Cæsarius

ON ST. CÆSARIUS, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR,

AT ARLES IN GAUL,

In the year DXLII.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Cæsarius, bishop and confessor, at Arles in Gaul (St.)

BHL Number: 1510

BY J. S.

§ I. The writers of his Life: his cult; eulogies.

With a wondrous holiness of life and a glory of miracles St. Cæsarius, from monk and abbot bishop of Arles, shone forth in Gaul in the fifth century. His Life, published by Mabillon, was written by His Life, faithfully composed by his disciples, Mabillon published in the Acts of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict, century 1, where on page 658 he thus prefaces: The Life of St. Cæsarius, bishop of Arles, which has hitherto come forth interpolated in many places, we here exhibit genuine and entire from the manuscript codices of St.-Germain-des-Prés and of Montmajour near Arles, divided into two books. The first Cyprian wrote, as is plain from number 30; the second, Messianus the priest and Stephen the deacon, which is clear from the end of book 1 and from the beginning of book 2. That Cyprian is no other than Cyprian, prelate of Toulon, the disciple of St. Cæsarius, to whom Cæsarius left his cloak by testament. With this opinion of Mabillon the latest editors of Gallia Christiana agree, volume 1, column 741, where they briefly set forth the deeds of St. Cyprian of Toulon. Nor does it seem to be doubted, since it is plain from the Life, number 46, that Cyprian of Toulon was St. Cæsarius's disciple.

[2] Nor does it matter, says Mabillon, that the writer of the first book speaks of himself modestly and humbly, five of his disciples, but magnificently of Cyprian, prelate of Toulon … For Cyprian did not write this of himself, but those who with him composed the first part of this Life. For although Cyprian is the chief author, yet he was not alone in writing it: but with him Firminus and Viventius contributed their labor. This is proved from the beginning of book 2, where in express words Firminus and Viventius are said, with Cyprian, to be the authors of the first part. Mabillon adds the inscription prefixed to the Life in the manuscript codex of Montmajour, which is of this kind: Here begins the prologue and Life of Cæsarius, which lord Cyprian and most blessed Firminus and holy Viventius, bishop (one should read bishops, says Mabillon), and Messianus the priest and Stephen the deacon wrote. That the first book had several authors is also proved by these words at number 39: One of us who have written these things. Hence the praised Mabillon thus infers: That eulogy therefore which you read of Cyprian of Toulon at number XXXIII (in our edition number 46) ascribe to Firminus and Viventius as its authors: just as, when in book 2 (in our edition number 7) Messianus is called "a venerable Man," everyone will grant that this was written by Stephen the deacon, and not by Messianus himself.

[3] There is no doubt that Firminus and Viventius, three of whom were bishops, and they offered it to Cæsaria the abbess: as well as Cyprian, were disciples of St. Cæsarius, and bishops: for they are called fellow bishops at the beginning of the second part. Besides, Viventius is named bishop in the title of the letter sent to him by Messianus, which we shall recite below. Yet it appears obscure thus far over what churches they presided. Mabillon indeed says: Firminus was bishop of Uzès; with which Baillet agrees in the Life of St. Cæsarius at the XXVII of August, and the authors of the Literary History of France, volume 3, page 197: but the latest editors of Gallia Christiana, volume 6, columns 611 and 612, where they treat of St. Firminus of Uzès, speak thus: In the Acts of our Firminus there occurs nothing which favors this opinion. Nor could I find anything in our manuscripts concerning St. Firminus of Uzès by which I might prove that he was St. Cæsarius's disciple, or, with the others, a writer of the Life. Wherefore I am compelled to leave the matter uncertain until the XI of October, where St. Firminus of Uzès will be treated more fully. But who Viventius was is not yet established, says Mabillon. The Life composed by the five praised authors was dedicated to the virgin Cæsaria, at whose entreaties it had been written. We treated at the XII of January of St. Cæsaria, sister of Cæsarius, who was appointed by her holy Brother the first abbess of the monastery of Arles: but she died before Cæsarius, as is clear from his Life, number 44, and therefore this Life was not dedicated to her, as some have written by error. That another Cæsaria succeeded St. Cæsaria the Life testifies in the same place, and this is the very person to whom the Life of St. Cæsarius is read as inscribed. Her the writers of Gallia Christiana, volume 1, column 619, honor with the title of Saint; but of her cult we have thus far no evidence.

[4] earlier editions of the Life: which one is to be published by us. The praised Life of St. Cæsarius had been published by Surius at the XXVII of August, and by Vincent Barrali in the Chronology of the Saints of Lérins, page 229 and following: but Mabillon's edition is more to our liking, since in the others the style has been altered, and in Surius not a few things in the first book are passed over. We have besides the first part of this Life in manuscript, received by the labor of the most learned Sirmond from an old parchment manuscript of the monastery of Saint-Martin-des-Champs at Paris, of the Cluniac Order, as is noted in our transcript. I have collated this manuscript with Mabillon's edition, from which it differs only in a few and slighter points. Nevertheless, that the edition may be more exact and the differences of the two may appear, I shall publish this part from the praised manuscript, and shall observe in the notes where anything occurs different in the aforesaid edition. The other part, of which we have no manuscript, I shall subjoin from Mabillon. Besides these published Acts of St. Cæsarius, another Life of the same Saint our Chifflet once transmitted to us from a very ancient manuscript of the church of St. John of Besançon, much shorter than the preceding: whether this was abridged from that, or whether this is the very Life which one of the five authors had composed at the beginning without the others' supplement. Certainly it adds nothing to the preceding, and contains no fact which is not read in it; but the same facts are there partly read in nearly the same words, partly omitted. Hence I judged that this Life would be of no other use than to be compared with the Life to be published; and that it should be noted in its own places if any facts are more clearly set forth in it.

[5] Furthermore, although the Acts of St. Cæsarius were written by those authors and with such sincerity The celebrity of Cæsarius is proved from the eulogy of St. Ennodius, that they seem to need no confirmation, and teach such and so great things that scarcely anything can be added to the Saint's praise, yet it is agreeable to add from elsewhere certain testimonies of most excellent men, that from these too it may shine forth how great was the esteem in which the holy Prelate was held. St. Ennodius, bishop of Pavia, of whom we treated at the XVII of July, in a letter to Cæsarius, published in Sirmond's Various Works, volume 1, column 957, celebrates his praises in these words: You, my Lord, the divine law brought forth in a world already Christian, and nourished with the milk of an apostolic breast: you surpass the rest as the magnitude of the sun compared with the lesser stars: he who has beheld you with the eyes of the inner man is instructed. For while by your very face you cherish purity, with a mouth at rest you chastise offenders. Good men find in your conversation, wherever you go, things to imitate; to the evil are shown things to flee. Blessed are you, to whom it has been granted by God that you should teach both by admonitions and by examples; who, being always the forerunner on the straight path of a holy journey, have invited others. Who would not choose, when you speak, to know more rather than to read? You, while you win over genius to books by your recounting, also form the masters. To you is indebted whoever is the greatest of writers, in that you enlarge him with the dowry of your eloquence. In you the light of speech and of work meet together. More may be seen there, or in others who have published the same letter.

[6] A distinguished testimony concerning St. Cæsarius is furnished also by Florianus the monk, of Florianus his disciple, and of Venantius Fortunatus; his disciple, in a letter to St. Nicetius, bishop of Trier, in Du Chesne, volume 1 of the Writers of France, page 851, in these words: But also the companion of your crown, of blessed memory the lord Cæsarius, bishop of Arles, who lived among

barbarians in piety, at peace amid wars, the father of orphans, the shepherd of the needy, who by the pouring out of so great a fortune lost nothing, showing forth by word and deed the rule of Catholic discipline. He it was who set before me the alphabet of Latin letters; and for him too, as his servant and disciple, I trust to obtain a hearing. Venantius Fortunatus, who in various places makes mention of Cæsarius and of his Rule, sums up his virtues in book 5, poem 2, with this brief eulogy:

Who was bishop of Arles, of the lot of Lérins, And remained a monk, the ornament of the Pontificate.

He says that he remained a monk, hinting that he kept the same austerity of life, assiduity of prayer, humility, and other virtues in which he had flourished as a monk.

[7] In the praised Sirmond, volume 2, column 29, is recited a letter of St. Avitus, bishop of Vienne, to Cæsarius, [from the resort of various persons from distant parts, whether to obtain healing of the body through him,] in which he commends to him Maximian the bishop, laboring under an infirmity of the eyes. In this letter the Saint's virtues are not indeed recited, except his mercy toward the afflicted, which is indicated in these words: Since it does not escape your piety, which seeks everywhere the approaches of mercy, where the place of misery is; but the fame of his miracles is hinted at obscurely. For Maximian seems to have come to the Saint for no other cause than that he might obtain through him a remedy for his blindness: for so I should think the following words of Avitus are to be understood: Yet the chief cause of his coming, so far as he deigns to assert, is that he may seek everywhere a more skilled Physician, who by the art of some remedy may succor the weakness of his bodily lights. These words, I say, I should think to be so understood, especially because he subjoins the example of Tobias, who was not healed by human art. Hear the words of the letter: But the hope of recovering his sight he seeks, as I judge, also from the example: namely that the medicine hidden in the angel restored our Tobias … through the salve of gall to the sweetness of health. Avitus subjoins: Wherefore receive our brother with your accustomed sincerity and with worthy reverence: and if any consolation is owed to a holy man, bestow it. But the common desire will be fulfilled if some healing also, of whatever kind, shall come to his infirmity. By which he not obscurely exhorts Cæsarius to restore Maximian's sight. Nor will he wonder that the fame of his miracles was so widely spread that a bishop came to him from distant regions to recover his sight, who shall have read through the miracles reported in the Acts.

[8] or to consult him upon matters of the gravest importance: We can also prove St. Cæsarius's celebrity from the resort of illustrious men who sought his counsels or admonitions. In our volume 2 of March, page 352, in the Acts of St. Leobinus, bishop of Chartres, this is read to our purpose: Not long after, it was enjoined upon him (upon Leobinus, then a priest) by blessed Ætherius, the pontiff (of Chartres), that for the sake of advancing in what is better he should seek out St. Cæsarius, bishop of Arles, and go to him undaunted: and when St. Leobinus had come to him, and with him Bl. Albinus, who had been the companion of his journey, being asked by Bl. Cæsarius why he had undertaken the labor of so great a journey, Bl. Albinus answered that he had come only for the sake of his own desire; but that blessed Leobinus, having left the brothers over whom he had been set, was about to hasten to Lérins, where he desires to be subject to all the brothers. Moreover St. Albinus, bishop of Angers, consulted St. Cæsarius on a matter of the gravest importance, as is read in his Acts, volume 1 of March, page 60: but it is uncertain whether this was done when he set out to him with St. Leobinus, or whether he came again afterward. But from these things it is most clearly plain that the name of St. Cæsarius was very great throughout all Gaul, since holy men, separated by so great a distance of lands, journeyed to him as to an oracle for the sake of counsel and of progress in the virtues. For the rest, St. Cæsarius bade St. Leobinus return to govern the monks over whom he was set, which he did, as is there reported at greater length. Let these things suffice to show with how great a fame of name Cæsarius flourished, and how great everywhere was the esteem of his sanctity and wisdom.

[9] The Saint's cult: two errors rejected. His memory is read as inscribed in the sacred calendars at the XXVII of August, on which his feast is celebrated in the diocese of Arles. Hear Ado for all: In Gaul, in the city of Arles, of St. Cæsarius, bishop and confessor, a man of wondrous holiness and piety and zeal. With these the others nearly agree, whose words it is superfluous to recite. Trithemius, in On the Illustrious Men of the Order of St. Benedict, book 3, chapter 84, numbers Cæsarius among the Benedictine monks: but that error Baronius abundantly refuted in his notes on the Roman Martyrology at the XXVII of August. Trithemius's error had arisen from an anachronism, namely that he thought Cæsarius flourished much later than he really flourished. Hence Andreas Saussay fell into another error, who besides our Cæsarius announces another Cæsarius, bishop of Arles, the second of that name. He may be seen in the Appendix of the Gallican Martyrology, page 1220, where he attributes certain facts proper to St. Cæsarius to that second and fictitious Cæsarius. This error, as resting on no reason, does not deserve a longer refutation; especially since it has already been commonly rejected by the learned, as was observed in the treatise on St. Veredemius, volume IV of August, page 638. And so I proceed to weave the chronology of his Life.

§ II. The chief heads of his life arranged chronologically down to the time when the monastery for holy virgins was founded, where also the twofold Rule written by the Saint is treated.

The errors of various authors about the Saint's age have already been refuted. Concerning the time in which St. Cæsarius flourished certain writers have erred very widely, namely Vincent of Beauvais, Sigebert, Trithemius, and Petrus Suffridus, whose words you will find recited in Vincent Barrali, in the Chronology of the Saints of the Abbey of Lérins, page 259 and following. In refuting these I do not linger, because those errors have already been corrected by various men, and their opinion must fall of itself from the order to be deduced by us. Baronius also, in assigning the age of Cæsarius, had greatly turned aside from the way, in volume 6 of the Annals at the year 453, number 41, but he in some measure corrected that error in the additions subjoined to volume 10, page 959. But thereafter the learned have known the age of that most celebrated Man more exactly, and are now nearly agreed on his chronology, if we except the difference of a few years about certain heads of his life, whose chronology could not be woven with entire certainty.

[11] The Saint died, as the Life has it in book 2, number 33, [Born in the year 469 or 470, about 487 he becomes a cleric, then a monk, priest, and abbot:] in the seventy-third year of his age. But that his death fell on the XXVII of August in the year 542 many hold, and we shall afterward prove. Hence he must have been born about the year 470, namely after the middle of 469, if the seventy-third year of his life was nearly complete, or otherwise in the very year 470. In the eighteenth year of his age, according to our Besançon manuscript and Mabillon's Arles one, he received the clerical tonsure, which must have taken place about the year 487. Two years being spent among the clergy, as the Life has it at number 4, he betook himself to Lérins, and there began the monastic life about the year 489, in his twentieth year. After some years spent in the monastery of Lérins, when he had fallen into sickness from too great mortification of the body, he was sent to Arles for the healing of his health, where his virtues became known to St. Æonius, archbishop of Arles, by whom he was consecrated deacon and priest toward the end of the fifth century. About the year 499, being made abbot — not of Lérins, as Trithemius wrongly wrote in On the Illustrious Men, book 2, chapter 16, but in the Island of the Rhone near Arles — he governed the monks for more than three years, as is read in the Life, number XI.

[12] From abbot he was set over the church of Arles as bishop after St. Æonius, the disagreement of the learned about the beginning of his episcopate, who had chosen him for his successor, as the Life testifies at numbers 12 and 13. Nor ought the diptychs of the church of Arles, published in Mabillon's Analecta, to stand against this succession, since their authority is slight, as the learned have already noted. Hear the editors of the reprinted Gallia Christiana, volume 1, column 534: In the diptychs after Æonius one reads John, of whom there is nowhere else any mention. But there are many things which lessen the authority of those diptychs. From elsewhere, however, we read that Cæsarius was substituted for Æonius in the episcopate. Baronius too, in the Addenda to volume 6 of the Annals, printed in volume 10, page 960, arranged the succession of the bishops of Arles otherwise, when he wrote that Cæsarius succeeded Leontius, and Leontius Æonius. But that error is sufficiently refuted from the succession assigned in the praised Gallia Christiana, which leaves no doubt that Æonius is later than Leontius. About the year in which his episcopate began writers are not altogether agreed. Denis de Sainte-Marthe, in Gallia Christiana, column 535, assigns the year 501 or 502. Noris, in the Pelagian History, book 2, chapter 22, contends that he was made bishop in the year 503. But Fleury in the Ecclesiastical History, book 31, chapter 2, fixes the beginning of his episcopate in the year 501. Finally Pagi in the Critique at the year 502, number 8, and Longueval in the History of the Gallican Church, volume 2, book 5, page 267, hold that Cæsarius was substituted for Æonius in the year 502. Their opinion, as truer than the rest, I shall briefly confirm.

[13] which seems to be tied to the year 502. Æonius died on the XVI of August, as we shall prove in his Acts at the XXX of this month. Hence it becomes certain that he did not die before the year 502, because Pope Symmachus, in his letter to Avitus of Vienne, dated the III Ides of October in the consulship of Avienus and Pompey, that is, in the year of Christ 501, makes mention of him as living. That letter may be seen in Labbe, volume 4 of the Councils, column [ ] and 1312. But that he was not made bishop after the year 502 is proved from the length of his episcopate, compared with the year of his death. For Cæsarius died on the XXVII of August in the year 542, as I shall show below. But he was near death, as the Life testifies in book 2, number 33, when the circle was turning its fortieth round in his pontificate. Whence it necessarily follows that he was ordained bishop in the year 502: for the Life at number 12 hints that he was substituted for Æonius not long after his death. This was perhaps done in the month of September, so that he nearly completed forty years. Furthermore the praised Noris, and Saxi in the Pontificium Arelatense, attribute the year 503 to the beginning of his episcopate for no other cause than that they hold that Cæsarius died in the year 543.

[14] In the year 506 he holds the council of Agde, Most of his distinguished deeds in his episcopate are recounted in the Life, but not all. Wherefore I shall add in order of time whatever shall have offered itself elsewhere as worthy of report; but those things which are related in the Life I shall proceed to bring back into chronological order. In the year 506 Cæsarius convoked to a council the bishops set under the dominion of Alaric, king of the Visigoths, having received leave from him, as is said in the preface to the council. That council was held at Agde (in French Agde) in Occitania

on the day III of the Ides of September, Messala, a most distinguished man, being consul, that is, in the year of Christ DVI, the XXII of Alaric king of the Goths in Gaul, the VIII of Pope Symmachus, at which thirty-five bishops were present. So runs the title in Labbe, volume 4, column [ ], although only thirty-four are read as subscribed, partly bishops, partly priests sent in the bishops' place. The canons in Labbe number 71; but in the same place, column [ ], Sirmond observes that only 47 were found in the various manuscript codices, and that the rest seem to have been added from other councils. But all these were framed for restoring ecclesiastical discipline in Gaul. In the first place Cæsarius subscribed in this manner: I, Cæsarius, in the name of Christ bishop of Arles, according to that which pleased all my holy fellow bishops who subscribed with me, following the statutes of the Fathers, have subscribed to these definitions, etc.

[15] Ruricius, bishop of Limoges, had been invited to the council of Agde; but he had neither come himself and he admonishes Ruricius of Limoges about his absence, who excuses himself, nor sent another in his place, yet he had written to Cæsarius a letter of excuse, which had not been delivered. Wherefore Cæsarius sent him a letter by Capillutus the priest, in which he partly reproves and partly excuses Ruricius in these words: But although you sent your holy and desirable lines, yet, as you yourself very well know, it would have been most fitting that you should send a person to subscribe in your stead; and that what your holy brothers decreed should be confirmed in your person. But because I know with what holy, frequent, and pious desire you wished to be present, I set forth your vow and holy will to all your brothers. For which matter we could not and ought not to lay anything to your piety's charge. The whole letter is read in Labbe, volume 4, column [ ], where Ruricius's reply is also subjoined, in which this is read: But as to what you write, why I did not come to the synod … infirmity did this, not my will. He then adds that Cæsarius's letter was brought to him too late; nor does he allege any other cause of his absence. Hence what Jacques Basnage wrote about the cause of this absence in his notes on these letters, in the reprinted Thesaurus of the Monuments of Canisius, volume 1, page 397, is fabricated; as though Ruricius had been unwilling to come because Cæsarius was unduly usurping the primacy and the authority of convoking synods.

[16] Moreover from the praised letter of Cæsarius to Ruricius we learn he plans a fuller synod of Gauls and Spaniards: the time of his first exile: that the Man, most zealous for ecclesiastical discipline, endeavored in the following year to gather a fuller synod of Gauls and Spaniards. Hear the words of the letter: And at the same time I make known to your piety that your son Eudomius, if he can bring this about, desires that in the coming year we may hold a synod at Toulouse, Christ being favorable, where also, if he can, he wishes the Spanish bishops to assemble. And therefore I pray you that the Lord may deign to grant success to so holy a desire of his. I suspect that that council could not be gathered on account of the war between Alaric and Clovis, king of the Franks, who in the following year slew Alaric in battle with his own hand, as the French historians commonly relate. Moreover from the time of Alaric's death may in some measure be drawn the year of the first exile inflicted upon the Saint by the same Alaric, as the Life testifies at number 17, which seems to have happened about the year 505. Some indeed have placed it after the council of Agde; but I scarcely doubt that it must be placed before the council, since between the said council and Alaric's death scarcely time enough is found in which the Saint could first be accused, then be carried off to Bordeaux, there quench a fire, and be honorably recalled by Alaric, unless we suppose that all these things followed one another at a very short interval, which is little likely. I should therefore prefer to think that he was banished into exile in the year 505 and recalled toward the beginning of the following year, and that on that occasion he obtained from Alaric leave to convoke the synod.

[17] About the year 507 he began to build a monastery for holy virgins: the monastery begun to be built about 507: the Saint's imprisonment about 509: but the buildings begun were thrown down in the siege of the city. But that the siege was begun by the Franks and Burgundians in the year 508, Pagi at the same year, number 7, and the French historians write. Pagi adds that not until the year 510, when the Franks had been cut down by an army sent by Theodoric, king of the Goths in Italy, was Arles delivered from danger, and that it afterward remained under Theodoric's power. About the time when the siege was raised Le Cointe agrees at the year 510, number 2, citing Theodoric's letter by which he made the people of Arles for a time exempt from tribute, because they had defended themselves excellently and had suffered much in the long assault upon their city. Hence we gather that St. Cæsarius was thrust into prison about the year 509 on account of the calumny reported at number 21 in the Life, by which he was chiefly assailed by the Jews at the time of the siege. This is the second accusation of treason, which a third afterward followed, as we shall see: but from all of them the Saint always came forth the more glorious. In the year 510, after the raising of the siege, Cæsarius's boundless charity shone forth in the redemption of captives, as the Life testifies at number 23.

