20. The man of God therefore conceived in his mind that—the Lord ever reigning, by divine impulse—the church of Arles should be adorned and the city fortified, not only with countless throngs of clergy, but also with choirs of virgins: so that, as a fruitful husbandman, he might store up a full harvest in the heavenly granaries and, being taken up, might teach it to be carried in by his own following. But adversity for a while opposed these arrangements of diabolical envy. For when the Franks and Burgundians were besieging the city, and king Alaric had already been slain in battle by the most victorious Clovis, Theodoric, king of Italy, had entered this province with the dukes he had sent.
In this siege, therefore, the monastery which he was beginning to build for his sister and the rest of the virgins was for the most part destroyed, its boards and upper chambers alike plundered and overturned by the ferocity of the barbarians. And when he saw the labor which he had urged on in haste, and had constructed with his own hand and sweat, being overturned and destroyed, he began to be consumed by a doubled grief. 21. Then a certain cleric, his fellow-citizen and kinsman, terrified by fear of captivity and moved by youthful frivolity, armed by the instigation of the devil against the servant of God, letting himself down by a rope through the wall in the night, of his own accord offered himself on the morrow to the most wicked enemies besieging the city.
When the Goths within learned of this, they rushed upon the holy man, while the sedition of the populace together with a crowd of Jews clamored and shouted immoderately, that the bishop had by night sent out his kinsman-figure to the enemy for the betrayal of the city. Nothing therefore was reserved to faith, nothing to proof, nothing to pure conscience—the Jews especially and the heretics clamoring the same thing without reverence or moderation: 'Let the bishop be dragged from the house of the church, and let him be consigned to the strictest custody in the palace: so that under cover of night he may either be drowned in the depth of the Rhône, or at least be held thrust down in the fortress of Ugernum, until adversity might rage the more by his exile and affliction.'
The house of the church and the bishop's chamber were therefore crowded with the lodgings of the Arians. Yet one of these Goths, who had placed himself in the bishop's little bed against the objection of the others, being struck by the Divinity, died the next day, so that thereafter no one with polluted conscience dared to violate the place of God's servant. When therefore, on account of the enemy's siege, the Goths were unable by God's will to raise up from either bank the war-galley by which he had been lured, recalling the holy man by night to the palace, they covered his person with silence, so that none of the Catholics could know whether he was alive. 22. While therefore, with the devil exulting, these things were done amid the rejoicing of the Jews, who everywhere belched forth reproaches against our people with no regard for their perfidy;
on a certain night one of the Jewish band, from the place on the wall where they had by chance undertaken the duty of keeping watch, threw to the adversaries a letter bound to a stone, as though he were striking the enemy: in which, indicating his name and sect, he invited them to send ladders by night to the place of their watch; provided only that, in return for the benefit granted, no Jew within should suffer captivity or plunder. But in the morning, when the enemy had withdrawn a little from the wall, certain men going out beyond the outer rampart, among the ruined walls, as usually happens, found the letter and carried it inside, and made it public to all in the forum. Soon the man was brought forward, convicted, and punished. Then indeed the savage cruelty of the Jews, hateful to God and men, was at last confounded by open light.
Soon our Daniel too, that is, St. Caesarius, was led out from the den of lions, and the accusation of the satraps was made public; and there was fulfilled concerning their author: He opened a pit and dug it out, and fell into the ditch which he had made. 23. But at Arles, when the Goths had returned with a vast multitude of captives;
the holy basilicas were filled, and the house of the church too was crowded with a throng of unbelievers; and to these, in great want, the man of God bestowed food and clothing abundantly alike, until by the gift of redemption he set each one free, having spent the silver which his venerable predecessor Eonius had left to the table of the church, keeping that which the Lord dipped the bread in an earthenware dish, not in a vessel of silver, and commanded His disciples to possess neither gold nor silver. The holy work was carried through even to the very dispensing of the divine ministry: for indeed the thuribles, the chalices, and the patens, given over for their redemption, together with the consecrated redemption of the temple, were sold.
