Venerable Arsenius the Great

Arsenius the Deacon (354 – 450), sometimes known as Arsenius of Scetis and Turah, Arsenius the Roman or Arsenius the Great, was a Roman imperial tutor who became an anchorite in Egypt, one of the most highly regarded of the Desert Fathers, whose teachings were greatly influential on the development of asceticism and the contemplative life. His contemporaries so admired him as to surname him "the Great". His feast day is celebrated on May 8 in the Eastern Orthodox church and in the Roman Catholic Church, though Roman Catholics kept his date on July 19 prior to the revision of the Roman Martyrology after the Second Vatican Council. He is celebrated on 13 Pashons in the Coptic Orthodox Church. He was born in 350 AD, in Rome to a Christian, Roman senatorial family. He received a fine education, studying rhetoric and philosophy, and mastered the Latin and Greek languages. After his parents died, his sister Afrositty was admitted to a community of virgins, and he gave all their riches to the poor, and lived an ascetic life. Arsenius became famous for his righteousness and wisdom. Arsenius is said to have been made a deacon by Pope Damasus I who recommended him to Byzantine Emperor Theodosius I the Great, who had requested the Emperor Gratian and Pope Damasus around 383 to find him in the West a tutor for his sons (future emperors Arcadius and Honorius). Arsenius was chosen on the basis of being a man well read in Greek literature. He reached Constantinople in 383, and continued as tutor in the imperial family for eleven years, during the last three of which he also had charge of his original pupil Arcadius's brother, Honorius. Coming one day to see his sons at their studies, Theodosius found them sitting while Arsenius talked to them standing. This he would not tolerate, and caused the teacher to sit and the pupils to stand. On his arrival at court Arsenius had been given a splendid establishment, and probably because the Emperor so desired, he lived in great pomp.