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St. Chrisostome, in his dialogue De dignitate sacerdotali, saieth that the mynisterie is a chardge geven by God to teache withoute armes or force, and that the same is no power to give or to take kingdomes, nor to make lawes for the publique governemente. St. Hillary writes as moche to the Emperour Constantine againste Auxentius, Bisshoppe of Milan.
Paulinus, Bishop of Triers, and many others more, refused to come to the council at Milan when they understood what a stir and rule Auxentius kept there: for they saw it was in vain to go thither, where not reason, but faction, should prevail, and where folk contended not for the truth and right judgment of the matter, but for partiality and favour.
His very promotion to the sacred office was owing to an unexpected movement of the populace. Auxentius, his Arian predecessor in the see of Milan, died, A.D. 374, upon which the bishops of the province wrote to the then Emperor, Valentinian the First, who was in Gaul, requesting him to name the person who was to succeed him.
Thus, also, when the Emperor Constantine evidently and earnestly took part with Auxentius, the bishop of the Arians' faction, Ambrose, the bishop of the Christians, appealed not unto a general council, where he saw no good could be done, by reason of the emperor's might and great labour, but appealed to his own clergy and people, that is to say, to a provincial synod.
This contemporary, Auxentius, records: And when, through the envy and mighty working of the enemy, there was kindled a persecution of the Christians by an irreligious and sacrilegious Judge of the Goths, who spread tyrannous affright through the barbarian land, it came to pass that Satan, who desired to do evil, unwillingly did good; that those whom he sought to make deserters became confessors of the faith; that the persecutor was conquered, and his victims wore the wreath of victory.
Had he continued governor, his name would not have passed down in history; he would have been forgotten like other provincial governors. But he was destined to a higher sphere and a more exalted position than that of governor of an important province. On the death of Archbishop Auxentius, A.D. 374, the See of Milan became vacant.
Auxentius the Cappadocian, who held the see of Milan till 374, must have been one of the last survivors of the victors of Ariminum. In the East, however, the Homoean supremacy lasted nearly twenty years. No doubt it was an artificial power, resting partly on court intrigue, partly on the divisions of its enemies; yet there was a reason for its long duration.
It seems rather that the paganismus of the West was partly represented by Arianism. In Cappadocia the heresy found its first great literary champion in the sophist Asterius. Gregory and George were brought to Alexandria from Cappadocia, and afterwards Auxentius to Milan and Eudoxius to Constantinople. Philagrius also, the prefect who drove out Athanasius in 339, was another of their countrymen.
If he refused to displace the few Arians whom he found in possession of Western sees like Auxentius at Milan, he left the churches free to choose Nicene successors. Under his wise rule the West soon recovered from the strife Constantius had introduced. Valens was a weaker character, timid, suspicious, and slow, yet not ungentle in private life.
"But Ambrose is not of such value, that he must degrade the priesthood for his own well-being. One man's life is not so precious as the dignity of all those bishops who have advised me thus to write; and who suggested that Auxentius might be choosing some heathen perhaps or Jew, whose permission to decide about Christ would be a permission to triumph over Him.
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