30. After this, coming to Rome, he was presented to blessed Symmachus, then pope, and thereafter to the senators and their ladies. All rendered thanks to God and to the king, that they had been counted worthy to behold with the eyes of the body him whom they had long since beheld with the eyes of the heart. And so, approving the apostolic man now not by spreading rumour but by his bodily presence, they began eagerly to love and to venerate him. For this reason too Pope Symmachus, moved by so great a dignity of his merits, not only most truly looked up to him with the honour of a metropolitan, but also adorned him with the specially granted privilege of the pallium. He made his deacons pre-eminent in the wearing of dalmatics after the manner of the Roman Church. 31.
Then, returning to his own place, he entered the city of Arles and was received with the singing of psalms, bringing with him from Italy eight thousand solidi ready for the ransom [of captives]—he who had gone as one about to be exiled. For on the very day he entered the city, he came into the church toward evening to give the blessing; and behold, one of the women, seized with trembling, wailing and foaming, and crying out while all were struck with terror [in the church], burst forth: she, gripped by hands on this side and that, was at once presented before the altar to the blessed man, while all besought that he would drive off the plague and restore the woman to health. Then, after his manner, he prostrated himself in prayer for her, and laying his hand upon her head, anointed all her senses and her face with the touch of the holy oil.
When this was done, the calamity, driven off in the name of Christ, never afterward returned to the woman. 32. Meanwhile he had a special solicitude above the rest for captives; and so great and so illustrious was he in this ministry that no account could fully set it forth. For on a certain day, when his holy hands lacked any kind of gold or silver that might be given to the needy, being importuned by a poor man, he said: What shall I do for you, my poor little one? What I have, this I give you. Entering therefore his cell and bringing out the chasuble which he used as a processional vestment, together with a paschal alb, he gave it to him, saying: Go, sell it to some cleric, and with its price redeem your captive.
For not only were those who sought him out loosed from the bonds of captivity, but he himself also went forth for the redeeming of captives. He set out to the city of Carcassonne. Indeed on many occasions, through diverse places, he sent abbots, deacons and clerics for the ransom of the wretched. 33. Now he alone was found worthy to possess as many virtues of divine grace as scarcely flourished among very many servants of God. Yet he so cultivated each single one in himself, as though he possessed that one alone: and so long did the virtue that went before seem most beautiful and most delightful, until it was surpassed by those that followed.
For who could unfold his patience, his purity, his charity, his fervour of spirit, his discretion, his benignity, his holy zeal, his unremitting meditation day and night upon the law of the Lord? An upholder of the faith, a pattern of priests, an ornament of the churches, a preacher of grace, a queller of strife, a seedbed of charity, a rule of discipline, a weigher of morals, a balance of counsel, a defence of orphans, a redemption of captives. Never did detraction proceed from his mouth, never a lie, never a curse against any person whatsoever. And not only did he not detract from anyone, but he would not even patiently listen to one who detracted. 34.
If any of his own suddenly swore an oath, or perhaps uttered a curse, he corrected it in him wholesomely, according as the person was. Yet this was his blessing in place of a curse. If ever he was moved against anyone [he would say]: May God blot out your sin, may God take away your sins, may the Lord chastise your fault, that it be not there reserved against you; may the Lord here correct your error. His outward bearing revealed his inward self. For with a countenance always serene and angelic, so that, according to the Scripture, with a rejoicing heart the face bloomed. Thus, as he was never too unrestrained in righteous laughter, so he was never cast down by excess of grief, save perhaps when he mourned over the sins of others.
Never did he hold anyone in hatred, and not only for friends but even for enemies he prayed with the whole affection of his heart. Nor did he teach by words what he did not fulfil by examples. For no hour of the day passed without meditation upon the divine word, nor did it pass him by even while he slept; for frequently he was seen both to sleep and to meditate. And when he seemed to cease from the meditation of the psalms or from preaching, a lector or notary did not cease to read before him: so that he might rightly and truly say: My meditation is ever in your sight. 35. At a certain time, therefore, while he was making a journey about the Alpine regions, the venerable man, the holy bishop Eucherius, was with him.
