Soul Invictus

Here is an interesting URL on a Catholic's critique of the Church

What was the identifying difference(s) between the Catholic and Christian church? I'm unsure which church he is referring to.

What I find particularly interesting is the claim under I. PANTHEISM, NATURALISM AND ABSOLUTE RATIONALISM, number 7. Surely, given the time, I can see the reasoning behind his proclamations being anathematized, with strict religious adherence being at a fervor. (What wasn't though, back then?)

This is where I'd really love a backdrop on the development of the Christian faith, which addresses the following:

1) How it first started with Judaism
2) How it became intertwined with Greco-Roman culture
3) When/how its ties were affected by the Catholic Church

Somehow, I'd like to clear up my unclarity of the beginnings of Judaism and how some of its precepts were woven into the Catholic and Christian faith (in chronological order)
Anyone care to take a stab at this? What's the social politics regarding these religious factions and how are they related

Toto

That particular site is using "the Church" and the Catholic Church as synonyms.

However, this web page is a "traditionalist Catholic" page. The True Church that they are referring to is the 19th century church before the liberalizing reforms of John XXIII's Vatican II. Notice the heading on the list of "errors:

boneyard bill

Soul Invictus asks:

Christianity started as a Messianic cult or, if you favor Doherty's views, as a number of separate Messianic cults. Old Testament passages predicted the arrival of a Messiah. For many Jews that meant a military hero who would free the Jews from Roman rule. But there were some who came to view the Messiah as a personal figure. Someone who would offer personal salvation for the individual rather than freedom of the Jewish people from Roman rule.

Judaism was intertwined with Greek culture before Christianity arose. Philo of Alexandria was the major figure in synthesizing Greek philosophy into Jewish religion. Again, if you accept Doherty's characterization of the claims of the early apologists, Christianity was basically the teaching of Philo with a somewhat more personalized concept of the logos. At a less intellectual level, at the level of the common person, it also seems to bear many affinities with the Greek mystery religions.

The Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church seems to have arisen out the development of the power of the Bishops who were able to claim more and more authority. The emergence of the gospels further served to strenghten the Bishops power through their doctrine of Apostolic Succession.