12. While therefore he was serving in the office of abbot on the aforesaid island for more than three years, holy Eonius addressed the clergy and the citizens, and also the lords of affairs through intermediaries, that when he himself, God willing, should have departed to Christ, they should choose no other than St. Caesarius to become his successor: so that the ecclesiastical vigor, which he lamented had been softened in many observances by his own infirmity, might be gladly restored by Christ's servant Caesarius to its proper state and strength, to the joy of the brotherhood; and that the toil of one soon to depart might be to some degree the profit of his predecessor, so that, in leaving behind such a successor, he might receive an increase of eternal inheritance even in the election of so holy a man;
and that after his passing there might not be lacking a companion to fulfill the wish of the election, who while yet alive had himself been the author of the decree. And so, all these things having been faithfully ordered by divine Providence, blessed Eonius, secure concerning his successor, departed to the Lord. When therefore the true report reached the notice of our Father, of whom we speak, that he was to be ordained bishop, he sought a hiding place among certain tombs. But he could not remain hidden, for it was no fault but grace that uncovered him. And so he was drawn out alive from a certain sepulcher, whom the brightness of his life showed to be not dead but only hidden. 13. Therefore, compelled, he took up the burden of the episcopate, and as Christ's gentle beast of burden he carried the load laid upon him with the temperance of modesty.
As a shepherd solicitous and provident for the progress of all, he at once ordained that daily the clergy should chant with hymns the office of Terce, Sext, and None in the basilica of St. Stephen, so that if any of the laity or of the penitents should desire to perform the holy work, he might without any excuse be able to take part in the daily office. He himself, however, spurning all earthly care and solicitude, after the manner of the apostles committed the diligence of the cultivation, in the dispensing of goods, to stewards and deacons, to be entrusted to them under the invocation of God, and gave himself wholly to the word of God and to reading, and to tireless preaching. Truly like a spiritual physician who would cure the diseases of maladies once implanted and forbid those that might arise from evil thoughts;
and God gave him such grace in speaking of himself, that whatever he could see with his eyes he would set forth for the edification of his hearers by way of a comforting comparison. He committed to memory so great a series of the sacred volumes, and always gathered new things in such a way that he lost nothing of the old, like the temple of God which both daily receives new guests and cherishes the old; and thus it ever grows by the entrance of newcomers, so that it is never diminished by the departure of the old. So, however great the matter demanded, he would relate examples and the whole sequence of the divine volumes as though reviewing things known from a book, not as though bringing forth things once read from the treasury of memory, fulfilling that other saying of the Gospel about the man who brings forth from his treasure things new and old.
When bishops or presbyters arrived, and all the ministers of the divine order, or citizens of the place, or even strangers, as soon as he had greeted them and prayed, he inquired a little concerning the affection and welfare of his fellow-citizens or of their own people. 14.
But soon, having seized the weapons of holy preaching, disputing about the shadow of things present and persuading concerning the perpetuity of blessedness, he invited some by sweet discourse, deterred others more sharply, corrected some by threatening and others by coaxing, called some back from vices through charity and others through severity; admonishing some as it were generally in proverbs, rebuking others more harshly and under divine adjuration, that they might follow his admonitions, and threatening eternal torments with tears—according as he knew the virtues, or the character, or the vices of each. He set forth this preaching so as both to spur the good on to glory and to call the wicked back from punishment.
Like a good physician, he provided different remedies for different wounds of the soul, offering not what might please each one but rather what might cure him; not looking to the will of the sick man, but desiring the health suited to the infirm. And he greatly rebuked even the holy bishops and the other rulers of the Church, that they should unceasingly minister spiritual food to the people committed to them, saying: 'You hold, brother, in the name of Christ, the place of the first rank of the spiritual warfare; 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, because I have kept silent! Hear the Apostle saying with anxious fear: Woe is me if I preach not the Gospel!'
'See lest, while you occupy the place of the chair, another perhaps be shut out, and that be said of you: They have taken away the key of knowledge; they neither enter themselves, nor allow others to enter—one who perhaps could have responded better to the Lord's progress.' Yet this too, by God's inspiration, he had as his own: that while he set forth particular things to particular persons, he presented before the eyes of each one the course of his own life, so that whoever heard him not only believed him to be a searcher of the heart, but confessed him, as it were, a witness of his own conscience. And just as he was most severe toward himself, so he appeared strict toward others for the sake of their amendment. 15.
He furthermore added and compelled that the body of the laity should learn psalms and hymns, and should chant proses and antiphons in a high and modulated voice like the clergy, some in Greek, some in Latin, so that they might have no leisure to be occupied with idle talk in the church. He likewise instituted and introduced most compunctious sermons, suited to the season or to the festivals. For the sick above all he took great care and came to their aid, and assigned a most spacious dwelling in which, without any noise of the basilica, they could hear the holy work; beds, bedding, and provisions with a person who could serve and heal them he established; and he did not deny to captives and the poor a place and the liberty to make their petitions.
