ARSENIUS (c. 354-450), an anchorite, said to have been born of a noble
Roman family, who achieved a high reputation for his knowledge of Greek
and Roman literature. He was appointed by Theodosius the Great, tutor of
the young princes Arcadius and Honorius, but at the age of forty he
retired to Egypt, where for forty years he lived in monastic seclusion
at Scetis in the Thebais, under the spiritual guidance of St John the
Dwarf. He is said to have gained the admiration of his fellows by the
extreme rigour of his asceticism. The remainder of his life he spent at
Canopus, and Troe near Memphis, where he died at the age of ninety-five.
Of his writings two collections of admonitory maxims are extant: the
first, [Greek: Didaskalia kai parainesis], containing instructions for
monks, is published with a Latin version by Fr. Combefis in _Auctarium
biblioth. patr. novissim._ (Paris, 1672), pp. 301 f.; the second is a
collection of forty-four wise sayings put together by his friends under
the title of [Greek: Apophthegmata] (see Cotelerius, _Eccl. graec.
monum._, 1677, i. pp. 353-372). In the Roman Catholic Church his
festival is on the 19th of July, in the Orthodox Eastern Church on the
8th of May. His biography by Simeon Metaphrastes is largely fiction.
ARSENIUS AUTORIANUS (13th century), patriarch of Constantinople, lived
about the middle of the 13th century. He received his education in
Nicaea at a monastery of which he later became the abbot, though not in
orders. Subsequently he gave himself up to a life of solitary asceticism
in a Bithynian monastery, and is said, probably wrongly, to have
remained some time in a monastery on Mount Athos. From this seclusion he
was in A.D. 1255 called by Theodore II. Lascaris to the position of
patriarch at Nicaea, and four years later, on that emperor's death,
became joint guardian of his son John. His fellow-guardian Georgios
Mouzalon was immediately murdered by Michael Palaeologus, who assumed
the position of tutor. Arsenius then took refuge in the monastery of
Paschasius, retaining his office of patriarch but refusing to discharge
its duties. Nicephorus of Ephesus was appointed in his stead. In 1261
Michael, having recovered Constantinople, induced Arsenius again to
undertake the office of patriarch, but soon incurred his severe censure
by ordering the young prince John to be blinded. Arsenius went so far as
to excommunicate the emperor, who, having vainly sought for pardon, took
refuge in false accusations against Arsenius and caused him to be
banished to Proconnesus, where some years afterwards (according to
Fabricius in 1264; others say in 1273) he died. Throughout these years
he declined to remove the sentence of excommunication which he had
passed upon Michael, and after his death, when the new patriarch
Josephus gave absolution to the emperor, the quarrel was carried on
between the "Arsenites" and the "Josephists." The "Arsenian schism"
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