gnostic's and various other groups dismissed by the mainstream as "Heretics", such as the Arians or Cathars, they are widely not considered to have been Christian since they rejected parts of the faith as it is now understood, such as idea that Jesus actually had a Physical form or that any form of Priesthood was required. Some of them even rejected the idea that women were human beings with souls. If you define "Christian" as anyone who cares to call themselves that regardless of what they believe then there's no way to say anyone isn't, so anyone could be the first.

You've got your history mixed up. The facts of the early Christian church clearly show that it was Catholic. It is the original Church founded by Jesus Christ. All other non-Catholic Christian churches are off-shoots of Catholicism, most of them emerging in the 16th century with and after Martin Luther.

God bless.

The “first church” is the church that is recorded in the New Testament, especially in the Book of Acts and the Epistles of Paul. The New Testament church is the “original church” and the “one true church.” We can know this because it is described, in great detail, in Scripture. The church, as recorded in the New Testament, is God’s pattern and foundation for His church. On this basis, let’s examine the Roman Catholic claim that it is the “first church.” Nowhere in the New Testament will you find the “one true church” doing any of the following: praying to Mary, praying to the saints, venerating Mary, submitting to a pope, having a select priesthood, baptizing an infant, observing the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper as sacraments, or passing on apostolic authority to successors of the apostles. All of these are core elements of the Roman Catholic faith. If most of the core elements of the Roman Catholic Church were not practiced by the New Testament Church (the first church and one true church), how then can the Roman Catholic Church be the first church? A study of the New Testament will clearly reveal that the Roman Catholic Church is not the same church as the church that is described in the New Testament.

Well to answer you question yes....and no.

Back when Jesus lived, died, and came back there weren't really Christian and Catholic....there were Jews, Gentiles, Pagans religions, and followers of Jesus. And soon after (because anything in history that comes within a 100 years is "soon") You had your first real religious church system put in place which was in theory but not in name "Catholic" as in the first Pope, sacriments, mass, ect. and while there were a few rough groups out there following Jesus and still not on the Catholic bandwaggon most Chrisians were in essence , Catholics. As it would remain in history until splitting into groups such as Methodists, Lutherines, Protistants, and so on because different ideas broke off and fractured into different subgroups.

The main break came from The Church Of England which declared itself free of the Church of Rome aka the Roman Catholic Church for a few reasons mostly laying that the King didn't see fit that someone else was ruling over him and he had to ask someone of a higher calling permission in his personal affairs. It was one of the first churches to act independantly free of the Catholic Church and lead to the ability for the rest of the subgroups to form.

So were Catholics the first Christians, no but they were the first organized religion to come out of the Christian idea, which was to follow Jesus Christ the rest of the churches you find today were broken off the religion AFTER the establishment of the Catholic Church .

it is not something we think it is something we know. It as a historical fact the catholic church can trace its apostolic succession back to the apostles.

There isnt one SHRED of evidence that Other Christians existed b4 Catholics. When Luther broke away others came 2 be.