What was so unusual about the death of Arius?

McGruff

Meanwhile Arius was ordered to appear before the emperor, and asked whether he was willing to sign the Nicene decrees. He replied, without hesitation, that he was ready to do so. And yet, the very day before he was to be readmitted to communion, Arius died suddenly, and in a most remarkable manner, as Socrates describes: It was then Saturday, and . . . going out of the imperial palace, attended by a crowd of Eusebian [Eusebius of Nicomedia is meant] partisans like guards, he [Arius] paraded proudly through the midst of the city, attracting the notice of all the people. As he approached the place called Constantine's Forum, where the column of porphyry is erected, a terror arising from the remorse of conscience seized Arius, and with the terror a violent relaxation of the bowels: he therefore enquired whether there was a convenient place near, and being directed to the back of Constantine's Forum, he hastened thither. Soon after a faintness came over him, and together with the evacuations his bowels protruded, followed by a copious hemorrhage, and the descent of the smaller intestines: moreover portions of his spleen and liver were brought off in the effusion of blood, so that he almost immediately died. The scene of this catastrophe still is shown at Constantinople, as I have said, behind the shambles in the colonnade: and by persons going by pointing the finger at the place, there is a perpetual remembrance preserved of this extraordinary kind of death. http://www.religionfacts.com/christianity/people/arius.htm Feb 23 08, 9:36 AM