The History of the Church by Eusebius and Ecclesiastical History of the English People by Venerable Bede

Eusebius’ The History of the Church, and nearly four centuries later, St. Bede’s The Ecclesiastical History of the English People opened new chapters in the long history of the historiographical tradition. Both works dealt with the formation of the church in different geographies and different periods: Eusebius concerned himself with the broader Eastern Mediterranean world and started his account with the birth of Jesus, whereas Bede began his account with Caesar’s invasion of Britain and covered the formation of the church in Anglo-Saxon England. Even though they followed the historiographical tradition established formerly, their histories were the prominent examples of the genre of church history in historiography, and they represented a divergence from the established historiographical traditions. This paper in detail presents Eusebius’s The History of the Church and Bede’s The Ecclesiastical History of the English People and gives illustrative quotes from both works to indicate the mindset of the mentioned historians. It also aims to discuss the primary motivations behind these historians to construct these particular historical narratives and show how they differed from the previous works of historiography. Moreover, this paper will discuss these historians respectively, starting from Eusebius.