The Plan of This History

I set myself to give a condensed account of what the sacred Scriptures set forth from the beginning of the world, and to tell it with the dates marked out, choosing events according to their importance, down to times within our own memory. Many people who were eager to learn about divine things from a short treatise have pressed me hard to take on this work. Wanting to carry out their wish, I have not spared any effort, and so I have managed to fit into two short books what elsewhere filled many volumes. At the same time, while aiming at brevity, I have left out hardly any of the facts. [a]

It also seemed to me not out of place that, once I had run through the sacred history down to the crucifixion of Christ and the acts of the apostles, I should add an account of what happened afterward. So I will tell of the destruction of Jerusalem, the persecutions of the Christian people, the times of peace that followed, and how everything was thrown into confusion again by dangers within the churches themselves. I will not shrink from admitting that, wherever reason required, I have used secular historians to fix dates and keep the order of events unbroken, and have taken from them whatever was missing for a complete knowledge of the facts, so that I might both teach those who do not know and convince the learned.

As for what I have condensed from the sacred books, however, I do not want to present myself to my readers as an author in such a way that they neglect the source my material comes from and rest content with what I have written. My aim is that someone who already knows the original should recognize here what he has read there; for all the mysteries of divine things can be brought out only from the fountainhead itself. Now I will begin my story.