a distinguished ecclesiastic of the fifth and sixth centuries.
He was born at Chalons in 468, devoted his youth to the discipline of a monastic life, and was elected bishop of Arles in 502. He presided over this see for forty years. during which period he was twice accused of treason, first against Alaric, and afterwards against Theodoric, but upon both occasions was honourably acquitted. He took an active share in the deliberations of several councils of the church, and gained peculiar celebrity by his strenuous exertions for the suppression of the Semipelagian doctrines, which had been promulgated about a century before by Cassianus, and had spread widely in southern Gaul.
A life of Caesarius, which however must be considered rather in the light of a panegyric than of a sober biography, was composed by his friend and pupil, Cyprian, bishop of Toulon.