Antoine de Lamothe, Sieur de Cadillac
Tommaso de Vio Gaetani Cajetan
Diocese of Calahorra and La Calzada
Polidoro (da Caravaggio) Caldara
Vicariate Apostolic of Lower California
Congregation of Our Lady of Calvary
Jeanne-Louise-Henriette Campan
Jean-Pierre Camus de Pont-Carré
Vicariate Apostolic of Canelos and Macas
Canons Regular of the Immaculate Conception
Baptiste-Honoré-Raymond Capefigue
Episcopal and Pontifical Capitulations
Apostolic Prefecture of Caquetá
Diocese of Carcassonne (Carcassum)
Bartolommeo and Vincenzo Carducci
Caroline Books (Libri Carolini)
Diocese of Casale Monferrato (Casalensis)
Vicariate Apostolic of Casanare
Diocese of Castellammare di Stabia
Diocese of Castellaneta (Castania)
Count Carlo Ottavio Castiglione
Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione
Francesco Castracane degli Antelminelli
Archdiocese of Catania (Catanensis)
Catholic University of America
German Roman Catholic Central Verein of North America
Archdiocese of Chambéry (Camberium)
Vicariate Apostolic of Changanacherry
Character (in Catholic Theology)
Civil Law Concerning Charitable Bequests
Congregation of the Brothers of Charity
François-René de Chateaubriand
Timoléon Cheminais de Montaigu
Maria Luigi Carlo Zenobio Salvatore Cherubini
Ancient Diocese of Chester (Cestrensis)
Jean-Louis Lefebvre de Cheverus
Ancient Catholic Diocese of Chichester (Cicestrensis)
Children of Mary of the Sacred Heart
Domingo (San Anton y Muñon) Chimalpain
Etienne-François, Duc de Choiseul
Gilbert Choiseul du Plessis-Praslin
Order of the Knights of Christ
Confraternity of Christian Doctrine
Brothers of Christian Instruction
Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge
Congregation of Christian Retreat
Giovanni Battista Cima da Conegliano
Prefecture Apostolic of Cimbebasia (Upper)
Diocese of Cività Castellana, Orte, and Gallese
Diocese of Civitavecchia and Corneto
Mathieu-Nicolas Poillevillain de Clémanges
Clerks Regular of the Mother of God of Lucca
Abbey and School of Clonmacnoise
Pierre-Suzanne-Augustin Cochin
Diocese of Colle di Val d'Elsa
Diocese of Concordia (Concordia Veneta)
Diocese of Concordia (Corcondiensis in America)
Congo Independent State and Congo Missions
Diocese of Constantine (Cirta)
Philippe du Contant de la Molette
Convent Schools (Great Britain)
Order of Friars Minor Conventuals
Convocation of the English Clergy
Vicariate Apostolic of Cooktown
François Edouard Joachim Coppée
Diocese of Cordova (Cordubensis)
Diocese of Cordova (Cordubensis in America)
Elena Lucrezia Piscopia Cornaro
Michel Corneille (the Younger)
Charles-Edmond-Henride Coussemaker
Brothers of the Cross of Jesus
Diocese of Cuenca (Conca in Indiis)
Vicariate Apostolic of Curaçao
The Cynic School, founded at Athens about 400 B.C., continued in existence until about 200 B.C. It sprang from the ethical doctrine of Socrates regarding the necessity of moderation and self-denial. With this ethical element it combined the dialectical and rhetorical methods of the Eleatics and the Sophists. Both these influences, however, it perverted from their primitive uses; the Socratic ethics was interpreted by the Cynics into a coarse and even vulgar depreciation of knowledge, refinement, and the common decencies, while the methods of the Eleatics and the Sophists became in the hands of the Cynics an instrument of contention (Eristic Method) rather than a means of attaining truth. The Cynic contempt for the refinements and conventions of polite society is generally given as the reason for the name dogs (kúnes) by which the first representatives of the school were known. According to some authorities, however, the name Cynic arose from the fact that the first representatives of the school were accustomed to meet in the gymnasium of Cynosarges.
The founder of the school was Antisthenes, an Athenian who was born about 436 B.C., and was a pupil of Socrates. The best known among his followers are Diogenes of Sinope, Crates, Menedemus, and Menippus. Antisthenes himself seems to have been a serious thinker and a writer of ability. In his theory of knowledge he advocated individualistic sensism as opposed to Plato's intellectualistic theory of ideas; that is to say, he taught that the sense-perceived individual alone exists and that there are no universal objects of knowledge. In ethics he maintained that virtue is the only good and that pleasure is always and under all conditions an evil. Self-control, he said, is the essence of virtue, and a wise man will learn above all things to despise material needs and the artificial comforts in which worldly men find happiness.
Diogenes, generally referred to as "Diogenes the Cynic", is one of the most striking figures in Greek history; at least, his personality with its eccentricities, its coarse humour, its originality, and its defiance of the commonplace, has appealed with extraordinary force to the popular imagination. His interview with Alexander, of which the simplest version is to be found in Plutarch, was greatly exaggerated by subsequent tradition. The followers of Diogenes, namely, Crates, Menedemus, and Menippus, imitated all his eccentricities and so exaggerated the anti-social elements in the Cynic system that the school finally fell into disrepute. Nevertheless, there were in the Cynic philosophy elements, especially the ethical element, which later became a source of genuine inspiration in the Stoic School. This element, combined with the broader Stoic idea of the usefulness of intellectual culture and the more enlightened Stoic concept of the scope of logical discussion, reappeared in the philosophy of Zeno and Cleanthes, and was the central ethical doctrine of the last great system of philosophy in Greece.
WILLIAM TURNER