William Cave
Encyclopedia
William Cave was an English divine and patristic
scholar.
, Leicestershire
, of which parish his father, John Cave was vicar
. He was educated at Oakham School
and St. John's College
, Cambridge
. He took his B.A. degree in 1656, his M.A. in 1660, his D.D.
in 1672, and in 1681 he was incorporated D.D.
at Oxford
. He was vicar
of St Mary's, Islington
(1662-91), rector of All-Hallows the Great, Upper Thames Street, London
(1679-89), and in 1690 became vicar
of Isleworth
in Middlesex
, at that time a quiet place which suited his studious temper. Cave was also chaplain
to Charles II
, and in 1684 became a canon
of Windsor
, where he died. He was buried at St Mary's, Islington
, near his wife and children.
material, culled from a wide variety of sources, much of which is not readily available elsewhere.
During the course of his work he was drawn into controversy with Jean Le Clerc (1657-1736)
, who was then writing his Bibliothèque universelle et historique. Cave published a dissertation De Eusebii Caesariensis Arianismo adversus Johannem Clericum, criticizing Le Clerc's treatment of Eusebius
as an Arian
, as the last of three dissertations appended to the second part of his Historia Literaria (London 1698). Le Clerc replied in a work entitled Epistolae Criticae et Ecclesiasticae, which formed the third volume of the second edition of his Ars Critica (Amsterdam, 1700); reprinted (Leiden, 1778). Le Clerc said, that Cave, in his Historia Literaria, had concealed many things about the fathers, for the sake of enhancing their credit, which an impartial historian should have related; and that, instead of lives of the fathers, he often wrote panegyrics upon them. Cave responded the same year with his Epistola Apologetica (London, 1700). This was reprinted at the end of the second volume of the Historia Literaria, in the edition published at Oxford in 1743.
Cave is said to have been "of a learned and communicative conversation;" he is also reported to have been "a florid and eloquent preacher," and the printed sermons he has left behind bear out this character.
Patristics
Patristics or Patrology is the study of Early Christian writers, known as the Church Fathers. The names derive from the Latin pater . The period is generally considered to run from the end of New Testament times or end of the Apostolic Age Patristics or Patrology is the study of Early Christian...
scholar.
Life
Cave was born at PickwellPickwell
thumb|left|Pickwell parish churchPickwell is a small village 5 miles south-east of Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire.The parish church is All Saints and its tower was built in the 15th century with earlier features dating from the 13th century....
, Leicestershire
Leicestershire
Leicestershire is a landlocked county in the English Midlands. It takes its name from the heavily populated City of Leicester, traditionally its administrative centre, although the City of Leicester unitary authority is today administered separately from the rest of Leicestershire...
, of which parish his father, John Cave was vicar
Vicar (Anglicanism)
Vicar is the title given to certain parish priests in the Church of England. It has played a significant role in Anglican Church organisation in ways that are different from other Christian denominations. The title is very old and arises from the medieval situation where priests were appointed...
. He was educated at Oakham School
Oakham School
Oakham School is a British co-educational independent school in the historic market town of Oakham in Rutland, accepting around 1,000 pupils, aged from 10 to 18, both male and female, as boarders and day pupils . The Good Schools Guide called the school "a privileged but unpretentious and...
and St. John's College
St John's College, Cambridge
St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college's alumni include nine Nobel Prize winners, six Prime Ministers, three archbishops, at least two princes, and three Saints....
, Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
. He took his B.A. degree in 1656, his M.A. in 1660, his D.D.
Doctor of Divinity
Doctor of Divinity is an advanced academic degree in divinity. Historically, it identified one who had been licensed by a university to teach Christian theology or related religious subjects....
in 1672, and in 1681 he was incorporated D.D.
Doctor of Divinity
Doctor of Divinity is an advanced academic degree in divinity. Historically, it identified one who had been licensed by a university to teach Christian theology or related religious subjects....
at Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
. He was vicar
Vicar (Anglicanism)
Vicar is the title given to certain parish priests in the Church of England. It has played a significant role in Anglican Church organisation in ways that are different from other Christian denominations. The title is very old and arises from the medieval situation where priests were appointed...
of St Mary's, Islington
St Mary's Church, Islington
The Church of St Mary the Virgin is the historic parish church of Islington, in the Church of England Diocese of London. The present parish is a compact area centered on Upper Street between Angel and Highbury Corner, bounded to the west by Liverpool Road, and to the east by Essex Road/Canonbury...
