Born in Syria of Persian ancestry,[1] Auxentius served in the Equestrian Guard of Byzantine Emperor Theodosius II, but left to become a solitary monk on Mount Oxia near Constantinople.

His isolated hermitage was discovered by shepherds seeking their sheep, and people who were ill began to come to Auxentius for healing.

Afterward he established a new hermitage atop Mount Scopas, in Bithynia, not far from Chalcedon where many resorted to him for advice.

[3] There he devoted the rest of his life to the practice of mortification and the instruction of his growing number of disciples.

[2] Roman Martyrology: "On Mount Scopa in Bithynia, in present-day Turkey, Saint Aussentius, priest and archimandrite, who, living on a hill as if on a cathedra, defended the Chalcedonian faith with a powerful voice.