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History of the Franks

St Gregory of Tours, tr. Dalton, 1927

Book 2, 10. What the Prophets of the Lord Write Concerning Idols

But this people seems always to have followed idolatrous practices, nor had they any knowledge of the true God. They made them images of woods and waters, birds and beasts, and other elements, and were wont to worship them as God, and to offer to them sacrifices. Oh if that awful voice had but touched the fibres of their hearts, which spake through Moses to the people, saying: ‘Let there be no other gods but Me. Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image nor adore any likeness which is in heaven, or in the earth, or in the waters; thou shalt not make them and thou shalt not worship them.’¹ Or this also: ‘Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve, and by His name shalt thou swear.’² What if they could have learned the vengeance which pursued and crushed the people of Israel for the worship of the molten calf, when, after the feasting and the songs, after the wantonness and the dancing, they spake with impure mouth of this graven image: ‘These be thy gods, O Israel, which led thee out of the land of Egypt ’?³ There fell of them four and twenty thousand men. What should they have said of those who, initiated into the worship of Belphegor, and mingling with the lewd women of Moab, were cut down and laid low by their own people? In which Phinees the priest, the others being slain, appeased the wrath of God ‘and it was accounted unto him for righteousness ’.⁴ What if the words had been borne into their ears which the Lord sings by the lips of David: ‘All the gods of the Gentiles are demons, but the Lord hath made the heavens’?⁵ And: ‘The graven images of the Gentiles are gold and silver, the work of men’s hands; they that make them are like unto them, and so are all they that put their trust in them.’⁶ Or this: ‘Confounded be all they that worship a graven image, and boast themselves of their idols.’⁷ And again that which is testified by the prophet Habakkuk, when he says: ‘What profiteth this graven image which they have carved? They have fashioned and molten it, it is a false appearance. For it is the product of silver and gold, and the whole spirit is not in them. But the Lord is in His holy temple; let the whole earth have fear before His face.’⁸

And another prophet says: ‘Let the gods who have not made the earth and the heaven perish from the earth and from that which is beneath the heavens.’⁹ And likewise it is written in another place: ‘Thus saith the Lord who created the heavens, God Himself who formed the earth and all that therein is; He is the Maker thereof, He created it not in vain, He created it to be inhabited.¹⁰ “I am the Lord; that is My name; My glory will I not give to another, neither My virtue to graven i ages, which endured not from the beginning.”¹¹ And in another place: ‘Are there any among the graven images of the Gentiles that can cause rain? ’¹² And once more He saith by the mouth of Isaiah: ‘I am the first and the last, and besides Me there is no God or fashioner whom I know not. They that make a graven image are all of them naught, and their delectable things shall not profit them. They are their own witnesses, for they see not, nor know, that they may be confounded in them. Behold all his fellows shall be confounded; for the workmen, they are of men. In the coals and with hammers he hath fashioned it, and worketh it with the strength of his arm. Likewise the carpenter hath rounded it with the compass, and hath made the image of a man as of a comely man dwelling in his house. He hath hewn down timber, he hath worked it, he hath made a graven image and worshipped it as a god; with nails and hammers hath he compacted it, that it be not broken asunder. They are carried because they cannot walk; but with the residue of the wood men make a fire, and warm themselves. And another part he hath made his god and graven image. He boweth down to it and worshippeth it, and beseecheth it, saying: “Deliver me, for thou art my god. I have burned the half of it in the fire and I have baked bread upon the coals thereof; I have roasted flesh and eaten it; and of the residue will I make an idol. Before a stock of wood will I do worship; a part of it is burned to ashes.” A foolish heart hath worshipped it, and he hath not delivered his soul. Nor doth he say: “Perchance there is a lie in my right hand.” ’¹³

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