(1662-91), rector of All-Hallows the Great, Upper Thames Street, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
(1679-89), and in 1690 became vicar
Vicar (Anglicanism)
Vicar is the title given to certain parish priests in the Church of England. It has played a significant role in Anglican Church organisation in ways that are different from other Christian denominations. The title is very old and arises from the medieval situation where priests were appointed...
of Isleworth
Isleworth
Isleworth is a small town of Saxon origin sited within the London Borough of Hounslow in west London, England. It lies immediately east of the town of Hounslow and west of the River Thames and its tributary the River Crane. Isleworth's original area of settlement, alongside the Thames, is known as...
in Middlesex
Middlesex
Middlesex is one of the historic counties of England and the second smallest by area. The low-lying county contained the wealthy and politically independent City of London on its southern boundary and was dominated by it from a very early time...
, at that time a quiet place which suited his studious temper. Cave was also chaplain
Chaplain
Traditionally, a chaplain is a minister in a specialized setting such as a priest, pastor, rabbi, or imam or lay representative of a religion attached to a secular institution such as a hospital, prison, military unit, police department, university, or private chapel...
to Charles II
Charles II of England
Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...
, and in 1684 became a canon
Dean and Canons of Windsor
The Dean and Canons of Windsor are the ecclesiastical body of St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle.-Foundation:The college of Canons was established in 1348 by Letters Patent of King Edward III. The college was formally constituted on the Feast of St...
of Windsor
St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle
St George's Chapel is the place of worship at Windsor Castle in England, United Kingdom. It is both a royal peculiar and the chapel of the Order of the Garter...
, where he died. He was buried at St Mary's, Islington
St Mary's Church, Islington
The Church of St Mary the Virgin is the historic parish church of Islington, in the Church of England Diocese of London. The present parish is a compact area centered on Upper Street between Angel and Highbury Corner, bounded to the west by Liverpool Road, and to the east by Essex Road/Canonbury...
, near his wife and children.
Works
The merits of Cave as a writer consist in the thoroughness of his research, the clearness of his style, and, above all, the admirably lucid method of his arrangement. The two works on which his reputation principally rests are the Apostolici; or, The History of the Lives, Acts, Death and Martyrdoms of those who were contemporary with, or immediately succeeded the Apostles (1677), and Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Historia Literaria (1688). Dowling says that the works of Cave "rank undoubtedly among those which have affected the progress of Church-history. His smaller works greatly tended to extend an acquaintance with Christian Antiquity; his Lives of the Apostles and Primitive Fathers, which may be regarded as an Ecclesiastical history of the first four centuries, is to this very day [i.e. 1838] the most learned work of the kind which has been written in our own language; and his Historia Literaria is still the best and most convenient complete work on the literary history of the Church." Though he is sometimes criticized for not being critical with his sources, that failing means that many of his works, particulary Antiquitates Apostolicae and Apostolici contain a wealth of legendaryLegendary material in Christian hagiography
While from its early days Christian hagiography recognized some distinction between the mythical and the historical in the lives of saints and martyrs, the more precise conception of legendary material in hagiography belongs to the religious practice of the Middle Ages.From the early modern period...
material, culled from a wide variety of sources, much of which is not readily available elsewhere.
Jean Leclerc (theologian)
Jean Le Clerc, also Johannes Clericus was a Swiss theologian and biblical scholar. He was famous for promoting exegesis, or critical interpretation of the Bible, and was a radical of his age...
, who was then writing his Bibliothèque universelle et historique. Cave published a dissertation De Eusebii Caesariensis Arianismo adversus Johannem Clericum, criticizing Le Clerc's treatment of Eusebius
Eusebius of Caesarea
Eusebius of Caesarea also called Eusebius Pamphili, was a Roman historian, exegete and Christian polemicist. He became the Bishop of Caesarea in Palestine about the year 314. Together with Pamphilus, he was a scholar of the Biblical canon...
as an Arian
Arianism
Arianism is the theological teaching attributed to Arius , a Christian presbyter from Alexandria, Egypt, concerning the relationship of the entities of the Trinity and the precise nature of the Son of God as being a subordinate entity to God the Father...
