That Catholicity is a prominent note of the Church is evident from the Apostles' Creed, which says: "I believe in the Holy _Catholic_ Church." The word _Catholic_, or Universal, signifies that the true Church is not circumscribed in its extent, like human empires, nor confined to one race of people, like the Jewish Church, but that she is diffused over every nation of the globe, and counts her children among all tribes and peoples and tongues of the earth.
This glorious Church is foreshadowed by the Psalmist, when he sings: "All the ends of the earth shall be converted to the Lord, and all the kindreds of the Gentiles shall adore in His sight; for the kingdom is the Lord's, and He shall have dominion over the nations."(56) The Prophet Malachy saw in the distant future this world-wide Church, when he wrote: "From the rising of the sun, to the going down, My name is great among the Gentiles; and in _every place_ there is sacrifice, and there is offered to My name a clean oblation; for My name is great among the Gentiles, saith the Lord of Hosts."(57)
When our Savior gave commission to his Apostles He assigned to them the whole world as the theatre of their labors, and the entire human race, without regard to language, color, or nationality, as the audience to whom they were to preach. Unlike the religion of the Jewish people, which was national, or that of the Mohammedans, which is local, the Catholic religion was to be cosmopolitan, embracing all nations and all countries. This is evident from the following passages: "Go ye, therefore, and teach _all nations_."(58) "Go ye into the _whole world_, and preach the Gospel to every creature."(59) "Ye shall be witnesses unto Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even _to the uttermost part of the earth_."(60)
These prophecies declaring that the Church was to be world-wide and to embrace even the Gentile nations may not strike us today as especially remarkable, accustomed as we are now to meet with Christian civilization everywhere, and to see the nations of the world bound so closely together by social and commercial relations. But we must remember that when they were uttered the true God was known and adored only in an obscure, almost isolated, corner of the earth, while triumphant idolatry was the otherwise universal religion of the world.