St. Arsenius
On the 22nd day of Coptic Month of Baramhat we celebrate the life of St Arsenius the Great.
Arsenius was born to wealthy parents in the year 350 AD in Rome. His father was a righteous and honorable senator and judge. They sent Arsenius to the teachers of the Church and he was raised in the fear of God, was eager to read the Scriptures and was ordained a deacon then an arch-deacon by Saint Damasus, the Bishop of Rome.
After his parents died, he and his sister, Afrositty, gave all their riches to the poor, and chose to live an ascetic life. Arsenius became famous for his righteousness and wisdom. He was a disciple of Rophenius the monastic historian from whom he admired the Egyptian monastic life and its fathers, and he wished to meet them.
When the Emperor Theodosius the Great wanted a man to whom he might entrust the education of his children, Saint Damasus recommended Arsenius. Arsenius accordingly went to Constantinople in 383 A.D. and was appointed to the post by Theodosius.
After ten years at the court he seemed clearly to hear the voice of God through the Gospel, "For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" (Matthew 16:26). He left Constantinople and came by sea to Alexandria and fled into the wilderness. When he first presented himself to Abba Macarius the Great, the father of the monks of Skete, he recommended him to the care of Saint John the Short to try him. In the evening, when the rest of the monks sat down to take their meal, Saint John left Arsenius standing in the middle without inviting him. Such a reception was a severe trial to a revered member of the imperial court; but Arsenius accepted humbly.
Saint John took a loaf of bread and threw it on the ground before him, bidding him with an air of indifference to eat it if he would. Arsenius cheerfully sat on the ground and took his meal. Saint John was so satisfied with his behavior that he required no further trial for his admission, and said, "This man will make a monk".
Arsenius was asked one day why he, being so well educated, sought the instruction and advice of a certain monk who was an utter stranger to all literature. He replied, "I am not unacquainted with the learning of the Greeks and the Romans; but I have not yet learned the alphabet of the science of the saints, whereof this seemingly ignorant Egyptian is master".
Evagrius of Pontus who, after he had distinguished himself at Constantinople by his learning, had retired into the desert of Nitria in 385, expressed surprise that many learned men made no progress in virtue, whilst many Egyptians, who did not even know the letters of the alphabet, arrived at a high degree of contemplation. Arsenius answered, "We make no progress because we dwell in that exterior learning which puffs up the mind; but these illiterate Egyptians have a true sense of their own weakness, blindness, and insufficiency; and by that very thing they are qualified to labor successfully in the pursuit of virtue".
One of the emperor's officers brought news to Arsenius that a relative of his had passed away and made him his heir. The saint took the will and would have torn it to pieces had the officer not begged him not to, saying such an incident would get him in trouble. Arsenius, however, refused the estate, saying "I died eleven years ago and cannot be his heir".
He employed himself in making mats of palm-tree leaves; and he never changed the water in which he moistened the leaves, but only poured in fresh water upon it as it wasted. When some asked him why he did not cast away the filthy water, he answered, "I ought to be punished by this smell for the self-indulgence with which I formerly used perfumes". He lived in the most utter poverty, so that in an illness, having need for a small sum to procure him some little necessities, he was obliged to beg for it.
Due to his desire for quiet and solitude, Saint John allowed...