Saint Arsenius the Great
The Silent Saint
Join me today to meet a saint who left the crumbling Roman empire to seek silence and solitude.
Name: Arsenius, Arsenius the Great
Life: c. 360 - c. 449 AD
Status: Saint
Feast: May 8, July 19
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In 330 AD the Emperor Constantine had founded Constantinople, modern Istanbul in Turkey, a city that he modestly named after himself. Constantine intended it to be a splendid city, far greater than Rome. He also planned for it to be a capital for emperors to come.
Constantine succeeded in making a wonder. The city was huge, housing a quarter of a million people within its massive walls. Luxuries from around the world were for sale in the busy market, and the city was made rich by the regular arrival of ships which delivered Egypt’s bountiful harvest of grain. If you had your mind set on worldly things you could go to the theatre or watch chariots race through the vast Hippodrome. And if you were of a philosophical bent, Constantinople was also the place for you. Saint Gregory of Nyssa said that in Constantinople, if you tried to buy a loaf of bread, you and the baker would be debating the nature of Christ and the Arian heresy before you knew what had happened.
Yet despite the many attractions of Constantinople, after Constantine many emperors had spent very little time there. Some of that could be blamed on war. But by the 360s the Emperor Valens was conspicuously absent. Briefly, foolishly, the people of Constantinople had set up a rival emperor of their own. He had fallen soon enough, and the whole process had made Valens actively dislike the city. He would have to figure out what to do about Constantinople. But first, Valens was going to have to address another problem: the Goths.
The mighty Danube formed a natural border for the Roman Empire. By 376 AD the men there were reporting contacts with enormous groups of barbarians on the move. These were the Goths. The Goths were running from another barbarian group, the Huns. The Goths had run West, and now they had arrived at the border of the Roman Empire. They wanted to get in.
It took the Emperor Valens some time to wrap his head around the scale of the problem. An entire Gothic tribe we know today as the Visigoths were camped out on the Danube. There were tens of thousands of them, warriors and women and children.
In one way, none of this needed to be the Romans’ problem. The Romans could simply refuse to let the Visigoths in. It would be hard for the Visigoths to cross the Danube against Roman opposition. If the Romans simply said no, the Visigoths would have to move on and find a home somewhere else. Even if Rome wanted to bring in the Visigoths, it wasn’t clear that the Roman system of barbarian integration, receptio, would even work at this scale.
But on the other hand, the Emperor Valens’ advisors considered, there was money to be made here. The Goths were promising to do whatever it took to get in. Their warriors could fight as soldiers in the legions. Then the people who were currently paying their taxes with recruits could pay with gold instead. Everyone could get a little richer.
Valens listened to his advisors. Romans helped the Visigoths cross the Danube. The historian Ammianus Marcellinus, who knew what would happen next, could still hardly believe what they had done:
various officials were sent to transport this wild host, and the greatest care was taken to ensure that, even if he were suffering from mortal illness, none of those destined to overthrow the Roman empire should be left behind. (Walter Hamilton translation)
And so the Visigoths entered the Roman Empire. The plan for integrating them failed immediately. There was no system in place for housing or properly feeding them. There was also no system in place for disarming their warriors. The result was that the Romans now had a host of angry, armed, unemployed and battle-hardened people in their own country. Soon relations had broken down completely and the Goths were rampaging through the Empire.
Valens tried to figure out what to do. His preparations took him, among other places, into Constantinople. A mob formed in the city and hurled abuse at the emperor, mocking him for a fool who had put them all in danger. Valens let it be known that as soon as the problem of the Visigoths was dealt with, the city of Constantinople would be next. He was going to burn the whole thing down, knock down its walls, and turn it back into farmland.
Before he could burn down Constantinople, Valens would have to defeat the Visigoths. His army met them at Adrianople, modern Erdine in Turkey, in 378. Valens dithered, unwilling to engage while the Goths prepared. They were ready for his attack by the time he could dither no longer. The Visigoths had circled their wagons and formed a massive fortress. Valens attacked it. Ammianus Marcellinus bitterly described the bungled Roman attack.
Our left wing penetrated as far as the very wagons, and would have gone further if it had received any support, but it was abandoned by the rest of the cavalry, and under pressure of numbers gave way and collapsed like a broken dyke. This left the infantry unprotected and so closely huddled together that a man could hardly wield his sword or draw back his arm once he had stretched it out.
