CHAPTER XIX

ORDINATION OF ARSACIUS AS JOHN’S SUCCESSOR. INDISPOSITION OF CYRIN BISHOP OF CHALCEDON

AFTER the lapse of a few days, Arsacius, the brother of Nectarius who so ably governed the church at Constantinople before John, was appointed to that see, although he was then very aged, being upwards of eighty years old. During his singularly mild and peaceful administration of the episcopate, Cyrin bishop of Chalcedon, upon whose foot Maruthas bishop of Mesopotamia had inadvertently trodden, became so seriously affected by the accident, that from mortification having ensued, amputation was found necessary. Nor was this abscission performed once only, but was required to be often repeated: for after the injured limb was cut off, the gangrene so invaded his whole system, that he was compelled to submit to the loss of the other foot also. I have alluded to this circumstance, because many have affirmed that what he suffered was a judgment upon him for his calumnious aspersions of John, whom he so often designated as arrogant and inexorable. On the 30th of September, in the last-mentioned consulate, there was an extraordinary fall of hail of immense size at Constantinople and its suburbs. This also was declared to be an expression of Divine indignation on account of Chrysostom’s unjust deposition: and the death of the empress only four days after the hailstorm, tended to give increased credibility to these reports. Others however asserted that John had been deservedly deposed, because of the violence he had exercised in Asia and Lydia, in depriving the Novatians and Quartodecimani of many of their churches, when he went to Ephesus and ordained Heraclides. But whether John’s deposition was just, as his enemies declare, or Cyrin’s sufferings were in chastisement for his slanderous revilings, whether the hail fell, or the empress died on John’s account, or whether these things happened for other reasons, or for these in connection with others, God only knows, who is the discerner of secrets, and the just judge of truth itself. I have simply stated the reports which were current at that time.