Book 3

1. The sons of Clovis.

2. Episcopates of Dinifius, Apollinaris and Quintian.

3 The Danes make an attack on the Gauls.

4 The kings of the Thuringi.

5. Sigimand kills his own son.

6. Death of Chlodomer.

7. War with the Thuringi.

8. Hermenfied's death.

9. Childebert visits Auvergne.

10. Amalaric's death.

11. Childebert and Clothar go to the Burgundies.

12. Devastation of Auvergne.

13. Lovolautrum and Chastel­Marlhac.

14. Munderic's death.

15. Captivity of Attalus.

16. Sigivald.

17. The bishops of Tours.

18. Death of Chlodomer's sons.

19. The holy Gregory and the site of Dijon.

20. Theodobert is betrothed to Visigard.

21. Theodobert departs for Provence.

22. He later marries Deoteria.

23. Sigivald's death.

24. Childebert makes gifts to Theodobert.

25. Theodobert's goodness.

26. Death of Deoteria's daughter.

27. Theodobert marries Visigard.

28. Childebert and Theodobert march against Clothar.

29. Childebert and Clothar march into the Spains.

30. The Spanish kings.

31. The daughter of Theodoric, king of Italy.

32. Theodobert marches into Italy.

33. Asteriolus and Secundinus.

34. Theodobert's gift to the citizens of Verdun.

35. Sirivald's death.

36. Theodobert's death and the slaying of Parthenius.

37. A severe winter.

       I wish, if it is agreeable, to make a brief comparison of the successes that have come to Christians who confess the blessed Trinity and the ruin which has come to heretics who have tried to destroy the same. And let us omit how Abraham worshipped the Trinity at the oak, [note: ' ad ilicem'. Not in the Vulgate. Gregory probably used in part a rude popular version of the Scriptures. See Bonnet, p. 66.] and Jacob preached it in his blessing, and Moses recognized it in the bush, and the people followed it in the cloud and dreaded the same in the mountain, and how Aaron carried it on his breastplate, or how David made it known in the Psalms, praying to be made new by a right spirit and that the holy spirit should not be taken from him and that he be comforted by the chief spirit. And, for my part, I consider this a great mystery, namely that the voice of the prophet proclaimed as the chief spirit that which the heretics assert to be the lesser. But passing over these, as we have said, let us return to our times. For Arius, who was the first wicked inventor of this wicked sect, was subjected to infernal fires after he had lost his entrails in a privy. But Hilarius, the blessed defender of the undivided Trinity, though sent into exile for its sake, was restored both to his native land and to Paradise. King Clovis confessed it, and crushed the heretics by its aid and extended his kingdom over all the Gauls; Alaric, on the other hand, who denied it, was deprived of kingdom and people, and what is more, of eternal life itself. And to true believers, even if through the plots of the enemy they lose something, the Lord restores it a hundred fold, but heretics do not gain any advantage, but what they seem to have is taken from them. This is proved by the deaths of Godegisel, Gundobad, and Godomar, who at the same time lost their country and their souls. But we confess one God, invisible, [note: 2 Reading invisibilem for indivisibilem] infinite, incomprehensible, glorious, always the same, and everlasting, one in Trinity in respect to the number of persons, that is, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; we confess him also triple in unity in respect to equality of substance deity, omnipotence or power, the one greatest omnipotent God ruling for eternal centuries.