– 15 November 1624, Nagasaki, Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

) is the 128th of the 205 Roman Catholic

Roman Catholic Church

The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

 Martyrs of Japan

Martyrs of Japan

The refers to a group of Christians who were executed by crucifixion on February 5, 1597 at Nagasaki. Their martyrdom is especially significant in the history of Roman Catholicism in Japan....

 beatified by Pope Pius IX

Pope Pius IX

Blessed Pope Pius IX , born Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti, was the longest-reigning elected Pope in the history of the Catholic Church, serving from 16 June 1846 until his death, a period of nearly 32 years. During his pontificate, he convened the First Vatican Council in 1869, which decreed papal...

 on 7 July 1867, after he had canonized the Twenty-six Martyrs of Japan five years before on 8 June 1862.

The 19th century French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 Catholic missionary Claude-Charles Dallet

Claude-Charles Dallet

Claude-Charles Dallet was a Catholic missionary who is best known for his work, The History of the Church of Korea ....

 wrote of him in his A history of the church in Korea, "His history proves, in a dazzling way, that God would rather make a miracle than abandon an infidel who follows the lights of his conscience, and seeks the truth with an upright and docile heart."

Biography

Caius was born in Korea and was given to a Buddhist monastery

Buddhism

Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...

 by his parents. He left the monastery because he could not find the peace that he wanted there and went to a mountain to live as a hermit

Hermit

A hermit is a person who lives, to some degree, in seclusion from society.In Christianity, the term was originally applied to a Christian who lives the eremitic life out of a religious conviction, namely the Desert Theology of the Old Testament .In the...

. According to Dallet, "He withdrew into solitude to meditate with more ease on this happiness which he sought. He had as a dwelling only a cave, which he shared with a tiger, which occupied it before him. This wild animal respected its guest; it even yielded the cave to him some time after, and withdrew elsewhere."

Caius only ate what was necessary to preserve his life, abstaining from anything that was not absoultely necessary to live. One night, while in meditation, a man of "majestic aspect" appeared to him, and said to him,

"Take courage; within one year you will traverse the sea, and, after much work and fatigue, you will obtain the object of your desire."

In 1592, Japan invaded Korea, and Caius was made a prisoner. On the journey to Japan, they were shipwrecked at Tsushima Island

Tsushima Island

Tsushima Island is an island of the Japanese Archipelago situated in the middle of the Tsushima Strait at 34°25'N and 129°20'E. The main island of Tsushima was once a single island, but the island was divided into two in 1671 by the Ōfunakosiseto canal and into three in 1900 by the Manzekiseto canal...

, and Caius, near death, was taken to Kyoto

Kyoto

is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...

. A Christian named Caius Foyn, the father of his mistress, nursed him back to health.

Allured by the life of the Buddhist monks, he felt that he had found what he had been seeking for many years, and went to live in one of the most famous pagoda

Pagoda

A pagoda is the general term in the English language for a tiered tower with multiple eaves common in Nepal, India, China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam and other parts of Asia. Some pagodas are used as Taoist houses of worship. Most pagodas were built to have a religious function, most commonly Buddhist,...

s in Kyoto

Kyoto

is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...

. Again he felt that he could not find the peace that he wanted there, and he became ill. During his illness, he had a dream in which he saw the pagoda on fire. Then a "child of a charming beauty" appeared to him in his dream, comforting him saying,

"Fear no more, you are close to obtaining the happiness you desire."

He found himself cured after the dream. In The Victories of the Martyrs by St. Alphonsus de Liguori, it is said that "One day during sleep it seemed to him that the house was on fire: a little while afterwards a young child of ravishing beauty appeared to him, and announced to him that he would soon meet what he desired; at the same time he felt himself quite well, though he had been sick. Despairing of seeing among the bonzes the light for which he was longing, he resolved to leave them."

Caius then left the temple and went back to his master, who introduced him to a Christian, who in turn introduced him to some Jesuit

Society of Jesus

The Society of Jesus is a Catholic male religious order that follows the teachings of the Catholic Church. The members are called Jesuits, and are also known colloquially as "God's Army" and as "The Company," these being references to founder Ignatius of Loyola's military background and a...

 priest

Priest

A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...

s. He converted to Catholicism

Catholicism

Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....

 and was baptised

Baptism

In Christianity, baptism is for the majority the rite of admission , almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally and also membership of a particular church tradition...

 immediately. While he was instructed, one of the priests showed him a tableau representing Jesus Christ, at which Caius is said to have exclaimed,

"Oh! Voila! Here is who appeared to me in my cave, and who foretold all that happened to me."

Caius served the sick, especially lepers. In 1614, he went to the Philippines

Philippines

The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

 in order to work as a servant to the Dom Justo Takayama

Dom Justo Takayama

Dom Justo Takayama was a kirishitan daimyo and a Japanese Samurai who followed Christianity in the Sengoku period of Japan...

 a samurai who had been exiled for his Catholic faith. After Justo died, Caius went back to Japan, and resumed his duties as a catechist

Catechism

A catechism , i.e. to indoctrinate) is a summary or exposition of doctrine, traditionally used in Christian religious teaching from New Testament times to the present...

. He helped the missionaries by preaching in his native language

Korean language

Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...

 to the Koreans who had been taken to Japan after the Japanese invasion of Korea, as well as to the Japanese.

On 15 November 1624, Caius was burned at the stake with James Coici, a Japanese Catholic, after he was arrested for harbouring missionaries.

Further reading

External links

• Beato Caio di Corea (Italian)