Auxentius (Auxentios), Intrusive Bishop of Milan

AUSSENZIO ('Αυξήντιος), intruding bishop of MILAN. — The emperor Constantius, having driven Bishop Dionysius from Milan, installed the Arian A. there (355). He held the see until his death, which occurred in 374; but the people and clergy refused to recognize him as their pastor. He had been ordained a priest in Alexandria by the intruding Arian bishop Gregory, and was subsequently consecrated bishop, although his conduct was scandalous. St. Athanasius, in his letter to Pope Damasus (ca. 370), written to bring about A.’s condemnation, sets forth many crimes he had already committed in Alexandria. Transferring him from Cappadocia, Constantius imposed him as bishop on Milan, «armis exercitique», as St. Ambrose writes (De Spiritu Sancto, III, 10, alias 11). He was then one of the leaders of the Arian party at the Council of Rimini (359). After Constantius’s death, the new emperor Julian the Apostate allowed the exiled bishops to return to their own sees. St. Hilary of Poitiers and St. Eusebius of Vercelli tried in vain to have A. expelled from Milan, since he had already been condemned by the Synod of Paris in 360. The emperor Valentinian I took him under his protection. St. Hilary then presented the emperor with a formal accusation of A.’s Arianism and challenged him to a public disputation, which took place in Milan in 364 or 365, before the quaestor and the master of the offices. The accused prevaricated and eventually presented the emperor with an equivocal profession of faith in the divinity of the Word. Valentinian, influenced by his wife Justina, a secret adherent of Arianism, and by courtiers, ordered St. Hilary to leave Milan at once and to cease troubling A. Evagrius of Antioch, who had come to the West with St. Eusebius of Vercelli, subsequently succeeded in obtaining from the emperor permission for Pope Damasus to convene a council to judge the orthodoxy of the bishop of Milan. The Council of 372 (others date it to 368) condemned A. as a heretic; nevertheless, no one was able to remove him from Milan. At his death, Catholics and Arians confronted one another over the appointment of his successor, who fortunately was St. Ambrose.