St. Ignatius of Antioch

is the first to describe the Church as Catholic and his writings are some of the earliest we have, outside of the canon of Scripture itself.

St. Ignatius of Antioch and the Early Church: "

St. Ignatius of Antioch and the Early Church | Kenneth D. Whitehead | From
One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic:
The Early Church Was The Catholic Church


Sometime around the year 107 A.D., a short, sharp persecution of the
Church of Christ resulted in the
arrest of the bishop of Antioch in
Syria. His name was Ignatius. According to one of the harsh penal
practices of the Roman Empire of the day, the good bishop was condemned
to be delivered up to wild beasts in the arena in the capital city. The
insatiable public appetite for bloody spectacles meant a chronically
short supply of victims; prisoners were thus sent off to Rome to help
fill the need.


So the second bishop of Antioch was sent to Rome as a

condemned prisoner. According to Church historian Eusebius (ca. 260-ca. 340), Ignatius had been bishop in Antioch
for nearly forty years at the time of his arrest. This means
that he had been bishop there while some of the original
apostles were almost certainly still alive and preaching.



St. Ignatius of Antioch was conducted first by land from
Syria across Asia Minor (modern Turkey). He was escorted
by a detachment of Roman soldiers. In a letter he sent ahead
to the Church of Christ in Rome, this bishop described his
ardent wish to imitate the passion of Christ through his own
coming martyrdom in the Roman Colosseum.

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(Via Insight Scoop | The Ignatius Press Blog.)