The faith of our fathers - Carmel Apologetics

"52 THE FAITH OP OUR FATHERS.St. Justin Martyr, was able to say, about onehundred years after Christ, that there was no raceof men, whether Barbarians or Greeks, or any otherpeople of what name soever, among whom the nameof Jesus Christ was not invoked.And St. Irenseus,writing at the end of the second century, tells usthat the religion so marvellously propagated throughout the whole world, was not a vague, ever-chaDging"form of Christianity, but that this faith and doctrine and tradition preached throughout the globeis as uniform as if the Church consisted of onefamily, possessing one soul and heart, and as if shehad but one mouth. For, though the languages ofthe world are dissimilar, her doctrine is the same.The churches founded in Germany,in the Celticnations, in the East, in Egypt, in Lybia, and in thecentres of civilization, do not differ from each other ;but as the sun gives the same light throughout theworld, so does the light of faith shine everywhere thesame, and enlighten all men who wish to come tothe knowledge of the truth." 1 "We are but ofyesterday," says Tertullian, and already have wefilled your cities, towns, islands, your council-hallsand camps,. . . the palace, senate, forum : we haveleftyou only the atemples."This Catholicity, or universality, is not to befound in any, or in all, of the combined communionsseparated from the Roman Catholic Church.The Schismatic churches of the East have noAdv. Hser., 1. 1. Apologet., c. 37.