[18] the time when the monastery was completed and dedicated, At the same time he set about building again the monastery begun before, which he brought to its top after two years. For it is not likely that it was finished sooner: the Life also hints at number 25 that it was completed in that year, before the Saint was carried off into Italy, which happened in the following year. Then the Life, book 2, number 34, has this: The establishment of that monastery, at the time when the Saint died, was of thirty full years. Since therefore the Saint died in the year 542, the monastery was completed in the year 512. It is premised in the same place in the Life that he died on the XXVII of August, after the day of the dedication of his monastery: Wherefore, says Pagi at the year 453, number 17, that dedication was performed on the VII Kalends of September of the year of Christ five hundred and twelve, in which the XXVI day of the month of August fell on a Sunday.

[19] for which he writes a Rule, composed with great wisdom: Moreover he formed the virgins of that community by written laws, and set over them St. Cæsaria his sister, as the Life has it at number 25. Of the Rule written for these virgins by Cæsarius, mention is made in various places by Fortunatus, by St. Gregory of Tours, and, in him, by St. Radegund, who followed the Rule of Cæsarius. Their words Bolland has already produced in volume 1 of January, pages 729 and 730, where he also discoursed of the first abbesses of this monastery. He then subjoined the Rule itself, divided into twelve paragraphs, so that it is not necessary to exhibit it here again. In the preface he thus addresses the virgins: To the holy sisters, most to be venerated in Christ, established in the monastery which by God's inspiration and help we have founded, Cæsarius the bishop. Since the Lord in his mercy has deigned to inspire and to help us, that we might found a monastery for you, we have composed for you spiritual and holy admonitions, according to the institutes of the ancient Fathers, how you ought to live in that monastery: which, that you may be able to keep them with God's help, dwelling continually in the little cell of the monastery, implore with assiduous prayers the visitation of the Son of God, that afterward you may be able to say with confidence: We have found him whom our soul sought. Then he asks their prayers and subjoins his laws. In these laws the prudence and wisdom of St. Cæsarius shine marvelously. Le Cointe set them forth at large in the Annals of the Franks at the year 536, number 47 and following.

[20] the Pontiff approves what he had done for the monastery, Nor was it enough for the Saint to have prescribed these constitutions to the virgins, but he took care besides that whatever he had done for the virgins' benefit should be ratified by the supreme Pontiff, and that the monastery itself should be exempt from the bishop's jurisdiction, saving only visitation. We have these things in the letters of St. Hormisdas the Pontiff, subjoined to the Rule in our edition; who, after praising with a distinguished eulogy St. Cæsarius's zeal for promoting divine things, continues thus on page 737: These things therefore, because you have indicated by letters sent that in the church of Arles, over and above the accustomed watches of clergy and monks, you have newly established choirs also of the maidens of God, asking that in the aforesaid monastery of maidens lately founded by you your successors be by no means permitted at any time to have any power, so that virgins consecrated to God, freed from every disquiet and annoyance, may be able continually to serve almighty God with free minds.

[21] A worthy foresight, to prick hearts with priestly institutions to sing of chastity to God, and he exempts it from the bishop's power, at Cæsarius's request: and to offer to the sacred worship from those mystic seeds the fruit of virginity. That this was his highest wish the Apostle declared in those sacred volumes, saying: I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you a chaste virgin to Christ. Wherefore, most gladly assenting to the petitions of your fraternity, we confirm and decree by apostolic authority that no bishop, nor any of your successors, shall dare to claim to himself any power at all in the aforesaid monastery, save only that, out of regard for God, bearing pastoral solicitude, he shall strive with sincere mind, together with his clergy, to visit at fitting times (according as is becoming) the family of Christ the Lord established there. And then it is just that with equal devotion both sexes, dwelling in the places suited to them, should sing together the glory of God, as with steadfast and fullest faith both await the hope of redemption. He then confirms the donations and sales made to the monastery. Of this confirmation by the Roman Pontiff Cæsarius himself makes mention in his testament, to be recited below. The abbesses of this monastery, which first bore the name of St. John and now that of St. Cæsarius, and follows to this day the Rule of St. Benedict, Denis de Sainte-Marthe reviews in Gallia Christiana, volume 1, column 619 and following.

[22] Not for women only but for men also St. Cæsarius composed a monastic Rule, another Rule composed for monks. although the writers of the Life do not mention the Rule given to men. Hear Le Cointe in the Annals of the Franks at the year 536, number 123: Besides the Rule … which Cæsarius, bishop of Arles, handed down to nuns to be observed, there is extant also a Rule of monks, whose author is the same Cæsarius, as will appear below from the very title. This Rule was in force among most monks in that part of Narbonese Gaul which the Ostrogoths ceded to the Franks in this year. It has often been published in the Bibliotheca Patrum, and also by Prosper Stellartius among the Rules of the monastic and military Orders, and by Lucas Holstenius in the Codex of Rules which the holy Fathers prescribed to monks and to consecrated virgins to be kept. Two titles are prefixed to the work. One thus: "Here begins the Rule sent by the holy priest Tetradius, nephew of blessed memory St. Cæsarius, bishop of Arles, to an abbot, at the request of my small person, which he said was dictated by his aforesaid lord Cæsarius, and which the latter, while he was a priest, sent to divers monasteries." The other thus: "Here begins, in the name of Christ, the Rule of what sort things ought to be in a monastery where there is an abbot, whoever he may be." So the Holstenian edition, as the last of all so the best. The Rule itself Le Cointe subjoins after a little, and compares it with the Rule of the nuns, and illustrates it with notes; so that it is not necessary

to reprint or explain it here again. In the epilogue St. Cæsarius exhorts with most effective words to the virtues worthy of a monk, and concludes the whole with these words: For we can put off worldly garments and take up religious ones in the space of a single hour. But to keep good manners continually, and to labor with Christ's help against the evilly sweet pleasures of this world so long as we live — this we ought to do, because not he who has begun, but he who shall have persevered unto the end, shall be saved. Let these things suffice concerning the Rules written by the Saint.

§ III. The chronology of his life carried down to the year DXIV, where various things omitted in the Acts are supplied.

The Saint carried off to Ravenna in the year 513, The twofold calumny already reported, by which the Saint's glory had been increased, did not hinder his Arian rivals from contriving a third before Theodoric, the Arian king of Italy, as the Life testifies at number 26, in which you may read that Cæsarius was summoned by Theodoric and carried off to Ravenna; but with such an issue at last that in no matter did the Man's sanctity shine forth more, or his glory blaze more clearly. Sigonio, in On the Western Empire, book 16, refers this event to the consulship of Boethius, that is, the year 510. But Pagi, at the year 508, number 10, holds that this second exile of the Saint came about after the year 512 and the dedication of the monastery. Muratori, in his notes on the reprinted Sigonio, ties that exile to the year 512, and Longueval in the History of the Gallican Church, volume 2, page 326, links it to the same year. The Life in some measure favors these, because it first narrates the building of the monastery, and then presently reports this second exile. But the order of events to be subjoined persuades us that the thing did not happen before the year 513. I hold therefore that the Saint was carried into Italy a good while after the dedication of the monastery, namely in the year 513, since in the month of November of that same year he dealt at Rome with the supreme Pontiff, as we shall see below.

[24] [thence he goes to Pope Symmachus, with whom he treats of his suit with the bishop of Vienne.] After he had been for some time at Ravenna, and had become famous there by raising a dead man and expelling a demon, he set out for Rome to Pope Symmachus, by whom he was honorably received, as is read in the Life at number 30. The chief reason why the Saint went to Rome was that he might see to the setting forth and confirming of the rights of his church. For a long-standing controversy was in force between the prelate of Arles and him of Vienne concerning the metropolitan right, or the primacy in Gaul; and now the one of Arles, now he of Vienne had prevailed, as may be seen in Thomassin, On the Ancient and New Discipline of the Church, part 1, book 1, chapter 30. In the council of Turin, which Pagi will have held in the year 401, at the same year, number 30, it had been decreed concerning the controversy thus, canon 2: This further, between the bishops of the cities of Arles and Vienne, who were contending among us for the honor of the primacy, was defined by the holy synod: that whichever of them shall have proved his city to be the metropolis shall obtain the honor of the primacy of the whole province; and he, according to the precept of the canons, shall have the power of ordinations. Certainly, for preserving the bond of peace, it has been decreed with this more useful counsel: that, if it please the bishops of the aforesaid cities, each of them should claim for himself the cities nearer to him within the province, and should visit those churches which shall be found to be nearer to their own towns: so that, being mindful of unanimity and concord, the one may not disturb the other by usurping for himself at a distance that which is nearer to another. So in Labbe, volume 2, column [ ].

[25] and he obtains that Symmachus confirm Since after this ordinance, by which the rights seemed made equal, again now Arles, now Vienne obtained the greater authority, St. Leo in epistle 109, in Labbe, volume 3, column [ ], assigned to each the churches over which they should have right: to Vienne, namely, those of Valence, Tarentaise, Geneva, and Grenoble; but all the rest he subjected to Arles. Yet that contention was stirred up again under Pope Anastasius, and again the cause of Vienne was the better, says the praised Thomassin, number 7. But when St. Cæsarius pleaded before Symmachus, the latter ratified Leo's division by this letter, sent to the bishops of Gaul, in Labbe, column [ ]: The institutes of the Apostolic See urge us to proclaim them, that we may treat with watchful care of the concord of the universal Church, which is spread over the whole world. Which then especially grows more effectually, if the age that follows reverently observes those things which were established by the fathers. For Cæsarius, our brother and fellow bishop, priest of the metropolitan city of Arles, having presented himself at the thresholds of the church of the blessed apostle Peter, has asked that those things which were formerly established concerning the privileges of the churches be renewed by our words.

[26] All things therefore that were ordained on this head between the churches of Arles and Vienne by our predecessor Pope Leo of blessed memory, the division made by St. Leo between the church of Arles and that of Vienne: the faithful record of the Roman Church declares. And therefore, lest oblivion, which is ever the rival of truth, be able to claim anything for itself, and lest the vigor of the former decree sink into old age through the length of time, we have judged it necessary to bring back into the light by our utterances the things once promulgated. Therefore, even as our predecessor Pope Leo long since defined, when the allegations of the parties had been examined, the number or the quantity of parishes to be assigned to the priests of Arles and Vienne, we also command that it be not overstepped by the usurpation of any: but, as we have said before, according to the indulgence of the aforesaid Pontiff, let the prelate of Vienne claim to his own right the towns of Valence, Tarentaise, Geneva, and Grenoble; and let him not think that anything more is to be presumed beyond those which were once granted to him by the Apostolic See. But all the other parishes and dioceses let the bishop of Arles defend with his own privilege and honor in a continuance of times. For neither is the observance and reverence of antiquity kept, if priestly glory is raised further out of humility. He then concludes the letter, after an exhortation to keep the aforesaid, with words of this kind: Given on the Ides of November, Probus, a most distinguished man, being consul; which words designate the year 513, in which Probus was consul of the West, and not 502, in which indeed a certain Probus was consul, but of the East: for when only one consul was named in letters written in the empire of the West, the Western one was designated, as Pagi rightly observes at the year 502, number 10.

[27] With other privileges also Symmachus adorned the church of Arles for the sake of St. Cæsarius, [he is honored by the Pontiff with the pallium and other privileges for his church:] as the Life testifies at number 30, where the pallium is said to have been granted him, and to have been allowed to the deacons of the church of Arles that they might use dalmatics, as was done in the Roman church. Thomassin, part 1, book 2, chapter 54, number 1, observes that Cæsarius seems the first in the West to whom the honor of the pallium was granted. He then proves that the office of vicar of the Apostolic See in Gaul was at the same time committed to him, and that both these favors, which are said in the Life to have been conferred on Cæsarius on account of his outstanding merits, were long propagated to his successors. On the privilege of the deacons of Arles to use dalmatics Mabillon observes in his notes, from St. Gregory, that the use of dalmatics was not at that time common even to bishops, since Gregory grants the use of the dalmatic to Aregius, bishop of Gap, and to Valatonius his archdeacon, in epistle 107 of book 9 of the new edition. More concerning dalmatics, whose use afterward became common to deacons, Baronius discusses in his notes on the Roman Martyrology at the day XXXI of May, and not a few things are observed in the notes on the praised epistle of Gregory, where certain slips of Baronius are said to have been corrected by Ferrari, in book 9 On Clothing, chapter 9.

[28] To the Pontiff the Saint offers a memorial for the abolition of various abuses At the same time St. Cæsarius took pains that various abuses should be abolished by the authority of the Roman Pontiff, and therefore offered a memorial to Symmachus in which he sets forth those abuses and demands their prohibition. The memorial itself, from which the holy Man's zeal may appear, I subjoin from Labbe, volume 4 of the Councils, column [ ]: As the episcopate takes its beginning from the person of the blessed apostle Peter, so it is needful that your Holiness by fitting discipline should evidently show to each church what it ought to observe. For in the province of Gaul ecclesiastical estates are alienated by certain persons under divers titles. So it comes about that a man, at his own pleasure, diminishes the goods appointed for the necessities of those who leave them with devout mind and of the needy. This we ask, that the authority of the Apostolic See forbid it to be done, unless perchance something be bestowed on monasteries out of regard for piety. This also we demand with like supplication, that of men from a lay manner of life, who have served in the several offices of judges, or indeed have governed provinces under some power, none be ordained cleric or bishop, unless a lawful manner of life has long before gone before, and his life has been examined.

[29] whose prohibition he obtains: We ask also, concerning widows who have long since taken the religious habit, and consecrated women who have long dwelt in monasteries, that no one have free power for the sake of marriage either to join them to himself when they are willing, or to carry them off when unwilling. This too we suggest with humble prayer: that it be granted to no one to approach the episcopate by canvassing, nor that men employ powerful supporters for themselves by giving money. And that these things may be more easily kept, let the clergy and the citizens by no means presume to make a decree or to subscribe without the knowledge or consent of the metropolitan. Forbid all these things to be done, with the vengeance of your severity; so that both in your church and in the aforesaid province a discipline friendly to good deeds may be preserved. This memorial Cæsarius offered in person, as is sufficiently gathered from its very form. Moreover Symmachus approved the holy Man's zeal, and forbade all the things which in this memorial he asks to be forbidden, by letters given on the VIII Ides of November, Probus, a most distinguished man, being consul, that is, in the year 513. These letters may be seen in Labbe, where they are printed after Cæsarius's memorial.

[30] [Returned to Arles, he offers by his messengers another memorial, that the bishop of Aix be compelled to obey;] Cæsarius, having returned to Arles, did not at once find all the bishops obedient who, according to St. Leo's division confirmed by Symmachus, ought to be subject to him as primate. Certainly the prelate of Aix showed himself less compliant. Hence in the following year St. Cæsarius sent to Rome Ægidius the abbot and Messianus the notary, to offer Symmachus another petitionary memorial, which it will be well to subjoin from Labbe, column [ ], where it runs thus: As much as the Apostolic See claims to itself the principate over all the pontiffs of the churches which are spread throughout the whole world, and as much as its authority, stronger through synodal decrees, is preeminent, so much ought it, by the provision of its power granted long since by itself, to keep unshaken that the church of Arles may enjoy its privileges. Which now through its prelate Cæsarius sets forth the substance of its petition, and asks that the power which it has hitherto had be confirmed by your authority; that what the venerable See once commanded to be kept by a perpetual sanction, and what was specially decreed by pragmatic constitutions, the authority of your Blessedness may now also confirm by its own precepts. Command also that the bishop of the city of Aix be admonished by the constitutions of your Holiness, that when by the metropolitan prelate of the church of Arles to a synodal

council he shall have been summoned, or when for some cause of ordination divine religion shall require him as necessary, he by no means fail to come: so that those things which the authority of the men of old sanctioned through long ages may, under you prelates, be kept inviolate for the present and the future age. Given by Ægidius the abbot and Messianus the notary.

[31] Symmachus answered by letters subjoined to these in Labbe, whom Symmachus wills to obey Cæsarius, in this manner: He who keeps the venerable statutes of the Fathers shows himself a friend of perfect religion; and he who provides that he leave no room for excesses shows that he takes thought for the good of grace. It is reasonable that the holy church of Arles should fully enjoy its own privileges; and what antiquity has furnished and the authority of the Fathers has strengthened, no new presumption ought to violate. Yet so that the privileges of the other churches, acquired in the course of time, may not totter: because neither can that be firm in part which touches the injury of the whole. Those things therefore remaining which the constitutions of the Fathers have granted to the several churches, we decree that the diligence of your fraternity keep watch over those matters which shall arise in the provinces both of Gaul and of Spain concerning the cause of religion; and if reason shall require the presence of priests, the custom being kept, let each one assemble, being admonished by your beloved authority. And if by God's help the controversy that arises can be cut away, let us ascribe this to his merits: otherwise let the quality of the existing business come to the Apostolic See by your report; so that, all things being carried out in their order, the enemy of goodness may find no place to flatter himself. Therefore, as we have said above, let the benefits which have long been preserved be kept for the several churches. And if either the prelate of the church of Aix, or any other, being summoned according to the definition of the canons, shall refuse to obey the metropolitan pontiff, let him know that he must be subjected — what we do not desire — to ecclesiastical discipline.

[32] And in this matter we wish you to be greatly solicitous, and at the same time delegates his own office to him throughout Gaul and Spain. that if anyone of the ecclesiastical order and office from the regions of Gaul or Spain be compelled to come to us, he undertake the journey of his pilgrimage with the knowledge of your fraternity: that neither may his honor suffer any affront through ignorance, and that, ambiguity being removed, he may be admitted by us with a secure mind into the grace of communion. May God keep you safe, most dear brother. Given on the III Ides of June, Flavius Senator, a most distinguished man, being consul; that is, in the year 514. From these things we understand that not only was the bishop of Aix at that time compelled to be subject to Arles, but that the office of the Roman Pontiff was committed to Cæsarius not in Gaul alone, but throughout Spain also. Moreover that primacy of the church of Arles throughout Gaul was propagated to several successors of Cæsarius, to whom the Pontiffs long committed their office and transmitted the pallium. But to pursue these things more fully is not the place here. Wherefore I proceed to the Saint's other deeds.

§ IV. Continuation of the same chronology to the year 530, in which various councils are set forth, and the Saint's deeds against the Semi-Pelagians.

The fourth council of Arles, in which the church of Blessed Mary was dedicated. In the year 515 St. Hormisdas the Pontiff sent letters to St. Cæsarius concerning the bishops of Dardania and Illyricum who had returned to the communion of the Apostolic See, whom the Eutychian heresy had divided. In these the Pontiff declares the holy Man's zeal for the good of the Church in these words: For these your Fraternity has very often grieved with us, not unmindful of that Apostolic reading in which it is shown: If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it. The whole letter Labbe exhibits, volume 4, column 1474 and following. In the year 524, Opilio being consul of the West, St. Cæsarius, on the occasion of the dedication of the church of St. Mary, convoked the bishops to the fourth council of Arles, which some have named the third. There have not been wanting those who thought that the church of Cæsarius's monastery was then dedicated, but they plainly erred, since that was dedicated on the XXVII of August, while the council was held in the month of June. More rightly therefore Saxi, in the Pontificium Arelatense, in the article on Cæsarius, has this: In this provincial council was dedicated the basilica of blessed Mary, which the common people call the Virgin of Major: today it is a college of canons. Five canons are read as framed in that council, which chiefly concern the ordinations of clerics. Cæsarius presided over it and subscribed first; and after him sixteen, partly bishops and partly priests as legates of bishops. Go to Labbe, volume 4, column [ ] and following, where you will read more things noted about this council. Among the rest it had been decreed in canon 2 that it should be lawful for none to promote a layman to the diaconate, priesthood, or episcopate, unless a whole year's conversion had first been passed by them. On this matter in the year 528 Felix IV, the Roman Pontiff, wrote to Cæsarius, strongly urging that that law be observed and that hands be quickly laid on no one. Moreover that letter, as it was first published, was noted as after the consulship of Boethius, and was therefore attributed to Felix III and to the year 488, in which Cæsarius was not yet bishop; but Sirmond detected the error from the Arles codex, in which it was rightly read after the consulship of Mavortius, which fits the year 528. See the letter with Sirmond's note in Labbe, column [ ] and following.

[34] [The council of Carpentras, in which a penalty is decreed against a bishop who had sinned against the canons of Arles:] These letters of Felix were preceded by the council of Carpentras of sixteen bishops, held in the year 527, Cæsarius again presiding. In this only one canon is found to have been decreed. But Cæsarius, with the other bishops, showed how far he was from neglecting the statutes of the council of Arles. It had been ordained there in canon 3 that he who should ordain a cleric contrary to the decrees of the council should not be allowed to say Mass for a whole year. But Agrœcius, prelate of Antibes, had broken by an unlawful ordination the statutes of Arles, to which he himself had subscribed by a legate. Wherefore Cæsarius with the fathers of the council of Carpentras inflicts the aforesaid penalty upon Agrœcius by letters, published together with the council in Labbe, column [ ] and following. Hence it is plain that the Saint was not only diligent in decreeing laws, but likewise strong and steadfast in urging their observance. For the rest, the councils thus far gathered by St. Cæsarius concerned only ecclesiastical discipline: but now it must be examined what the same Saint did to cut away the remnants of the Pelagian heresy in Gaul.

[35] There is no doubt that about these times he wrote On Grace and Free Will, he acts against the Semi-Pelagians, and refuted the errors of the Semi-Pelagians. For this the anonymous writer testifies who interpolated Gennadius's Catalogue of the Illustrious Writers of the Church. Take the very words from the aforesaid Catalogue, chapter 86, which are of this kind: Cæsarius, bishop of the city of Arles, a man celebrated for sanctity and virtue, wrote excellent and very pleasing little works, necessary for monks. On Grace also and Free Will he published testimonies fortified by the judgments of the divine Scriptures and of the holy Fathers, where he teaches that a man can do nothing good of his own, unless divine grace has gone before him. Which work Pope Felix also strengthened by his letter, and promulgated more widely. He flourished at that time at which Faustus also did, when Anastasius governed the commonwealth. Baronius once thought, in his notes on the Martyrology, that these words were Gennadius's own; but others afterward proved clearly enough that they belong to another who interpolated Gennadius's Catalogue. To show this the age of each suffices. Hear Gennadius himself, chapter 91, on Theodulus: This writer died, he says, three years ago, in the reign of Zeno. Hence Pagi rightly infers at the year 490 that Gennadius wrote at the beginning of Anastasius's reign, and not after the year 494, since Zeno died in the year 491. But now Cæsarius lived until the year 542, as we shall prove, and he speaks of him as of one dead. Gennadius therefore could not have written these things when he published his Catalogue; nor even have added them afterward, since it is in no way likely that he lived so long; and if he had drawn out his Life to that point, he could not have fallen into those errors which the writer of this eulogy committed. For the author of the eulogy erred, first, when he said that Cæsarius's Work was confirmed by Pope Felix, which we shall see was done by Boniface II. He erred again, when he makes Cæsarius altogether contemporary with Faustus. For although the year of Faustus's death is uncertain, yet it is not likely that he lived until the fifth century was out, so that he seems to have died while Cæsarius was a young man, or perhaps a boy. One may see Gallia Christiana, volume 1, columns 392 and 393.

