What Happened to Julian the Emperor’s Uncle and to Felix

Julian at once fell sick with a painful disease. His bowels rotted away, and he could no longer pass his excrement through the normal organs. Instead, at the very moment of his blasphemy, his polluted mouth became the passage for it. His wife, it is said, was a woman of outstanding faith, and she spoke to her husband like this: “Husband, you ought to bless Christ our Savior for showing you his own power by punishing you. For you would never have known who it is that you are attacking, if he had held back, with his usual patience, from sending these plagues on you from heaven.” Then, through these words and the heavy weight of his miseries, the wretched man saw the cause of his disease, and he begged the emperor to give the church back to those who had been deprived of it. But he could not obtain his request, and so he ended his days. Felix too was suddenly struck down by a scourge from heaven. He kept vomiting blood from his mouth all day and all night, for all the vessels of his body poured their streams together into this one organ. So when all his blood had been shed he died, and was handed over to eternal death. Such were the penalties these men suffered for their wickedness.