The Life
Arsenius was born in Rome around 354 to a noble senatorial family. He was learned in Greek and Latin, became a deacon of the Roman Church, and around 383 was sent by Pope Damasus to Constantinople to be the tutor of Arcadius and Honorius, the two sons of the Emperor Theodosius the Great. He lived there for about eleven years in great honor. He prayed every day, “Lord, lead me in the way of salvation.” One day a voice answered him: “Flee from men and you shall be saved.” Arsenius left the palace in secret, sailed to Egypt, and asked to be received as a monk in the wilderness of Skete. The desert father John the Dwarf tested him by throwing bread on the floor; Arsenius picked it up and ate it humbly. He spent the next fifty-five years in the desert, weeping ceaselessly, keeping the strictest silence, refusing visitors, fleeing the praise of men. He famously said: “I have often regretted my words, but I have never regretted my silence.” He reposed at about ninety-five.
Around the year 383, the Emperor Theodosius the Great wrote to Pope Damasus in Rome asking him to find a tutor for his two young sons, Arcadius and Honorius, who were destined to inherit the empire. Pope Damasus recommended his deacon Arsenius, a young Roman of senatorial family learned in Greek and Latin and known for his Christian piety. Arsenius did not want the post; he longed for the solitary life. But in obedience to the Pope and the Emperor he agreed to go, hoping he might at least teach the boys the fear of God. He sailed to Constantinople and was received by the Emperor with the highest honor. Theodosius told him: “Forget that they are the emperor’s sons. I want them to obey you in everything, as their father and teacher.” Arsenius lived for about eleven years at the imperial court, in silk and gold, with many servants. The whole eastern empire watched him.
For all the years of his life at the imperial court, Arsenius prayed the same prayer every day: “Lord, lead me in the way of salvation.” He prayed it in his bedchamber. He prayed it during the long imperial ceremonies. He prayed it as he taught the princes their Greek and Latin. He prayed it for years. One day, as he was praying it again, a voice came to him in answer. The voice was clear, direct, unmistakable. It said: “Arsenius, flee from men, and you shall be saved.” Arsenius did not need a second hearing. He recognized the voice of God. He understood the call. He began at once to plan how to leave the palace, knowing that the emperor would never let him go if he asked openly.
Arsenius did not announce his departure. He knew the emperor would not let him go. He waited until the right moment came. He took off his rich imperial vestments, his silk garments, his gold-clasped girdle. He dressed himself in the coarse clothing of a poor traveler. He left the palace by night, walked alone to the harbor, and quietly boarded a ship sailing for Alexandria. He told no one in the imperial court where he had gone. By the time the emperor noticed his absence, Arsenius was already far across the sea. From Alexandria he traveled into the desert of Skete and asked to be received as a monk under the famous father John the Dwarf.
After Arsenius had begun his life at Skete under John the Dwarf, he prayed his old prayer once again: “Lord, lead me in the way of salvation.” The same voice that had spoken to him in the palace answered him a second time. Now the answer was more specific. The voice said: “Arsenius, flee, be silent, pray always; these are the roots of sinlessness.” Arsenius made these three commands the entire program of his monastic life. He fled the company of men. He kept the strictest silence. He prayed without ceasing. He came to church only on Sundays and feast days. Even in church he kept silence. He returned to his cell as soon as the Eucharist was finished. He spent fifty-five years living by these three words. They became, through him, fundamental for the whole Eastern monastic tradition.
When Arsenius arrived at Skete and asked to be received as a monk, he was sent to John the Dwarf, one of the great fathers of the desert. John had been told who his visitor was — a Roman senator and former imperial tutor. He decided to test him on the spot. When Arsenius arrived at the cell, John ignored him completely. He invited the other monks to sit at the common table. He left Arsenius standing alone in the middle of the cell. Halfway through the meal, John picked up a piece of bread and threw it on the ground in front of Arsenius without a word. Arsenius understood. He silently bent down, picked up the bread from the floor, sat down on the ground beside the table, and ate it humbly. John, satisfied, said: “This man will make a monk.” He received Arsenius as his disciple from that hour.
Arsenius wept all the time. He wept for his sins. He wept for the world. He wept for the souls of the dead. He wept while he prayed in his cell, and the tears never stopped. His handkerchief was always wet. By the end of his life, the synaxarion records, his eyelashes had fallen out from the constant flow of tears. His disciple Daniel said of him: “His appearance was angelic, like the patriarch Jacob’s. Tall of stature, slender, with a long white beard reaching to his waist. Through much weeping his eyelashes had fallen out.” Once a brother saw him praying in his cell and said: “The old man stood entirely like a flame.”
The Psalmist tells us to be still, and to know that the Lord is God. Arsenius lived this verse for fifty-five years. He fled the noise of the world. He kept silence in his cell. He prayed without ceasing. The stillness of his life was not emptiness but a way of knowing. He knew the Lord because he had stopped letting his tongue and his thoughts and his attachments fill his soul with their own noise. The verse names the program of his whole vocation. We do not have to go to the desert to live it. We can be still in our own homes, in our own places of work, in our own ways of life. The Lord is the same Lord. The stillness opens the same door.
In the year 434, the wilderness of Skete was raided by the Mazices, a tribe of Libyan nomads. They came down on the desert monasteries, killed many of the monks, and burned the cells. Saint Arsenius, by then about eighty, was forced to leave Skete with the surviving brethren. He withdrew to the mountain of Troe near Memphis on the Nile, and continued his solitary life there for some years. He spent some time on the island of Canopus near Alexandria as well. The old man wept now even more than before — for the destruction of Skete, for the brothers who had been killed, for the dispersal of the great monastic federation he had loved. He reposed at Troe around 449, at about ninety-five. He had spent fifty-five years in the desert.
Arsenius shows us that the call of God can come to anyone. He was as far from a poor desert peasant as a man could be. He was a Roman senator. He was a tutor of emperors. He had silk garments and gold-clasped girdles and many servants. The Lord called him out of all of it with a single sentence: “Flee from men, and you shall be saved.” He went, and the Christian Church has been blessed by his silence ever since. The teaching is that no station of life and no measure of worldly success exempts us from the call of God. We may not be called to the desert. But we are all called to put the love of God before everything else, including the things in our lives that the world counts as our greatest goods. Whatever the Lord asks us to leave for his sake, we should leave it, as Arsenius left the palace, in obedience to the deep voice that says, in our own hearts: lead me in the way of salvation.