ST CAESARIUS OF NAZIANZUS, CONFESSOR - 25 FEBRUARY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN FEBRUARY

 Saints celebrated on the 25th of February

WELCOME!

SAINT CAESARIUS OF NAZIANZUS, CONFESSOR 

Saint Caesarius was a physician, and brother to Saint Gregory of Nazianzus. When the latter repaired to Caesarea, in Palestine, where the sacred studies flourished, Caesarius went to Alexandria, and with incredible success ran through the circle of the sciences, amongst which oratory, philosophy, and especially medicine, fixed his attention. In this last he became the first man of his age. 

AN OUTSTANDING DOCTOR

He perfected himself in this profession at Constantinople, but excused himself from settling there, as the city and the emperor Constantius earnestly requested him to do. 

He was afterwards recalled thither, singularly honoured by Julian the Apostate, nominated his first physician, and excepted in several edicts which that prince published against the Christians. 

ST JULIAN THE APOSTATE'S FIRST PHYSICIAN

He resisted strenuously the insinuating discourses and artifices with which that prince endeavoured to seduce him, and was prevailed upon by the remonstrances of his father and brother to resign his places at court, and prefer a retreat, whatever solicitations Julian could use to detain him. 

Jovian honourably restored him, and Valens, moreover, created him treasurer of his own private purse, and of Bithynia. 

HE RENOUNCED THE WORLD

A narrow escape in an earthquake at Nice, in Bithynia, in 368, worked so powerfully on his mind, that he renounced the world, and died shortly after, in the beginning of the year 369, leaving the poor his heirs. The Greeks honour his memory on March 9, as Nicephorus testifies, and as appears from the Menaea in the Roman Martyrology, he is named on February 25.

Source: Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints

PRAYER:

Grant, we beseech you, almighty God, that the venerable feast of Saint Caesarius may increase our devotion and promote our salvation. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.