Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Works of John Jewel, D. D, Vol. 1: Bishop of Salisbury
As the chief strength of the 'author lay in his acquaintance with primitive antiquity, the verification of the references, essential as that branch of editorial duty is now universally admitted to he, appeared a matter of primary importance. It was customary with the great writers of that age, when Patristic studies were much more generally diffused than they have been since, to content themselves with quoting only a few well known words of a passage, or with carelessly indicating, rather than accurately defining, the sources of their information7; a mode of proceeding, which, while it satisfied their contemporaries, afforded scarcely any clue to later theologians. In Bishop Jewel's case, this source of inaccuracy was much increased by his trusting to his extraordinary memory, or to note-books which contained the accumulation of many years' reading, and which it was his habit repeatedly to transcribe. There is reason for believing that, in such transcriptions, the original quotation was sometimes unconsciously mixed up with his own observations or inferences, and in that shape, without the slightest in tention of deceiving, transferred to his printed text 8.
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