Auxentius
Auxentius (fl. c. 355 died
374), by tradition a
Scythian of
Cappadocia was an
Arian theologian of some eminence who held the see of Milan.
Ambrose praised him for his skills in
rhetoric, though he considered him "worse than a Jew" [
1]. He is not to be confused with Saint
Auxentius of Mopsuestia (d.
360) an early
Christian martyr and an
Eastern Orthodox and
Roman Catholic saint, or with
Saint Auxentius (d.
473), a
hermit cleared of
heresy at the
Council of Chalcedon and an Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic saint.
Auxentius was the foster-son of
Wulfila, the "apostle to the
Goths", who translated the
Gothic Bible and converted the Goths to
Arian Christianity. Auxentius was a deacon in Alexandria and a follower of Dionysius, the Arian
bishop of Milan.
When
Constantius II deposed the orthodox bishops who resisted, Auxentius, favored by the empress Justina, was installed in the see of Dionysius and came to be regarded as the great opponent of the
Nicene doctrine in the West. So prominent did he become, that he was specially mentioned by name in the condemnatory decree of the synod (
369) which
Damasus,
bishop of Rome, urged by
Athanasius, convened in defence of the Nicene doctrine.
In Milan, seat of the Westen Imperial court, Nicene and Arian controversy flared high. In
386, Auxentius challenged Ambrose to a public disputation, in which the judges were to be the court favourites of the Arian empress; he also demanded for the Arians the use of the Basilica Portiana. Ambrose's refusal to surrender this church brought about a siege of the edifice, in which Ambrose and a multitude of his faithful Milanese had shut themselves up. The empress eventually abandoned her favourite and made peace with Ambrose.
When the orthodox emperor
Valentinian I ascended the throne, Auxentius was left undisturbed in his diocese, but his theological doctrines were publicly attacked by
Hilary of Poitiers.
The chief source of information about him is the
Liber contra Auxentium in the Benedictine edition of the works of Hilary.
The
'letter of Auxentius (ca 400) was preserved in the margins of a manuscript of
De fide of Ambrose. Along with the
Creed of wulfila it is one of the chief witnesses to the credence of the
Arian Christians and the politics of the Church at the time when
Nicene Christianity continued to be debated at the highest levels of the Catholic Church.
*
The letter of Auxentius: Jim Marchand, translator (link to Latin text)
*
Encyclopaedia Britannica: Auxentius of Cappadocia
*
Catholic Encyclopedia: "Auxentius of Milan"
*
Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon "Auxentius"
*
Ambrose:Sermon against Auxentius, "On the giving up of the basilicas"