He always charged his minister, saying: 'See whether any of the poor are standing before the doors, lest for the sake of our repose that timid and bashful class, waiting upon our sin, should suffer injury.' And drawing long sighs from the depth of his heart, he would say: 'Truly Christ has become one who waits, both prattling and deaf, and yet He begs all, persuades, admonishes, adjures.' He added also that the poor, benefited in this present world, are without doubt a help to our own progress, since to them, with Christ as our surety, we commend on earth what we shall afterward receive in heaven. 16. But after a few days the envious adversity of the devil disturbed the tranquillity of this holy man;
and since it had nothing vile of the body to lay against him, it charged him with the crime of a traitor. For after some time a certain lost man among the blessed man's notaries, Licinianus by name, undertook to perpetrate against this apostolic man what the disciple Judas did not fear to perpetrate against our Savior, the Son of God. Armed with the poison of a savage accusation, he suggested through whisperers to king Alaric that the most blessed Caesarius, who was of Gallic origin, was striving with all his might to subject the territory and city of Arles to the dominion of the Burgundians—when in fact that most excellent shepherd, on bended knees, day and night begged of the Lord in general the peace of the nations and the tranquillity of the cities.
For which reason it is all the more to be believed that by the devil's instigation the barbarian ferocity was stirred up to the holy man's exile. For he who prays that the enemy's works be thwarted is neither acceptable nor pleasing to that enemy. 17. Therefore, at the instigation of those present, neither is faith kept with the innocent, nor is the truth of the accusation demanded; but condemned by false and unlawful accusations, when he had been dragged away from Arles, he was relegated as it were into exile in the city of Bordeaux. But that God's grace might not lie hidden in him, it happened by chance that on a certain night the city blazed with a savage fire, and the people, quickly running together to the man of God, cried out: 'Holy Caesarius, by your prayers extinguish the raging fire.'
When the man of God had heard this, moved with grief and compassion, he prostrated himself in prayer facing the oncoming flame, and at once fixed and drove back the balls of fire. At which sight, by the voices of all who ran together, the divine power was celebrated through him with praise. After this miracle he was held by all in such admiration that in that same city he was regarded not only as a priest but as an apostle, and the author of the persecution—that is, the devil—was confounded, seeing him whom he had striven to assert guilty stand forth eminent by the miracles of the divine work. That this happened thus we have learned by faithful report. And so both there and everywhere he ever taught the Church to render the things that are Caesar's to Caesar, and the things that are God's to God;
indeed to obey, 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 dogma. Thus, as truth bears witness, a lamp set upon a mountain could not be hidden, but wherever it went it illumined all, shining upon its own candlestick. 18. After this, the innocence of the blessed man having been discovered, the wicked prince demanded that the holy bishop should return to his former Church, and present himself likewise to the city and the clergy; but the king commanded that his accuser 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 own intercession willed not so much that his accuser be given over to vengeance, as by his own supplication he rather chose that the man be reserved for penance; that the Lord might heal through penance the soul which the enemy had made captive through false betrayal; and mercifully sparing his domestic foe, he might in a single cause, with a pure conscience, twice conquer the ancient adversary. This too the servant of God took special care to observe: that whether of slaves or of freeborn men serving him, never should anyone who sinned receive beyond the lawful discipline, that is, thirty-nine strokes. But if anyone had been caught in a grave fault, he permitted that after some days he be beaten again with a few strokes;
and he solemnly charged the superiors of the Church that if anyone should order a negligent person to be beaten beyond measure, and because of that discipline the man should die, he who by his command had caused it would be guilty of homicide. And when it was announced that the man of Christ was returning and drawing near to the city, the whole brotherhood went out to meet him, and every sex with candles and crosses, chanting psalms, awaiting the entrance of the holy man. And because Christ makes His own exult by miracles, and the faithless to be confounded by the open light of wonders, at the coming of His servant the Lord poured upon the land, parched by long drought, a most abundant rain, so that fruitfulness might follow with a harvest, when the steward well-pleasing to Him was returning. 19.
After this, on a certain day, looking out from the atrium, he saw some, once the Gospels had been read, going out of the church—men who disdained to hear the blessed man's word, that is, his preaching, at the very outset. Running to them at once, he cried out to the people: 'What are you doing, O sons? Where are you being led forth, subverted by evil persuasion? Stand for your souls at the word of admonition, and listen attentively. This you will not be permitted to do on the day of judgment. I admonish and cry out and adjure you: do not therefore be fugitives or deaf. Behold the trumpet of my mouth, as though the soul of each one of you had been slain by the devil's sword. I shall not be held guilty of silence.'
For this reason he very often had the doors shut after the Gospel, until, God willing, those who had been fugitives rejoiced in their restraint and progress.