Caesaria the Elder

Caesaria the Elder (Caesaria of Arles) was abbess of the convent of Saint John at Arles, in Gaul, of a Gallo-⁠Roman family, and died about 525 (our record gives between 500 and 600). She is venerated as a saint chiefly in the Roman Catholic Church, with commemoration on 12 January. We call her here a saint of the undivided Church in the West. Venantius Fortunatus writes of her with praise and, according to Gregory of Tours, her life was blessed and holy.

The sources do not agree on the dates. One says she was born about 465 or 475 near Chalon-⁠sur-⁠Saône and died on 12 January 525, after thirteen years as abbess. Another says that she died around 530. One source adds that the day of death is uncertain, according to the hagiographer Alban Butler.

She was the sister of Saint Caesarius, metropolitan of Arles. For a time she lived in a monastery at Marseilles, founded by John Cassian, where she learned the monastic life. In 512 she became the first abbess of the convent founded by her brother at Arles. The exact location of the convent is unknown; it probably stood outside the walls of Arles and remained there until the French Revolution of 1789. Her brother addressed to her his Rule for Virgins (Regula ad Virgines) and described how she taught and supervised the copying of the Bible in the convent.

The nuns of Saint John spent their time in prayer, in care of the poor by washing and mending their clothes, and in humble work such as sewing, weaving and copying books. They lived in complete enclosure, were not allowed to eat meat except in illness, and did not bathe in Lent. Caesarius's contemporaries regarded the convent as an ark of salvation for women in those stormy times, and the pope approved and supported it. By the time of Caesarius's death, in 542, two hundred nuns lived there.

Caesaria is buried in the basilica of Saint Mary, consecrated on 6 June 524 at the council of Arles, next to the tomb reserved for Caesarius. Her niece, Caesaria the Younger, succeeded her as abbess. In Arles only a statue in the church of Saint-⁠Césaire-⁠le-⁠Neuf recalls her: the saint is shown standing, in monastic habit, with a model of the convent in her left hand.