Arsacius Succeeds John, and the Sickness of Cyrinus

A few days later Arsacius was ordained bishop of Constantinople, though he was by then very old, over eighty years of age. He was a brother of Nectarius, who had governed the see so ably before John. While he governed the bishopric very mildly and peaceably, Cyrinus, bishop of Chalcedon, on whose foot Maruthas, bishop of Mesopotamia, had accidentally trodden, was so seriously affected by the accident that gangrene set in and his foot had to be amputated. Nor was this amputation done only once; it had to be repeated often. For after the injured limb was cut off, the disease spread through his whole body, so that the other foot too became affected and had to undergo the same operation. I have mentioned this because many have declared that what he suffered was a judgment on him for his slanders against John, whom he so often called arrogant and unbending, as I have said already. [a]

Furthermore, on the thirtieth of September, in the consulship last mentioned, an extraordinary fall of hail of enormous size struck Constantinople and its suburbs, and this too was declared to be a sign of God’s anger at Chrysostom’s unjust deposition. And the death of the empress lent these reports still more credibility, for it took place four days after the hailstorm. Others, however, maintained that John had been justly deposed because of the violence he had used in Asia and Lydia, in taking many of their churches from the Novatians and Quartodecimans when he went to Ephesus and ordained Heraclides. But whether John’s deposition was just, as his enemies declare, or Cyrinus suffered as punishment for his slanderous abuse; whether the hail fell or the empress died on John’s account, or whether these things happened for other reasons, or for these together with others, God alone knows, who discerns secrets and is the just judge of truth itself. I have simply recorded the reports that were current at that time.