Gregory of Tours

Gregory was born around 538 to 539 into a Gallo-Roman family at Clermont and became bishop of Tours in 573, a post he held until his death in 594. His Ten Books of Histories, usually called the History of the Franks, is the main source for the Merovingian kingdom of the sixth century.

He also wrote collections of miracle stories promoting the veneration of saints. In the Glory of the Martyrs he tells the story of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, and he made or commissioned a Latin translation of a Syriac version of the tale, which he said he obtained with the help of a Syrian. This brought the legend into the Latin West, where it became widely known in the Middle Ages.

In the story, seven young Christians shelter from the persecution of Decius in a cave near Ephesus, are walled in, and wake nearly two centuries later under Theodosius II. The Quran's People of the Cave (Surah 18) is a related telling.