2. The abbot on receiving this message made him a clerk. He was very chaste and as if already old he had no wicked desires: he refrained from a young man’s mirth; he had a voice wonderfully sweet and melodious; he devoted himself constantly to reading; he took pleasure in fasting and was very abstemious. When the blessed bishop Quintian came to this monastery and heard him sing, he did not allow him to stay there any longer, but took him to the city and, like the heavenly father, fed him on the sweetness of the spirit. On his father’s death, when his voice was improving day by day and he was a great favorite among the people, they reported this to king Theodoric, who at once sent for him and showed him such affection that he loved him more than his own son; he was loved by the queen with a similar love, not only for his beautiful voice, but also for his chastity. At that time king Theodoric had taken many clerks from Auvergne whom he ordered to serve God in the church at Trèves; but he never allowed the blessed Gall to be separated from him. So it came that when the king went to Cologne, he went with him. There was there a heathen temple full of various articles of worship where the neighboring barbarians used to make offerings and stuff themselves with food and drink until they vomited; there also they worshipped images as god, and carved limbs in wood, each one the limb in which he had suffered pain. When the holy Gall heard of this, he hastened to the place with only one clerk when none of the benighted pagans was present, and set it on fire. And they saw the smoke of the fire rolling up to the sky and searched for the one who had set it, and found him and pursued him sword in hand. He fled and took refuge in the king’s court. But when the king had learned from the pagans’ threats what had been done, he pacified them with agreeable words and so calmed their furious rage. The blessed man would often weep in telling this story, and say: “Unhappy me that I did not stand my ground and let my life be ended in this affair.”[97] He was deacon at the time.…