Venerable Arsenius the Great

Arsenius was a learned deacon of the Roman Church, versed in Greek and Latin letters, whom Emperor Theodosius the Great brought to Constantinople as tutor to his sons Arcadius and Honorius. His Life tells that he once beat the young Arcadius so hard for a fault that the marks stayed with him for life. Weary of the palace, Arsenius secretly left for Egypt and became a monk at Scetis.

There he lived forty years in strict silence, standing behind a pillar in church so that he would see no one and no one would see him. One of his sayings was: 'I have often regretted words I have spoken, but never my silence.' He spent his last years near Memphis and at Canopus, and died c. 449 at the age of about one hundred.