[36] Moreover the modern writers commonly assert two things here, [which the moderns so understood as though he had written a book in defense of St. Augustine against Faustus:] namely that Cæsarius wrote a book On Grace and Free Will, and that this book of Cæsarius was composed against Faustus of Riez by name. I doubt very greatly indeed whether anyone will ever produce an ancient and competent witness for these assertions: so that I greatly wonder that these things were written with so great agreement by learned men, as though undoubted and certain. Perhaps they were led into that opinion from the eulogy already recited. Yet neither of them follows from it, save by a conjecture altogether slight and ambiguous, drawn from the title which was prefixed to a certain book of Faustus. Hear Noris, book 2 of the Pelagian History, chapter 22: Cæsarius … published a book On Grace and Free Will with exactly the same title which Faustus had inscribed on his own Work, that with a most present antidote he might expel the poisons of the man of Riez; in which volume he most solidly championed the doctrine of St. Augustine against Faustus's assaults. Hence that most celebrated Ennodius of Pavia says in his letter to Cæsarius: "To you is indebted whoever is the greatest of writers, in that you enlarge him with the dowry of your eloquence." Baronius adds a notable scholion at the year DVIII: "St. Augustine, namely, whom he defended against Faustus who was assailing him." So Noris, more magnificently than solidly.

[37] but this cannot be proved by the testimony of the ancients: For, as we cannot doubt that Cæsarius in his writings On Grace and Free Will refuted the errors of the Semi-Pelagians, among whom Faustus is numbered, so neither from the eulogy in Gennadius and the likeness of the title, nor from the Life of Cæsarius, in which these things are treated at number 40, nor from anywhere else can it be proved that Faustus was refuted by name in those writings of Cæsarius: since none has mentioned Faustus. Then, what Noris with Baronius drags in here from St. Ennodius's letter cannot be understood of these writings of Cæsarius, unless we overturn the whole chronological order: for Ennodius's letter was written about the year 513, since in it Ennodius congratulates Cæsarius on the things which had happened to him with Theodoric king of the Goths in the year 513. But the praised writings of Cæsarius are many years later, as will appear. Ennodius therefore speaks of Cæsarius's homilies, not of his writings on Grace and Free Will. No better is what Noris adds about St. Augustine being defended by Cæsarius: for, although he was a lover of Augustine and of his doctrine, none of the ancients has asserted that he

took up the pen in his defense. Whether what he subjoins in these words about a lost book is more certain: But this book too, with great loss to the Augustinian school, has not come down to the hands of posterity — whether this, I say, is more certain than the rest, I shall discuss below, when I examine whether these writings of Cæsarius are different from the chapters of Orange.

[38] he holds the second council of Orange, The holy Man, that he might strike the Semi-Pelagians more strongly from a higher ground, had recourse to the Roman Church, and, having received thence articles of faith on grace and free will, gathered a council at Orange *, in which the Semi-Pelagian errors were condemned and the Catholic faith triumphed. That council, which is the second of Orange, was held on the V Nones of July, Decius the Younger, a most distinguished man, being consul, that is, in the year of Christ DXXIX, the III of Pope Felix IV, the III of Athalaric king of Italy, as is in the title in Labbe, volume 4, column [ ]. Cæsarius presided and subscribed first; after him twelve other bishops, and last eight illustrious men, among whom the first was Liberius, prefect of the prætorium of the Gauls and patrician. And so it was most celebrated, not for the number of persons, but for the utter crushing of the Pelagian and Semi-Pelagian heresy, and for the confirmation of the supreme Pontiff which followed thereupon.

[39] [and there with his colleagues he publishes various chapters on grace and free will,] The occasion of this council the Fathers themselves set forth in the preface, and at the same time teach that the heads of doctrine which are there proposed to the faithful for belief had been transmitted from the Apostolic See. Hear then the preface itself: When for the dedication of the basilica which the most illustrious prefect and patrician, our son Liberius, built with most faithful devotion in the city of Orange, we had assembled, God being favorable and he himself inviting; and when concerning matters which pertain to the ecclesiastical rule a spiritual conference had arisen among us, it came to our knowledge that there are some who, concerning grace and free will, out of simplicity wish to hold less cautiously and not according to the rule of the Catholic faith. Whence it seemed to us just and reasonable, according to the admonition and authority of the Apostolic See, that we ought to bring forward for the instruction of those who hold otherwise than they ought a few chapters transmitted to us from the Apostolic See, gathered by the ancient Fathers from the volumes of the holy Scriptures especially on this matter, to be observed by all, and to subscribe them with our own hands. And when these have been read, let him who has hitherto believed otherwise than he ought concerning grace and free will not delay to incline his mind to those things which befit the Catholic faith. To these are subjoined twenty-five chapters contrary to the Semi-Pelagian heresy, which may there be seen together with the subscriptions; as also the various annotations of various men upon them.

[40] The Benedictines praised above, in the Literary History of France, volume 3, which are the very ones which the Saint is said to have written page 225, hold that the interpolator of Gennadius is treating of these chapters of Orange in the words already cited: On Grace also and Free Will he published testimonies fortified by the judgments of the divine Scriptures and of the holy Fathers, where he teaches that a man can do nothing good of his own, unless divine grace has gone before him. From which it follows that no book was written by Cæsarius on grace and free will besides these chapters of the council of Orange, which are opposed to the Semi-Pelagian errors, and therefore to those of Faustus, and are conformable to the doctrine of St. Augustine, or rather almost taken from Augustine's books. I confess this opinion is contrary to most modern writers, who, following Baronius and Noris, assert that a book was besides composed by Cæsarius in defense of Augustine's doctrine against Faustus; yet I can scarcely doubt that it is true, and that the praised chapters of the council of Orange are those very writings of Cæsarius which are treated of in Gennadius's Catalogue. Let the studious reader only attend to the words, and he will easily perceive it with me.

[41] That author says: On Grace and Free Will he published testimonies fortified by the judgments of the divine Scriptures and of the holy Fathers, etc. What, I ask, on grace and free will against the Semi-Pelagians. are the chapters of Orange, if not testimonies on grace and free will strengthened by the authority of sacred Scripture and of the ancient Fathers? Hear the words subjoined to the last chapter, in Labbe, column [ ]: And so, according to the above-written sentences of the holy Scriptures, or the definitions of the ancient Fathers, we ought, by God's favor, both to preach and to believe this: that through the sin of the first man free will was so bowed down and weakened that afterward no one can either love God as he ought, or believe in God, or do for God's sake that which is good, unless the grace of the divine mercy has gone before him. And so, whether we look at the matter of which the chapters treat, or at the very form of the chapters, or at the doctrine defined in them, all persuade us that these are the very writings of Cæsarius of which the interpolator of Gennadius speaks. In vain therefore shall we seek another volume of Cæsarius on grace and free will, since that never seems to have been in the nature of things.

[42] In the same year St. Cæsarius celebrated the council of Vaison, The council of Vaison: while the Semi-Pelagians murmur against Cæsarius, as had been determined in the preceding year in the council of Carpentras. Five canons were framed in it, by which various heads of ecclesiastical discipline are decreed. The studious reader will find them in Labbe, column [ ] and following. These things being briefly said, according to the order of time, about this council, which was the last at which the holy Man is read to have been present, let us return to his deeds against the Semi-Pelagians. When those errors had been condemned in the council of Orange, to which many had hitherto firmly adhered, they murmured not lightly against St. Cæsarius, by whose industry and authority they well knew that council had been celebrated and its statutes framed. Of these things the Life is witness at number 46, in which the following is read: Many rivals indeed arose who resisted his doctrine concerning grace … For by the whisperings and evil interpretation of certain men there arises in the parts of Gaul a groundless sinister suspicion against the preaching of the Man of God.

[43] [the synod of Valence is gathered, at which with others the prelates of the province of Vienne are present:] On this account the prelates of Christ dwelling beyond the Isère, gathered by the love of charity, assemble in the city of Valence: whither also blessed Cæsarius, by reason of his usual infirmity, could not hasten as he had arranged. Le Cointe at the year 536, number 9, thought that the writer of the Life had here slipped in memory, and that for the synod of Valence that of Orange must be substituted. But I marvel that such a thought could occur to a learned man: for it is clear that a synod other than that of Orange is designated. For, first, Cæsarius was present at the council of Orange; at this he could not be present, being hindered by sickness. Then, the bishops dwelling beyond the Isère are the bishops of the province of Vienne, who were not present at that of Orange, but were present at this of Valence. And so what Le Cointe objects about the councils of Valence, which he notes as celebrated long before or after, can in no way stand against this, since they are other than this council, whose Acts have perished. But that council of Valence seems to have been held toward the end of the year 529, or the beginning of the following: for that it fell between the council of Orange, against which some were clamoring, and the confirmation of that same council of Orange, the Life hints in these words: For Boniface also, of blessed memory, … trampling upon the intent of the wranglers, confirmed St. Cæsarius's suit by apostolic authority. It appears indeed from the praised Life that those bishops of the province of Vienne did not all at first favor Cæsarius and the statutes of Orange, and this, I suppose, was the cause of that assembly. Yet the better part prevailed, Cyprian, bishop of Toulon and St. Cæsarius's own disciple, acting before the rest for the good cause.

[44] [Cæsarius has recourse to the Pontiff for the confirmation of the council of Orange,] At last, for obtaining the full victory over the Semi-Pelagians, the confirmation of the supreme Pontiff was of great avail, sought by Cæsarius and obtained in the month of January of the year 530. To obtain this confirmation the Saint had written to Boniface II, still, as he thought, a Cardinal and his friend, that he might treat with Felix IV for the confirmation of the council. But Felix having meanwhile died, Boniface himself, raised to the Pontificate, confirmed the council of Orange by letters sent to Cæsarius, which in Labbe, column 1689, are dated the VIII Kalends of February, Lampadius and Orestes, most distinguished men, being consuls, that is, in the year 530. I subjoin the beginning of the letter in confirmation of what has been said: Through our son Armenius, priest and abbot, he says, we have received the letters of your Fraternity, which, as appears, you had sent to us while still unaware of the priesthood committed to me, in that charity in which we are bound in God: in which you had thought it should be asked that what you had demanded from our predecessor of blessed memory Pope Felix for the firmness of the Catholic faith might be carried out by my instancy. But because the will from on high so disposed it that what you had hoped for from him through us you should rather obtain from us, we have not deferred to give a Catholic answer to your petition, which you conceived with laudable solicitude.

[45] and Boniface II confirms what was defined at Orange, To this he subjoins what Cæsarius was asking, in these words: For you indicate that certain bishops of the Gauls, while they have agreed that all other good things come from the grace of God, will have it that faith alone, by which we believe in Christ, is of nature and not of grace; and that it remained to men from Adam in free will — which it is impious to say — and is not now also conferred on each by the bounty of the divine mercy: asking that, for the removing of ambiguity, we should confirm by the authority of the Apostolic See your confession, in which you on the contrary define that a right faith in Christ and the beginning of all good will, according to Catholic truth, is inspired into the minds of individuals by the prevenient grace of God. Then, after a few words inserted to prove that faith is ours from the divine grace, he continues thus: Which also we rejoice that your Fraternity, after a conference (that of Orange) held with certain priests of the Gauls, has held according to the Catholic faith. And having added other arguments against the Semi-Pelagians, he confirms the definition of the council of Orange in these words: Wherefore, greeting you with fitting affection, we approve your above-written confession as agreeable to the Catholic rules of the Fathers.

[46] The Pontiff also hints below that not a few had resisted Cæsarius, [whence it comes about that, the bishops who had resisted yielding, he obtains a full victory over the Semi-Pelagians.] whom at length he prophesies will give their hands to the truth, writing thus: These things being thus briefly set down, against the remaining follies of the Pelagian error, which that letter seems to contain which you sent word had been transmitted to you by a certain priest, we have not thought it needful to reply: because we hope by the divine mercy that through the ministry and teaching of your Fraternity he will deign so to work in the hearts of all whom you reported to be dissenting, that they will believe from this that all good will proceeds not from themselves but from divine grace, when they shall have perceived that they now wish to defend that which they were striving obstinately to assail. The Pontiff prophesied truly; for, as the Life has it, by Christ's gift the prelates of the churches gradually took back what the devil had wished to make cease by a sudden animosity. This is truly a great glory of St. Cæsarius, so that I should dare to affirm of him

that other Fathers indeed fought against heretics with more copious writings, but that none contended with greater prudence, with a happier issue, and at last with a fuller victory, than he contended against the Semi-Pelagians.

§ V. The last part of the chronology down to the Saint's death: the time of his death examined.

[He proceeds against Contumeliosus, whom by the sentence of Pope John he deprives of his bishopric:] The Saint, after the victory reported over the Semi-Pelagians, since he had at heart the purity of morals as much as that of faith, entered upon another contest. Contumeliosus, bishop of Riez, who was present at most of the councils held by Cæsarius, had disfigured the sanctity of his profession with various crimes. Against him the holy Man proceeded with the bishops of Gaul according to the canons, and sent the process to the Roman Pontiff, that Contumeliosus might be cast down from his bishopric as unworthy of that rank. Hence John II, who then presided over the chair of Peter, in the year 534 sent to Cæsarius letters of this kind: We have received the letters of your charity with a willing mind, in which, alleging bodily necessities, you have also indicated what things that man who has fallen did too sacrilegiously. We grieve for the loss of a pontiff, yet it is needful to keep the rigor of the canons. And therefore our authority has suspended the aforesaid man from the order of the episcopate. For it is not lawful that one polluted with crimes should serve the sacred ministries. But, at your ordering, let him be sent to a monastery, where, mindful of his offenses, he may not fail to pour forth tears in penance, that he may be able to obtain mercy from him who has mercy on all, our Lord Jesus Christ. In his place appoint a visitor, until the church which has been emptied of his priesthood may be able to deserve a priest of its own. This letter is published in Labbe, volume 4, columns 1756 and 1757, where the rest may be seen. Two other letters of the same Pontiff are prefixed, the one to the bishops of Gaul, the other to the priests and deacons of bishop Contumeliosus, in which the same sentence against Contumeliosus is expressed; and in the latter the Pontiff adds that the care of this matter was committed to Cæsarius.

[48] but he appeals to the Pontiff; Contumeliosus appealed from the first sentence to Agapetus, the successor of Pope John. But it appears uncertain whether Agapetus was already Pontiff before the execution of the sentence: nay, since John's letters were dated in the month of April in the year 534, that is, more than a whole year before the pontificate of Agapetus, it is little likely that the execution was so long deferred that before it Contumeliosus could have had recourse to Agapetus. This had to be observed, because Contumeliosus complained to Agapetus that his appeal had not been deferred to by Cæsarius, but that, notwithstanding it, the sentence had been consigned to execution. Hear this from Agapetus's letter, presently to be assigned: But your Fraternity would have done better, says the Pontiff, if, after he desired an examination by interposing an appeal to the Apostolic See, you had permitted nothing to be diminished as concerns his person from the time of the sentence, so that the business which was to be inquired into upon the interposed appeal might be entire. The reason why Cæsarius omitted nothing of the execution on account of the appeal is easily drawn from what has been said: namely, that he appealed to John, by whom he had already been condemned, and who had committed to Cæsarius all the care of executing the sentence. If we admit this conjecture, as the order of time persuades us that it should be admitted, there was certainly nothing in Cæsarius's act that Agapetus could censure, nothing that he could disapprove. But it is likely that Agapetus was unaware that the sentence had been either passed or confirmed by his predecessor, and that hence it came about that he both admitted the appeal and wrote to Cæsarius that he would have done better if after the appeal he had not proceeded to execution.

[49] but Agapetus admits the appeal But whatever was the cause why Agapetus admitted the appeal, it is certain that he admitted it: for he sent letters to Cæsarius on the XV Kalends of August, which he begins thus in Labbe, column [ ]: We had wished, most beloved Brother, that, the reputation of bishop Contumeliosus remaining entire, there should have been neither for you formerly a necessity of judgment, nor for us a cause of pronouncing … Whence, inasmuch as by presumption, as he asserts, of his innocence he wished to fly to the help of an appeal, let us strive at this by assiduous prayers, that the benefit of a repeated hearing may restore him acquitted to the rejoicing of all. For we are about, with the help of our God, to delegate an examination, so that, according to the constitutions of the venerable canons and under the consideration of justice, all that has been done or transacted before your Fraternity concerning such a business may be demanded with the most diligent search.

[50] [and writes that he will appoint judges: but it is not established whether the sentence was changed.] Then, when he had endeavored to prove that it is just that the accused be heard again, he adds the following: Bishop Contumeliosus, his own substance being now restored to him, we will to be suspended for the time from the administration of the ecclesiastical patrimony and from the celebration of Masses: because that which he had seen taken from him by judgment he will more gloriously, if truth supports him, have received back by judgment than have seized by usurpations. The rest may be seen there. Moreover it is not at all established whether the Pontiff really sent judges into Gaul; much less whether anything was changed in the sentence passed against Contumeliosus. Yet I scarcely doubt that Cæsarius more correctly informed Agapetus of everything, and taught him that all had been done by him according to the sentence of Pope John. Then, since Pope John had transmitted canons to Cæsarius according to which he should proceed in the case of Contumeliosus, out of these he composed a writing furnished with grave weight of words and sentences, in which he proves that any cleric convicted of adultery is never to be restored to his former rank. That writing, with the said canons, is extant in Labbe, column [ ] and following, and the learned commonly hold it to be Cæsarius's, whose zeal and style shine in it. There seems also no doubt that it was composed against Contumeliosus. But it is not equally certain whether it was sent to Rome to the Pontiff, or was recited before the judges delegated by him. For the rest, Baillet, who at the XXVII of August in the article on Cæsarius, column 425, discusses this matter with the order disturbed (for he reports the first sentence to have been consigned to execution after the judges were delegated by Agapetus), tries further to infer from this fact that the bishops of Gaul consigned their sentences to execution notwithstanding an appeal to the Pontiff. But that does not follow from this history, as it has been truly related by us; and Baillet could never have proved that Cæsarius proceeded to execution after the appeal was admitted by Agapetus, although he narrated it confidently.

[51] Other letters in reply Cæsarius received from Agapetus on the same day, Letters of Agapetus to Cæsarius, as also of Vigilius. from which the Saint's boundless mercy toward the poor again becomes known. He had not spared the sacred ornaments of his church in order to succor the needy: but now he had consulted the Pontiff whether it was lawful to sell ecclesiastical estates for the same end. But the Pontiff answered that this was by no means lawful according to the canons. His letters are found in the praised Labbe, volume 4, column [ ], of which I subjoin the beginning: So great, God being favorable, is our devotion, both toward most gladly granting the things which avail for the sustenance of the poor and toward the affection of your Fraternity, that we should judge it in no way burdensome to us to assent to what you ask in your desires. But the most manifest and venerable constitutions of the Fathers call us back, by which we are forbidden to transfer by any title to other rights the estates that are by right the Church's, over which the almighty Lord has appointed us to preside. In which matter we believe it is also most pleasing to your wisdom that in nothing, on any occasion whatever, or out of regard for any person whatever, do we presume to go against the constitutions or rules of ancient definition. There is besides extant in Labbe, volume 5, columns 293 and 314, a letter of Vigilius to Cæsarius, dated the VI of March of the year 538, that is, at the time when Vigilius was not yet lawful Pontiff, in which the care is committed to the Saint of imposing penance upon a certain man defiled with incestuous nuptials. But from this it is not established whether our Saint did anything in this matter, nor even whether he consulted the Apostolic See about it. Perhaps Vigilius by this means tried to attach Cæsarius to his party; and the latter took care not to acknowledge his pontificate by undertaking the case.

[52] Before I set about discussing the time of his happy death, Messianus, the Saint's disciple, reports it will be well to insert in this place an apparition granted to the Saint, and the church built and dedicated on that account to St. Hermes the martyr. All these things Messianus the priest, one of the writers of the Life and an eyewitness of the events, narrates in a letter to bishop Viventius, which Mabillon published from the manuscript codex of Arles, volume 1 of the Annals, page 683. Receive the letter itself: To my lord bishop Viventius, Messianus, humblest of all, a priest in name only and not in office, wishes advance in the things committed to him. Having read, most dear one, the letters of your love, how sweet and how pleasant they tasted in the desert, I am not able to explain in writing back to you. How, and in what manner, and how happy and prosperous our journey was, by God's ordering, you know better than I. But what befell after you departed from us, obeying the words of our Master, nay rather the apostolic precepts, we do not wish to be hidden from you, since it is an honorable thing to praise the great works of God. For when on the seventh day after we left you we had come to a certain place where there were meadows pleasant enough and delightful, and also a stream from a spring flowing beneath, there we solemnly celebrated the solemnities of Masses, on that day, namely, on which was kept the feast of the excellent doctor most blessed Augustine, with whose admonitions and examples our merciful Master is wont wholesomely to instruct us in the schools of rectitude.

[53] an apparition made to Cæsarius And while we were passing the night there, about the hour of midnight the Lord is present, leading with him Peter the merciful fisherman, and Paul the excellent doctor, and Hermes the most glorious martyr, and Augustine the eminent preacher: at whose coming I, a wretched and unhappy sinner, was awakened by the wondrous fragrance and the incomparable light — not because my merits required it, but that I might be a witness of the truth. Then the Lord calls our master by name, saying thus: Cæsarius, till the vineyard committed to you, and cut off what should be cut off, and nourish what should be nourished, for the coin of the reward due to you does not tarry; and do penance, because you have negligently consigned to oblivion, amid the sacred mysteries of the Masses, the memorial of the martyr Hermes, which you have in the present place, whose feast is today venerated and kept by the faithful. And having said these things, he departed from us, blessed in all things. But when morning came we rose, applying ourselves to the divine labor. And when, the divine office being not yet completed, he had suggested to us more and more things than usual, at last, after the Gospel admonition, drawing long sighs from his deep breast, he began thus: Woe to me, wretched man, that for three years I have unhappily consigned to oblivion the memorial of the martyr Hermes, being taken up with various and empty tales! whose memory shall not be forsaken forever. And thus, putting an end to his words, turning to the altar he strives to complete what he had begun. Which I, not being able to bear, having gone over all things in order with free voice, as I had seen and heard, declared before all.

[54] and a church raised to St. Hermes the martyr. The divine office being finished, he set up with us a stone in that place where the Lord had appeared to him, and fixed upon it the standard of the Lord's cross. Thence, all things being ordered and appointed, as we were departing, the priest of Catorroscum met us

of the church, Ursus by name, by whom on that day and night we were kindly received: whose boy, in your presence, having slipped through the chancel screens of the church and being suddenly seized by a demon, our lord and Master of holy learning delivered — who also, still surviving, serves you. On the morrow we came to Arles, where with great glory we were honorably received by all, both clergy and people, to whom he gave both his blessing and the kiss of peace, and read out the letters of salutation drawn up by the Apostolic See. After these things he returned with the needful apparatus to the above-written place, where he built a church in honor of blessed Hermes the martyr, which by perpetual right he assigned to the see of Arles: at whose consecration on the octave of Easter we wish and pray that you be present; and then we shall speak more fully of these and other matters. Pray for me, dearest father, to the Lord. It seems indeed strange that nothing of this apparition is reported in the Saint's Life, since Messianus is one of the writers of the Life. Yet we have not thence argument enough to deny the credit of the letter: for Messianus could have omitted it on purpose for reasons known to himself. But the credit of the letter is confirmed from the Life, book 2, number 16, where the healing of the boy of the priest Ursus is treated. For the rest, it is not improbable that the vision happened when the Saint about the beginning of the year 514 was returning from Rome to Arles: for this the letters of salutation drawn up by the Apostolic See, which he is said to have brought to Arles, hint. But the founding of the church of St. Hermes and its dedication were done later, at a time not sufficiently known to us. And so I proceed to examine the year of his death.

[55] I shall not linger in refuting the errors of those who thought that Cæsarius lived in the seventh century, By a twofold reason it is shown that the Saint's death since they have already been sufficiently refuted by others, and their error is abundantly plain from this whole Commentary. Wherefore I shall only prove that he died in the year 542, and shall briefly answer an opinion little distant from this. The Saint died, as the Life testifies in book 2, number 34, on the XXVII of August, thirty years being fully run out after the establishment of his monastery, and one day after its dedication. Hence, since that dedication was made on the XXVI of August, it does not seem to have happened in any other year than 512: for in that year the XXVI of August fell on a Sunday, as is plain from the Dominical letter, which was then G. Moreover the dedication could not have been made in the year 513, in which, in the opinion of others, it must have been made, since in the month of August of that year Cæsarius was in Italy, as you will easily gather from his dealings with king Theodoric and Pope Symmachus reported in §3. Again it could not have happened in the year 511: for it is in no way likely that the monastery was already then completed, since only in the year 510 was the city freed from the siege, and thereafter the monastery began to be rebuilt. Let this therefore be the first reason, which alone sufficed for Pagi at the year 544, number 8, to say that this epoch is most certain.

[56] The other reason for this epoch was produced by Bolland at the XII of January in the Commentary on St. Cæsaria, number 6, happened in the year 542. and is drawn from the time of his successor Auxanius. For there are extant letters of Pope Vigilius to Auxanius, the successor of Cæsarius, dated the XV Kalends of November, for the second time after the consulship of Basil, a most distinguished man, that is, in the year 543, in which he writes that he had received letters about the ordination of Auxanius, and about the pallium and other things asked by him, and that they were brought by John the priest and Teredius the deacon. Now it is not probable that between the XXVII of August and the XVIII of October so many and such various things were accomplished, namely the election and ordination of a metropolitan bishop, the sending of legates with letters to the Pontiff, their journey from Arles to Rome and their approach to Vigilius and his answer, since all these things are wont to be done slowly and with ripe counsel. Noris indeed denies this consequence, in the Pelagian History, book 2, chapter 22, and contends that all were accomplished in the space of fifty-two days, and therefore that Cæsarius died only in the year 543: but with little probability, even if every other reason were lacking, as will easily appear to one who considers how many things must have been accomplished within that brief interval of time. The year of St. Cæsarius's death was therefore 542, in which the learned commonly agree today. But of the Saint's deeds in his last sickness, and of his death itself and his burial, treatment is made at the end of the Life.

* Orange

perhaps enitamur*

§ VI. The Saint's testament: the writings left to posterity: his disciples: his epitaph.

The Saint's testament, published by various men, The testament of St. Cæsarius Baronius published in volume 6 of the Annals at the year 508: A copy of which, he says at number 27, sought from the archives of the church of Arles and transcribed by Claude Saxi the notary, we received from Francis Claret, archdeacon of the church of Arles, when he was at Rome. He notes besides in the same place that in the day at least, and in the consul, and in the subscription of Cæsarius himself and of the witnesses, it is curtailed. Before, at number 23, he had said that it was somewhat faulty and eaten away by dust. The same testament was afterward published by Saxi in the Pontificium Arelatense in the article on Cæsarius, by Vincent Barrali in the Chronology of Lérins from page 268, by Holstenius in the Codex of Rules, part 3, from page 52, and by Le Cointe in the Annals of the Franks at the year 542, number 23. It is certainly worthy to be read in this place also. Wherefore I subjoin it from Baronius's edition.

[58] in which he makes the monastery his heir along with the prelate his successor, Peace to the church of Arles. Cæsarius the bishop, to the priests and deacons, to the holy and venerable abbess Cæsaria, whom the Lord through my littleness set over our monastery, and to the whole congregation which the Lord by his grace shall have placed there, eternal salvation in the Lord. Since ecclesiastical piety does the business of its custom in an orderly way, namely that it may bestow the aid of its bounty upon strangers and the destitute, how much more, when opportunity or necessity shall arise that it should bestow something upon holy men and those who fear God, ought it to spread wider the merciful bowels of its compassion? And therefore, according to this letter which we have strengthened with the subscription of our hand, to which we have added below the day and the consul, God dispensing it, I have made this my testament, and have subscribed it with my own hand, and have confirmed it by prætorian right and by civil right, and in place of these by a codicil. I, Cæsarius, a sinner, decree that when I shall have paid the debt of human flesh, the whole monastery of St. John at Arles, which I founded, shall be canonically under the power of the pontiff of Arles, and I will and command it to be my heir. Let all others, male or female, be disinherited. All that I shall have given, bequeathed, or ordered to be given to anyone by this my testament, let it be done that it be given. But for the rest, I leave the bishop of Arles coheir with my monastery: and whatever men or women I shall have ordered to be free, let them all be free.

[59] and bequeaths certain garments to others, Yet I, since I have had nothing of my parents' goods, blushed to presume upon this my testament: yet that sentence of the Savior compelled me, terrible to most men, which the wicked shall hear him speak: Go into everlasting fire — that out of an affection of piety I should have conferred something upon my church. And lest perchance after my death any of my kinsfolk should presume to disturb the church over which I preside, apart from those things which I shall have given them by way of legacy: therefore I have desired to treat this my will more fully, whereby my kinsfolk may not presume to demand anything from the aforesaid monastery or from the pontiff of the church of Arles, beyond what I shall have given and have given them. To my holy lord the archbishop, who shall worthily succeed me, unworthy as I am, although all things are in his power, yet, if he please and think it worthy, let all the paschal garments which were given me serve him, together with the shaggy chasuble and the tunic, or the coverlet, whichever I shall leave the better. But the rest of my garments, except the cloak-hood, let my people, both clerics and laymen, divide among themselves, with the favor and ordering of my lord the archbishop, at his bidding, nay at his gift. But those things which I formerly conferred upon the monastery by donation, I now confirm: and if I have conferred anything on anyone by letter, or by a note, or by word, out of regard for piety, I will that it hold good.

[60] This too I pray as usual: that the cell which Augustus the subdeacon of good memory had in the court of St. Stephen's, on the right hand as one enters, he commends the care of the monastery to his successor my lord the archbishop may deign to grant by perpetual right to the provisors of the monastery, for their secure keeping: so that the provisors of the monastery may have it to pass to their successors. And this I specially will, and thus, my lord archbishop, I pray: that the holy congregation have no other provisor for the monastery, nor priest for the basilica of St. Mary, than him whom it shall itself have chosen, or shall have asked to be ordained. And although I presume upon your piety, my lord archbishop, yet lest perchance you have importunate suggestions of some men against our monastery, I adjure you by the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and by the dread day of judgment, that the old enemy never prevail with you, nor that you consent that your handmaids be saddened; nor permit anything to be taken from them of what they possess and we have conferred upon them: because, God being favorable, we have not without discretion or justice sold by direct right the goods of the church to any worldly persons; save only that which is less useful and unfruitful to the church. And what we have bestowed upon souls holy and free for God, with the consent and subscription of our holy brothers, let it remain theirs by perpetual right.

[61] But you, my lady daughters, I adjure by the holy and inseparable Trinity, he earnestly commends, and by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you entreat with all affection as your lord the pontiff who, by God's ordering, shall worthily succeed me, unworthy as I am, and love him with a pure mind, and do not sadden him by your disobedience. For we trust in God's mercy that he will so bestow chaste love upon all priests to whom the charge of religion belongs, that they will suffer nothing to be lacking to you which is needful for sustaining the poor body. You again and again, best of pontiffs, I ask by divine grace that you have the greatest care of the aforesaid monastery, and that you take pains with great piety to provide for their good name. But if any person shall give you unjust counsel, I pray that answer be made with authority: because what is done by the bishop's word not only ought not to be taken away, but indeed cannot be at all; and this especially because the authority of the holy Pope Urbicanus himself urged this, so that I may believe this of you, my holy lord and pontiff. For never will so wicked a suggestion prevail with you that against the just will of any prelate whatsoever … since by my zeal the substance has profited you much and is nearly doubled. It is added to this, that the merciful God, through my littleness, has granted even an immunity from tributes, both near the city and within it, and also for the greatest part in the suburbs and villages.

[62] The little farm of Aucharianum, therefore, whence a small

portion we gave to the monastery, we keep much; for we have reserved more or less a hundred arpents of vineyard and fields of three hundred measures: so that the aforesaid monastery that the things given it may remain to it, has only forty measures of the land which I planted; and of the old vineyard we have conferred scarcely thirty arpents: the little farm of Gallicumanum, that of Mercloanum, and the little farm Gemelli with its pools and marshes, with all its right and boundary; and the pasture in the Stony field, or whatever other things there are, or the field at Trifinitium above the paved road, or whatever else remains; the little farm Orvedum, and the little farm of Martinatis, and the little farm Silvanum, in which is situated the church of St. Mary de Ratis, and the little farm Missiamanum, with all the pastures and marshes belonging to them, with all their right and boundary, we have reserved to your holy church for their maintenance. Whence I adjure you, holy pontiff, that if almighty God shall, by the hands of those who fear him, give any greater good to holy mother Church or to the monastery of the holy virgins, your holy love may not sunder the one from the other. But if (which God forbid) a congregation shall either not have been gathered there, or perhaps afterward (which God avert), when it has been gathered, shall have ceased to be, let them revert to the mother church.

[63] finally he bequeaths certain things to others. These things indeed I have written that I might satisfy my fear. For far be it that you, most pious pontiff, should be blamed for ignorance: because (as I have already said above) the divine goodness granted that through my humility an immunity should be given to the church under so many heads. What we have given to the monastery with the consent of the brothers, I confirm by this my will. To our handmaid Cæsaria the abbess I will that there be given the larger cloak which she herself made, which she made of hemp. To my lord Leo the priest I will that a hand-towel be given. To my lord bishop Cyprian I will that there be given a cloak, and the best of all. Whatever I have conferred upon my servant Bricianus, I now confirm by this my testament. Let Agritia, my own maidservant, most gladly serve the monastery of St. Cæsaria the abbess: and indeed I confirm the gariolæ which I gave to them or to their parents. All my chamberlains I commend to you, my lord bishop, before God and his angels.

[64] Certain more obscure words Le Cointe at the year 542, number 24, holds suspect the word archbishop set down in the testament, and thinks that one should more rightly read bishop, which does not appear improbable, since Cæsarius so calls himself. This correction Denis de Sainte-Marthe confirms in volume 2 of Gallia Christiana, in the documents, column 501, where he testifies that in the manuscript copy sent to him one always reads bishop. Receive also an explanation of certain barbarous words. At number 59 there is given to the prelate who is to succeed him a shaggy casula and a tunic or Galnape. Casula is variously taken; but when it designates a garment it usually signifies the outermost one: and now indeed for the most part it signifies the outermost garment of the priest celebrating Mass; but at the time when these things were written it more often designated the ankle-length garment which bishops, clerics, and monks used outside of the Sacrifice or other sacred offices. And in this sense I judge the word is here to be understood. Go to Du Cange's Glossary at the word casula. But the word villosa, which is added, signifies that kind of silken cloth which the French call velours. Tunica, says Du Cange in his Glossary, is a priestly garment, of which bishops put on two beneath the chasuble, as is found in Amalarius, etc. The same author discusses various things at the word Galnape, and expounds it as almost meaning a coverlet: but that signification does not fit this passage; for it seems to designate the tunic itself by another name. Perhaps Galnape is corrupted from galbana, and a tunic is so called from its faintly gleaming color, whitish and pale, which is the color galbaneus. Certainly a certain garment is called galbana in Juvenal, in this line:

Clad in sky-blue checkered stuff and smooth pale-yellow.

[65] Obscure too is what garment the Saint designates in the same place by birrus amicularis: are briefly explained. for this word has taken on very many significations, as may be seen in Du Cange's Glossary. Baronius at the year 261 disputes much about the birrus, and at number 44 says that by it only the shoulders and arms were covered: but in that sense it can scarcely be taken here, since in the Life, book 2, number 10, it is narrated that Cæsarius's birrus was seized by the wounded Liberius and laid upon his wound, which cannot be understood of so short a garment. I should therefore prefer here to understand by birrus a linen vestment, which is commonly called a rochet, from the Italian word rocchetto. A little further down, by pitacium is to be understood a paper or a slip: for both the sense hints at this, and Du Cange, often already praised, teaches that the word is frequently so taken. But mantus or mantum, which recurs at number 63, signifies a cloak. Mabillon, volume 2 of the Annals, page 273, interprets manti as chasubles, and not badly there, I think. That the mantum was the chief ornament of bishops Du Cange observes at the same word. A manutergium is a linen cloth for wiping the hands in the sacred offices. Finally, what is designated below by gariolæ I do not perceive. Perhaps the word is corrupt, or one word has been pulled apart into two, so that one might read veregariolas, if that word would form a better sense.

[66] Not a few writings of St. Cæsarius are extant: but to enumerate them all is not part of my design. The Saint's various writings, Of both his Rules, and of his writings against the Semi-Pelagians, we have already discoursed. What besides has come down to us are for the most part homilies or sermons, with which the solicitous Pastor excellently fed and instructed the flock committed to him. Casimir Oudin, volume 1 On the Writers, column [ ] and following, enumerates 158 sermons or homilies, to which he adds four letters. But these little works of St. Cæsarius have thus far nowhere been gathered into one, but are scattered in various places. The learned Benedictines in the Literary History of France, volume 3, from page 197, dispute at length about St. Cæsarius's writings, enumerate their various editors, and endeavor to show which are certainly his homilies, and which are doubtful or supposititious. Of these a hundred and more are read printed in the Appendix to volume 5 of the Works of St. Augustine in the last Paris edition; very many are also found in the Bibliotheca Patrum; but not all which are there ascribed to Cæsarius are his. Some Vincent Barrali published; others Baluze and others. Consult, reader, if you please, the praised Literary History of France.

[67] Excellent admonitions in his writings St. Cæsarius left us, from which excellent admonitions are recited, of which it pleases me to bring forward as an example those which he wrote to the abbess Oratoria; especially because in these admonitions he beautifully paints himself. Holstenius published them in the Codex of Rules, part 3, from page 49, in this manner: Hear me then, sweetest sister and daughter: however much you always desire to be occupied in spiritual studies, yet for your sisters' sake outward business will sometimes have to be dispatched by you. You must therefore take the utmost care that, if you do temporal things, you do them as for the time only; but that you always cling the more tenaciously to spiritual devotion and love: so that when you have dispatched temporal matters the more swiftly, you may run back at once to prayer or reading, as to a mother's bosom. For you ought to desire that, worldly solicitude being cast away, you may always think of the service of Christ, because of that which is said: No man serving God entangles himself with secular business, and the rest.

[68] given to a superior of nuns, In all things, according to the Apostle, show yourself an example of good works; and let your life, like a winged creature, always fly to the heights by desire, resound by word, and shine by example. But when you shall have set yourself to announce the word of God to your sisters, or when for the profit of souls, and for establishing the tenor of the Rule, a necessity of contending shall press upon you, first weigh with cautious consideration that what you utter with the mouth you fulfill by deeds; and that what you preach to others you supply by works. That is, that you first feel in your own shoulders and neck whether you are loading the necks of your sisters with heavy or with light burdens. For instance, if a fast beyond the daily one, or an abstinence beyond custom, and also, as commonly happens, if it shall have seemed good to chant more psalms than usual at the synaxis. Be found first in the church, and go out last. Be first to take up labor, last to lay it down; and in the daily nourishment of the body and in the common food be equal to those with whom you share an equal seat at table; be delighted, in short, with the same savors of the dishes as your sisters, and let those who serve the dishes and pour the drink set before you equal victuals and common drinks: and the primacy which you hold as first at table, claim it as first for the virtue of frugality: that the abstinence which your tongue preaches your neighbor's throat and the stomach next to you may feel: lest perchance your subjects, hearing you, say in silent thoughts: O how beautifully a full belly preaches abstinence to us, and bids us be content with the meanest food and drink, when its own throat is stuffed with dainty foods and drinks and belching: for that preaching about abstinence is acceptable which faces sallow with fasting utter.

[69] and to all who are set over Religious And in all these things you must know that it is fitting that you yourself first walk the paths of the narrow way along which you admonish your companions to go, and first fulfill by deeds all that is to be done, so that afterward, like a beaten trumpet brought forth by hammering, you may break forth more rightly into speech, because of that word of the Lord: Whoever, he says, shall scandalize one of these little ones who believe in me, and the rest. Be not more adorned than the rest in garments, but in manners. Among other things you must guard with great caution that you love equally all in the monastery, the government of whom you have laid equally upon your own neck; lest you love one more or less than another: but dispose all things that are, so far as possibility allows, with an equal governance, and dispense them with like moderation, and impart to them equal charity: and bestow the things that are necessary not on any you please through private affection, but on all according to the merits of each.

[70] and to those set over women Religious Do not prefer her who has pleased you in face and look, nor her whom you have known by the eye, or by whose more flattering compliance you have been softened; but her whom the love of Christ and a more religious life shall have shown. For it behooves you, for the sake of some, sometimes to have a knife at the throat, to bear a cautery on the tongue, to carry a rod and a staff in your hand: that by the knife you may cut away vices, by the cautery bring back what has been cut to health, by the discipline of the rod correct, and by the staff support her who has been disciplined. But if at any time you shall have been called out to converse with worldly persons, first arm your forehead with the trophy of the Cross, and redouble upon your breast the standard of Christ, that Christ may deign to accompany his own little maiden. But let your talk always be mingled with gravity and sweetness, and speak only so much as the fitness of the matter and the time shall require. But if anything be asked of you by them which you resolve to grant, grant it with a cheerful countenance; but if it be not fitting to grant something, the request

soften their request at least by the courtesy of your speech.

[71] Let many know your name; let many, so far as you are able, feel your kindnesses; most useful of all: let few know your face. But if at any time you must speak apart for the necessity of the monastery, do it with two, or at least with three chosen sisters, since the repute of a good name, like the keeping of a perfect life, is necessary for you; and human detraction is then first to be despised when Christ is the cause. Let all your action too be always for God's sake, your speech about God, your thought toward God. And, vices excepted — to which not compassion but uprightness is due — I desire you to be compassionate to all, pleasing to all, a merciful superior to all. So that, namely, according to Paul, you may be holy in body and in spirit, your Spouse and Lord himself ruling your mind and disposing your ways in holiness; who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen. Let it suffice to have brought forward these things out of St. Cæsarius's admonitions by way of a specimen.

[72] Finally it pleases us to conclude this Commentary with the Saint's epitaph, his epitaph. concerning which Mabillon in the Annals, volume 1, page 99, teaches the following: His epitaph, after his tomb had been overthrown by the Saracens, Paul, an illustrious man, wrote in the year of the Lord DCCCLXXIII, Indiction XV, Ranigaudus being master, as is read after the epitaph in an old Arles codex, under this title, The restoration of the tomb of St. Cæsarius; to which title the epitaph is subjoined, far more correct than in Saxi and others, in this manner.

Here is seen a covering renewed with varied marble For Father Cæsarius, the holy pontiff, Which a wicked band destroyed in bitter rage. That band the wave of the sea swallowed by God's power. While Rostagnus the prelate was set in this see of Arles, Paul, bowed low, strenuously wrought this work. To whom may Christ grant the rewards of heavenly life, And joyfully has joined him to the angelic companies. And on us too, venerable Father, have mercy by your prayers, That our God may wash away all our sins.

LIFE.

BOOK THE FIRST

By Cyprian, Firminus, and Viventius, bishops,

From the manuscript of Saint-Martin-des-Champs, of the Cluniac Order, at Paris, collated with Mabillon's edition.

Cæsarius, bishop and confessor, at Arles in Gaul (St.)

BHL Number: 1508

By Cyprian, etc.

PREFACE.

The preface explains the occasion of writing, Since, virgin Cæsaria ^a, to be revered by us, with the choir of fellow nuns committed to you, you ask of us that, taking up from the beginning the life and conversation of St. Cæsarius of blessed memory, our founder, we should set it down in writing — through which his life enjoys its reward ^b, whose blessedness cannot be set forth in the speech of mortals, although long ago, even while he still flourished here, it was reverently spread abroad through the whole world — yet we believe it would be wrong if we did not by all means obey so holy a desire: especially since this can be to your monastery, and still more to his own, in the stead of his presence; and since we ourselves, while we speak of him, may rejoice in a manner even to see him. With God's help therefore we shall set about fulfilling what you ask. And many things indeed we have learned of that most blessed lord by our own inquiry, many we have seen ourselves, some also we have learned from the report of venerable priests or deacons, his disciples, but chiefly of * Messianus the priest and of that most faithful man Stephen the deacon, who served him from their youth — those things only which are less burdensome and are removed from prolixity.

