What Christian church came before the Catholic Church?

Answer 1

The very early days of Christianity apparently saw considerable diversity within the Christian community, as evidenced by the comments of authors such as Paul and Matthew. Some of the early Christian sects include:

• Ebionites (""the Poor Ones"), an early Jewish Christian sect that lived in and around Judea from the 1st to the 4th century;
• Nazarenes, an early Jewish Christian sect similar to the Ebionites, but they also accepted the virgin birth and divinity of Jesus.
• Nazoraeans, a first century offshoot of the Nazarenes, according to Epiphanius.
• Cerinthians, who followed the Jewish law, denied that the Supreme God had made the physical world, and denied the divinity of Jesus.
• Carpocratians, an early Gnostic sect founded in the first half of the second century.
• Some would say that Pauline Christianity, with its distinctive theology, was a separate sect. Its followers were probably absorbed into the proto-Catholic-Orthodox sect early in the second century.
• The proto-Catholic-Orthodox sect is believed to have coexisted with the above sects from the earliest times.
  

The Marcionites branched from the sect known by scholars today as proto-Catholic-Orthodox in the middle of the second century. The Catholic-Orthodox Church is regarded by some as the outcome of the fourth century changes to Christianity, Prior to this, Christianity was divided into perhaps roughly equal proportions of proto-Catholic-Orthodox and Gnostic followers. However, Gnosticism was unable to survive the persecution that followed the establishment of Catholic-Orthodox Christianity as the state religion. In the Great Schism of 1054, the then universal Catholic-Orthodox Church split into the Roman Catholic and Orthodox branches.

Answer 2

The Catholic Church claims to be a continuation of the original church. It does not admit to have begun any other time or place.