De sancto Caio Romano pontifice notitia historica

ON SAINT CAIUS, ROMAN PONTIFF

AN HISTORICAL NOTICE.

The pontificate and death of Pope Caius. — Saint Caius, who the Pontifical of Damasus records was a Dalmatian by nation, of the family of Diocletian, born of a father Caius, was, as Coustant holds, whom the authors of L'Art de vérifier les dates follow, put in the place of Eutychian in the year of the Lord 18[…] [so printed, the last figure broken, perhaps for 283], on the 17th day of December, a Monday. He was a man of great prudence and great virtue, as it stands in the Acts of St Sebastian. By him is said to have been confirmed the ancient institution of the Church, that clerics, giving proof of themselves through the seven grades of orders, should advance to the episcopate. What else he did while acting as pontiff through twelve years, four months and five days lies hidden, buried in the darkness of antiquity; he ceased to live on the tenth day before the Kalends of May, Diocletian being consul for the sixth time and Constantius Caesar for the second, as is read in the Bucherian catalogue; of which the little index of depositions also adds: "On the tenth day before the Kalends of May, of Caius in [the cemetery] of Callistus." For the rest, if credence is to be given to the catalogues of the Roman pontiffs: "Caius, fleeing the persecution of Diocletian, dwelling in the crypts, as a confessor

rested." Yet his memory is recorded among the martyrs in some martyrologies. Nor is this surprising, since those too were sometimes adorned with that title who, though striving for the faith of Christ, had not exchanged life for death, yet, having endured persecutions, mockeries and labours for godliness while they lived, had rested in peace: which, it cannot be doubted, befell the pontiff Caius, who held the pontificate under the emperors Diocletian and Maximian. Less accurate still is the Chronology of Eusebius, when it says that he occupied the Roman see for about fifteen years and almost up to his own times; whereas it is established that he scarcely reached the thirteenth year.

The spurious Decretal of Caius. — Isidore ascribed to Caius, Roman pontiff, a single decretal, given to Bishop Felix, comprising six chapters. The first, that pagans and heretics cannot accuse Christians. The second, that a bishop is not to be accused before secular judges. The third, on a bishop, priest and deacon, or the other clerics, who are to be accused before bishops. The fourth, on those who deny the incarnation of the Word of God. The fifth, that the hope of eternal life cannot be attained except through the mediator of God and men, Jesus Christ. The sixth, on the ecclesiastical orders.

It is dated on the Kalends of March, Diocletian for the sixth time and Constantius for the second time, most illustrious men, being consuls. This subscription alone betrays the fraud. But the impostor's imprudence vies with his depravity, inasmuch as he made his own an entire chapter of Leo the Great, which is the second in Epistle 97, and carried it over in as many words into the Decretal. If Caius had lent these things to Leo the Great, in the

testimonies of which the Letter to Leo Augustus consists, Pope Leo would without doubt have numbered these among them. For much more ought he to have mentioned Caius, being both his predecessor and more ancient, than Athanasius, Ambrose, Augustine, whose authority he employs for subduing the heretics. Lumper.