Page:History of the Franks.djvu/45

THE FIRST BOOK 13 A few of them believed and were ordained priests and learned the ritual of psalm-singing, and were instructed how to build a church and how they ought to observe the worship of the omnipotent God. But as they had small means for building as yet, the citizens asked for the house of a certain man to use for a church. But the senators and the rest of the better class of the place were at that time devoted to the heathen rehgion and the believers were of the poor, according to the word of the Lord with which he reproached the Jews sa)dng; Harlots and publicans go into the kingdom of God before you." And they did not obtain the house from the person from whom they asked it, but they found a certain Leo- cadius,^ the first senator of the Gauls, who was of the family of Vectius Epagatus, who, we have said above, suffered in Lyons in Christ's name. And when they had made known to him at the same time their petition and their faith he answered ; "If my own house in the city of Bourges were worthy of this work I would not refuse to offer it." And when they heard this they fell at his feet and offered three hundred gold pieces on a silver dish and said the house was very worthy of this mystery. And he accepted three gold pieces from them for a blessing and kindly returned the rest, although he was yet entangled in the error of idolatry, and he be- ca,me a Christian and made his house a church. This is now the first church in the city of Bourges, built with marvelous skill and made illustrious by the relics of Stephen, the first martyr. 32. Valerian and Gallienus received the Roman imperial power in the twenty-seventh place, and set on foot a cruel persecution of the Christians. At that time Cornelius brought fame to Rome by his happy death, and Cyprian to Carthage. In their time also Chrocus the famous king of the Alemanni raised an army and over- ran the Gauls. This Chrocus is said to have been very arrogant. And when he had committed a great many crimes he gathered the tribe of the Alemanni, as we have stated, — by the advice, it is said, of his wicked mother, — and overran the whole of the Gauls, and destroyed from their foundations all the temples which had been built in ancient times. And coming to Clermont he set ^ Gregory's paternal grandmother was Leocadia, who traced her descent from Vectius Epagatus. See Historia Francorum ed. Arndt, Introd. p. 4, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica. The story related above was from Gregory's family tradition.