Life, Rule & Works 6

40. But in expounding the Scriptures and in elucidating obscurities, how great grace shone forth in him, who could tell? So great was his delight in it, if anyone provoked him to expound obscure things. And he himself very often would urge us, saying: I know that you do not understand all things: why do you not ask, that you may be able to know? For not always do the cows run to the calves, but sometimes the calves to the cows, that from their mothers' udders they may satisfy their hunger. This too you ought by all means to do, that by asking you may exercise even us, so that we must search out whence we may bring forth to you spiritual honey.

There shone forth in him each and every virtue: virginity with sincerity, modesty with bashfulness, wisdom with simplicity, sincerity with meekness, learning with humility; a life, in short, unspotted, a life beyond reproach, a life ever equal to itself. Woe to me, wretched Cyprian, who proved so lukewarm in learning, that only now do I recognize and repent! Why did I not draw from the river of so great a fount as much as my dryness required! But who could ever imitate the ardour of his charity, wherewith he loved all men? For he bore this above all both in heart and on his lips, and by most gentle exhortation, by word and by example, laudably instructed us that we ought to love our enemies.

Scarcely did anyone pray for his dear ones with that affection wherewith he prayed for his enemies; and although there were no grounds by which anyone should be his enemy—unless perhaps some seemed to be so through envy or through the discipline of equity—yet he loved them not only with a father's but even with a mother's affection; instilling this into us often, that when love is extended even to enemies, it cannot be that one's neighbour is not loved. 41. He taught, moreover, from memory, as long as he was able, and always preached in church with a varied voice. In this work his provision was so pious and salutary, that when he himself could no longer, on account of infirmity, approach to perform that office, he instructed and appointed presbyters and deacons to preach in church;

so that no bishop might the more easily withhold himself from this exhortation, so necessary for all, under the excuse of any impossibility whatsoever, saying these words: If the words of the Lord and of the prophets or of the apostles are recited by presbyters and deacons, why should not those of Ambrose, of Augustine, or of my own littleness, or of any of the saints, be recited by presbyters and deacons? The servant is not greater than his lord. To whom authority is given to read the Gospel, I believe it is also permitted to recite in church the homilies of the servants of God or the expositions of the canonical Scriptures. I divest myself of this by so ordaining; the holy priests who shall have scorned to fulfil it, let them know that they will have to render account on the day of judgment.

Indeed I do not believe that anyone has a sense so hardened, that to him whom God bids: Cry aloud, cease not, he should neither himself cry out nor permit others to cry out. Let him fear that word: Woe to those who keep silence concerning you, since many are dumb. And that of the Apostle [rather, of Isaiah]: Dumb dogs, not able to bark. For indeed, of how many sheep that have gone astray while the priest kept silence, will he render an account for their souls. 42.

He also composed sermons suited to the feast-days and to the places, but also against the evil of drunkenness and lust, and against discord and hatred, against wrath and pride, against the sacrilegious and the soothsayers, against the most pagan rites of the Kalends as well, and against augurs, tree-worshippers, spring-worshippers, and the vices of divers kinds; and he so prepared them that, if any of those who came should ask for one, he not only did not refuse to impart it, but even if he might but hint that anyone ought to receive it, he still offered it to him, that he might carry it away and himself read it.

Yet even to those set far off, in Francia, in Gaul, and in Italy, and in Spain, and established in various provinces, he transmitted through priests what they should cause to be preached in their churches, so that, casting away things frivolous and fleeting, they might, according to the Apostle, become zealous followers of good works. 43. The good odour of Christ, therefore, was diffused far and wide through him, and, borne abroad, was fragrant everywhere; it reached those to whose sight he was not presented; it touched the breasts of those whose limbs it did not touch. He added this also, that he would never ordain a deacon in his church before the thirtieth year of his age.

But he added even this, that not even at any greater age should one be ordained, unless he had first read through the books of the Old Testament four times in order, and four times the New. I, a sinner, am witness of his holy conscience, that whatever he enjoined upon others he himself did, and always fulfilled for God's sake. And whatever he forbade to be done, that he himself avoided doing—all in the zeal of God. 44. He neither acted nor relished anything in a carnal way; and he never wished to be idle from the work of God, but he designed and built a threefold basilica within a single enclosure, whose middle portion he constructed, with more eminent devotion, in honour of holy Mary the Virgin, placing on one side that of lord John, on the other that of holy Martin.

