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the church, it is clear that it had long been in use in the original
sense defined above. It must be borne in mind, however, that the
designation "Catholic" was equally claimed by all the warring parties
within the church at various times; thus, the followers of Arius and
Athanasius alike called themselves Catholics, and it was only the
ultimate victory of the latter that has reserved for them in history the
name of Catholic, and branded the former as Arian.

With the gradual development and stereotyping of the creed it was
inevitable that the term "Catholic" should come to imply a more narrowly
defined orthodoxy. In the Eastern churches, indeed, the conception of
the church as the guardian of "the faith once delivered to the saints"
soon overshadowed that of interpretation and development by catholic
consent, and, though they have throughout claimed the title of Catholic,
their chief glory is that conveyed in the name of the Holy Orthodox
Church. In the West, meanwhile, the growth of the power of the papacy
had tended more and more to the interpretation of the word "catholic" as
implying communion with, and obedience to, the see of Rome (see PAPACY);
the churches of the East, no less than the heretical sects of the West,
by repudiating this allegiance, had ceased to be Catholic. This
identification of "Catholic" with "Roman" was accentuated by the
progress of the Reformation. The Reformers themselves, indeed, like
other dissidents and reformers before them, did not necessarily
repudiate the name of Catholic; they believed, in fact, in Catholicism,
i.e. the universal sanction of their beliefs, as firmly as did the
adherents of "the old religion"; they included the Catholic creeds,
definitions formulated by the universal church, in their service books;
they too appealed, as the fathers of Basel and Constance had done, from
the papal monarchy to the great ecclesiastical republic. The Church of
England at least, emphasizing her own essential catholicity, retained in
her translations of the ancient symbols the word "catholic" instead of
replacing it by "universal." But the appeal to the verbally inspired
Bible was stronger than that to a church hopelessly divided; the Bible,
and not the consent of the universal church, became the touchstone of
the reformed orthodoxy; in the nomenclature of the time, "evangelical"
arose in contradistinction to "Catholic," while, in popular parlance,
the "protest" of the Reformers against t