Contents
| « Joseph Caiphas | Caius (3rd Century) | Caius (3rd Century) » |
Caius (3rd Century)
Caius
A Christian author who lived about the beginning of the third century. Little is known about his personal history. Eusebius mentions him several times and tells us (Hist. Eccl., VI, xx) that he held a disputation with Proclus a Montanist leader at Rome in the time of Pope Zephyrinus (199-217), and calls him a learned man and an ecclesiastic. This latter designation need not imply that he was a priest. Several extracts from the dialogue against Proclus are given by Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., II, xxv; III, xxxi; VI, xx). Caius is also mentioned by Jerome (de Vir. Ill., 59), Theodoret (Haer. Fab., II, iii), and Nicephorus Callistus (Hist. Eccl., IV, xii-xx), all of whom derived their information from Eusebius. Photius (Bibl. Cod., 48) gives some additional data drawn from a marginal note in a manuscript copy of the work on the "Nature of the Universe" in which Caius is said to have been a presbyter of the Roman Church and to have been elected "Bishop of the Gentiles". These indications, resting as they do on a confusion of the Anti-Montanist Caius with Hippolytus, are absolutely valueless. Additional light has been thrown on the character of Caius's dialogue against Proclus by Gwynne's publication of some fragments from the work of Hippolytus "Contra Caium" (Hermathena, VI, p. 397 sq.); from these it seems clear that Caius maintained that the Apocalypse of John was a work of the Gnostic Cerinthus.
We owe to Caius a very valuable evidence of the death of Sts. Peter and Paul at Rome, and the public veneration of their remains at Rome about the year 200. It is taken from the above-mentioned disputation with Proclus, and reads as follows (Euseb., Hist. Eccl., II, 25): "But I can show the trophies of the Apostles. For if you will go to the Vatican or to the Ostian Way you will find the trophies of those who laid the foundations of this church". By "trophies" is of course understood the memorial chapel that preserved in each case the body of the Apostle (cf. Barnes, St. Peter in Rome, London, 1900, p 145).
The fragments of Caius are printed in ROUTH, Reliquiae Sacrae (Oxford, 1846), II, 125-58, and in P.G., X, 25-36. Cf. ZAHN, Geschichte des neutestamentl. Kanons, II, 985-991; HARNACK, Chronologie, II, 206, 223, 226; BARDENHEWER, Geschichte der altchristlichen Litteratur (Freiburg, 1901), I, 525.
PATRICK J. HEALY
| « Joseph Caiphas | Caius (3rd Century) | Caius (3rd Century) » |
| « Caius (3rd Century) | Caius (3rd Century) | Caius and Soter, Saints and Popes » |
Caius (3rd Century)
John Caius
(Also Kay, Key.)
Physician and scholar, born at Norwich, 6 October, 1510; died at London, 29 July, 1573. He entered the University of Cambridge in 1529, received the degree M.A. in 1535, and studied medicine under Montanus and Vesalius at Padua, where he received (1541) the degree of Doctor of Medicine. After a tour through Italy, France, and Germany, during which he met the most eminent scholars of the age, he returned to England in 1544, and for twenty years lectured on anatomy in London. He published "A Boke or Conseille against the Disease commonly called the Sweate or Sweatyng Sicknesse" (London, 1552), which is considered the best account of that epidemic. He also wrote translations of, and commentaries on, the works of Galen and Hippocrates (Basle, 1544). With the means acquired from his mecical practice he refounded (1558) his college (Gonville) at Cambridge, which has since been known as Gonville and Caius College. Under Edward VI he became royal physician, a position which he retained under Elizabeth until he was dismissed (1568) on account of his adherence to the Catholic Faith. He was elected nine times president of the College of Physicians, an account of which--"Annales collegii medicorum 1520-1565"--he left in manuscripts. He was accused of atheism and of keeping secretly a collection of ornaments and vestments for Catholic use. The latter were found and burned in the College court. His last literary production was the history of Cambridge University--"Historia Cantabrigiensis Acadimae" (London, 1574)
MULLINGER, The University of Cambridge (Cambridge, 1884); IDEM in Dict. Nat. Biog., s.v.; CLARK, Cambridge (London, 1908).
E.A. PACE
| « Caius (3rd Century) | Caius (3rd Century) | Caius and Soter, Saints and Popes » |