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Caius (Christian Author)

Caius, writer Christian from the late ^second century and early ^third century , which was probably a priest of the Roman Church. Eusebius places his activity at the time of Pope Zphyrin (199-217). (201-219).

Eusebius mentions four times without giving us the title of his works he refers to it by speaking of his "research", sometimes his "dialogue". This may be one and the same work.

The first quotation of Eusebius is famous and has been written about all the ink it deserves. Caius, struggling with an opponent Montanist , throws him: "For me, I can show the trophies of the apostles. If you want to go to the Vatican or on the road to Ostia, you will find the trophies of those who founded this Church. "This is apparently the earliest explicit mention of the presence of the tombs of Peter and Paul in Rome.
A little later, Montana and Caius Proclus agree to place at Hierapolis of Phrygia the tombs of the apostle Philip and his daughters prophets.

In another passage, Caius controversy with Cerinthus. The heretic is a chiliast who believes in the advent of an earthly reign of Christ in Jerusalem and he imagines, very materialistic, like a thousand years of "Wedding Day". Cerinthus have pulled it out "revelations as written by a great apostle." This is clearly the Apocalypse of John. But Caius does not believe in these "stories of wonderful things that would have been portrayed by the angels." He believes that the Apocalypse is the work of Cerinthus. Dionysius of Alexandria confirms these data.

The Apocalypse is also not the only Caius wrote that, unlike other Christians, rejects. Eusebius tells us that he did not recognize either the Epistle to the Hebrews, adding that "so far even among some Romans, we do not think it is the apostle."

On this basis fragile Muratori, in the eighteenth century, attributed to her list of canonical writings he had discovered. No longer assigned either, as Bauer and Fessler ^nineteenth century , the Philosophumena Hippolyte.

Hippolytus of Rome (who was his contemporary) has left some traces of a Syriac work against Caius. It is mentioned in the catalog of bedjsus as chapters ( ), indicating perhaps that the work was only partially preserved. An author of the ^twelfth century , Dionysius Bar Salibi , quotes a few fragments. These are several passages in the Apocalypse that Caius rejected as incompatible with Scripture and defends Hippolytus producing biblical parallels.

Caius is also mentioned by Jerome , by Theodoret and by Nicephorus Callistus , but they all depend upon Eusebio. Photius cites a "Dialogue against Proclus" than others, "he said, attributed to Justin Martyr.

Bibliography

The fragments are stored in:

Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, II, 25 - III 28 - III, 31 - VI, 20;

Photius, Library, cd 48;

Achelis, Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller, Leipzig, 1897, I / 2, pp. 239-247, gives the German translation of the Syriac fragments of Hippolytus;