Caesarius

Saint Caesarius of Arles, one of the most influential bishops of late antique Gaul, was born at Cabillonum (modern Chalon-sur-Saône) in Burgundy in the later fifth century, into a Gallo-Roman Christian family of some standing. The precise year of his birth is not recorded in contemporary sources and is only estimated by later writers. His sister Caesaria later became the first abbess of the women’s monastery he founded at Arles. As a young man he entered the island monastery of Lérins, then a leading centre of ascetic life in southern Gaul, where the community followed a demanding Eastern-inspired rule. Excessive austerity damaged his health, and the abbot sent him to Arles. There Archbishop Aeonius, who is often described as a kinsman, ordained him deacon and priest and placed him over a monastery near the city. When Aeonius died, the clergy and people elected Caesarius bishop of Arles, an office he assumed at the beginning of the sixth century and held for about four decades.

Arles was then a politically exposed metropolitan see, passing from Visigothic to Ostrogothic and finally Frankish control. Caesarius’s episcopate was marked by repeated political suspicion. Under the Visigothic king Alaric II he was accused of intending to hand the city to the Burgundians and was briefly exiled to Bordeaux before being restored. After the Ostrogothic takeover he was again denounced, travelled to the court of Theodoric at Ravenna, and was acquitted. From there he went to Rome, where Pope Symmachus received him, conferred the pallium, and confirmed the metropolitan rights of Arles over a large part of Gaul. These journeys illustrate both the insecurity of a Gallic bishop in the post-Roman kingdoms and Caesarius’s determination to keep his church in close communion with Rome.

As metropolitan he convened or presided over a series of councils that shaped the discipline and doctrine of the Gallic church, including Agde in 506, Arles in 524, Carpentras in 527, Orange and Vaison in 529, and Marseille in 533. The Second Council of Orange in 529, whose acts he promoted and which received confirmation from Pope Boniface II, became a landmark against Semi-Pelagian teaching: it affirmed the necessity of prevenient grace for the beginning of faith while rejecting predestination to evil. Caesarius was equally famous as a preacher. A large corpus of sermons survives, written in relatively simple Latin and aimed at townspeople and rural congregations rather than at a learned elite. He urged frequent reception of communion, attacked lingering pagan customs, and insisted that bishops and clergy teach the laity in language they could understand. Many of the sermons were intended to be reused by other priests, which helped spread his pastoral programme beyond Arles.

He was also a monastic legislator. He established a monastery for women within Arles, placing his sister Caesaria at its head, and composed a Rule for Virgins that regulated enclosure, property, liturgy, and work with unusual strictness for Gaul at that date. A shorter rule for monks is also attributed to him. In his testament he sought to protect the women’s community and to provide for the poor of the church of Arles. He died at Arles on 27 August 542 and was buried in the basilica of Saint Mary, which he had built beside the women’s monastery. A Life written soon afterwards by several clerics who had known him, among them Cyprian of Toulon, became the principal narrative source for his career. Veneration of Caesarius is ancient and belongs to the pre-congregation period of the cult of saints; his feast is kept on 27 August. His sermons, monastic rules, and the canons associated with Orange remain the chief documentary basis for assessing his place in the history of the Gallic church.