[2] and the credit of the authors. One thing, however, in the devotion of this present little Work we ask of our readers: that if by chance it should befall us, simple narrators, to come before the ears and judgments of the learned, they may not find fault that our style seems destitute of pomp of words and of the caution of the grammarian's art: because, as we narrate with truth the acts and words and merits of so great a Man, the light of his works and the ornaments of his virtues suffice us. For the aforesaid lord Cæsarius, whom we have in hand, was wont to say: Some avoid rusticity of speech, and do not turn aside from the vices of life. Indeed the pure sincerity of Christ's virgins deserves this, that nothing painted, nothing composed with worldly art, be offered either to their eyes or as something to please their ears: but that they should receive the words of a most pure narration flowing from the fountain of simple truth. And therefore this our discourse, content with the religion of integrity, refuses worldly pomp, and spits out, with its works, the boasting of worldly glory; and is delighted rather to accord with the eloquence of the Fishermen ^c than with that of the rhetoricians. Now therefore let each one seek to follow in living what he hastens to know in reading.

ANNOTATIONS.

Mabillon: your*.

Mabillon adds: Cæsarius*.

Mabillon adds: venerable*.

CHAPTER I.

The Saint's country, his parents, his clerical and religious life down to the episcopate.

The Saint born at Chalon of noble parents, The holy and most blessed Cæsarius, bishop of Arles, is said to have been a native of the territory of Chalon ^a: whose parents, of equal descent ^b, flourished above all their fellow citizens rather in faith and in manners — which is a great and outstanding pattern of honor and nobility. This venerable and holy man, when he was in his seventh year or more, would without any hesitation give to the poor of the clothes which he had about him. Often, when the blessed Man came home half naked and had been seen by his parents, being strictly questioned what he had done with his garments, he would answer only this, that they had been taken from him by passers-by.

[4] Therefore, just as certain little trees of noble stock are wont to bear fruit before they grow — in which indeed the smaller the age, the more gracious is the abundance — so in that holy Man, amid the very rudiments of infancy, so joyful a bud of blossoming hope broke forth [from boyhood his mercy toward the poor shines out: leaving his parents, to the clergy,] that before he flourished in the space of years [he was overflowing with the fruit of genius. When therefore he was in his eighteenth] year ^c, without the knowledge of his household or his parents, desiring to obtain a dwelling in the kingdom of heaven, he prostrated himself, with a preceding supplication, at the feet of the Pontiff of that time, holy Sylvester ^d, asking that, his hair being cut off and his habit changed, the pontiff would consign him to the divine service, and not suffer the suppliant * to be called back by his parents to his estate and his former affections. The pontiff therefore giving thanks to Christ, there was no delay to his excellent vows. And when he had there served for two years or more under this beginning, kindled by the prompting of divine grace, he resolves to consign himself more strictly and more unencumbered, according to the Gospel, to the divine service, so that for the love of the heavenly kingdom he might become a stranger not only to his parents but also to his country.

[5] And so, having wholesomely seized the liberty of fleeing from the fetters of the world, thereafter he joins himself to religion; and on the way expels a demon: the holy Novice sought the monastery of Lérins ^e. And when he was making the journey with but one servant as companion, crossing a river before the searchers sent by his mother, he was not seen by them. But the devil, entering into a certain wretched man, following his journey, cried out unceasingly behind his back: Cæsarius, do not go. Whom he at once cured by a cup of drink blessed and held out to him: which, being known from the report of his aforesaid companion, is established to have been the first miracle he wrought. Being received therefore by the holy abbot Porcarius ^f and by all the elders, he began to be prompt in vigils, careful in observance, quick in obedience, devoted in labor, outstanding in humility, singular in meekness, so that they rejoiced to have found him perfect in the increases of the whole training whom they had received to be trained in the beginnings of regular discipline.

[6] After a short time, therefore, he is chosen for the storeroom of the community. [being set over the cell he rightly discharged the office; then, removed from this office, by too great] Attentively and studiously therefore he began to be willing to give to those who had need, or if out of love of abstinence they asked nothing; but to those to whom he had proved it not to be necessary he gave nothing, although they wished to receive. Whence it came about that those to whom holy discretion was unwelcome besought the abbot that he should be removed from the storeroom: which also was granted. Presently, that care being laid aside , he slew himself at last with the desired assiduity of reading, singing psalms, praying, and keeping vigil; so that the weak body of his youth, which it had been fitting rather to soothe than to weaken, he rendered bowed and broken alike by the excess of the cross: so that from a scant cooking of vegetables or gruel, which he prepared for himself on the Lord's day, he drew his food until the next Lord's day *.

[7] These good things therefore shone forth in the beginnings of his merits: austerity he contracts a disease: hence he is sent to Arles which in his subsequent life were increased with manifold virtues. For he wore down the strength of the flesh, that he might strengthen the power of the spirit by the solidity of hope and faith. And, as the Apostle says, triumphing over himself for himself, that he might deserve to be crowned, overcoming, he transcribed the outward things of the outer man to the inner, and by the commands of his excellent mind cast away the incitements of the rebellious body. Yet after this, his stomach failing, he fell into the burning ^g of a quartan fever. And when the holy abbot was gravely troubled at his infirmity, and the sickness was divided between master and disciple, so that the one labored in mind, the other in body; and when the holy father saw that no remedy could be furnished him in the monastery, where, even if a physician were at hand, the Boy's habit, fervent for spiritual things, would suffer nothing of the reins of abstinence or the rigor of vigils to be relaxed for him, the most blessed abbot bids — nay, compels — him to be brought to the city of Arles for the sake of recovering his health.

[8] to heal his health: he begins at the same time to study the art of Rhetoric, There was at that time Firminus ^h, an illustrious man and one fearing God, and his kinswoman Gregoria, mistress of a household, most illustrious of women in the aforesaid city of Arles, by whose zeal and watchfulness and care toward the clergy and the monks, and toward the citizens and the poor of the city, the aforesaid city was made the more illustrious. For neither of them consumed their own wealth in worldly luxury, but sent it before them to paradise by the conveyance of the poor. These received the aforesaid St. Cæsarius to themselves out of mercy. Now there was a certain man most intimate with these persons, Pomerius ⁱ by name, a rhetor by learning, an African by race, whom the teaching of the grammatical art rendered singular and famous ^k there. These generous persons therefore conceive in mind that, since St. Cæsarius was filled with so great grace of God, and seemed to be supported by so great a memory by Christ's gift, the monastic simplicity in him should be strengthened by the disciplines of secular learning.

[9] but he is divinely frightened away from the love of worldly learning. But he did not receive the figments of human erudition, whom divine grace prepared to instruct by itself for itself. And so the book which his teacher had given him to read he by chance, wearied by his vigil, placed on his couch under his shoulder: upon which, when nevertheless he had fallen asleep, he is presently struck by a terrible vision from God; and being loosed a little into slumber, he sees as it were the shoulder on which he lay, and the arm on which he had leaned upon the book, gnawed by a dragon that bound it. Shaken therefore out of sleep,

terrified by that very sight, he began still more terribly to accuse himself for that same deed, in that he had wished to couple the light of the saving Rule with the foolish wisdom of the world. Therefore he despised these things forthwith, knowing that the ornament of perfect speech would not be lacking * to those in whom spiritual understanding was eminent.

[10] He is ordained deacon by St. Æonius, and priest, But after some days the above-written persons suggested to St. Æonius ^l, the bishop of the city, saying that there was with them a certain venerable Monk, outstanding in all praise, whose person he ought to come to know by familiar and private questioning. He bids him therefore to be brought to him. When St. Cæsarius had been presented to him, the venerable bishop Æonius inquires of him rather diligently what citizen he was and of what parents he had been begotten. And when he had made known his place of birth in the city and the origin of his parents, the bishop, rejoicing with holy alacrity, said: You are mine, my son, at once fellow citizen and kinsman: for I remember your parents very well, and by blood I embrace them in a kinsman's recollection. He began therefore to look upon the young man, not as a pilgrim or a stranger, but with a more attentive regard, with the inmost eyes of his heart. Presently therefore he asked for him from his abbot, holy Porcarius. At the request therefore of the blessed man, bishop Æonius, he is granted him, though by an unwilling giver. Straightway he is ordained deacon, and thereafter priest.

[11] Yet never leaving behind in the least the canonical measure of a monk, never the institutes of the men of Lérins, he remained in Order and office a cleric, in humility, charity, obedience, and the cross a monk. But at the church, at matins and other assemblies, he was the first of those entering and the last of those going out. Neither sight nor hearing sundered the blessed Man's mind from the nectar of heavenly goods, so that the quality of his countenance seemed always to shine with I know not what of the heavenly. But after this, when the abbot in the island near the city had died, the blessed father Cæsarius is sent by holy Æonius, that the monastery ^m which had lately been left desolate by the death of its ruler he himself, succeeding in the same authority of reverence, might form to an abbot's discipline. yet he remits nothing of his manner of life: made abbot he governs well. He therefore willingly took up in the suburban monastery that life which even within the city he was always cultivating by daily acts and always longing for in his desires; and he so formed the aforesaid monastery by daily instancy and by the divine offices that it is kept there to this day, God being favorable.

ANNOTATIONS.

Mabillon: se*

Mabillon: etiamsi*

Mabillon adds: ita*

Mabillon: the other Lord's day*

that is, in a manner*

Mabillon: esset*

CHAPTER II.

Against his will he is promoted to the episcopate: he arranges the divine Offices and fervently devotes himself to preaching: he provides for the sick, for captives, and for the poor: falsely accused he is banished, and then, his innocence being recognized, he is honorably recalled: he quenches a fire, obtains rain, etc.

While therefore he was living in the aforesaid island * for more than three years in the office of abbot, holy Æonius addresses the clergy and the citizens, and the lords of the district themselves through go-betweens, [He is designated by Æonius as prelate of Arles: when the latter dies he hides himself; but being found] that when he himself, God willing, should have passed to Christ, they should choose no other than St. Cæsarius to be his successor: so that the ecclesiastical vigor which he complained had been softened in many rules by his own sickness might, through Christ's servant Cæsarius, be joyfully recalled by the brotherhood to its own condition and vigor; and that the labor of him who followed should be in some measure a profit to his predecessor ^a; so that, when he left such a successor, he might gain an increase of the eternal inheritance even in the choosing of that most holy Man; and that after his passing he who while still living was the author of the decree might not fail to be a partner in the vow of the election. And so, all these things being faithfully ordered by divine providence, blessed Æonius, secure about his successor, passed to the Lord. When therefore the true report that he was to be ordained bishop had come to the knowledge of our Father of whom we speak, he sought a hiding place among certain tombs. But he could not be hidden whom not guilt but grace disclosed. And so he is drawn alive out of a certain sepulcher, whom the brightness of his life showed to be not dead but hidden.

[13] Therefore he took up the burden of the episcopate under compulsion, and bore the load laid upon the gentle beast of Christ with a temper of modesty. he is ordained: he orders the divine Offices, and devotes himself to preaching, Solicitous therefore and provident as a Pastor for the progress of all, he at once appointed that daily the work of Terce, Sext, and None ^b should be sung with hymns by the clergy in the basilica of St. Stephen, so that if by chance any of the laity or of the penitents desired to follow the holy work, he might without any excuse be able to take part in the daily office. But he himself, despising all earthly solicitude and care, after the manner of the Apostles believed that the diligence of tillage in the dispensing of goods should be committed, under a solemn charge before God, to the stewards and the deacons, and he consigned himself wholly to the word of God and to reading, and also to restless preachings. Truly like a spiritual physician, who should cure the vices of diseases already implanted [and prevent those about to be born of evil thoughts: and God gave him so great a grace of speaking of himself ^c] that whatever he could see with his eyes he set forth for the edification of his hearers by way of the consolation of a comparison. He so committed to memory the sequence of the sacred volumes, and so always gathered new things, that he lost nothing of the old — like the temple of God, which both daily receives new guests and cherishes the old; and so always grows by the entrance of newcomers that it is never diminished by the departure of the old. Thus, if the matter required it, he narrated any number of examples and the sequence of the divine volumes, as though he were reviewing things known from a book, and not as though he were bringing forth from the treasury of memory things read long ago, fulfilling that saying of the Gospel about the man who brings forth out of his treasure things new and old. But when pontiffs or priests arrived, and all the ministers of the divine order, whether citizens of the place or strangers, when he had greeted them and prayed, he inquired a little about the affection and the welfare of his fellow citizens or of their own people.

[14] But presently, taking up the arms of holy preaching, disputing of the shadow of present things, which he adapts to each one's profit. persuading of the perpetuity of blessedness, he invited some by sweet address, deterred others by a sharper one, corrected some by threatening, others by coaxing, called some back from vices by charity, others by severity, admonishing others generally as it were in proverbs,

others he rebuked more harshly and under a divine adjuration, that they might follow his admonitions, and threatened eternal punishments with tears, according as he knew the virtues, or the manners, or the vices of each. Thus he brought forth his preaching so as both to spur on the good to glory and to call back the wicked from punishment. Like a good physician, he provided different medicines for different wounds, offering not what might please each man, but rather what might cure him: not looking to the sick man's will, but desiring the health suited to the infirm; and he greatly rebuked the holy pontiffs themselves and the other rulers of the Church, that they should unceasingly minister spiritual food to the people committed to them, saying: You hold, in Christ's name, the place of the first order of the spiritual warfare, brother; attend with pastoral diligence to the talents committed to you, that you may restore them doubled to the Lender. Hear the prophet: Woe is me, for I have kept silence. Hear the Apostle saying with fear: Woe will be to me if I preach not the Gospel. See lest, while you occupy the place of the chair, another be perhaps shut out, and that be said of you: They have taken away the key of knowledge; they neither enter themselves nor suffer others to enter — who perhaps could better have answered to the Lord's advancement. This, however, by God's inspiring, he had as his own: that while he brought forth particular things to particular men, he set before each one the course of his own life, so that he who heard him believed him not only a searcher of the heart, but confessed him as it were a witness of his own conscience. And as he was most severe toward himself, so he appeared strict toward others for their amendment.

[15] [He prescribes sacred chants for the laity: he provides for the sick, for captives, and for the poor.] He also added, and compelled, that the body of the laity should learn psalms and hymns, and with high and measured voice, after the manner of the clergy, some in Greek ^d, some in Latin, should sing proses and antiphons, so that they might have no leisure in church to be taken up with idle talk. Preachings also of the most compunctious kind, suited to the season or the festivals, he alike instituted and introduced. But for the sick above all he took thought and came to their aid, and set apart a most spacious house in which without any noise they might hear the holy work of the basilica: beds, bedding, and provisions he appointed, with a person who could wait upon them and heal them; nor did he deny place and liberty of making suggestion to captives and the poor. He always charged his servant, saying: See whether any of the poor are standing at the doors, lest for the sake of our repose a timid and modest authority, waiting upon our sin, suffer wrong. And drawing long sighs from the depth of his heart, he would say: Truly Christ has become a waiter at the door ^e, and a chatterer, and deaf, and yet he asks all men, persuades, admonishes, adjures. He added also that beyond doubt the poor had been given a share in our advancement in the present world, to whom now, with Christ as surety, we might entrust on earth what we should afterward receive in heaven.

[16] Accused of treason before Alaric, But after a few days the envious adversity of the devil disturbed this holy Man's tranquillity; and against him, to whom it had nothing to oppose in the way of bodily vices, it lays the crime of a traitor. For after some time a certain lost man among the blessed Man's notaries, Licinianus by name, undertook to do against the apostolic Man what Judas the disciple did not fear to perpetrate against our Savior the Son of God. For, armed with the poison of a savage accusation, he suggested by whisperers to king Alaric that most blessed Cæsarius, who had his origin from the Gauls, was striving with all his might to subject the territory and city of Arles to the dominion of the Burgundians: whereas that most excellent Pastor on bended knees was asking of the Lord day and night, for all in general, peace among the nations and quiet for the cities. For which reason it is the more to be believed that the barbarian ferocity was stirred up at the devil's prompting to the exile of the holy Man. For he is not acceptable or pleasing to the enemy who prays that his works be gainsaid.

[17] Therefore, at the instigation of those who were at hand, neither is credit given to his innocence, he is banished to Bordeaux, where he quenches a fire: nor is the truth of the accusation demanded: but being condemned upon false and unlawful accusations, when he had been dragged away from Arles, he was banished as it were into exile to the city of Bordeaux ^f. But that the grace of God in him might not lie hidden, it happened by chance that on a certain night the city blazed with a savage fire, and the people, swiftly running together, cried out to the Man of God: Holy Cæsarius, by your prayers quench the raging fire. When the Man of God had heard this, moved with grief and pity, going out to meet the coming flame he prostrated himself in prayer, and at once fixed and drove back the balls of flame. Which being seen, the praise of the divine power through him was celebrated by the voices of all who came running. After this miracle he was held by all in such admiration that in that city he was held not only as a Priest but as an Apostle, and the author of the persecution, that is the devil, was confounded, who saw him, whom he had striven to declare guilty, made eminent by the miracles of divine working. That this so happened we have learned by faithful report. And so he instructed the church there and everywhere always to render the things that are Cæsar's to Cæsar, and the things that are God's to God: to obey indeed, according to the Apostle, kings and powers when they command just things, and to hold in contempt in the prince the depravity of the Arian doctrine. Thus, as Truth testifies, a lamp set upon a mountain could not be hidden, but wherever it went it enlightened all men, shining upon its own * lampstand.

[18] After this, the blessed Man's innocence being discovered, the wicked prince demands [being recalled, he frees his own accuser from peril, and, honorably received, obtains rain:] that the holy Prelate should return to his former church and present himself alike to the city and to the clergy; but the king ordered his accuser to be stoned. And already the people were running together with stones, when suddenly the king's order came to his ears; at once the holy Man, rising in haste, by his intercession chose not so much that his accuser be given over to his own vengeance as rather, by his own supplication, that he be reserved for penance; that the Lord might heal by penance the soul which the enemy had made captive by a false betrayal: and, mercifully pardoning the enemy of his household, he might in one cause with a pure conscience twice overcome the ancient adversary. This too the Servant of God took special care to observe: that whether of his slaves or of the freemen who served him, no offender should ever receive beyond the lawful discipline, that is, thirty-nine ^g strokes. But if anyone had been caught in a grave fault, he permitted that after some days he should be beaten again with a few; and he adjured the superiors of the Church that if anyone should order a negligent man to be beaten beyond this, and the man died on account of that discipline, he by whose command it was done would be guilty of homicide. And when word had been brought that the Man of Christ was returning and was drawing near the city, the whole brotherhood goes out to meet him, and every sex, with candles and crosses, singing psalms, awaiting the holy Man's entrance. And because Christ makes his own dance for joy with miracles, and the faithless be confounded by the open light of marvels, at the coming of his Servant the Lord flooded with a most abundant rain the earth that was parched with a very long drought, so that fruitfulness might follow with fruit, when the dispenser pleasing to him was returning.

[19] After this, on a certain day, looking out from the altar, he saw some going out of the church when the Gospels had been read, he keeps the people in the assembly. who disdained at the first to learn the blessed Man's word, that is, his preaching. Running up at once, he cried out to the people: What are you doing, my sons? Whither are you led out, overthrown by evil persuasion? Stand for your souls at the word of admonition, and hear it carefully. This will not be permitted you on the day of judgment. I admonish and I cry out and I adjure: do not then be fugitives or deaf. Behold the trumpet of my mouth, as though the soul of each of you had been slain by the devil's sword. I shall not be held guilty of silence. On this account he very often had the doors shut after the Gospels, until, God willing, those who had before been * fugitives rejoiced in the restraint and in their advancement.

ANNOTATIONS.

Mabillon adds: parum*

Mabillon: adprime*

for sumptus*

Mabillon: of the Lord*

Mabillon adds: before*

CHAPTER III.

A monastery built for holy virgins, and a rule written for them: the Saint, assailed by calumnies, is thrust into prison, and afterward is led to Ravenna: captives redeemed: miracles.

[He begins to build a monastery for holy virgins, which is destroyed in the siege of the city:] The Man of God therefore conceived in mind, the Lord ever reigning, by divine prompting, that the church of Arles should be adorned and the city fortified not only with countless companies of clerics, but also with choirs of virgins: so that the husbandman, being not unfruitful, might both while surviving lay up a full harvest in the heavenly granaries, and, when received there, teach it to be brought in by those who followed him. But an adversity of diabolical envy for a while stood in the way of these arrangements. For while the Franks and Burgundians were besieging the city, king Alaric having already been slain in battle by the most victorious Clovis, Theodoric ^a, king of Italy, had entered that province with the dukes he had sent. In this siege, therefore, the monastery which he was beginning to build for his sister and for the other virgins

is for the most part destroyed, its boards and upper rooms being alike plundered and overthrown by the ferocity of the barbarians. And while he saw the labor which he was hastening to press forward, and had built with his own hand and sweat, overthrown and destroyed, he began to be consumed with a doubled sorrow.

[21] Then a certain cleric, his fellow citizen and kinsman, assailed by calumnies he is consigned to prison, terrified by fear of captivity and moved by youthful levity, at the devil's prompting ^b against the Servant of God , letting himself down by a rope over the wall at night, on the morrow offered himself of his own accord to the most wicked besieging enemy. When the Goths within learned this, they rush upon the holy Man, the sedition of the populace and the throng of the Jews alike shouting and clamoring immoderately that the Prelate had by night sent a fellow countryman ^c to the adversaries for the betrayal of the city. Nothing therefore is left for good faith, nothing for proof, nothing for a pure conscience, especially since the Jews and the heretics were crying out this very thing without reverence or moderation: Let the Prelate be dragged out of the house of the church, and be consigned to the strictest custody in the palace*: so that under cover of night he might either be drowned in the depths of the Rhone, or at least be kept thrust away in the fortress of Beaucaire ^d, until adversity might rage the more in his exile and tribulation. The house of the church therefore and the Prelate's chamber are crowded with the lodgings of the Arians. Yet one of those Goths, who, though others gainsaid it, laid himself in his little bed, was struck by the Godhead and died the next day, so that none for the future should dare with polluted conscience to violate the place of God's Servant. When therefore the Goths, at God's bidding, were unable to launch from either bank the barge ^e into which he had been enticed, because of the besieging enemy, calling the holy Man back by night into the palace, they covered his person with silence, so that none of the Catholics might be able to know whether he lived.