And that he might take away from the sacred virgins whom he had gathered the concern for necessary burial, he had immovable chests, most fitting for the burying of bodies, newly cut out from huge stones, which he had laid throughout the whole pavement of the basilica in close-packed rows: so that whoever of that congregation should depart from this light might find a burial-place fully prepared and most holy.

Not long after, therefore, when his own full sister, the holy Caesaria, passed to the rewards of Christ, he buried her among those whom he had sent on ahead there, in the midst, near the tomb which he had prepared for himself; and there succeeded her Caesaria the mother, who now survives, whose work with her companions so pre-eminently flourishes, that amid psalms and fastings, vigils too and readings, the virgins of Christ beautifully copy out the divine books, having her as their mistress. 45. The blessed man, therefore, was intent, as he was wont, upon prayer and reading and almsgiving, unceasingly upon preaching every Lord's day and on all feast days;

frequently also at matins, at the lamp-lighting service, homilies were recited on account of those who came, so that there might be none who could excuse himself on the ground of ignorance. He invited the obedient, instructed the diligent, but sharply admonished the reluctant, because, as a worthy recompense was to be conferred upon the faithful in the day of judgment, so also a worthy vengeance of indignation would follow upon these. He also established as a rule that those about to marry should, out of reverence for the blessing, have the blessing given to them in the basilica three days before their union.

Finally he possessed such great goods in himself, by the bestowal of divine grace—both from the progress of his hearers, and from the docility of his disciples, and from the consecration of virgins—that he was crowned not with one merit only, but, girded amid so great and manifold crowns of his coruscating merits, was wholly transformed into the crown of the Church. 46. Many rivals indeed arose who would resist his doctrine concerning grace. But O enviable felicity! For through the whisperings and evil interpretation of certain men, a sinister suspicion sprang up, in vain, in the regions of the Gauls against the preaching of the man of God. On this account the bishops of Christ dwelling beyond the Isère, gathered together by the love of charity, convened in the city of Valence:

whither blessed Caesarius, on account of his customary infirmity, could not, as he had arranged, hasten. Yet he sent most excellent men from among the bishops, together with presbyters and deacons, among whom holy Cyprian of Toulon also shone forth, great and illustrious, affirming all that he said assuredly from the divine Scriptures, and proving it from the most ancient institutions of the Fathers—namely, that no one can attain anything of himself in divine progress, unless he has first been called by the grace of God going before him. But while they sought to establish their own righteousness, 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. And, No one has anything, unless it be 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 man then truly resumes free will, when he has been redeemed by the liberation of Christ, 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 account from apostolic tradition. For Boniface too, of blessed memory, pope of the Roman Church, having ascertained this same conflict, trod down the intention of the wranglers and confirmed by apostolic authority the advocacy of St. Caesarius: and, Christ granting, the bishops of the Churches gradually accepted that which the devil, by sudden animosity, had wished to bring to nought. 47.

This he frequently preached to all whomsoever, saying: If you love the word of God, you assuredly hold enclosed within your breast what I have instilled; for to divine love belonged the supreme perfection of the decalogue: that what the charity of Christ has bound to itself in you, you yourself also may render common with your fellow-man by a shared bounty. But lest you should believe that only the souls of your kinsfolk, friends, or dependents are to be fed by this address of ours, I testify to you before God and His holy angels: you will be guilty concerning the salvation of your slaves, of any of your infirm ones, if, when you have returned, you do not instil to them equally, as to friends or kinsfolk, what we have preached. For know that a slave is subjected to you by bodily condition in the present, and is not bound to you by the bond of eternity.

And again to those whom he had addressed he would say: What have we said, brothers? what have we discoursed, little sons? I ask you, what have our sermons been up to now in the conference? If you love them, you retain them; if you retain them, without doubt you have shut up the words within your hearts. By provoking them in this way, he wrung the zeal of retaining even from the unwilling. 48. At his table, both at the midday meal and at supper, there was reading without cessation daily, so that both the inner and the outer man, being satisfied, might rejoice in a twofold refreshment. In this narrow and constricted enclosure the hearers—with sweat, I confess, and great shame—many before him were soon found forgetful; while few, which is worse, could repeat the little narrative entrusted to them only in leaping and disjointed summaries.

In the house of his church, moreover, just as when he was present, so when he was absent, a banquet was always prepared for the clergy, or for whatever guests arriving. No one, while he lived, 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 few, let the manifest things suffice, even if the hidden ones are kept concealed. Yet I ask you, holy brothers Messianus the presbyter and Stephen the deacon, to whom many things about him are known—inasmuch as from your youth you were in his service—that you join your contribution to this little work.