But our insular position, combined with the
events of our earlier history, was not without its effect on the
peculiar character of Christianity as established in England.
England was the first great territorial conquest of the spiritual
power, beyond the limits of the Roman Empire, beyond the influence
of Greek and Roman civilization."
The following account from the _Ecclesiastical History_ of the
Venerable Bede, the "father of English history," and foremost
scholar of England in his age, is in the modern English rendering
by Thomson, of King Alfred's famous translation, made for the
instruction of the English people as the best work of that period
on their own history.
As a contrast John Richard Green's treatment of the same episode is
appended.
THE VENERABLE BEDE
When according to forthrunning time [it] was about five hundred and
ninety-two years from Christ's hithercoming, Mauricius, the Emperor,
took to the government, and had it two-and-twenty years. He was the
fifty-fourth from Augustus.
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