Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume II/Socrates/Book VI/Chapter 19

by Philip Schaff et al.

Chapter XIX.—Ordination of Arsacius as John’s Successor. Indisposition of Cyrinus Bishop of Chalcedon.

After the lapse of a few days, Arsacius was ordained bishop of Constantinople; he was a brother of Nectarius who so ably administered the see before John, although he was then very aged, being upwards of eighty years old. While he very mildly and peacefully administered the episcopate, Cyrinus bishop of Chalcedon, upon whose foot Maruthas bishop of Mesopotamia had inadvertently trodden, became so seriously affected by the accident, that mortification ensued, and it became necessary to amputate his foot. Nor was this amputation performed once only, but was required to be often repeated: for after the injured limb was cut off, the evil so permeated his whole system, that the other foot also having become affected by the disease had to submit to the same operation.^[1]

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,^[2]

as I have already said.^[3]

Furthermore as on the 30th of September, in the last-mentioned consulate,^[4]

there was an extraordinary fall of hail of immense size at Constantinople and its suburbs, it also was declared to be an expression of Divine indignation on account of Chrysostom’s unjust deposition: and the death of the empress tended to give increased credibility to these reports, for it took place four days after the hail-storm. 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 Quartodecimans 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 Cyrinus suffered 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 recorded the reports which were current at that time.

Footnotes

1. Palladius makes mention of this case without, however, naming Cyrinus. Cf. Vit. S. Joan. Chrysostom, chap. 17 (Vol. XIII. p. 63 A. of Benedictine ed. of Chrysostom).
2. ἀνόνατον, lit. = ‘kneeless.’
3. Cf. chap. 15, above.
4. 404 a.d.