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After the death of Sisinnius, Chrysanthus was constrained to take
upon him the episcopal office. He was the son of Marcian the
predecessor of Sisinnius, and having had a military appointment in the
palace at an early age, he was subsequently under Theodosius the
Great made governor of Italy, and after that lord-lieutenant of the
British Isles, in both which capacities he elicited for himself the
highest admiration. Returning to Constantinople at an advanced age,
earnestly desiring to be constituted prefect of that city, he was made
bishop of the Novatians against his will. For as Sisinnius, when at
the point of death, had referred to him as a most suitable person to
occupy the see, the people regarding this declaration as law, sought
to have him ordained forthwith. Now as Chrysanthus attempted to avoid
having this dignity forced upon him, Sabbatius imagining that a
seasonable opportunity was now afforded him of making himself master of
the churches, and making no account of the oath by which he had bound
himself, procured his own ordination at the hands of a few
insignificant bishops. Among these was Hermogenes, who had been
excommunicated with curses by [Sabbatius] himself on account of his
blasphemous writings. But this perjured procedure of Sabbatius was of
no avail to him: for the people disgusted with his obstreperousness,
used every effort to discover the retreat of Chrysanthus; and having
found him secluded in Bithynia, they brought him back by force, and
invested him with the bishopric. He was a man of unsurpassed modesty
and prudence; and thus he established and enlarged the churches of the
Novatians at Constantinople. Moreover he was the first to distribute
gold among the poor out of his own private property. Futhermore he
would receive nothing from the churches but two loaves of the
consecrated bread every Lord's day. So anxious was he to promote the
advantage of his own church, that he drew Ablabius, the most eminent
orator of that time from the school of Troilus, and ordained him a
presbyter; whose sermons are in circulation being remarkably elegant
and full of point. But Ablabius was afterwards promoted to the
bishopric of the church of the Novatians at Nicaea, where he also
taught rhetoric at the same time.
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