This book is fascinating! The more I learn about the ancient history of Catholicism the more I am convinced that is really is the church willed by Christ and built on Peter. As the title indicates, this book goes into depth about the four pillars of Catholicism as professed in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed better known as just the Nicene Creed.

Using scripture and the ancient writings that have come down to us from the early Church fathers such as St. Ignatius of Antioch (who first used the term “Catholic Church” in 110AD) Whitehead convincingly defends the theology, tradition, and authority professed by the Roman Catholic Church. This is not a polemic. While the implication is that non-Catholic Christian churches have some explaining as to why they claim to want to “get back to the early church” (as long as it’s not Rome), Whitehead simply lays out the facts based on very thorough research.

A full third of the book is devoted to the apostolic succession of the popes from Peter. Council after council, century after century, there was rivalry, but not breach, between the great sees of Christianity (Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Rome and, later, Constantinople). Whitehead ably demonstrates that, even while politics drove a wedge between East and West, the ultimate schism need not have happened as the orthodox theological giants of the day were in agreement that Jesus was very clear when he said, “You are Peter.” As Richard John Neuhaus recently wrote in First Things, 1000 years is a long time to us mortals. But in God’s time it’s nothing. We should all pray that this schism will someday heal.

The Appendices are excellent, especially the one that lists and explains the major heresies that plagued the early Church.

My only complaint is that Whitehead didn’t spend much ink on the sacraments, especially the Eucharist. In light of the major post-Reformation variations of belief about the Real Presence (especially among modern non-denominational churches), it would have been interesting to learn more about the early mass and the fact that the Eucharist was a part of it from the beginning. Other books have been written on this subject, but some information here would have amplified the book’s subtitle: The Early Church Was the Catholic Church.

All in all an excellent and approachable book with great information for the Catholic who wants to better understand the history of our faith, but also the non-Catholic who wants to understand why Catholics are so steadfast in claiming to be the church Christ did indeed will. ( )

Very often in the history of Christianity, "reformers", by whatever name, have aspired to return to "the early Church". The Church of their own day, for whatever reason, fails to live up to what they think Christianity should be: in their view there has been a falling away from the beautiful ideals of the early Church.

Kenneth Whitehead shows in this book how the early Church has, in fact, not disappeared, but rather has survived and persisted, and is with us still. "Reformers" are not so much the ones needed by this