Squeezed by cavalry on either side, the Roman infantry was cut down. Valens died on the field with his officers and lords, the defeat so total that we don’t know when or where he died because anyone who could have recorded that information was killed as well. About 20,000 Romans had died at Adrianople, and the triumphant Visigoths continued to move through the empire.
So many important people had died at Adrianople that there was no obvious successor to become emperor after Valens. Finally the choice settled on a Spanish general named Theodosius. He headed East, toward Constantinople.
The panicky citizens of Constantinople, realizing how close they had come to destruction, sent Theodosius a very persuasive envoy to get him to come and visit and hopefully stay in their city. On the way, Theodosius asked the pope for a favour. Theodosius had young sons, and he needed a tutor worthy of princes.
The pope considered the question, and realized he knew just the man. Arsenius was a deacon in the Church. He was a scholar well acquainted with the Latin and Greek classics. But almost as important, Arsenius was comfortable around power. He was a noble, the son of one of Rome’s senatorial families. He looked the part too, tall and handsome, very much the aristocrat.
And so it was that the new Emperor Theodosius arrived in Constantinople to be joined by Deacon Arsenius along with many other new advisors. It turned out that Theodosius liked the city, and Constantinople loved him in return. The city celebrated the births of his children and welcomed the new Emperor into the rhythm of its festivals and the feasts of the saints.
Theodosius turned out to be, for the most part, a good emperor. He was a sincere Christian, enthusiastically adding more saints’ feasts to Constantinople’s calendar. He weighed in on the theological disputes in the city in favour of orthodox Christianity, pretty much eliminating Arianism as a serious contender. To the delight of Christians, Theodosius took their side in politics and suppressed pagan temples.
Of course, the main problem that Theodosius had to address was the problem of the Visigoths who were tearing through Roman territory. After gathering the forces that he could, Theodosius realized that he was facing an impossible task. The Roman army was simply too weak to force the Visigoths out of the empire. And so Theodosius arranged to give the Goths lands within the empire, where they would be a quasi-sovereign state. They would still provide the Roman military with troops.
It was a compromise, but for the moment, it worked. Under Theodosius, it seemed that the doom that was coming for Rome had been averted. Romans once again found their self-confidence. In Constantinople and beyond things began working again. Roman sculptors and metalworkers built beautiful objects, artifacts of the moment of peace we remember as the Theodosian Renaissance. Poets claimed that the old goddesses of inspiration, the Muses, must have returned to the Empire despite its Christian leader.
Arsenius, still a young man, entered Constantinople just in time to experience this moment of peace and prosperity. Arsenius would be a skilful tutor for the two young princes. He had their father’s full support. One of the stories that comes down to us from this time is of Theodosius visiting his sons in their lessons. He found Arsenius standing, explaining something to the two princes who were seated nearby. To everyone’s surprise, Theodosius exploded in anger. He offered the tutor a seat, and told his sons to stand. He was honouring the deacon, and teaching his sons that even a prince was a mere attendant in the house of wisdom.
The golden moment of the Theodosian Renaissance stretched out before Arsenius. He was wealthy and influential. His students liked him. The emperor respected him. Arsenius was surrounded by intelligent, talented people. Imperial favour had made him rich, and he didn’t hold back, wearing the finery of a courtier. He dabbled in real estate, buying a number of splendid houses. He had the kind of position that would let him choose his own future, becoming a high-ranking clergyman, or perhaps staying in the court as a scholar and power-broker.
Yet in the midst of his successes, Arsenius began to think that he was not living well. He found that the city of Constantinople had changed him, and not for the better. We don’t know which of the city’s many temptations was wearing away at him. But we do know that at this time in the court, Arsenius began to suspect that the path he was on was not leading him anywhere good. He began to ask God what he needed to do to be saved:
Lord, lead me in the way of salvation. (Benedicta Ward translation)
Arsenius waited for a reply, and in time he got one.
Arsenius, flee from men and you will be saved. (Benedicta Ward translation)
What did it mean to flee from men? As Arsenius thought it over, he realized that he knew where men who were fleeing from the world ended up. And so, around the year 394, without saying goodbye to anyone, Arsenius left the palace and took ship for Alexandria in Egypt. From there he went South. He was headed into the desert, to the Scetis Valley, modern Wadi El Natrun.
For more than a hundred years, men had felt called to flee the world and its temptations and seek God in the vast silence of the Egyptian desert. The hermits of the desert lived in tiny rooms, cells, in which they prayed and fasted and worked, weaving baskets out of leaves. The cells were hot in the day and cold at night. The area was infested with dangerous animals and robbers. The hermits greeted each other as Abba, Father. The community that we know as the Desert Fathers was working out what would become the Christian idea of a monk.