Now it came to pass that in the middle of the road there met them an unhappy and infirm woman, contracted in hands and feet, and creeping along the ground. When he had gazed upon her, he asked the holy Eucherius himself what this was that dragged itself thus along the ground. Eucherius questioned the woman. She answered that already for many years she had been paralytic and contracted in all her members. Then blessed Caesarius said to holy Eucherius: Get down and sign her with the cross. He began, as it were, to tremble and to excuse himself; but Caesarius would by no means desist until he did it. So he got down and signed her and said: Behold, I have done what you commanded. And Caesarius said again: Put out your hand, and take hold of her hand, and raise her up.
He answered: Whatever else you command I will do, but this thing I dare not undertake. That is a deed for one to whom God has given power to heal both the souls and the bodies of the sick. Saint Caesarius answered him: Meanwhile do you what I say. And when he strongly resisted, and humbly and tearfully excused himself, and contended for a long while, Caesarius said to him: Into the fire were you ready to enter for the sake of obedience, and are you not ready, for mercy's sake, to do what charity commands? Put forth therefore your hand in the name of the Lord and raise her up. Then, obeying his commands, he lifted the woman with outstretched hand; and with her feet and all her members restored, she walked unharmed to her little lodging. 36.
For with how great powers he shone forth, who would be willing to recount? It came to pass that in the suburban field of his monastery wild boars swarmed. The counts of the city and the rest of the soldiery would go out, and would not allow men to dwell in their houses or to work, but slew them with grievous slaughter, so as to keep them from driving the boars away. But they, no longer enduring the injuries 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 remain there. Anxiously he asked what their complaints were. They answered: On account of the boars the counts and the Goths and various huntsmen come, and they kill us.
But he, with a public voice, lifting up his eyes and hands, looking to heaven, said: Lord Jesus Christ, let the boars have no more access to this place. From that same hour to the present day they have never bred there as they were wont, nor did there appear anything that could be hunted. Deservedly did he command the beasts, who had repelled from himself every vice. He was able to obtain it from God, whose precept he never transgressed. 37.
It happened also that a boy belonging to the most illustrious man Parthenius the patrician—one held pre-eminent by his lord and set over the other slaves—through a certain most wicked temptation often fell to the ground with his senses undone; and since in truth the vexation of that enemy seemed a weakness rather of the mind than of the body, he was anointed with oil consecrated by the blessing of the most blessed man. When this was done, the malignant temptation so departed from him, that him whom Christ, the care of the earthly physician having ceased, had restored to health through His servant, his own lord even set over his household as an example of holy fear. And—what under our admiration can rather be a cause of dread, so as to declare the merit of the most holy man—it is unlawful to pass over his memorable deed in silence.
38. While the holy man, therefore, going about his dioceses, had been received by their own lords in the villa which is called Launicum, in the cell in which he had lodging, after his departure a certain pestilent physician named Anatolius—greatly to be lamented for such a crime—sought upon his very bed the harlotry of a prostitute; whereupon, straightway seized by his instigator the devil with public torment, he was dashed to the ground in the sight of men; and with a public voice, while he confessed the power of the servant of God on account of the presumption for which he had been seized, he made known the committing of his own crime. 39. We know also that the Lord wrought many wonders through the intercession of the servant of God, which it would be long to relate in order.
For when one of us, who have written these things, had asked of him, as a means of his blessing, oil consecrated by him, he carefully carried home the little flask he had received full from him, and strove to preserve it as the greatest of relics. And when, after some time, he was pressed by the heat of a tertian fever, he asked that the little flask in which the oil was should, with the greatest veneration and as a mighty safeguard, be hung at his head. When it had been wrapped in a most clean linen cloth, through the negligence of the servants (as we believe) it was broken. But the oil so remained within it that not a drop ran down onto the ground or onto the linen.
When this was seen, while it was being transferred with the utmost speed into another vessel, once it had been fully emptied out, immediately the broken flask fell apart; and from him who truly records these things, with the Lord's help, the fever departed without any delay.