Small Gods (Terry David John Pratchett) читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги

67

This story appears in the Anglo-Saxon historian St Bede’s account of the conversion of England to Christianity in the year 625. A noble relates this metaphor for human existence to King Edwin of Northumbria, and concludes, “Of what went before and of what is to follow, we are utterly ignorant. If therefore this new faith [Christianity] can give us some greater certainty, it justly deserves that we should follow it.”

The original meaning of the parable was to describe the human condition, with life as a moment of light between two dark unknowns; it’s a nice twist of irony that Terry here uses it to describe the divine condition instead.