It seemed even that the blows of axes were struck upon the parapets and railings, while from thence the ornaments of the columns were knocked off from the silver. This the man of God did, saying that a rational man, redeemed by the blood of Christ, should not, with the state of liberty lost, on account of his bondage become either an Arian, or a Jew, or a slave instead of freeborn, or freeborn instead of a slave. 24. For thereby he adorned and protected, and did not disfigure the church; he made the mother's bowels to be opened to her sons, not to be condemned—saying this most often: 'Yet I would that some, the Lord's priests, or the rest of the clergy, who out of I know not what love of superfluity are unwilling to give insensible silver and gold from the offerings of Christ for the servants of Christ, would tell me and give me a reason;'
'I would, I say, that they would tell me, if these adversities should by chance befall themselves, whether they would wish to be freed by insensible offerings; or would perhaps reckon it sacrilege, if anyone should come to their aid from the divine little gifts. I do not believe it contrary to God that redemption be given from His ministry, who delivered Himself up for the redemption of man. We see from this that some indeed praise the deed of the holy man, and yet in no way imitate it. Did not the blood of Christ hang in glass, and His most precious body upon wood for us, and shine forth?'
Yet we believe and trust in the Lord God, through the mercy and faith and prayer of blessed Caesarius, that thus in his days the city of Arles was besieged by enemies in such a way that it deserved to fall neither to captivity nor to plunder. Thus afterward it passed from the Visigoths to the kingdom of the Ostrogoths. Thus even today, in the name of Christ, it is subject to the dominion of the most glorious king Childebert, so that, as we read, they passed from nation to nation and from one kingdom to another people, and God did not permit anyone under that man to harm His people of Arles. 25. Amid these things, therefore, he rebuilt the chief monastery which he had begun to prepare for his sister, after the pattern of the former rule and with the singularity of an enclosure.
He himself indeed (since nothing that befits a Christian stands in the way of the mystery), like a more recent Noah of our time, on account of the whirlwinds and storms, built an ark for his companions or sisters at the side of the church of the monastery, and summoned from the monastery of Marseilles his venerable sister Caesaria, whom he had sent there for this purpose, that she might learn what she was to teach, and be a disciple before a mistress; and into the prepared dwellings he introduced her with two or three companions for the time. Thither multitudes of virgins gathered in throngs, renouncing their possessions and parents alike, and spurning the deceitful and fleeting flowers of mortals.
They sought the bosom of father Caesarius and of mother Caesaria, that with the same, with lamps kindled, they might await the door of the heavenly kingdom, and, having fittingly entered, might merit to cling to the everlasting embraces of Christ: so enclosed that until the day of their passing it should be lawful for none to go out through the door of the monastery. 26. For this cause, therefore, and for this zeal, the devil, without doubt swelling with rabid fury against Christ's servant like a lion, once more, an accusation having been fabricated, caused the bishop to be dragged from Arles and led into Italy under custody, and on to Ravenna: that there might be fulfilled in him, As gold and silver are tried in the furnace, so are the hearts of the elect before God.
He therefore came to the palace, about to greet also king Theodoric, with Christ as his guide. But when the king beheld the man of God, intrepid and venerable, he rose reverently to greet him, and having laid aside the ornament from his head, graciously returned his greeting, first inquiring about his own toil and journey, then affectionately asking about his Goths and about the people of Arles. When therefore the holy man had gone out from the king's presence, the king addressed his own men, saying: 'May God not spare those who caused a man of such innocence and holiness to be vexed in vain by so long a journey. What manner of man he is, is proved from this: that when he entered to greet me, I trembled all over. I see,' he said, 'an angelic countenance; I see an apostolic man;'
'I judge it a sin to think anything evil of so venerable a man.' After this, when he had been received in his lodging, the king sent by way of a gift, for him to dine from, a silver dish whose weight came to about sixty pounds, with three hundred solidi added, at the same time asking and saying: 'Receive it, holy bishop; your son the king begs that your beatitude may worthily accept this little vessel as a gift, and keep it for use as a memorial of himself.' But he, who never had silver for the use of his own table except spoons, on the third day had the dish appraised and publicly sold through his ministers, and with its price began to free very many captives. Soon, they say, his servants reported to the king:
'Behold, we have seen among the goods for sale the royal gift, for sale, by whose price St. Caesarius frees multitudes of captives. For so great a mass of the poor was in his very meditation and crowded the court of his house, that scarcely could one approach to greet him for the density of the wretched pressing their petitions. For through the streets too we saw countless throngs of the unfortunate running about, going, that is, and returning to the man.'
