I warmly welcome the diligent zeal and sincerity with which you study the words of Holy Scripture, and your eager desire to know something of the doings and sayings of great men of the past, and of our own nation in particular.
For if history records good things of good men, the thoughtful hearer is encouraged to imitate what is good: or if it records evil of wicked men, the good, religious listener or reader is encouraged to avoid all that is sinful and perverse, and to follow what he knows to be good, and pleasing to God.
Should the reader discover any inaccuracies in what I have written, I humbly beg that he will not impute them to me, because, as the laws of history require, I have laboured honestly to transmit whatever I could ascertain from common report for the instruction of posterity.
I earnestly request all who hear or read this history of our nation to ask God's mercy on my many failings of mind and body. And in return for the diligent toil that I have bestowed on the recording of memorable events in the various provinces and places of greater note, I beg that their inhabitants may grant me the favour of frequent mention in their devout prayers.
Bede, from the introduction to The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, c. 730 AD.
First page of The Ecclesiastical History
No comments:
Post a Comment