Which religion came first Baptist or catholic?

Answer 1

A:No. John Smyth and Thomas Helwys set up the first known Baptist Congregation in Amsterdam in 1608, believing it was important to reconstitute and not just reform the Church. Some members of the Amsterdam group went back later to Britain and took the name 'Baptist' to identify themselves.

In spite of what is known of the origins of the Baptist Church, members prefer to claim that the Baptist Church had always existed just as it does now, from the first Christian century. For example, Charles H. Spurgeon:

"We believe that the Baptists are the original Christians. We did not commence our existence at the reformation, we were reformers before Luther and Calvin were born; we never came from the Church of Rome, for we were never in it, but we have an unbroken line up to the apostles themselves. We have always existed from the days of Christ, and our principles, sometimes veiled and forgotten, like a river which may travel under ground for a little season, have always had honest and holy adherents. Persecuted alike by Romanists and Protestants of almost every sect, yet there has never existed a Government holding Baptist principles which persecuted others; nor, I believe, any body of Baptists ever held it to be right to put the consciences of others under the control of man. We have ever been ready to suffer, as our martyrologies will prove, but we are not ready to accept any help from the State, to prostitute the purity of the Bride of Christ to any alliance with Government, and we will never make the Church, although the Queen, the despot over the consciences of men."

Answer 2

The answer is that the Roman Catholic Church, which was in communion with the Eastern Orthodox Church at the time, functioning as one Church, until their split in 1054.

The Baptist Church would be considered by Catholics to be a part of the Protestant heresy, which is no older then 500 years old itself, the individual Baptists Churches are for the most part, less then 250 years old.

A Baptist, however, might tell you that Baptists have been around for as long as Roman Catholics, due to the following quote from Cardinal Hosius:

"Were it not that the Baptists have been grievously tormented and cut off with the knife during the past 1,200 years, they would swarm in greater number than all the Reformers" (Letters Apud Opera, pp.112, 113).

*Catholic Rebuttal

The above text is a a misquote, the actually text is

"For not so long ago I read the edict of the other prince who lamented the fate of the Anabaptists who,so we read, were pronounced heretics twelve hundred years ago and deserving of capital punishment. He wanted them to be heard and not taken as condemned without a hearing."

It stems from a mistranslation (likely purposefully), follow by a serious of quoting people who quoted it. The Original text in Latin (as originally written reads)

"Nam & alterius Principis edictum non ita pridem legi, qui vicem Anabaptistarum dolens, quos antemille ducentos annes haeretisos, capitalique supplicio dignos esse pronunciatos legimus, vult, utaudiantur omnino, nec indicta causa pro condemnatis habeantur."

Answer 3

No, the Catholic religion or Catholicism, began before any of the other Christian religions. The Baptists broke away from the Church of England in about the 17th century.