[22] While therefore, with the devil exulting, these things are done to the joy of the Jews, who everywhere without any regard belched forth reproaches of unbelief against our people, on a certain night one of the Jewish company, from the place on the wall where by chance they had undertaken the duty of watching, threw to the adversaries a letter bound to a stone, as though he were striking the enemy; but, the Jews' fraud being discovered, he is brought out: in which, indicating his name and his sect, he invited them to send ladders by night to the place of their watch, on condition that in return for the benefit bestowed no Jew within should suffer captivity or plunder. But in the morning, when the enemy had withdrawn a little from the wall, certain men going out beyond the outer wall find the letter, as usually happens, among the ruined walls, and carry it in, and publish it to all in the forum. Presently the person is brought forward, convicted, and punished. Then indeed the savage monstrousness of the Jews, hateful to God and to men, is at last confounded in the open light. Presently our Daniel too, that is holy Cæsarius, is brought out of the lions' den, and the satraps' accusation is published; and it was fulfilled concerning the author of them: He opened a pit and dug it, and he fell into the ditch which he made.

[23] he redeems captives with the wealth of his church, But when the Goths returned to Arles with an immense number of captives ^f, the sacred basilicas are filled, the house of the church too is filled with a crowd of the unbelieving ^g, and the Man of God bestows on them abundantly, in great scarcity, both food and clothing, until by the gift of redemption he set each one free, the silver being spent which the venerable Æonius ^h, his predecessor, had left to the table of the church, keeping in mind that the Lord dipped the bread in an earthen ⁱ dish, not in a silver vessel; and commanded his disciples to possess neither gold nor silver. But the holy work is carried on even to the dispensing of the divine ministry: for censers, chalices, and patens, being given for their redemption, the consecrated things of the temple are sold for redemption. It seems too that the strokes of axes fall upon the parapets and screens ^k, while from them the silver ornaments of the columns are struck off. This the Man of God did, saying that a rational man redeemed by the blood of Christ should not, having lost the state of liberty, become on account of his bondage either an Arian or a Jew, or from a freeman a slave, or from a slave a freeman.

[24] and he defends the deed against detractors: For he adorned and protected, he did not disfigure the church: he caused the mother's bowels to be opened to her sons, not to be condemned: saying this very often: Yet I could wish that some priests of the Lord, or the rest of the clergy, who out of I know not what love of superfluity are unwilling to give senseless silver or gold from Christ's offerings for Christ's own bondmen, would tell me and give me a reason. I could wish, I say, they would tell me, if these adversities should by chance befall themselves, whether they would desire to be freed by senseless offerings; or would they perhaps reckon it sacrilege if someone came to their aid out of the divine gifts? I do not believe it is contrary to God that redemption be given out of his ministry, who gave himself up for man's redemption ^l. We see from this that some indeed praise the holy Man's deed, and yet by no means emulate it. Did not the Blood of Christ shine in glass, and his most precious Body hang for us on wood? Yet we believe and trust in the Lord God that through the mercy and faith and prayer of blessed Cæsarius the city of Arles was in his days so besieged by enemies that it deserved to fall neither to captivity nor to plunder. Thus it afterward passed from the Visigoths to the kingdom of the Ostrogoths ^m. Thus to this day, in Christ's name, it is subject to the dominion of the most glorious King Childebert ⁿ, so that (as we read) they passed from nation to nation and from one kingdom to another people, and God did not permit harm to be done under that Man to his people of Arles.

007A Amid these things therefore he rebuilt the chief monastery which he had begun to prepare for his sister, after the pattern of the former plan and with a single enclosure. And he himself (since nothing stands in the way of the mystery that suits a Christian), like a more recent Noah of our time, on account of the whirlwinds and storms, builds an ark for his companions and sisters at the side of the church of the monastery; and he calls out of the monastery of Marseilles ^o his venerable sister Cæsaria, whom he had sent thither for this reason, that she might learn what she should teach, and be a disciple before she was a mistress, and brings her into the dwellings prepared, with two or three companions for the time. Multitudes of virgins gather there in companies; renouncing their goods and their parents, they spit out the deceitful and fleeting flowers of mortal things alike. They seek the bosom of Cæsarius the father and of Cæsaria the mother, that with him, with lamps lighted, they may await the gate of the heavenly kingdom, and, having fitly entered, may be counted worthy to cling to Christ's perpetual embraces: so shut in that until the day of their passing it is lawful for none to go out of the monastery beyond the door.

[26] Finally, for this cause and for this zeal, the devil beyond doubt, swelling like a raging lion against the Servant of Christ, carried off to Ravenna, he is honored with gifts by Theodoric, having again framed an accusation, caused the Prelate to be dragged from Arles and led under guard into Italy and to Ravenna: that there might be fulfilled in him: As gold and silver are proved in the furnace, so are the hearts of the elect before God. He came therefore to the palace, and, Christ leading him, sets about greeting king Theodoric also. But when the king beheld the Man of God, undaunted and venerable, he rises reverently to greet him, and, taking the ornament from his head, kindly returned his greeting, asking first about his own labor and that of the journey, then inquiring affectionately about his Goths and about the people of Arles. When therefore the holy Man had gone out from the king's presence, the king addresses his people, saying: May God not spare those who have caused a Man of this innocence and holiness to be vexed in vain by so long a journey. What manner of man he is, is proved from this, that when he came in to greet me I trembled all over. I see, he said, an angelic countenance, I see an apostolic Man: I judge it wrong to think anything evil of so venerable a Man. After this, when he had been received into a lodging, he sends him by way of a gift, as he was about to dine, a silver dish whose weight [p] came to about sixty pounds, with three hundred solidi added, asking at the same time and saying: Receive, holy Bishop; the king your son asks that your Blessedness may deign to receive this little vessel as a gift, and have it for use in memory of him.*

[27] But he who never had silver for the use of his table except spoons , which he distributes to the poor, the king praising the deed: on the third day has the dish appraised by his servants and publicly sold, and with its price began to free very many captives. Presently, they say, the king's servants told him: Behold, we have seen your lordship's gift set out for sale among wares, with whose price St. Cæsarius is freeing multitudes of captives. For so vast a crowd of poor was in his lodging [q] and packed the courtyard of the house that one could scarcely come to greet him for the density of the wretched suppliants. For through the streets also we have seen countless companies of the unfortunate running to and fro, going, that is, and returning to the Man. When Theodoric learned of such a deed, he extolled it with such praise and admiration that the senators and nobles who attended his palace all vied with one another in desiring that the reward of their offering be dispensed by the blessed Man's right hand, proclaiming that they had been divinely regarded, in that they had been worthy to behold such a Pontiff, who in those times, in word and deed, appeared a true successor of the Apostles and apostolic. And because nothing runs more swiftly than fame, as the most holy work grew common, at once the holy report of the holy Man flew to Rome, and he began there to be desired by the senate and the nobles, by the Pope also and the clergy, and likewise by the common people, with so great a fervor of charity that he clung to the embrace of each one's heart before he was seen with bodily eyes. Meanwhile all the captives beyond the Durance [r], and especially of the town of Orange [s], which had been given over wholly to captivity, part of whom he had also set free at Arles [t] by redeeming them, he presently redeemed, as he could, when they were found in Italy. And that a fuller liberty might be restored them, he set them with provisions * upon beasts and wagons on the road, and by the comfort and arrangement of his own people caused them to be called back to their own homes.

[28] he calls a dead man back to life, Amid these things, in the aforesaid city of Ravenna a certain widow had a youthful son serving in the prefect's offices, who supported his mother's need with the emoluments and his own pay. This boy, by a sudden sickness, lay lifeless. And when every hope and consolation of human healing had failed him, presently his mother, leaving and losing her son, hastens in haste to the Man of God; and, her body prostrate and her eyes streaming, uttering moreover wailings, with faith alone strong in her, embracing the blessed Man's knees she cried out, saying: I believe that the divine mercy has brought you hither, Holy One , for this, that you might give a son back to his mother.* To the woman piteously entreating him he refused for a little; and yet, thinking it hard if he did not hear such tears, moved with his accustomed pity, wishing indeed both so to pay the due affection of charity and so to work a miracle in God's name that in all things he might flee vanity, he came secretly and privately to her hut. And so, having poured out his prayer prostrate after his wonted manner, when he felt that the divine power of his calling was present through the Holy Spirit, he departed. But leaving behind his notary of that time, now the venerable Priest Messianus, he charged him that when the young man returned to himself, he should

immediately bring him word. And while he kept watch before the bed of the one who lay there, before the hour was yet complete, the boy was called back from the darkness of death, and presently, the orbs of his eyes being unclosed, he addresses his mother, saying: Go, mother, in haste and hurry to the Servant of God, by whose prayers I have been restored to you and to life, and give thanks that God has given effect to his merits and virtues. She, flying swiftly, ran up, rendering thanks not so much in words as in tears and cries and rejoicings, and asking that he whom God had restored to this light through him he would not suffer, on returning to Gaul, to depart from his service. But that blessed Man of loftier mind answered that she rather ought to render thanks to him whose power and mercy are wont to be present to all who mourn and cry out. The greatness of this miracle therefore passed through not only that city but the whole province by the devotions and reports of the faithful.

[29] he frees a house from the vexation of demons. Elpidius also, a deacon and physician, intimate with the royal power and in its constant service, being wearied by diabolical infestation not only with other divers snares but also assailed rather often by a shower of stones in his own house, entreats the Holy One of God that by his prayers he might deserve to be freed from that vexation. Entering his house to sanctify it, he sprinkled it with a pouring of blessed water, and so freed it from the perils of its accustomed vexation that no such thing happened there again.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. Pensa is here taken for weight, I suppose, although it signifies other things also among writers of the middle age.

q. The word is obscure, but the sense is gathered from what follows.

r. The Druentia, in French la Durance, rises from Mount Genèvre, one of the Cottian Alps in the district of Briançon in the Dauphiné, and then, flowing through Provence, is received by the Rhone one league below Avignon.

s. Arausio, commonly Orange, is a town of Provence beyond the Durance. That it was taken by the Goths after the Franks and Burgundians had been cut down at Arles and the Goths had crossed the Durance, is sufficiently gathered from this.

t. Mabillon has Arelato.

Mabillon adds: armatus*

Mabillon: & cum*

Mabillon adds: per hoc*

Mabillon adds: his*

Mabillon adds: pontifice*

cochlearibus*

read quod*, etc.

for sumptu*

Mabillon adds: Dei*

CHAPTER IV.

Having set out for Rome he obtains various things from the Pontiff: then, returning home, he shines with various virtues and miracles.

At Rome he obtains various things from the Pontiff: After this, coming to Rome, he is presented to blessed Symmachus ^a, then Pope, and thereafter to the senators and senators' wives. All rendered thanks to God and to the king that they had been counted worthy to behold with bodily eyes him whom they had long since beheld with the eyes of the heart. Therefore, proving the apostolic Man now not by the report of fame but by his bodily presence, they began to vie with one another in loving and venerating him. For which reason Pope Symmachus also, moved by so great a dignity of his merits, not only most truly looked up to him with the honor of a metropolitan, but adorned him also with the privilege of the pallium specially granted. He caused his deacons, after the manner of the Roman Church, to be distinguished by the habit of Dalmatics.

[31] returning to his own people, he heals a woman, Thereafter, returning to his own, he enters the city of Arles, is received with the singing of psalms, and brings back with him from Italy, when redemption had been dispatched, eight thousand solidi ^b — he who had gone forth as one to be exiled. For on the day on which he entered the city, he went into the church at evening to give the blessing; and behold, one of the women, seized with trembling, wailing and crying out with foam, all being terrified *, broke forth: who, being laid hold of on this side and on that by hands, is at once presented to the blessed Man before the altar, all entreating that, the plague being driven off, he would make the woman whole again in health. Then he after his manner prostrates himself in prayer for her, and, laying his hand upon her head, anointed all her senses and her face with the touch of holy oil. Which being done, the calamity, being driven off in the name of Christ, never afterward returned to the woman.

[32] Meanwhile he had among all others a special solicitude for captives: he redeems captives with great zeal, and so great and so illustrious was he in this administration that no man's account can set it forth. For on a certain day, when there was lacking to his holy hands any kind of gold or silver which might be given to the needy, being appealed to by a poor man, he said: What shall I do for you, my poor little one? What I have, this I give you. Going therefore into his cell, and bringing out the chasuble which he had for processions ^c and his paschal alb ^d, he gave them to him, saying: Go, sell them to some cleric, and with the price of them redeem your captive. For not only were those set loose from the bonds of captivity who sought him, but he himself also set out to the city of Carcassonne ^e to redeem captives. For many times too he sent abbots, deacons, and clerics through divers places for the redemption of the wretched.

[33] And he alone deserved to have as many virtues of divine grace with distinguished virtues as have scarcely flourished in very many who serve God. Yet he so cultivated each single quality in himself, as though he had that one alone: so long did the one that went before seem most beautiful and most delightful, until it was surpassed by those that followed. For who could set forth his patience, who his purity, who his charity, who his fervor of spirit, who his discretion, who his kindness, who his holy zeal, who his continual meditation day and night in the law of the Lord? An assertor of the faith, a pattern for priests, an ornament of the churches, a preacher of grace, a quencher of strife, a seedbed of charity, a rule of discipline, a weigher of manners, a balance of counsel, a defense of orphans, a redemption of captives. Never did detraction, never a lie, never a curse against any person whatsoever proceed from his mouth. And not only did he detract from no one, but he did not patiently hear one who detracted.

[34] If any of his household swore on a sudden, or perhaps cursed, he shines, he punished it in him wholesomely, according to the person. Yet this was his blessing instead of a curse, if he was ever moved against anyone: May God blot out your sin, may God take away your sins, may the Lord chastise your fault, that it be not reserved for you yonder; may the Lord correct here your error. His outward man betrayed his inward . For his countenance was always calm and angelic, so that, according to Scripture, when the heart rejoiced the face bloomed. Thus he was never too relaxed in just laughter, nor ever weighed down by excess of sadness, unless perhaps when he mourned for the sins of others. Never did he hold anyone in hatred, and he prayed with all the affection of his heart not only for friends but even for enemies. Nor did he teach by words what he did not fulfill by examples. No hour of the day passed for him without meditation on the divine word, nor did it pass him by even when he slept. For he was often seen both to sleep and to meditate. And when he seemed to cease from meditation on the psalms or from preaching, a reader or a notary did not cease to read before him: so that he could rightly and truly say: The meditation of my heart is always in your sight.

[35] he heals a woman through bishop Eucherius, At a certain time therefore, when he was making a journey about the region of the Alps, the venerable and holy bishop Eucherius ^f was with him. And it happened that in the middle of the road ^g an unhappy and infirm woman met him, drawn together in hands and feet and crawling along the ground. When he had beheld her, he asked that same holy Eucherius what this was, that she dragged herself so along the ground. He questioned the woman. She answered that she had now for many years been a paralytic, and was drawn together in all her limbs. Then blessed Cæsarius said to holy Eucherius: Get down and sign her with the cross. He began as it were to tremble and to excuse himself; the other would by no means desist unless he did it. He got down therefore and signed her and said: Behold, I have done what you commanded. To whom again he says: Put out your hand, and take her hand, and lift her up. He answered: I will do anything else that you shall command Eucherius, but this thing I will not presume to undertake. But do this yourself, to whom God has given to heal both the souls and the bodies of the sick. Holy Cæsarius answered him: Meanwhile do you what I say. And when he strongly resisted, and humbly and tearfully excused himself and contended long, he said to him: Would you have gone into the fire for obedience' sake, you who are not ready even for mercy's sake to do what charity commands? Put out your hand therefore in the name of the Lord, and lift her up. Then obeying his commands, he raised the woman with his outstretched hand, and she, having recovered her feet and all her limbs, walked whole to her little lodging.

[36] he drives away wild boars: For with how many miracles he shone, who is able to relate? It happened that in the suburban field of his monastery wild boars were frequent. The counts of the city and other soldiers would go out, and would not permit the men to dwell in their houses or to work, but slaughtered them with excessive violence because they kept the boars off. But they, no longer bearing the wrongs and disturbances, came and appealed to the Lord himself, crying out and saying: Do with us what you command; for we can neither serve you nor stay there. He carefully asks what their complaints were. They answered: On account of the wild boars the counts and the Goths and various hunters come, and kill us. But he with a public voice, lifting up his eyes and hands and looking to heaven, said: Lord Jesus Christ, let boars have no more access to this place. From that hour to the present day they never bred ^h there as they had been wont, nor did anything appear that could be hunted. Deservedly did he command the beasts, who drove every vice from himself. He could obtain from God, whose precept he never transgressed.

[37] by his holy oil a demon is driven out, It happened also that a boy of the most illustrious patrician Parthenius, who was preferred to the other servants and held outstanding by his lord, by a certain most wicked temptation often fell to the ground with his senses lost. And since indeed the enemy's vexation of him seemed rather an infirmity of mind than of body, he was anointed with oil hallowed by the most blessed Man's blessing. Which being done, the malignant * temptation so departed from him that his lord even set him at the head of his household as an example of the fear of God — him whom, when the earthly physician's care had failed, Christ through his Servant had restored to health. And what under admiration may still more move to fear, it is wrong to pass over in silence, for the declaring of the most holy Man's merit, a memorable deed of his.

[38] While the Saint therefore was going about his dioceses, a certain man who did the Saint an injury is punished by God, and had been received in the village which is called Launicum by its own lords, in the room in which he had had his bed, after his departure, upon his very couch a certain pestilent man, Anatolius by name, a physician, greatly to be pitied for such a crime, sought the embrace of a harlot: where presently, being seized by his instigator the devil with a public vexation, he was dashed to the ground in the sight of men; and with a public voice, while he confessed the power of God's Servant, he made known the committing of his crime, for which presumption he had been seized.

[39] We know also that the Lord wrought many miracles through the intercession of the Man * of God, by a miracle his oil is preserved, though the flask was broken. which it would be long to set forth in order. For when one of us who have written these things had asked from him, for his own support, oil consecrated with his blessing, carrying carefully home the little flask full which he had received from him, he strove to keep it as the greatest of relics. And when after some time he was pressed by the burnings of a tertian fever, he asked that the little flask in which the oil was should be hung at his head with the greatest veneration and as a mighty protection. And when it had been wrapped in a most clean linen cloth, by the negligence of the servants, as we believe, it was broken. But the oil so stood within it that no liquid ran down upon the ground or upon the linen. Which being seen, while it was being transferred with the greatest speed into another vessel, when it had been entirely emptied, the broken flask at once fell apart: and from the very man who truly records these things, by the Lord's help, the fever departed without any delay.

ANNOTATIONS.

in Mabillon there is added in the church*

ad* is omitted by Mabillon

Mabillon: sicut*

Mabillon: maligni*

Mabillon: servi*

CHAPTER V.

His fervor in preaching, both by himself and through others: certain of his statutes: his doctrine called into suspicion and approved at Rome: his hospitality.

Various virtues, his ardor for teaching and preaching, But in discoursing on the Scriptures and in clearing up obscurities, how great a grace shone in him, who will be able to relate? So that this was to him the highest delight, if anyone challenged him to discourse on obscure matters. And he himself very often incited us, saying: I know that you do not understand everything: why do you not ask, that you may be able to know? For it is not always the cows that run to the calves, but sometimes the calves to the cows, that from their mothers' udders they may be able to satisfy their hunger. This you too ought by all means to do, that by asking you may also exercise us, so that we must search out whence we may bring forth for you spiritual honey.* Each and every virtue shone in him: virginity, namely, with sincerity, modesty with bashfulness, wisdom with simplicity, sincerity with meekness, learning with humility: in short, a life unspotted, a life beyond reproach, a life always equal to itself. Woe to me, wretched Cyprian, who was so lukewarm in learning that only now do I know it and repent! Why did I not draw from the river of so great a fountain as much as my dryness needed! But the ardor of his charity, with which he loved all men, who will ever be able to imitate? For he bore this above all both in heart and in mouth, and by most winning exhortation, by speech and by example, he laudably taught that we ought ^a to love our enemies. Scarcely does anyone pray for those dear to him with that affection with which he prayed for enemies; and although there were no causes for which anyone should be his enemy, save perhaps that some seemed rivals out of envy or on account of discipline, yet he loved them not only with a father's but even with a mother's affection; suggesting this to us rather often, that when love is extended even to enemies, it cannot be that one's neighbor is not loved.

[41] He taught besides from memory as long as he could, and always preached in the church with a loud voice. which he provides also through others, In which work his provision was so pious and so wholesome that, when through infirmity he could no longer come to perform that office himself, he trained priests and deacons and appointed them to preach in the church; so that the more easily no bishop might excuse himself from this exhortation necessary for all by the plea of any impossibility whatsoever, saying this: If the words of the Lord and of the Prophets or the Apostles are recited by priests and deacons — those of Ambrose, of Augustine, or of my littleness, or of any of the Saints,

why should they not be recited by priests and deacons? The servant is not greater than his Lord. To those to whom authority has been given to read the Gospel, I believe it is also lawful to recite in the church the homilies of the Servants of God or expositions of the canonical Scriptures. I strip myself of blame by appointing this; let holy priests who shall despise to fulfill it know that they will have to plead their cause on the day of judgment. I do not indeed believe that anyone has so hardened a mind that, when God says to him, Cry, cease not, he neither cries out himself nor permits others to cry out. Let him fear that word: Woe to those who keep silence about you, since many are talkative. And that word of the Apostle : Dumb dogs, not able to bark. For of the souls of as many sheep as have gone astray while the priest kept silence, he will render an account.

[42] Preachings also suited to the festivals and the places, he sends also to others the matter to be preached. and also against the evil of drunkenness and of lust, and against discord and hatred, against wrath and pride, against the sacrilegious and soothsayers, against the utterly pagan rites of the Kalends also, and against augurs, worshipers of trees, worshipers of springs, and the vices of divers people — these he composed, and so prepared them that if any of those who came asked for one, he not only did not refuse to share it, but even if a man did not suggest that he ought to receive it, he yet offered it him, that he might carry it away and read it himself. To those set far off in Francia, in Gaul ^b, and in Italy and Spain, and established in divers provinces, he sent by priests what they should cause to be preached in their churches, so that, frivolous and fleeting things being cast away, they might become, according to the Apostle, followers of good works.

