VJ 7

English

After these events, some Burgundians came to the village of Brioude and surrounded it with a large multitude of armed men; when they had captured the people and seized the holy vessels of the church, they crossed the river and prepared to kill the men by the sword, dividing the rest of the people by lot to be carried off as slaves.

Then a certain Hillidius, coming from Velay and, as they say, urged on by the portent warning of a dove in flight, fell upon them. Encouraging his companions to help him, he so thoroughly slaughtered the enemy that the captives were released, and, triumphantly proclaiming the praise of the martyr, he crossed the river with them and returned as a new Moses to the blessed shrine singing with all the people; the joy of the liberated, I think, was no less than that, formerly, of the Israelites when the Egyptians were drowned.

No one should doubt that this was a victory of the blessed martyr; but the warning of the dove is believed to have been a kind of divine mystery. For it came to meet Hillidius on his way; when he stopped somewhere, as he was accustomed to do, it flew in circles above him, and when he went on, it flew ahead of him and turned back again, as though urging him to travel more quickly. As this was going on, a young man came and announced the people's captivity, and because of this Hillidius accelerated his pace. But while he was fighting too, the dove was seen to keep on circling above his head.

Let no one doubt this story about the dove as a fabrication told about a Christian man, since Orosius wrote that a Roman consul, Marcus Valerius, had been assisted by a crow.

Latin

Post haec venientes quidam de Burgundionibus ad Brivatinsim vicum, eum cum armorum multitudine copiosa circumdant, captoque populo, direpto sacrosancto ministerio, ultra amnem transeunt, et viros gladio interficere, reliquum vulgus sorte dividere parant. Tunc Hillidius quidam a Vellavo veniens et, ut aiunt, commonitione columbae alitis incitatus, super eos inruit. Hortatosque socios, ita hostes ad internitionem caecidit, ut, captivis laxatis, triumphans in lande martyris, amne transmisso, ad beatam cellulam tamquam novus Moyses cum omni populo canendo revertitur; nec minor, ut arbitror, exultatio fuit ereptis, quam quondam Israhelitis dimersis fuit Aegyptiis. Quod ne quis dubitet hanc beati martyris fuisse victoriam, sed insinuatio columbae aliquod misterium fuisse creditur virtutis divinae. Nam, veniente Hillidio, haec in obviam venit; cum ille, ut adsolet, aliquid demoraretur, haec in circuitu illius volitabat; illoque progrediente, ista praecedebat et revertebatur in obviam, quasi accelerare deprecans iter. Dum haec agerentur, adveniens puer captivitatem adnuntiat, et sic iste viam acceleravit. Sed et, ipso pugnante, columba semper circa eum est visa decurrere. Quod ne quis invideat confictum de columba et homini praestitum christiano, cum Horosius consolem Romanum, id est Marcum Valerium, a corvo alite scribat adiutum.

Notes

• rewriting the narrative because the moses character had nothing to do with it (i.e. wasnt his people?) and yet he stopped and helped.