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And of course you'll gladly point us to this "documented history," yes?

Well, I know I'm probably not going to convince anyone by a few snips of books. You can agree with these quotes or not, that's not my purpose in providing them, and no I don't agree with everything I read. I hope to show there are historical challenges, books and other documents, to the stated design the Roman Catholic organization has on it's own version of church history. I have other sources and will provide them - just send me an email, but I think I've taken enough of this thread as it is.

Please forgive any typos.

"In the New Testament sense of the church there can be no such an organization as a National or General Church, covering a large district of a country, composed of a number o flocal organizations. The Church, in the Scriptural sense, is always an independent, local organization. Sister churches were united only by the ties of faith and charity. Independence and equality formed the basis of their internal constitution".

Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, I. 554. Boston, 1854.

"Such was the mild and equal constitution by which the Christians were governed for more than a hundred years after the death of the apostles. Every society formed within itself a separate and independent republic; and although the most distant of these little states maintained a mutual, as well as friendly, intercourse of letters and deputations, the Christian world was not yet connected by any supreme or legislative assembly."

Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, I. 558. Boston, 1854.

"According to the strict rules of the church derived from those early times, there are but two orders, presbyters and deacons."

Stanley, Christian Institutions, 210.

"To speak properly, the church of Christ is a congregation of the members of Christ; that is, of the saints, which do truly believe and rightly obey Christ."

from The Augsburg Congession of Faith of the Lutheran Church.

"Every candid historian will admit that the baptists have, both philologically and historically, the better of the argument, as to the prevailing mode of baptism. The word baptize means immersion, both in classical and Biblical Greek, except where it is manifestly used in a tropical sense."

Dosker, The Dutch Anabaptists, 176, Philadelphia, 1921

"For no church ever gave the communion to any persons before they were baptised. . . Since among all of the absurdities that ever were held, none ever maintained that any person should parkate of the communion before he was baptized."

William Wall, The History of Infant Baptism, I. 632, 638. Oxford, 1862.

"The practice of infant-baptism in the apostolic and post-apostolic age cannot be proved. We hear indeed frequently of the baptism of entire households, as in Acts 15:32f; 18:8, I Cor. 1:16. But the last passage taken, I Cor. 7:14 is not favorable to the supposition that infant baptism was customary at that time. For then Paul could not have written, "else were your children unclean."

The Real Encyclopedia for Protestant Theology and Church, XIX. 403. 3d edition.

"Baptism presupposed some Christian instruction, and was preceded by fasting. It signified the forgiveness of past sins, and was the visible point of departure of the new life under Christian influences and with the inspiration of Christian purposes and aims. Here it was the seal which it concerned a man to keep inviolate."

Rainy, Ancient Catholic Church, 75

Gregory the Great (AD 590-604) was, "...the first of the proper popes" and with him begins, "the development of the absolute papacy."

Schaff, History of the Christian Church, I. 15

The earliest clear evidence of infant baptism is found in Tertullian who opposed it (AD 185). The first direct evidence in favor of it is found in the writings of Cyprian, inthe Council of Carthage, in Africa, AD 253. In writing to one Fidus, Cyprian takes the ground that infants should be baptised as soon as they are born (Epistle of Cyprian, LVIII 2). The early councils of the church were all against infant baptism. The Council of Elvira or Grenada, AD 305 required the delay of baptism for two years (Hefele, History of the Councils, I. 155. Edinburgh, 1871). The Council of Laodicaea held AD 360, demanded that those who are to be baptised must learn the creed by heart and recite it (Hefele, II 319).