[43] The good odor of Christ therefore was spread far and wide through him, The Saint's caution in ordaining deacons: and, being carried abroad, it breathed everywhere; he was not presented to the sight of some ^c; he touched the breasts of those whose limbs he did not touch. He added this too, that he never ordained a deacon in his church before the thirtieth ^d year of his age. But he added this also, that not even at any greater age should one be ordained unless he had first read four times through in order the books of the Old Testament and four times those of the New. I, a sinner, am witness of his holy conscience, that whatever he enjoined on others he himself did, and always fulfilled for God's sake. But whatever he forbade to be done, he himself avoided doing; all things in the zeal of God.

[44] Nothing did he either do or savor of carnally: and he never wished to be idle from the work of God, but arranged and built a threefold basilica within one enclosure, [a threefold church built for the nuns and in it sepulchers, where he buries his sister:] whose middle member he built with more eminent adornment in honor of holy Mary the Virgin, and on one side he set that of lord John, on the other that of St. Martin. And that he might take away from the holy virgins whom he had gathered the care of needful burial, he had monolithic * chests, most fit for the burying of bodies, newly hewn out of huge stones, which he had laid throughout the whole pavement of the basilica in crowded rows: so that whichever of that congregation should depart from this light might find a place of burial most ready and most holy. Not long after, therefore, when the mother of the monastery, his own sister holy Cæsaria ^e, passed to the rewards of Christ, he laid her among these which he had prepared beforehand, there in the middle of the seat, beside the tomb which he had prepared for himself, mother Cæsaria succeeding her, who now survives, whose work with her companions is so outstanding that, amid psalms and fasts, vigils also and readings, the virgins of Christ beautifully write out the divine books, having her as their mistress.

[45] prayer, reading, alms, fervor in preaching: statutes for those about to marry: The blessed Man therefore, as he was wont, applied himself to prayer and to reading and to almsgiving, and to preachings unceasingly every Lord's day and on all feast days; often too at matins, at lamp-lighting ^f, homilies were recited for the sake of newcomers, that there might be none who could excuse himself by ignorance. The obedient he invited, the careful he instructed, but the reluctant he sharply adjured, since, as a worthy recompense was to be conferred on the faithful in the day of judgment, so a vengeance of worthy indignation would follow these. He appointed also as a rule that for those about to marry, out of reverence for the blessing, the blessing should be given them in the basilica three days before their union. In short he had in himself, by the bounty of divine grace, so many good things, both from the advancement of his hearers and from the following of his disciples and from the consecration of virgins, that he was crowned not with one merit only, but, girt about with so many and manifold crowns from his glittering merits, is wholly transformed into a crown for the Church.

[46] the Saint's doctrine called into suspicion, but confirmed by the Pontiff: Many rivals indeed arose who resisted his doctrine concerning grace. But O happiness to be emulated! For by the whisperings and evil interpretation of certain men there arises in the parts of Gaul a groundless sinister suspicion against the preaching of the Man of God. On this account the prelates of Christ dwelling beyond the Isère ^g, gathered by the love of charity, assemble in the city of Valence ^h: whither also blessed Cæsarius, by reason of his usual infirmity, could not hasten as he had arranged. Yet he sent most excellent men from among the bishops with priests and deacons, among whom holy Cyprian of Toulon ⁱ also shone great and famous, affirming all that he said from the divine Scriptures indeed, and proving from the most ancient institutions of the Fathers that no one can of himself seize anything in the divine advances, unless he has first been called by God's prevenient grace. But while they sought to establish their own righteousness ^k, they were not subject to the righteousness of God, not remembering that God had said: Without me you can do nothing. And, I have chosen you, not you me ^l. And, No man has anything unless it has been given him from above. And through the apostle Paul: By the grace of God I am what I am. And through another: Every best gift is from above. And the Prophet: The Lord will give grace and glory. And that a man then truly takes back a free will when he has been redeemed by Christ's deliverance, under which absolution he may be able to attain the effect of perfection. To their contentions the Man of Christ gave a true and evident reason from Apostolic tradition. For blessed memory Boniface, Pope of the Roman Church, having learned of that same struggle ^m, trampling upon the intent of the wranglers, confirmed St. Cæsarius's suit by apostolic authority: and by Christ's gift the prelates of the churches gradually took back what the devil had wished to make cease by a sudden animosity.

[47] This he often preached to all whom he could, saying: his admonitions to masters on behalf of their servants: If you love the word of God, you surely keep in your breast what I have set before you. For to divine love belonged the highest perfection of the decalogue: that what the charity of Christ has bound to itself in you, you should yourself also render common to your fellow man by sharing your bounty. But do not believe that only the souls of your parents, friends, or clients are to be fed by this our discourse; I call you to witness before God and his holy Angels, you will be guilty of the salvation of your bondmen or of any of the weak, if, when you have returned, you do not set before them what we have preached as equally as before friends or parents. For you must know that your bondman is subject to you in the present by a bodily condition, not bound to you by a bond of perpetuity. And again to those whom he had addressed he would say: What have we said, brothers? what have we discussed, little sons? I ask you, what have our words been thus far in this conference? If you love them, you keep them: if you keep them, you have without doubt shut up the sayings in your hearts. By thus challenging them he wrung a zeal for retaining even from the unwilling.

[48] But at dinner and at supper reading went on at his table daily without ceasing, continual reading at table, and notable hospitality. that both the inner and the outer man, being filled, might rejoice in a twofold refreshment. In this close and constricted enclosure, I confess, many of the hearers, with sweat and with great shame, were presently found forgetful before him; while few — what is worse — could repeat the little narrative committed to them, and that only in leaping abridgments. But in the house of his church, as when he was present, so when he was absent, a meal was always prepared for the clergy or for any who came. While he lived, no one came to Arles as to a strange city, but as to his own home. And since out of his innumerable deeds we have presumed to touch upon these, let the manifest ones suffice, even though the hidden ones are concealed. Yet we ask you, holy brothers Messianus the priest and Stephen the deacon, to whom many things about him are known, since from your youth you were in his service, that you join your contribution to this little Work.

ANNOTATIONS.

Mabillon: &*

Mabillon: muti*

* rather Isaiah 56, verse 10

perhaps immobiles*

LIFE.

BOOK THE SECOND

By Messianus the priest and Stephen the deacon, from Mabillon's edition.

Cæsarius, bishop and confessor, at Arles in Gaul (St.)

BHL Number: 1509

By Messianus, etc.

CHAPTER I.

Various miracles, among which certain admonitions and virtues are interposed.

The authors declare beforehand that they will use a simple style. Messianus the priest and Stephen said: Being about to tell, concerning the conversation and virtues of our holy and most blessed father and priest and master lord Cæsarius, those things which we have learned of him either together or singly, or which we saw along with our most holy fellow bishops ^a, that is, lord Cyprian and lord Firminus and holy Viventius ^b — who also, relating from the beginning those things which are written above concerning him, brought them to a close at the end of their section, and deigned to permit and to bid us that each of us should faithfully narrate what was well known to him of his deeds. We have no need — even if worldly eloquence were at our command — since the truth of holy actions transcends every ornament of worldly eloquence: for the fullest showing of which let that purity and simplicity suffice us with which the most blessed Father himself also wrought the miracles which are to be reported by us; especially since he himself too often had this in common speech, that what is said learnedly furnishes understanding only to the learned; but what is said simply fits both the learned and the simple to be instructed. Therefore those things which we have truly learned to have been done or said by him we shall set about, God being favorable, to make known in unpainted and undamaged words, so far as we can, to faithful hearers, so that from them there may be furnished compunction to the weak, joy to the perfect, and an example to those tending toward perfection. We shall begin therefore, as we remember, briefly to weave out his holy works, with God's help.

[2] The daughter of Peter, deacon of this church, in whom all the usefulness of his house seemed to consist, A sick girl by his prayers through a grave sickness lay already dumb for three days: on which account on a certain day he prostrated himself at the most blessed Man's feet, saying: Have mercy, Servant of Christ, on my old age; pray for my daughter, for I am confident that nothing is to be denied you by the Lord. Lay your hand upon her, and she will be saved. For now for three days she lies dumb with closed eyes, and at every hour and moment I await her death. Hearing this, moved and compelled by the old man's tears, he went to his house: where, when he had gone in and saw all in that house weeping bitterly with the father, he prostrates himself in prayer: where, like another Elijah ^c, he drew himself to her head in the narrow space between the chest and the bed. After the prayer, which he poured out with tears, he began at once to return to the house of the church.

[3] For it was his custom, when, at the Spirit's suggesting, he knew that his prayers were heard for the sick, he restores to health: at once to depart thence with speed; lest, if what he had obtained from the Lord by prayers should be done in his presence, some occasion of arrogance should arise. For indeed he often and sweetly said, as it were in a figure, so that no one could understand: He to whom the care of souls has been committed ought greatly to fear to exercise a pleasure in bodies. Finally, divine grace granted this to the simple rather than to the learned. Would that ^d in those things which the merciful Lord has given us he may grant us a discretion pleasing to him! Yet this is by no means to be presumed by us unworthy men. As he was departing therefore ^e, the father began to cry again and again after him as he went: I know that if you had prayed to your God, he would have given me back my daughter. Then he left one of his chamberlains, saying: Go, watch there, and after a little while come and tell me what happens. The hour was not yet complete, and behold, he brought him word: Lord, he said, the girl over whom you prayed has come to herself: and she says this: The lord bishop was here, by whose prayers I have been given back and made whole. On which account her father comes giving thanks, and declares that his daughter has now been called back from death by your prayers. For, the Lord granting it, she today survives as a living witness of this matter by herself.

[4] But although (as is the manner of God's servants) they always excuse themselves from working miracles, continual thought of God, this Servant of Christ especially, even when he trusted, at the Lord's suggestion, that it would be granted him at the moment, would not then rashly seize upon it, but wished cautiously to slip away. But whether he stayed or fled, God never failed him when he asked. Whom he had always with him in his heart, not only in prayer and supplication, but also at table, on a journey, in conversation, in an assembly, in prosperity, in adversity, even in sleep. Indeed we ourselves and our fellow servants who stayed in his cell know what we say: that amid the pauses of sleep which his age not only required but which infirmity also sometimes pressed upon him, with his spirit always waking he would say , as though admonishing the one who was saying the psalm: Come, say it. There is no doubt that either he was singing psalms spiritually with the saints, or at any rate fulfilled that prophetic word: I sleep, and my heart wakes.* Often too, when set in slumber, he preached of the judgment to come or of the eternal reward. Meanwhile it is not owing to my merits that I, unworthy, should report noble things of the Servant of God ^f.

[5] even in sleep: When therefore I had been assigned as deacon in his cell to his service, at my own judgment, he had bidden me have care, among other things, of the night Hours also. And so, when I had gone out from the lower cell where I was staying — because in all things the holy Man always wished to keep measure, and especially at the night office ^g he most watchfully observed that, apart from what he said privately by himself, with God alone as his witness, none of his people who stayed with him should be roused before the lawful hour — then in his sleep he was saying in a slow voice: There are two, there is no middle: there are two; either one ascends into heaven, or one goes down into hell. As I was returning from outside, he awoke and said to me: What now? It is already the hour for the night office. I said: It is not the hour; it is still before the time. And he: Truly it is the hour. And indeed so it was. Then we performed the night office. And he said to me: I was crying out to someone in my sleep with great earnestness: There are two, there is nothing in the middle; either one goes to hell or to heaven. I answered: You do what is your custom, to cry out unceasingly. Then I, a sinner, judged that he always spoke of God and with God. For he, as was said above, was so a lover of all virtues that there was no good which he did not either practice himself with alacrity, or wish and teach others to have with fervor of spirit.

[6] fervent prayers for sinners: Among all the good things therefore which he generally taught should be done, and the evils which he pronounced should by no means be done, especially (as your kindly and sincere conscience knows) he most impatiently abhorred the vices of unbelief, of lying, of pride, and of lust and drunkenness. Good Jesus! with what groans, with what sighs, with what weeping did he make supplication for sinners! so that you might now see the Man of God as though beholding present before him a wretched sinner destined for the punishments of hell. Finally, according to the Apostle, he never lived for himself alone, never prayed for himself alone.

[7] his care to feed the captives whom he had redeemed, At a certain time therefore, when, as if to the heaping up of his merits, captives to be redeemed were being brought to Arles from every side, and not in vain, a great multitude of redeemed freemen and of many nobles were daily fed at Arles by the holy Man himself. Then his steward came and began to adjure him and to say: Let these captives go, my Lord, through the streets, and beg whence they may eat: for if today they are fed as usual from the church, tomorrow you will not have whence loaves may be made for your own table. Then he, going confidently into his cell and fleeing to the accustomed helps of prayer (where he never wished to have a man as witness), asked of the Lord that substance be given to the wretched. For if anyone by chance came upon him where he prayed stretched on the floor, he greatly abhorred it. And so he wept so profusely that he at once obtained what he asked. Then, going forth thence with alacrity and confidence, in a manner rebuking his steward's want of faith, he said to the venerable man Messianus the priest, at that time his notary: Go into the granary and so sweep it that not any grains, if it can be done, remain there, and let loaves be made according to custom, and let us all eat together; and if tomorrow there be nothing to eat, let us all fast, provided that today men well born, and the other captives, do not go begging through the streets while we sit and drink. Yet calling one of us, he said in his ear: Tomorrow God will give, for he who gives to the poor shall never want. For as yet those captives were not permitted to return to their own homes.

[8] What more? What he commanded is fulfilled. It was murmured by all who ate at the church's table approved and helped by the singular providence of God: whence they should eat from that day on. But he who had provided for Elijah a widow woman, to whom in coming he might be sustained a little, had also without ambiguity suggested to this man, when he prayed, that by giving out everything to captives and pilgrims and reserving nothing at all for himself, he would always be enriched the more abundantly. Finally on the next day, whose dawning those pale ones feared, they who were sustained by the church's help, and were awaiting with no small sighs what would happen — Gundobad and Sigismund ^h, kings of the Burgundians, knowing how eagerly the Servant of the Lord hastened to works of mercy, before the light of that day grew bright, sent three ships, which they call larger latenæ ⁱ, full of wheat. And all who the day before in unbelief had feared the peril of famine, seeing that the Lord never failed his Servant, rendered the greatest thanks with joy to God who came to their aid in need.

[9] At a certain time therefore the patrician Liberius ^k, the Goths whom they call Visigoths lying in wait for him, Liberius the patrician, wounded mortally, was pierced by the wound of a lance to his vitals. And because that peril had befallen beyond the Durance, all being thrown into confusion and running after the striker, he was left alone. Terrified by the danger of his wound, and despairing of the hope of his life, as far as a man can, until he becomes bloodless, he fled on his own feet nearly not less than five hundred paces or more to the other bank. But when he came to the place Arnagine ^l, where the men of that village could meet him, he fell and lay altogether without any hope or breath of life. For nearly the whole city knows these things. Yet what we say we learned, as the most magnificent man himself related it, with tears and great admiration of the holy Man's miracles. Then, they say, that man used to relate to us: Nothing else came into my memory at my last breath, save that I cried out with tears: All remedies have ceased,

ask my lord Cæsarius to come to my aid. And this we swiftly learned to be true from the man who had been sent. For while he had wished to rest a little in the field of his holy monastery and to arrange some matters, he had begun to linger there a little; and behold, suddenly he who had been sent came panting, humbly begging: Hasten quickly, he says, my Lord; your son asks that you may see him before his death. And since the Man of God wished no one to depart from this world without the medicine of penance, he especially did not wish that man to depart without this remedy. For at once we came to the village of Arnagine. Therefore, as I said above, I shall set down those things which the man himself, out of very many, related to me.

[10] is healed by the Saint's help, For while he lay so lifeless that he recognized not only none of his own people but not even his wife or his only daughter, then he himself said upon oath that it had seemed to him that he heard a human voice which, speaking to him in the air *, said: Behold, the holy Bishop comes; and at once at that voice I opened my eyes, and knew the Servant of God himself coming. But when he came to me, I began strongly to kiss his hands, as much as was needful for me who had lost the hope of life. Then therefore, as I believe, God inspiring me, a sinner, I laid hold of the cloak ^m of that lord of mine, and laid it upon my wound. But when I had held there a little part of his garment, in that same hour the blood, which did not at all cease to flow, so thereafter ceased that not only health but even the greatest strength was restored to me. And if I had been allowed, I strove to hasten to the city seated on a horse. Which also stands proved as most true among us who were present.

[11] and his wife Agretia Therefore the most illustrious lady Agretia ⁿ, the wife of that same man, when she labored under the infirmity of that woman who touched the outermost hem of the Lord's garment, was freed by no dissimilar faith and devotion. When I had come to meet him, she familiarly deigned to notice my littleness, and, disclosing her infirmity as with matronly modesty, began under an adjuration of the Lord to demand of me with many prayers that I should bring to the woman one cloth of those small squares ^o of his which he had worn next his bare body. And although, since I was in the blessed Man's cell, I could easily have done what she hoped for, yet I began to fear lest, whence she sought a remedy for herself, I might incur the sin of theft. Then I made known to the chamberlain to whom the holy garments belonged that someone had asked out of faith that a little square be carried to her. On which account he did not delay to give me an old one. Lord Jesus Christ, you are glorious in your Saints, and who is like you? Yet you promised that if anyone believed in you, the works which you do he should do also. For while that cloth to be carried away was already kept with me, when evening had come, it was the custom that, before he went to rest , the little squares should be applied to him warmed at the fire, and, the others being taken off, be put on. They were brought out, as he who served him judged there was need. To whom he said: Not these, but others; and I want such and such a one. Others, old ones, were brought out. This is not, he says, the one I seek — seeking what he was not accustomed to, that what he foresaw in the spirit might become known. Then by nods I and he who had given it to me began to recognize that our theft could not have lain hidden from the Servant of God: so that it was clear and evident that your Servant, Lord, could have said to us unworthy ones concerning those gifts which you had bestowed on him: Someone has touched me.*

[12] is freed from an issue of blood. Then I, as on behalf of her whom you, Lord Jesus, healed by the prayers of your Servant — I, I say, fearing and trembling at what had been done, began to confess to your Servant, saying: Pardon me, my Lord; I myself have the cloth which you seek: your daughter — (thus far he permitted me to speak). But he, with a hiss for silence, said: Be quiet; and taking hold of me with great kindness, he gave me yet another little square, and said: Go, he says, and carry both to the basilica of lord Stephen, and put them under the altar, and let them stay there; and in the morning carry whichever you will to her who asked you, and bring the other back to me. As he commanded his unworthy servant, so I did: and yet he never asked me to which I had carried it, nor did he ask back the little square. And when that woman did not cease to be an urgent claimant that I should bring her what she had asked, seeing me coming from afar, with hands stretched out and already about to snatch what I was bringing, she came rushing to meet me before I gave it. And before I brought it up from under the outer garment [p] beneath which I was carrying that little cloth, she hastened to snatch what she had demanded with the eagerness of faith. But I, when I had brought out that little square, gave it to her, and she placed it upon herself over her garments, yet first bringing it to her eyes, kissing it with devotion, she honored it as was fitting. And without delay there was straightway present, the Lord granting it, the effect of her faithful petition. And already through the garment of the Lord's Servant they had what they are known to have even after his passing. Finally, as she herself was wont to confess, when she had laid that cloth to her breast, at once, as with those who are sprinkled with cold water, all her limbs and veins were held in a shuddering [q], with even a little pain, so that her body was shaken somewhat with a shudder and a trembling alike. But immediately the Lord's mercy was present, and the flux which she had departed, and never again returned to her, and there was fulfilled in her: Go, daughter; according to your faith be it done to you.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. By casula here is designated the clerical or ankle-length garment, so far as I can conjecture. Certainly in Labbe, volume 6, column [ ], in the first German council, canon 7, it is enacted that priests and deacons should not use cloaks after the manner of laymen, but casulæ, after the fashion of God's servants. See what was said in the Commentary, number 64.

q. Obrepilatio is explained in Du Cange's enlarged Glossary as a shivering, a tremulous motion, a shudder.

* the sense is incomplete.

perhaps aure* (in his ear)

* that is, went to bed

CHAPTER II.

Various miracles wrought by the Saint.

He heals a woman with trembling hands, It happened that at a certain time four ^a bishops came to meet him, with whom he went down at Lamplighting * to the basilica of St. Stephen. And when, the office of Lamplighting being finished, he had given the blessing to the people, as they were going out a certain woman met him in the greeting hall ^b: who had fallen into so horrible an infirmity that day and night her hands unceasingly struck against one another, as though rolling something. She cried out tearfully: Lord Cæsarius, have mercy on an unhappy woman; pray for me, that my hands may be restored to me. He, as was his custom, prostrates himself in prayer with the other bishops. And when both had risen, with bowed head he said to one of the holy bishops: Command, my lord, I pray; sign this woman's hands. He most obediently complied, but none the less the aforesaid woman's hands rolled as usual. She, crying out more vehemently, said: Lord Cæsarius, to you I cry, you I ask, do you sign them. Again he fell down in prayer, and raising himself made the cross over the infirm hands. They at once stood still. And the woman, giving thanks to God and to the holy Man, returned whole.

[14] For he used to come every year on the proper days to the baptistery ^c to bless the oil. vessels of oil blessed by him, though struck together, are not broken, And on entering the little vault ^d, when he sat to sign the infants, little boys and girls sent by their parents ran up there in eagerness, holding out little vessels, some with water, some with oil, that he might bless them. And when those who brought them dashed their jugs and flasks against one another for the multitude of the people, the sound of the striking was heard and seen; and yet the glass into which the blessing of Christ's Servant had been poured was never broken.

