AUXENTIUS (Auxentios), Intrusive Bishop of Milan. - The emperor Constantius, having driven Bishop Dionysius from Milan, enthroned there the Arian A. (355). He held the see until his death, which occurred in 374; but the people and the clergy refused to recognize him as their pastor. He had been ordained priest in Alexandria by the intruded and Arian bishop Gregory, and was afterward consecrated bishop, although of scandalous morals. St. Athanasius, in the letter to Pope Damasus (ca. 370), written to bring about the condemnation of A., sets forth many crimes committed by him already 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 afterward one of the leaders of the Arian party at the Council of Rimini (359). After the death of Constantius, the new emperor Julian the Apostate granted the exiled bishops permission to return to their own sees. St. Hilary of Poitiers and St. Eusebius of Vercelli tried in vain to have A. expelled from Milan, he having already been condemned by the Synod of Paris of 360. The emperor Valentinian I took him under his protection. St. Hilary then presented to the emperor a formal accusation of Arianism against A. and challenged him to a public debate, which took place at Milan in 364 or 365, before the quaestor and the master of the offices. The accused man equivocated and ended by presenting to the emperor an ambiguous profession of faith in the divinity of the Word. Valentinian, suborned by his wife Justina, a secret follower of Arianism, and by courtiers, ordered St. Hilary to depart at once from Milan and to molest A. no further. Evagrius of Antioch, who had come to the West with St. Eusebius of Vercelli, afterward succeeded in obtaining from the emperor permission for Pope Damasus to assemble a council to judge the orthodoxy of the Milanese bishop. The Council of 372 (others place it in 368) condemned A. as a heretic; nevertheless, no one could remove him from Milan. At his death, Catholics and Arians clashed over the appointment of a successor, who fortunately was St. Ambrose.

Bibliography4 works

BIBL.: F. Savio, Gli antichi vescovi d'Italia. La Lombardia, I: Milano, Florence 1913, pp. 122-27, 839-55 (amply documented notice); Lanzoni, pp. 521, 1014-15; J. Zeiller, s. v. in DHG, V, col. 935; A. Fliche and V. Martin, Storia della Chiesa, Italian trans. A. P. Frutaz, III, Turin 1940, pp. 148, 167, 255, 287, 487.

Carlo Castiglioni

@incollection{ec2_aussenzio_auksentios_vescovo_i, author = {Castiglioni, Carlo}, title = {Aussenzio ('ΑΥΞΉΝΤΙΟΣ), vescovo intruso di milano}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {II}, pages = {419--420}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1949}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/aussenzio-auksentios-vescovo-intruso-di-milano} }

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Auxentius (Auxentios), Intrusive Bishop of Milan

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