He ordained that on the anniversary of the Lord’s Supper, everyone should receive the Body of Christ, except those who were forbidden to do so on account of grievous sin. He sat as Pope for three years, eleven months, and twenty-eight days. He ordained in the month of December eighteen Priests, nine Deacons, and eleven Bishops for diverse places. He was crowned with martyrdom under Emperor Marcus Aurelius, in 177, and was buried after the manner of them that had gone before him, in the Cemetery, which was afterwards called that of St. Calixtus.
St. Gaius was a Dalmatian and a kinsman of the Emperor Diocletian and succeeded holy Eutychian in the year 283. St. Gaius fled from the cruelties practiced by Diocletian against the Christians and lay hidden for a while in a cave, but after eight years he and his brother Gabinus won the crown of martyrdom, (upon the 21st day of April, in the year 296.)
At that time he had sat in the chair of Peter for over twelve years. He was buried in the Cemetery of St. Calixtus on the twenty-second day of April. It was Urban VIII who renewed the memorial of him in the city, rebuilt his Church, which had been in ruins, and distinguished it by making it one of those whence the Cardinals take their titles, and of those which are called “Stations,” and enriching it with the relics of the Saint.