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He was born ca. 350-354 in Rome to a noble Roman senatorial family.
There is considerable debate regarding the accuracy of several points in Arsenius's life. Arsenius is said to have been made a [[deacon]] by Pope [[Damasus I of Rome|Damasus I]] who recommended him to Byzantine Emperor [[Theodosius the Great (emperor)|Theodosius I the Great]], who had requested the Emperor Gratian and [[Pope Damasus]] around 383 to find him in the West a tutor for his sons (future emperors [[Arcadius]] and [[Honorius]]). Arsenius was chosen on the basis of being a man well read in Greek literature. He reached Constantinople in 383, and continued as tutor in the imperial family for eleven years, during the last three of which he also had charge of his original pupil Arcadius's brother, Honorius. Coming one day to see his sons at their studies, Theodosius found them sitting while Arsenius talked to them standing. This he would not tolerate, and caused the teacher to sit and the pupils to stand. On his arrival at court Arsenius had been given a splendid establishment, and probably because the Emperor so desired, he lived in great pomp, but all the time felt a growing inclination to renounce the world. Arsenius would allegedly spend eleven years as a teacher in Constantinople. All of this information from Arsenius's life is considered dubious.<ref name="Attwater">Attwater, Donald and Catherine Rachel John. ''The Penguin Dictionary of Saints'', 3rd edition. New York: Penguin Books, 1993. ISBN 0-140-51312-4.</ref>
Sometime around the year 400 he joined the desert [[monk]]s at Scetes, Egypt, and asked to be admitted among the solitaries who dwelt there. Saint [[John the Dwarf]], to whose cell he was conducted, though previously warned of the quality of his visitor, took no notice of him and left him standing by himself while he invited the rest to sit down at table. When the repast was half finished he threw down some bread before him, bidding him with an air of indifference eat if he would. Arsenius meekly picked up the bread and ate, sitting on the ground. Satisfied with this proof of humility, St. John kept him under his direction. The new solitary was from the first most exemplary yet unwittingly retained certain of his old habits, such as sitting cross-legged or laying one foot over the other. Noticing this, the abbot requested some one to imitate Arsenius's posture at the next gathering of the brethren, and upon his doing so, forthwith rebuked him publicly. Arsenius took the hint and corrected himself.
