AUXENTIUS OF MOPSUESTIA

• Although he is identified in the Roman Martyrology, at least one scholar thinks that this bishop was an Arian

    Auxentius of Mopsuestia (360)

    ^{† Catholic_Encyclopedia ► Auxentius of Mopsuestia (360)}

    Baronius places this bishop in the Roman martyrology, because of the story told by Philostorgius (in Suidas) that he was at one time an officer in the army of Licinius, and gave up his commission rather than obey the imperial command to lay a bunch of grapes at the feet of a statue of Bacchus.Tillemont (Mémoires, VI, 786-7) is inclined to believe that Auxentius was an Arian ( see Arianism ); his patronage of the heretic Aetius (Philostorgius, Hist. Eccl., V, 1, 2), points to this conclusion.

    VENABLES in Dict. of Christ. Biogr., I, 233.

    THOMAS J. SHAHAN.

    Transcribed by Douglas J. Potter Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary