On Asceticism and Its Position

In reference to the ‘classical soil’: in Arles, a falsely accused woman is sentenced to be drowned in the Rhône with a stone around her neck. In the water she invokes the greatest local saint, who once swam in the Rhône during a persecution: ‘Sancte Genesi, gloriose martyr, qui has aquas natandi pulsu sanctificasti’ [Saint Genesius, glorious martyr, who hast sanctified these waters by swimming in them]. She is saved, of course.