Cave, William

Cave, William, an eminent English divine, was born at Pickwell, Leicestershire, Dec. 30, 1637. He studied at St. John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated A.B. in 1656; A.M. in 1660. In 1662 he was appointed vicar of Islington, and afterwards he became chaplain in ordinary to Charles II. In 1679 he was made rector of All-Hallows, London; in 1681 he received a canonry at Windsor, and in 1690 became vicar of Isleworth. He died at Windsor, August 4, 1713. His works are:

1. Primitive Christianity (Lond. 1672; and several times reprinted-a French translation, Amsterdam, 1712, 2 vols. 12mo): —

2. Tabulae Ecclesiasticae, or Tables of Ecclesiastical Writers (Lond. 1674; Hamburg, 1676): —

3. Antiquitates Apostolicae, or Lives, Acts, etc., of the Holy Apostles, and Sts. Mark and Luke (Lond. 1676 and 1684, fol.; also, edited by Cary, Oxf. 1840, 8vo): —

4. Apostolici, or the Lives, Acts, etc., of the Contemporaries or immediate Successors of the Apostles, and the most eminent of the Fathers of the first three centuries (Lond. 1677, fol.; also, edited by Cary, Oxf. 1840, 3 vols. 8vo): —

5. A Dissertation concerning the Government of the Ancient Church, by Bishops, Metropolitans, and Patriarchs (Lond. 1683, 8vo): —

6. Ecclesiastici, or Lives, Acts, etc., of the most eminent Fathers of the fourth century (Lond. 1682, fol.): —

7. Chartophylax Ecclesiasticus, an improved edition of the Tabulce Ecclesiasticae (1685, 8vo): —

8. Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Historia Literaria a Christo nato usque ad Sceculum XIV (2 vols. or parts, fol. 1688 and 1698, Lend.; reprinted at Geneva, 1705 and 1720, and at Basle, 1741; best edition that of Oxford, corrected and enlarged by Cave himself, and continued by Wharton (1740 and 1743, 2 vols. fol. The Basle edition was made upon this). Cave was a very credulous writer; destitute of critical talent, he generally took the accounts of ancient writers and Roman Catholics as he found them. Jortin calls him "the whitewasher of the ancients." Yet Dowling is justified in saying that "Cave's writings 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 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. For extent and variety of learning he stands high among the scholars of his time, and he. had taste and feeling to appreciate ancient piety, but he can scarcely claim any other praise." — Herzog, Real- Encyklopädie, Supplem. 1:183; Landon, Ecclesiastes Dictionary, s.v.; Hook, Ecclesiastes Biography, 3:524; Dowling, Introd. to Ecclesiastes Hist. (Lond. 1838); New Genesis Biog. Dict. 6:137.