Visitors would come back amazed at what they had experienced in the desert. The tiny cells of the Desert Fathers were the scene of a spiritual battle. Visitors told dreamlike stories of the wonders they had witnessed there, stories of prophecies, healings, confrontations with demons and encounters with angels. One visitor said that he had come to the realization that it was the prayers of these holy hermits that sustained the world.
When he arrived in Scestis, Arsenius went in search of a teacher. Someone pointed him to the man we remember as John the Dwarf. The tall, aristocratic Arsenius went to see John, who was the son of peasants. Arisenius introduced himself. John ignored him. Arsenius stood by awkwardly as John and his other students ate their dinner of bread and vegetables. After everyone had eaten, John tossed some crusts on the ground. Humbly, Arsenius picked them up and began to eat. John smiled. Perhaps this aristocrat could learn humility after all.
And so Arsenius learned to be a hermit. He learned the life of a Desert Father, learning again to pray, to fast, as well as the art of wetting leaves in a little bit of water to weave them together to make baskets that would pay for his food. He had fled from men. Now he prayed to find out what to do next. And again an answer arrived:
Arsenius, flee, be silent, pray always, for these are the source of sinlessness.
For the rest of his life, Arsenius would try to live out these instructions. He would pray continually. Where he had been used to giving his opinion on everything, Arsenius now disciplined himself to remain silent. He would be solitary, even by the standards of the Desert Fathers.
The local archbishop heard that a new monk had come to the desert and went to meet Arsenius along with an entourage. Everyone asked Arsenius for advice. Arsenius, speaking reluctantly, asked the visitors to promise to take his advice if he gave it. When they promised, he said:
If you hear Arsenius is anywhere, do not go there.
This was pretty rude, but the archbishop could forgive a cantankerous old hermit. After some time had passed, he tried to arrange another visit. Arsenius said that he would accept the visit, but then he would move. The archbishop got the message.
Arsenius developed other ways of getting rid of visitors that combined his humility with their discomfort. One man dropped in on him. Arsenius fell to the ground in a deep bow before his visitor. The man, uncomfortable with the situation, asked Arsenius to stand up, explaining that he had a question. Arsenius refused to stand up until the man closed the door and left him alone.
It’s tempting to see Arsenius as a grumpy old man. But this misses the point. Arsenius was following God in silence, as he had been told to do. When other Desert Fathers asked him about this, he spelled out his reasoning:
God knows that I love you, but I cannot live with God and with men. The thousands and ten thousands of the heavenly hosts have but one will, while men have many. So I cannot leave God to be with men.
As time passed, Arsenius came to be revered for a different kind of wisdom. He was no longer the wordy tutor. But still, people took note when he spoke. He wrote books, explaining the humility and denial of self that were necessary for a monk. When a messenger arrived to report that one of his relatives had died and left him a fortune, Arsenius replied “But I was dead long before this senator”, and shut the door. On another occasion, someone came to his cell and paused to listen to Arsenius in prayer. Arsenius was saying,
O God, do not leave me. I have done nothing good in Your sight, but according to Your goodness, let me now make a beginning of good.
As Arsenius was being transformed, the world was changing too. One year after Arsenius had left, the Emperor Theodosius would get sick and die. The moment of peace he had created died with him. The Emperor’s weak sons were dominated by their advisors. Romans would watch in disgust as their leaders bickered. The Visigoths were on the move again.
The Visigoths sacked the city of Rome in 410 AD. Arsenius was far way, but Roman power had faded even in Egypt. By 434, the Desert Father settlement at Scetis was destroyed by the Mazices, a nomadic Berber tribe. Both events brought Arsenius to tears. He would spend the final years of his life wandering, going from place to place, still silent and seeking silence. On his deathbed he would tell those gathered around him,
I have often repented of having spoken, but never of having been silent.
It had been a strange life. Years earlier, in the desert, a young monk had struggled to understand Arsenius in his grumpy solitude. It didn’t seem as holy as other, more cheerful ways of life. The monk had prayed about it, and that night he dreamed. In the dream, he saw two ships passing down a river, side by side. On one ship there was a party, and the angels of God celebrated with a cheerful monk. On the other ship, Arsenius was alone with the Spirit of God, the vessel filled with a sense of peace as it glided silently down the river.
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Impressive. He lived to be 80.