Page:History of the Franks.djvu/242

 2IO HISTORY OF THE FRANKS to bury them was obtained from the princes only with difficulty. This man was faithless, headlong in avarice, greedy for other men's property beyond limit, swearing to all and fulfilling his promises to none. His wife and sons were sent into exile and his property confiscated. A great quantity of gold and silver and of valuables of different sorts was found in his stores. Moreover what he had concealed underground from a consciousness of wrongdoing did not remain hidden. He often made use of soothsayers and lots, desiring to learn the future from them, but was always deceived. [ii. Gunthram and Childebert settle their differences amicably. 12. Ursio and Bertefred are dislodged from their stronghold and slain. 13. Baddo is allowed to go free. Dysentery is severe in Metz. Wiliulf's wife marries a third time. 14. Bishop Egidius of Rheims makes his peace with Childebert.] 15. Now at that time in Spain king Richared was influenced by the divine mercy and summoned the bishops of his religion and said to them: ^^Why are quarrels continually going on between you and the bishops who call themselves Catholic, and when they do many miracles by their faith why can you do nothing of the sort ? Therefore I beg you let us meet with them and examine the beliefs of both sides and find out what is true ; and then either let them take our plan and believe what you say or else you recognize their truth and believe what they preach." This was done and the bishops of both sides gathered and the heretics expounded the doctrines that I have often described them as advocating. Like- wise the bishops of our religion made the replies by which, as I have pointed out in the previous books, the heretics have been often defeated. And above all the king said that no miraculous cure of the infirm had been done by the bishops of the heretics, and when he recalled to mind how in his father's time the bishop who boasted that he could restore sight to the blind by his faith which was not the true one had touched a blind man and [thus] condemned him to perpetual blindness and had come off in confusion — I have told this story more fully in the book of The Miracles — he sum- moned God's bishops to him separately. And by questioning them he learned that it was one God that was worshiped with distinction of three persons, namely, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and the Son was not inferior to the Father nor the Holy Ghost, nor the