The Life of Saint Gordian

Here beginneth the Life of Saint Gordian.

Gordian, that was vicar unto Julian the emperor, constrained a christian man named January for to do sacrifice, but by the grace of God he was converted by the preaching of the same January unto the christian faith, with his wife and fifty-three men. And when this came to the knowledge of the emperor, he commanded that January should be put and sent in exile; and if so were that Gordian would not do sacrifice to the gods he should be beheaded, and so his head was smitten off and the body cast unto the hounds, which lay so by the space of seven days untouched. And at the last his servants took and stole it away, and with it the body of the blessed Epimachus, whom the said Julian had slain a little tofore. They buried it not far from the city of Rome, about a mile, and this was done about the year of our Lord three hundred and sixty.