Caesarius of Arles

Saint Caesarius of Arles, hierarch, was archbishop of Arles from 502 until his death in 542, the foremost churchman of Merovingian Gaul in his time. He is commemorated on 27 August.

Youth

He was born around 468-470, at Chalon-⁠sur-⁠Saône, of Roman-⁠Burgundian parents. Unlike his own people, he had from youth a strong love for the faith, which estranged him for a time from his family. He left home at seventeen and studied a few years under Bishop Sylvester. Then he came to Lérins, the island monastery, which was a great spring of Christian life in Roman Gaul. He trained as a monk, read and applied Scripture, and was made cellarer. But because he withheld food from some brothers whom he judged insufficiently austere, he was not loved; the abbot Porcarius removed him, and he began to fast beyond measure, and the abbot sent him to Arles, to be cared for. At Arles, Bishop Aeonius, a kinsman of his from Chalon, ordained him deacon and then priest, and for three years he ruled a monastery.

Bishop

At the death of Aeonius, the clergy, the citizens and those in authority chose Caesarius, and he was consecrated in 502, at about thirty-⁠three. He was courageous and unworldly, yet good at adapting. He took pains to draw the laity to the services, ordered people to read Scripture at home and to treat the word of God with the same reverence as the sacraments. His care for the poor and sick was famous; he paid ransom for prisoners, even selling church ornaments for that purpose, and he founded at Arles a hospice, the first in Gaul. In September 506 he presided over the council of Agde, with thirty-⁠five bishops, which dealt chiefly with church discipline. He also presided over the council of Orange in 529, which defined the teaching on grace and ended the semi-⁠Pelagian dispute.

Sermons and rules

Caesarius insisted that a bishop fulfil well his pastoral duty. He urged his clergy to preach as often as possible, in the church and outside it, to the willing and the unwilling. His sermons, mostly of moral guidance, short and clear, were widely spread, though they draw much on the writings of earlier bishops, above all Saint Augustine. He also wrote two monastic rules, among them the Rule for Virgins, addressed to his sister Caesaria, who ruled the convent he had founded, and one of them influenced the rule of Saint Benedict. He fell asleep on 27 August 542.