When Theodoric learned that this thing had been done in such a manner, he extolled it with such praise and admiration that the senators and nobles attending his palace all vied with one another in desiring that the reward of their offering be dispensed through the blessed man's hand, proclaiming that they had been divinely regarded, in that they had been worthy to behold such a bishop, who in those times, by his words and deeds, appeared a true successor of the apostles and an apostolic man.
And because nothing runs swifter than fame, as the most holy work grew frequent, at once the holy report of the holy man flew to Rome, and there he began to be desired by the senate and nobles, by the pope also and the clergy, and likewise by the common people, with so great a fervor of charity, that he clung to the embrace of each one's heart before he was seen with the eyes of the body. Meanwhile all the captives beyond the Durance, and especially of the town of Orange, which had been entirely given over to captivity—part of which he had also freed for Arles by ransoming—he soon, when they were found in Italy, redeemed as he was able.
And that fuller liberty might be restored to them, he placed them, with provisions, upon beasts and carts on the way, and by the aid and arrangement of his own people caused them to be brought back to their homes. 28. Meanwhile in the aforesaid city of Ravenna a certain widow had a son, a youth serving in the offices of the prefecture, who supported the need of his mother by his emoluments and his own stipends. This youth, through a sudden infirmity, lay lifeless. When every hope and consolation of human healing had failed him, his mother, having left and lost her son, ran in haste to the man of God; and prostrating her body, with streaming eyes, uttering wailings besides, with faith alone remaining vigorous, embracing the blessed man's knees she cried out, saying:
'I believe that divine compassion led you here, O holy one, for this purpose: that you might restore a son to his mother.' To the woman weeping and beseeching he at first a little refused; and yet, thinking it hard if he should not hear such tears, moved by his wonted compassion—wishing, that is, both to render the due affection of charity and so to exercise virtue in God's name, so that in all things he might shun vanity—he came secretly and privately to her hut. And so, having poured out his prayer, prostrate after his custom, when he perceived that the divine power of his calling was present through the Holy Spirit, he departed. But to his notary of that time, now the venerable presbyter Messianus, he left instruction that when the youth returned to himself, he should straightway report it to him.
And while he was keeping watch before the bed of the one lying there, the hour not yet completed, the boy was recalled from the darkness of death, and soon, his eyes' orbs unclosed, he addressed his mother, saying: 'Go, mother, to the servant of God, hasten and make haste, by whose prayers I am given back to you and to life, and give thanks that by his merits and virtues God has granted the effect.' She, flying swiftly, ran up, rendering thanks not so much by words as by tears and cries and rejoicings, and asking that him whom God had, through that man, restored to this light, when he returned to Gaul, he would not suffer to depart from his service.
But that blessed man of loftier spirit replied that she ought rather to render thanks to Him whose power and mercy is wont to be present to all who mourn and cry out. The greatness of this miracle, therefore, spread not only through that city but through the whole province by the devotions and reports of the faithful. 29. The physician Elpidius too, a deacon, intimate with the royal power and in assiduous service, being harassed by diabolical infestation not only with various other snares, but also being rather frequently assailed by a shower of stones in his own house, entreated the holy man of God that he might merit to be freed from that vexation by his prayers. Entering his house to sanctify it, he sprinkled an infusion of blessed water, and thus, the peril of the accustomed vexation...
4:22
minibusliberavit, utultraibinihiltalecontigerit.
他親手使她得釋放，以致此後那裡再也沒有發生這類的事。
he freed her with his hands, so that thereafter nothing of the kind befell her there.