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By St. Gregory of Tours
88. The Tomb of an Unworthy Man
At Toulouse some say there was a man named Antoninus who was an enemy of God and the most hateful of all men because he had committed many crimes. It happened that after completing the days [of his life] he migrated from this world. He was buried in the church of the blessed Vincent, in which while alive he had prepared a tomb. One night, while drowsiness seized everyone in a deep silence and everyone quietly rested their limbs in soothing sleep, that man's sarcophagus was thrown out of the holy church through a window and dumped in the middle of the courtyard. At daybreak it was found there, with its lid cracked. The man's relatives did not understand the power of God and did not realize the insult suffered by the saint in whose church they had rashly buried this unworthy man. They placed the sarcophagus in the same place as previously and buried it deeper. But at the next daybreak they found it again thrown outside in the middle of the courtyard. Then they understood the great deeds of God. Thereafter no one touched the sarcophagus, and still today it remains as a witness in the place where it was thrown. Let these stories about rash people suffice.
At Toulouse some say there was a man named Antoninus who was an enemy of God and the most hateful of all men because he had committed many crimes. It happened that after completing the days [of his life] he migrated from this world. He was buried in the church of the blessed Vincent, in which while alive he had prepared a tomb. One night, while drowsiness seized everyone in a deep silence and everyone quietly rested their limbs in soothing sleep, that man's sarcophagus was thrown out of the holy church through a window and dumped in the middle of the courtyard. At daybreak it was found there, with its lid cracked. The man's relatives did not understand the power of God and did not realize the insult suffered by the saint in whose church they had rashly buried this unworthy man. They placed the sarcophagus in the same place as previously and buried it deeper. But at the next daybreak they found it again thrown outside in the middle of the courtyard. Then they understood the great deeds of God. Thereafter no one touched the sarcophagus, and still today it remains as a witness in the place where it was thrown. Let these stories about rash people suffice.
