According to a life written in the eighth century he was born in a village of Aquitaine, became a monk, Abbot of Lérins, and Bishop of Arles, where he built a basilica of Saint Stephen and another of the Saviour.
Gregory the Great wrote (591) to Virgilius, and to Theodore, Bishop of Marseille, praising their good intentions but recommending them to confine their zeal to prayer and preaching.
On 1 August 595, St. Gregory extended to Virgilius the title of pontifical vicar, granted to the bishops of Arles by Pope Zosimus (519); this dignity made him the intermediary between the Gallic episcopate and the Apostolic See.
King Childebert was urged by the pope to assist Virgilius in exterminating simony from the Churches of Gaul and Germania.
In 601 Gregory advised Virgilius to assemble a council against simony and to induce the Bishop of Marseilles to reform his house.