, as the last of three dissertations appended to the second part of his Historia Literaria (London 1698). Le Clerc replied in a work entitled Epistolae Criticae et Ecclesiasticae, which formed the third volume of the second edition of his Ars Critica (Amsterdam, 1700); reprinted (Leiden, 1778). Le Clerc said, that Cave, in his Historia Literaria, had concealed many things about the fathers, for the sake of enhancing their credit, which an impartial historian should have related; and that, instead of lives of the fathers, he often wrote panegyrics upon them. Cave responded the same year with his Epistola Apologetica (London, 1700). This was reprinted at the end of the second volume of the Historia Literaria, in the edition published at Oxford in 1743.
Cave is said to have been "of a learned and communicative conversation;" he is also reported to have been "a florid and eloquent preacher," and the printed sermons he has left behind bear out this character.
- Primitive Christianity: or, the Religion of the ancient Christians in the first Ages of the Gospel, 2 volumes, 1672. It was dedicated to Nathaniel Crewe, lord bishop of Oxford. Reprinted many times: Vol. 1 (London, 1839) and Vol. 2 (London, 1839).
- Tabulae Ecclesiasticae [Tables of Ecclesiastical Writers], 1674
- Antiquitates Apostolicae: or, The History of the Lives, Acts, and Martyrdoms of the Holy Apostles of our Saviour and the two Evangelists, St. Mark and St. Luke, 1675. Originally published as the second part of Jeremy TaylorJeremy TaylorJeremy Taylor was a clergyman in the Church of England who achieved fame as an author during the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell. He is sometimes known as the "Shakespeare of Divines" for his poetic style of expression and was often presented as a model of prose writing...
’s Antiquitates christianae. Reprinted many times: Vo1. 1 (London, 1834) and Vol. 2 (London, 1834). - Apostolici: or, the history of the lives, acts, death and martyrdoms of those who were contemporary with, or immediately succeeded the apostles. As also the most eminent of the primitive fathers for the first three hundred years, 1677; 2nd ed. (London, 1682). Reprinted in later years as Lives of the most eminent Fathers of the Church that flourished in the first four centuries, Vol. 1 (Oxford, 1840),
- A Dissertation concerning the Government of the Ancient Church by Bishops, Metropolitans and Patriarchs 1683
- Ecclesiastici: or, the History of the lives, acts, death and writings of the most eminent Fathers of the Church, 1683. Reprinted in later years as Lives of the most eminent Fathers of the Church that flourished in the first four centuries, Vol. 2 (Oxford, 1840) and Vol. 3 (Oxford, 1840).
- Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Historia Literaria a Christo nato usque ad saeculum XIV, a literary history of ecclesiastical writers, in two parts, the first part published (London, 1688), the second (London, 1698). Reprinted several times. The edition that appeared in (Geneva, 1705), was printed without the author's knowledge, reprinted (Geneva, 1720). This 1705 printing is said to have caused the author great loss, and to have so disgusted him that he would not issue a second edition; but he spent much time during the later years of his life in revising repeatedly this great work. He made alterations and additions equal to one-third of the whole work, and wrote new prolegomena. It was finally printed in two folio volumes, with some additional matter from Henry WhartonHenry WhartonHenry Wharton was an English writer and librarian.-Life:He was descended from Thomas, 2nd Baron Wharton , being a son of the Rev. Edmund Wharton, vicar of Worstead, Norfolk. Born at Worstead, Wharton was educated by his father, and then at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge...
, edited by Daniel WaterlandDaniel WaterlandDaniel Cosgrove Waterland was an English theologian.Daniel Waterland was born at Walesby Rectory, Lincolnshire, England, and educated in Lincoln and at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he graduated BA in 1703 and MA in 1706...
, the first (Oxford, 1740), the second (Oxford, 1743). It is regarded by all as being the best edition. - Sermons: A Sermon before the King at Whitehall, 23 Jan. 1675 (London, 1676); A Sermon before the Lord Mayor at St. Mary-le-Bow, 5 Nov. 1680 (London, 1680); A Sermon before the King at Whitehall, 18 Jan. 1684 (London, 1685).