Sermo De Miraculo Sancti Genesii Martyris Arelatensis

The works of Saint Hilary, Bishop of Arles, doubtful. A sermon or narrative concerning the miracle of Saint Genesius, martyr of Arles. (From Surius, on the day of August.) To recount the works of God is honorable: therefore it is worthwhile to narrate the miracles of that work to be referred to the glory of the holy martyr Genesius. For on his very birthday, that frequent occurrence in the city of Arles, the danger of the broken bridge, shook the whole city with excessive trembling, and with the minds shaken by the crisis of sudden terror, it rendered the joy of the solemnity more joyful by the grace of received safety, with doubled delight. For when on this celebration more people than even Arles itself had gathered, whose joys on that day the city itself was too narrow to contain, the paths and open spaces of the fields, as the image arose, and with all laboring in their density, it went to the farther bank of the river, the army devoted to Christ, with dear spouses, sweet pledges, hastens to have many benefits at once. Nor content to pour out vows in one place, it keeps vigil in the church, before dawn it hastened to the place of slaughter and blood; likewise at the tomb, sacrificing offerings of joys, as if about to occupy the ears of the martyr, it hurried. It awaited neither the solemnly arranged offices of the clergy, nor finally the time of light itself. For the splendor of the festivity, with the whole city shining, had driven away all the horror of night in every way.

Meanwhile, that naval route, where the backs of the terrible Rhône are trodden between the allied cities, suddenly collapsed, either under an unjust burden, or an excessive weight of materials, or the oblique rush of the river—it is uncertain by what accident, yet certain by whose treachery the precious cargo, that is, the crowd of the faithful, was deposited, hanging precariously in the midst of the waves, with me standing by—I speak truly—and drawing my foot back from what I might call the bridge itself. Immediately a great uproar arose from both the falling and the surrounding crowd; panic ran through the entire city: one feared for a spouse, another for children, others for relatives, others for friends; all at once feared with different emotions, and the citizens, too little. Amid these events, the bishop of holy memory, Honoratus, by whose pastoral care that people then rejoiced, fearing for all as one, bore the whole weight of the disaster. What goads that piety then received! With what sudden sickness of the soul was he present to the sick! With eyes immediately raised to heaven, his intention of heart equal to the lights of his eyes, he withdrew entirely from us standing by in an ecstasy of the mind, so that no one doubted that he stood before the tribunal of Christ with Saint Genesius, about to obtain help against the present evil.

A great tumult was driving the wretched shipwrecks: caparisoned horses, mingled with men, chafing at their impeded swimming, were marking their legs with their high chests; whatever came in their way, whether warned by danger or driven by panic, they trampled with fearful courage; servants entangled with the dear burdens of mothers' arms, and pressed by matronly baskets, and the whole solemn procession of their journey mixed with the debris. Let no malicious interpreter arise at this point, let no one darken such great glory of the martyr with spiteful detraction, let no one allege the nearby crowd on the bank, let no one assert that those whom the divine right hand openly saved were rescued by fords. Every day, with the merchandise of foreigners, ships of inestimable burdens are moored to the same banks; ancient ordinance established a ship there for carrying bridges, as if the bottom despaired of the embankments. It exposed to this vast whirlpool only as much weight of the crowded people as it had received with the longest and strongest beams, and those same beams broken.

Let it now come before the minds and eyes of those who recall these events: the whole Rhone at once, the collapse, the shipwreck, the entangled throng of wretched souls of every kind, all heaped together into a single destruction by the snares of the devil. No danger was lacking, so that nothing might be lacking to the glory of the martyr. For when would the river drown his own nurslings, on the very day it had consecrated with pious anniversaries? O great glory of God! The glorious army burst forth from the vast whirlpool. You would have thought the Jordan had opened again, its channel divinely broken; or that the seas had once more offered a solid path through the waters for the people of God, as under Moses once, at the command of the rod. No one was shattered by the collapse, no one was entangled by the river weighted down with garments, no one did the river assail with its draught. The familiar and native bank received all unharmed and safe. The whole procession, just as it had entered, came out. Matrons, from the depths, saw the secrets of their movable chambers from the necks of their servants. Virgins, adorned in honor of God, felt no loss of their floating necklaces; the very pins, so to speak, clung as they had been fixed by their mothers’ hands. No one suffered any loss of property, no one any loss of health. Dear ones meet dear ones; each one joyfully embraces his neighbor, for whom he had most feared. Whose present power worked this, if not Christ’s, through the intercession of his martyr? The bishop indeed meets the martyr, and the martyr meets the Lord. The office of the faithful people, worthy of salvation, has been shown.

And indeed very many (as perhaps you recognize with me, and to whom you have done so) immediately, lest the enemy be allowed even lightly to disturb the holy devotion, board the boats with their clothes still wet, and, with fervent hope, scorn the morning chill of the river; hastening, they arrive at the place they had intended, that is, the site of the slaughter—or rather, of the victor—with greater eagerness to pour out fresh vows after the recent peril. O prayers worthy to be heard! which, not broken by injuries, do not know how to impute that they were endangered: they know how to report that they escaped. All exult with joy; they stand by, finally, joyful at the solemn rites; to have been present at the perils helps, because it is notable to have been present at the miracles. So great was it for each to have doubted his safety, that he might wondrously acquire his own salvation. The shepherd Honoratus rejoices in the full number of his people; he indeed could have committed these things to writings destined to last forever with a more polished hand and greater grace, had he not, conscious of the divine warning and designated a participant in the embassy of the holy martyr, feared to exult too insolently because the Lord had bestowed these things upon him as bishop. And indeed, the benefits, spread through many, reach us. But how many recognize them in themselves privately? This we ascribe to God alone, who is worshipped as the creator and knower of all, and lives with the Son and the Holy Spirit through infinite ages of ages. Amen.