[15] At another time, while he was visiting the dioceses ^e, with blessed oil he frees a woman possessed, and we came to the fortress which is called Luc ^f, there was there a certain matron by the name of Eucheria *, who, presenting her maidservant, prostrated her before his feet: for whom she tearfully entreated him to make supplication to the Lord. But he, searching out the cause, as he was a Man full of God and most searching in all things, asked what infirmity she had. They said: A demon, which the country folk call Diana ^g: who is so afflicted that almost every night she is continually beaten, and often too is led into the church between two men that she may stay there: and she is so wearied by diabolical scourges, hidden from sight, that her voice is heard continually, and she cannot at all answer those who cling to her. Then, all who were present with Christ's Servant asking that the truth of the matter might appear, they asked to see. With that Lord's permission, therefore, the holy priest Lucius and Didymus the deacon, who at that time went about the parishes, hastened to see her more privately, in whose service I too went. If the faithful believe me, I say before God, I saw with my own eyes the blows which she had received some days before on her back and shoulders coming to healing; but yesterday's blows and those impressed that very night were fresh, interwoven among those which she had suffered before. Then, being again brought before him, she appeared so confused with troubled eyes and with her face turned away from him that it was clear to all that she could by no means look upon the face of God's Servant. But he, laying his hand on her head, gave her a blessing: then he blessed oil, with which he bade her be anointed in the night hours: and at once she was made so whole that thereafter the demon's temptation did not return to her.

[16] But at another time, when we had come into the dioceses, a child of about eight years, living in the clerical habit, came to the altar: a demon is driven out of a boy cast before the Saint's feet, where, after the preaching (which he by no means failed to give from memory in person, when he could, not only in the city but also in all the parishes), when he had called himself back from the chancel to the altar, he had already begun to celebrate Mass. But that person began to be grievously vexed by the most wicked spirit: for he was horribly shaken with trembling and foam. Then no small terror invaded all. But he, raising his eyes to heaven, directed prayers to the Lord for his recovery, and, leaving him, began again to turn to the saying of Mass. Then a certain priest of the church of Catoroscum, Ursus by name, cast that little child before his feet. Which he, taking it ill, said: God pardon you, blessed one: that is the work of others, not mine. And although he refused it because of human arrogance, yet the divine power did not fail his Servant. At once therefore, when that boy was cast before his feet, he rose up whole; nor did the wicked spirit ever return to him, whom I have even seen as a subdeacon in that church ^h.

[17] a girl also is freed from the vexations of a demon, For when he had come to the parish of Cité ⁱ for the sake of visiting it, the daughter of a certain man Novatus * seemed to have fallen into a demon so abominable and of a new kind that, if ever she put a foot outside the door of her house, at once a multitude of ravens rushed tearing at her face; and, when she was shaken with trembling and rolled about with foam, they would disfigure all of her body that they found bare, that is, her face, her neck, or whatever else they found. And when she had been brought to the holy Man, as far as the basilica which she entered, where the Man of God was, we saw the ravens coming and flying over her. Yet not even then did they dare in their importunity to rush upon her. For when she had come before him, seeing her face hideously torn, he said to us privately: I have never read or seen or heard of the devil lying in wait for anyone in this manner. Then, laying his hands upon her head before the holy altar, he blessed oil and anointed her eyes and ears, and in the sight of all she returned whole through the street to her house; and for the two days that we were there she came to the church, and that assault never afterward returned to her.

[18] by his staff demons are put to flight, Some time after this he came to a field of our church, where also the dioceses are, which is called Succentriones ^k. There baths were built with lofty gables: where, if anyone at any moment chanced to pass by, he was at once called by name; and immediately he saw with fear huge stones falling either before his feet or behind him, and all took care never to pass by there. Whence too all who did not know were warned not to fall into that peril, from which they dared not pass on. When behold, the Man of God, having attended to matters * there, was going on to another church, and the cleric whose charge it was to carry his staff (which was the office of the notaries) forgot it — in which ministry I, useless, was serving. Then the inhabitants of that place, when they had found it, rejoicing said that it had been granted them by the Lord that they had found something of his: they marvel and give thanks to God, and hang that rod upon the wall; and at once the devil's snares were put to flight, and thereafter that adversary presumed to do no wicked harm to anyone in that place to this day.

[19] he prays a blessing on one who wronged him, It happened also at that time that a certain man from the Gauls, Benenatus by name — not by deed — came, and lamented that he was a captive with his grandchildren. He had a little girl, whom, clothing her in male dress, he shows to him, saying: This is my grandson, and he is held captive with me along with his sister, who is hastening hither after us. Then the Man of God, grieving over their captivity out of the affection which the Lord had inspired in him from infancy, kindly kisses him who had presented the girl, and her too, believing her a boy. Both therefore, having received the ransom, return to the place from which they had come. After two days he brings back that same girl, this time in her own dress, that he might receive more solidi. But this was carried on at the suggestion of the holy man Jacob the priest, who in his holy simplicity suggested that the man was complaining of everything in truth. Then he received a ransom for this girl also. For those whose care it then was recognized that he had afterward presented the very girl whom he had before shown in male dress. Which not only I but also the aforesaid priest suggested * to the Holy One of God with indignation and at the same time with shame. Then he, as he was always most gentle and kindly toward pilgrims, said to the priest: Do not, holy one, be angry: you did well to commend a pilgrim; God will render you a reward for your good will. And may God pardon that poor wretch this sin, who made me kiss a girl; and may that girl receive this reward, that, because she presumed to kiss even an unworthy Priest, he may make her such a consecrated woman that she may never kiss another man. But because God, the arbiter of things to come, knew that she could without doubt not endure in virginity, lest the prayer of God's Servant should be void, on the very next day she departed from this world. These things are known to have been done publicly at Arles at the basilica of the Apostles, where he had his lodging.

[20] But at another time a certain matron in the city of Marseilles ^l by chance dislocated her foot, a woman's dislocated foot is cured by the cloth of his horse, so that for a long time she could not set that foot on the ground; but, supported by the hands of her servants, she could scarcely be led to church, enduring the strongest pain. But because the Lord's mercies are many, when he himself willed, he brought it about that the Man of God should journey to that city. Hearing of his coming, the woman had herself brought to greet him. And having received prayer and a blessing from him, she presumed to suggest nothing to him about her own trouble. But on going back from him, she asked to be permitted to approach his saddle ^m. And faithfully touching her disabled part with the saddle cloth which covered the saddle, at once receiving her former health, as though she had suffered no ill, she returned whole upon her own feet, with none supporting her, giving thanks to the Lord to the present day.

[21] On a certain day therefore (which many know) in this city fire caught the house of a certain John, next to the monastery of the virgins. he quenches a fire, It began therefore to draw near, so that there was no doubt to any that all things there would be burned up. The handmaids of God therefore, thrown into confusion, who were not permitted to go outside, were throwing books and goods and their cells' furnishings and themselves down into the cisterns, where by God's disposing there was at that time no water, lest despair should trouble them. And the superiors of the monastery, running, brought word to their Father that the fire was already close to his cell. He, going out in haste at midnight along the wall and coming to the place where the flame was, prostrating himself in prayer, and commanding them and crying out from the wall: Do not fear, blessed ones. Presently the raging flame let go the burning of its force.

[22] Nor will I keep this silent. At a certain time therefore a most famous thing is proclaimed to have happened in the Alpine regions, tempests stilled by his staff, and a fire by the sign of the cross. when a constant tempest was crushing the lands of a certain most noble man with its ruinous downpour, and the force of the hail was devouring all the fruits of that place, so that year by year no hope of relief remained there; and it happened again that his staff by chance was left there, from which rod the owner ordered a cross to be made, which, armed with faith, he fixed in a rather high place, so that when the hailstone came, the disciple's rod and the Master's cross might meet it. So great a miracle did God, for the honor of his Servant, deign to work there, that he afterward gave the greatest abundance there whence he had driven back the storm. Likewise on a certain day fire caught the house of a certain Vincent, whose upper story, made of wood, was yielding to the flames. He, seeing that he could avail nothing, went with all the speed he could to that Lord, and falling at his knees asks him to pray. And going outside, he made a cross against the flame, which, at once drawing back, was so lulled that not even a mark appeared on the boards of the upper story.

ANNOTATIONS.

commended themselves to his prayers, or communicated some business to him, says our Menard in the Concordance of Rules, chapter 5, §25. So Mabillon.

* that is, Vespers

* elsewhere Euthyria

elsewhere of the name*

perhaps requisitus*

Barrali: suggerebat*

perhaps sellas*

for prosternebat*

CHAPTER III.

Other miracles: his care in instructing his disciples and in exhorting all to penance: virtues and visions.

Possessed persons freed: A certain priest also lately related to us that some years ago, while he was still a layman, his daughter was vexed by a demon. And mourning and lamenting he said to one of his friends: What shall I do, unhappy man, since my daughter is vexed by a demon? It would have been better for me that she had never been born, or at least were dead. To whom he answered: Do not weep, but go, take her to lord Cæsarius, and offer her to him privately, that he may heal her. He, nothing doubting, came to Arles, and going met him, and prostrated himself at his feet with tears, saying: My Lord, have mercy on me, a wretched man; heal my daughter. And when he carefully asked what ailed her, he answered: A demon. He said to him: Be silent, and return to your house. In the morning, when Matins are said, return and bring with you that girl and her mother, and wait * in the court of St. Stephen when Matins have been said; and when you see privacy, come to my cell and call. And he did as he had commanded. But he, going out secretly and setting his knees on the ground, prayed with the girl's father and mother, and rising signed her and sent her away whole.

Again, walking through the street of the city, he saw opposite in the forum a man who was driven by a demon. And when he had regarded him from over the way, keeping his hand beneath his outer garment so that it should not be seen by his own people, he made the cross against him; and he was at once loosed from the enemy's temptation.

[24] For how holy and how sweet was this: when for days without ceasing he pressed the word of God upon those who wished it in season, and upon those who did not, out of season, his zeal to instruct and when he had come late to rest, so that not even for the moment of that hour might he be free from the divine Scriptures and holy instruction, he would say to us: Tell me, he says, what we had for supper today? what dishes did we have? We, keeping silence, sighed, because our understanding was being led thither whither he was accustomed to summon us, since he wished to speak of spiritual food, and therefore questioned us. He would say again: I know, he says, that if I ask what we had for supper, you remember even what you had for lunch . But if we ask what was read at table, we do not remember. Whence we may understand that what we remember tasted sweet to us; but that which we do not remember not only gave no savor in the palate of our heart, but perhaps even caused loathing. And groaning he would say: O unhappy forgetfulness of good things, than which nothing is more unhappy! And beginning from the start, he would repeat what had been read or expounded; and to us poor wretches he would say with a groan in prophetic voice: Gather, gather the Lord's wheat; for I tell you, it will not be long that you may gather. See what I say. Gather, for you will seek this time; truly, truly you will seek these days and greatly long for them.

[25] And though our sloth then received this amiss, yet we now prove that what he said has come. his disciples, That word of the Prophet has been fulfilled in us: I will send you a famine in the land — a famine, he says, not of bread and water, but of hearing the word of God. Although the preachings which he composed are recited, yet that unceasing voice has ceased which fulfilled that prophetic word: Cry, cease not — saying this often: When anyone's palate loathes the word of God, his soul is in a fever: when he shall come to health, then he hungers and thirsts for that which, while he is sick, he rejects and neglects. For that most sweet and most holy recinium ^a — who could ever explain it in words! Thus, he says, Christ's Servant would say to us: Supper, he says, we have now dispatched as we could. But it was suggested by the bystanders or by his chamberlains (because of his weariness, since, being tired, he could scarcely breathe) that he should take his rest. He would answer: You say well, he says. But wait a little. Then the chamberlains: My Lord, what do you say? The table has waited long, you have wearied yourself with much speaking, and until now you have not been silent; now refresh yourself a little. He with the greatest sweetness would answer again: You say well, he says: but since we have dispatched supper, we shall make no recinium.

[26] and to chastise vices with words: He who knows things unknown knows that what I say is true: that when the Holy Spirit had begun to pour forth through him, he so unfolded the vices of all, and so smote them with the scourges of his teaching, and, anointing them with divine medicines, called them back without any delay to health, that like a spiritual and holy organist ^b he touched the strings of each one's heart; so that we, going out from him, would repeat something to ourselves of what had been said, saying: For this let each of us render you thanks, O God, since I no longer keep in mind the wrong done me, nor does my mind rage against that brother of mine: because assuredly the things your Servant preaches are true, and I would rather suffer wrong than that this Holy One be brought forward against me in testimony on the day of judgment. Another said the same about pride, another about envy, and another who had labored under any vice whatever spoke likewise; and all of us, sound in mind and relieved, returned to our beds giving thanks to God.

[27] holiness inward and outward: For what a countenance, good God, holy Maker, what a face, what a bearing, can anyone ever set forth? But we long for in you, holy Father, that teaching, that form, that countenance, that bearing, that knowledge, that sweetness, which you had from the Lord as your own among all other men. How holy was your life, how pure and sweet your affection! Lord Jesus, how much you gave him, who can even conceive, not to say set forth in words? For when he went forth to bless the fonts, those who saw it, and who hear what I say, are fit witnesses to themselves, because they believe themselves. For who ever believed him to be an earthly man in that procession? Lord God of heaven, I say it confidently for the truth, that through those forty years in which he administered his office, whoever saw him going forth on that day, as though they had never seen him before, so did he always appear new in the eyes of all. His face shone with his soul, because in truth his life so grew by continual advances that he always became better than himself. Not without cause did there appear outwardly what was carried on within.

[28] visions granted to the Saint To him not only visitations of Saints of every kind were often shown; but also (what is above all) the Lord Jesus with all his disciples revealed himself to him in a vision. Which he did not boast of everywhere, nor was he lifted up in spirit ^c, but confessed it to one sufficiently faithful person only, under an oath that he should keep silence — who asserts before God that it happened. Moreover also, two years before his passing, all the preparation which he was to receive in heaven for all his works was shown him in spirit, and it was said to him: Rejoice in the Lord, for behold what you shall receive for your service. And since there are still many things and great enough which for prolixity's sake we pass over, most of those who know them with us will doubtless grieve that we have omitted so very many which they certainly know along with us. Whom we ask to pardon us, since it is unseemly enough and burdensome for a barbarous man to presume to speak too long to learned ears; or for a mute man, when he cannot speak, to wish to mutter further. May God grant that we may sooner come to an end than make an end in our souls of the love, of the nurture, of the charity, of the preaching, of the wholly holy remembrance of our lord and holy father Cæsarius. Yet I shall report a few things which, even before these were written, were done after his passing concerning his relics.

ANNOTATIONS.

it has been happily accomplished in all the dwellers in that place, yet in me, my merits resisting, it is not proved fulfilled. For although this holy island, like a most illustrious mother and the one and singular nurse of all good things, once received my littleness in the arms of her tenderness, and reared me for no small space, or strove to nourish me: although she has raised the rest to the summit of the virtues, yet from me, because the hardness of my heart gainsaid it, she could not take away all my negligences. And therefore with all humility I beseech, and with all contrition of heart I demand, that what is denied to my merits may be supplied by your prayers: and that I, your own nursling, may so deserve to be helped by the support of your prayers, that this very thing, that I was nourished in that holy place, may not bring judgment upon me, but advancement. He pursues many more things there to the same effect, and elsewhere not rarely: but these may be read in the Saint's writings.

* that is, wait

prandistis*

for qua, others quia*.

CHAPTER IV.

Certain miracles wrought after his death: the Saint's age and the time of his episcopate: pious preparation for his foreseen death, and his blessed death: the grief of all at his passing, and his burial.

Through the water in which his body or his garments had been washed, Desiderius, a public registrar ^a by name, when for a long time he was so strongly pressed by quartan fevers that he lost even his most vigorous youth, drank a little of the water in which that holy body was washed, and was so healed that not only did that fever not return upon the young man, but strength and his former vigor returned to him, the Lord granting it.

But the son of the illustrious man Salvius, when he was pressed rather grievously by tertian fevers, and, as is the zeal of such a man, he strove to heal him by frequent potions suited to this infirmity, could be helped nothing at all. Then, as a Christian: Run, he said, my son, and seek the water in which the lord Bishop was washed, or at least wash the relics of his garment, and drink, and the Lord will give health. As soon as it was done, all the fever and whatever ailment there was departed from him.

The son too of the once illustrious man Martianus was so afflicted with grievous fevers that he was even despaired of by the physicians. But he (as God, being favorable, inspires those whom he wills to heal), with faith and eagerness began to ask that something of what belonged to the garments of the Lord's Servant, being washed, be given him to drink. Then men run to me, or to the others who were absent and who had kept something of them for themselves: sought from someone, it was found and given from the garment; and when it had been brought, he took that water and was made whole, and he stands as witness to this miracle by himself.

[30] the fever of various persons is driven off: At another time, as I was going along the street, a certain Frank, already all bent double and trembling with the chill of a quartan fever, was walking before me. And when I was purposing to go swiftly whither I had begun, he began to cry out after me: Blessed one, if you have any, give me some of the cloth ^b of holy Cæsarius for the chills , since it avails for many; I wish to drink. I, who wished to hasten swiftly whither I had begun, said: If you wait for me, tomorrow I will give you what you seek. But he said: I have my day today, and I am already trembling all over; when am I to wait for you? Then I, considering that it was not for nothing that he had been so often set before me in the street, said to him: Come, young man; I will give you what you seek. At once we both went back; and when we had entered my cell and both washed our hands , I brought out the linen cloth with which the holy body of our sweet Lord had been wiped. I took a very small piece to give him; and that Frank with great fury said to me: Come, man, why do you lie? I have heard that that Blessed one used not linen but woolen cloths, which I wish to wash, and of the water I desire to drink. Then I with tears said: You say well, you have heard truly. But with this the body of that Saint was wiped when he passed away. And he: Give it then, he says, that I may be whole. And having received it , at once in that same hour he felt health from the Lord.

[31] But since the benefits of the prayers of the Lord's Servant, which Christ granted through him to bodies and souls, no tongue at all can set forth as is fitting; although the rusticity of my eloquence sounds foolish, since I am not skilled in speech; yet with the wise a word is enough, a lamp fallen in his chamber takes no harm: and even a few testimonies are great advantages to things; those have their own senses for testimony who with a faithful mind receive true sayings. Yet let me not pass over what lately happened in his cell, where his poor body rested, and from which he passed to the things above. As the holy brothers were saying the little Hours ^c there, while they were performing them , one of the chamberlains whom he had in his service, while he was trimming a lamp ^d, let it slip from his hands upon the stone: which neither spilled , nor broke, nor was extinguished.

[32] While therefore this Evangelist, as we read, was carrying on the excellent and highest work of the word in season and out of season, Arles transferred to the kingdom of Childebert: and while he was fulfilling his sacred office, there is present, by God's bidding — not by his own betrayal (as the Arians charged), but yet through his continual prayer for all — with tranquillity and quiet in the city of Arles, the most Catholic reign, in the name of Christ, of the most glorious Childebert ^e: gentle with power, common to all with severity, conspicuous in humility, not shaking the priests of the Lord with terror but binding them with reverence: preeminent above all in the Gauls, equal to all the churches in privilege, in loftiness acknowledging the city with humanity. Refreshed therefore and gladdened by this, the Man of God despised the Ariomanite threats and frequent accusations, false speeches, and feigned pretenses. He saw therefore and rejoiced, and was gathered to his fathers in a good old age, in the name of Christ, full of days.

[33] Since therefore infirmity often rendered him half-alive to our sight, the Saint's age and his sickness: and amid these things he was in the seventy-third year of the whole course of his life, of which the circle was turning the fortieth round in his pontificate, he perceived in spirit that the day of his passing was at hand, and amid the no small pains which he suffered he inquired how near was the day of the deposition of most blessed Augustine. And when he had learned that his commemoration was at hand: I trust, he said, in the Lord that he will not part my passing far from his; because, as you yourselves know, as much as I loved his most Catholic understanding, so much do I think that, though differing from him in merits, the day of my deposition will by no means be sundered by a longer interval from the time of his death. Meanwhile the going out of Israel from the land of Egypt grows and draws near — that is, the passing of the holy soul from this world of bodily life.

[34] He bids himself therefore to be carried to the monastery of virgins which he himself had founded, his last admonitions, his pious death, in a chair borne by the hands of his servants, as though to console those anxious ones from whom the suspicion of his passing had taken sleep, and forgetfulness had taken food. And the sound of the psalms being choked with tears, they rendered a lowing instead of a canticle, and a groan instead of Alleluia. Having consoled and addressed his daughters, therefore, he brought no cheer, but heaped up their sorrow. For it was easy to recognize that the merciful Father was now about to pass to the divine country. And so he addresses first, as it were in his own manner and sweetness, the venerable mother Cæsaria ^f of more than two hundred maidens, and consoles her, and exhorts her to press on to the palm of the heavenly calling; and admonishes them to hold the Rule which he himself had established some years before; and thus also by his testament ^g he commends them to the bishops who should succeed him, and to the rest of the clergy of the prefecture, and to the counts or citizens by his letters, that they might in no way suffer hardship in the time to come. The establishment of that monastery was at that time of thirty ^h full years. He gives them therefore a prayer and a blessing, saying his last farewell, and, while they cried aloud, he returns to the church. For on the third day after the feast of holy Genesius ⁱ, that is on the VI Kalends of September, before the day of the deposition of holy Augustine the prelate, and after the day of the dedication of his monastery ^k, when he had said farewell to all the day before, at the approach of the first hour, amid the hands of the pontiffs, priests, and deacons who were present, he joyfully sent forth his blessed soul to Christ.

[35] and the grief of all at it: the burial of the body. The garments too of the holy body were so torn away by divers lamenting and faithful peoples in a pious violence that we priests and ministers standing by could scarcely be called back even from suffering the taking of relics. From these continually, by God's grant, as I said above, cures of the sick are most frequently celebrated. He caused indeed a wonderful joy in heaven, but on earth he left an intolerable grief; which grief not only the good but even any of the wicked who saw it shared alike. For who at those funeral rites, whether holy man or stranger, sang a psalm for the tears? But all whatsoever, good or evil, just and unjust, Christians or Jews, going before or following, gave voice: Woe, woe, and every day more woe, because the world was not worthy longer to have such a herald and intercessor. And so he was buried in the basilica of holy Mary ever Virgin, which he himself founded, where the holy bodies of the virgins of his monastery are laid. Let us too with faithful devotion and due diligence venerate on earth him whose soul, as we trust and rejoice and glory, shines forth in heaven, to the praise and honor of Jesus Christ our Lord, who with the eternal Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, God, through infinite ages of ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

frigora*

lavissemus*

elsewhere there is added boni*

elsewhere timore*

* that is, with this linen cloth

for accepto linteo*

elsewhere præsentibus*

* that is, it was spilled