After determining that the biblical case for Catholicism was at least as favorable as any other, I turned to the case from history by consulting with the early church fathers. At first this case was one I totally ignored. I did not see any reason to consult them because they certainly did not supersede Scripture. I knew even Catholics believed that. In the discussion on infant baptism I saw many citations of the early fathers used to show that the Church in early centuries did in fact practice baptism of infants. It was an interesting piece of information but I figured that surely one doctrine could have been corrupted in a high percentage of churches and it just caught on.

The basic path prior to this point was
1. Sola scriptura fails its own test as it is not clearly discernable from Scripture alone, nor does it explain how the Canon itself must have been determined -- external to Scripture.
2. If this is the case, then Christianity itself rests on someone having the authority to decide what scripture IS.
3. The historical case for most other Churches is lacking.

It was this final point that was the most compelling to me. From the introduction to EarlyChurchFathers.com

Most of these theories refer to small churches that remained persecuted, hidden or unseen throughout the course of documented Church history. However, the lack of documentation on these small churches would seem to be indicative of their actual lack of existence.

Another theory -- the idea that the Church went wrong around the time of Luther or went past the point of maintaining its place as "The Church" at exactly the point of the Reformation is suspect because the majority of teachings that the Reformers had problems could easily be shown to have been taught by the Church since the earliest times. The Church would have gone off the mainline Protestant path VERY early. This brings us the rapid apostasy theory. This is immediately called into question by Matthew 16:18 which indicates that the "gates of hell will not prevail". If they had prevailed then Christ was a liar or Scripture is not inerrant on an important matter of faith. Finally the theories about the Church, being the historical "winner" in matters of faith, and thus having covered up documentation and artifacts of the genuine Church prove to be almost astronomically unlikely. Some physical evidence would have remained long enough for someone to find it. Also, given the number of heresies that were documented, it seems unlikely that some would have been left out. Churches attempting to trace their lineage through these known heresies demonstrate significant ignorance of the teachings of those groups because while they may have had a single belief or two in common with a particular church, their core teachings were often in conflict with core Christian beliefs that all Protestants, Orthodox and Catholics take for granted today. The absence of useful evidence to the contrary of the apostolic churches being THE historic Christian Church is compelling.

Furthermore, the PRESENCE of the evidence for the core beliefs of the Catholic and Orthodox churches in contrast to those of your typical Protestant denomination is overwhelming -- even from the earliest times.

As I mentioned earlier, I never looked at the early fathers in my review of the biblical case. I didn't see the point. What started me looking at this was knowing that I kept hearing a few wild dates about when Catholics "invented" certain doctrines and nothing irritated me more than quick one liners with virtually no factual support. Infant baptism was claimed to have been invented anywhere from the 4th century on. Transubstantiation or even the Real Presence was in the 13th century and on and on. I knew these were bogus from the little reading I had done from the early fathers. My goal was to present a quick list that could be used at least to counter those common claims. The chart would show the doctrine and the earliest known instance of the doctrine being demonstrated or taught. In some cases, the documentation falls outside of simply the documented early fathers. For example, evidence for a post death cleansing (what Catholics call purgatory) is implied and documented by prayers for the dead which can be found in the catacombs in Rome, as well as in documents we have from the early Church. Judaism also historically contains a doctrine similar to purgatory and thus also has prayers for the dead.

The effort of collecting this evidence across the web resulted in many late nights creating files containing these quotes and keeping track of links where they could be read, preferably in context, as to allow the reader to come to his own conclusions given the information. The result is what is now EarlyChurchFathers.com.

At this point the question of why Catholicism over Orthodoxy often arises. To me the matter was settled over two points. I find it difficult to reconcile the seemingly clear eastern affirmation for the place of Rome as the primary see with their separation from Rome. This is best demonstrated by Ellliot Bougis' blog post in November of 2004, which I read after my conversion, titled And you can quote me! The second point is summarized by looking at the major sees in the early church and noting which ones taught which heresy at which time. Rome never taught one of the early major heresies like Arianism, Nestorianism, Monophysitism etc. This is excellently documented in "Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic" by David Currie. The same chart is also documented online at Heresies of the Patriarchs.

In conclusion, I can only leave one with the best, most often cited statement about this evidence that exists and it is from John Henry Cardinal Newman:

And this one thing at least is certain; whatever history teaches, whatever it omits, whatever it exaggerates or extenuates, whatever it says and unsays, at least the Christianity of history is not Protestantism. If ever there were a safe truth, it is this.

And Protestantism has ever felt it so. I do not mean that every writer on the Protestant side has felt it; for it was the fashion at first, at least as a rhetorical argument against Rome, to appeal to past ages, or to some of them; but Protestantism, as a whole, feels it, and has felt it. This is shown in the determination already referred to of dispensing with historical Christianity altogether, and of forming a Christianity from the Bible alone: men never would have put it aside, unless they had despaired of it. It is shown by the long neglect of ecclesiastical history in England, which prevails even in the English Church. {8} Our popular religion scarcely recognizes the fact of the twelve long ages which lie between the Councils of Nicæa and Trent, except as affording one or two passages to illustrate its wild interpretations of certain prophesies of St. Paul and St. John. It is melancholy to say it, but the chief, perhaps the only English writer who has any claim to be considered an ecclesiastical historian, is the unbeliever Gibbon. To be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant.

--An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine by John Henry Cardinal Newman