Gregory of Tours: The History of the Franks

peoples, of the martyr with the heathen, and of the Churches with the heretics, I am fain first to make profession of my own belief, that whoso reads may doubt not that I hold the catholic faith. I have also deemed it well for the sake of those whose hearts fail them as the end of this world draws nigh, to set forth clearly by extracts from the chronicles or histories of those who went before us, how great is the number of the years since the world began. But first I beg indulgence of those who may read what I write, if haply in letter or in syllable I transgress the laws of Grammar, an art in which I am but ill versed. I have but this one thing at heart, to hold fast in singleness and conviction of heart all that of which the Church enjoins belief, knowing that one subject to sin may yet obtain mercy of our gracious Lord through simple faith alone. Therefore do I believe in God the Father Almighty, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, our Lord, born of the Father, not made; I believe that He was always with the Father—not after lapse of times but before all time. For neither could the one be called Father if He had not a Son, nor the other Son if He had not a Father. And with execration do I renounce those who say that there was a time when He was not, and avow that they dwell apart from the fold of the Church. I believe this Christ to be the Word of the Father, by whom all things were made. I believe that this Word was made flesh, and that by His passion the world was redeemed; and I believe that not in His Godhead but in His manhood did He undergo this Passion. I believe that He rose on the third day, that He delivered man which was lost, that He ascended into heaven, and now sitteth at the right hand of the Father; and that He shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father and the Son, and that He is not after or before them in time, but equal, and God ever consisting with the Father and the Son, in nature consubstantial, in omnipotence equal, in essence

Powe to record the wars of kings with hostile

coeternal, so that He was never without the Father or the Son, nor ever younger than the Father or the Son. I believe that this Holy Trinity subsisteth in distinction of the Persons, so that the Person of the Father is one, of the Son one, and of the Holy Ghost one. But in this Trinity I confess one Godhead,…