William Reading was an English clergyman and librarian of Sion College

Sion College

Sion College, in London, is an institution founded by Royal Charter in 1630 as a college, guild of parochial clergy and almshouse, under the 1623 will of Thomas White, vicar of St Dunstan's in the West....

, known for his edition of early church historians.

Life

The son of a refiner of iron, he was born on 17 September 1674 at Swin in the parish of Wombourne

Wombourne

Wombourne is a very large village and civil parish located in the district of South Staffordshire, in the county of Staffordshire, 4 miles south-west of Wolverhampton. Local affairs are run by a parish council. At the 2001 census it had a population of 13,691...

, Staffordshire

Staffordshire

Staffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...

. He matriculated at University College, Oxford

University College, Oxford

.University College , is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. As of 2009 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £110m...

, on 1 June 1693, graduated B.A. in 1696–7, and proceeded M.A. at St. Mary Hall in 1703. On 15 November 1708 he was appointed, on the recommendation of Henry Compton, bishop of London

Bishop of London

The Bishop of London is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of London in the Province of Canterbury.The diocese covers 458 km² of 17 boroughs of Greater London north of the River Thames and a small part of the County of Surrey...

, library keeper at Sion College. Legislation passed in 1710 on copyright made Sion College a deposit library.

He was lecturer at the church of St. Alphage between 1712 and 1723, and preached the sermon at Westminster Abbey

Westminster Abbey

The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...

 on the anniversary of the execution of Charles I on 31 January 1714. He was made lecturer at St Michael, Crooked Lane, in 1725. He obtained a readership at Christ Church, London, in 1733.

Reading died on 10 December 1744. His son Thomas was granted on 28 January 1744 the places of ostiary, under librarian, and clerk assistant at Sion College.

Works

In 1716 came out his ‘History of our Lord, adorn'd with cuts,’ London, of which a ‘second edition, to which is prefixed the Life of the B. Virgin Mary,’ was published in 1717. This work was reprinted at Leeds, 1849–50, 3 parts, edited by Walter Farquhar Hook

Walter Farquhar Hook

Walter Farquhar Hook , was an eminent Victorian churchman.-Background:He was the Vicar of Leeds responsible for the construction of the current Leeds Parish Church and for many ecclesiastical and social improvements to the city in the mid-nineteenth century...

.

Reading's major work was an edition in Greek and Latin of the early ecclesiastical historians: Eusebius Pamphilus, Socrates Scholasticus

Socrates Scholasticus

Socrates of Constantinople, also known as Socrates Scholasticus, not to be confused with the Greek philosopher Socrates, was a Greek Christian church historian, a contemporary of Sozomen and Theodoret, who used his work; he was born at Constantinople c. 380: the date of his death is unknown...

, Hermias Sozomenus, Theodoretus, and Evagrius Scholasticus

Evagrius Scholasticus

Evagrius Scholasticus was a Syrian scholar and intellectual living in the 6th century AD, and an aide to the patriarch Gregory of Antioch. His surviving work, Ecclesiastical History, comprises a six-volume collection concerning the Church's history from the First Council of Ephesus to Maurice’s...

. It was printed at the Cambridge University Press in 1720, in three folio volumes (reprinted at Turin, 1746–7). The text of Eusebius was republished at Venice, 1770, 3 vols. and again at Leipzig, 1827–8, under the care of Friedrich Adolph Heinichen.

In 1724 Reading printed ‘Twenty-three Sermons of Mortification, Holiness, and of the Fear and Love of God’ (London, for the author), dedicated to the archbishop of Canterbury; the writer complained that he was ‘always destitute of any ecclesiastical dignity or revenue.’ On 15 October of the same year he received the additional office of clerk or secretary of Sion College, possibly just after the publication of the compilation ‘Bibliothecæ Cleri Londinensis in Collegio Sionensi Catalogus, duplici forma concinnatus,’ of which the first part gives the titles arranged under subjects, and the second is an alphabetical index. Reading appended a history of the college. He printed in 1728 ‘Fifty-two Sermons for every Sunday of the Year,’ London, 2 vols., again dedicated to the archbishop of Canterbury. Two more volumes appeared in 1730, a second edition was printed in 1736, and a third edition, ‘One Hundred and Sixteen Sermons preached out of the First Lessons at Morning and Evening Prayer for all Sundays in the Year,’ London, 1755, 4 vols.

He published an edition of Origen

Origen

Origen , or Origen Adamantius, 184/5–253/4, was an early Christian Alexandrian scholar and theologian, and one of the most distinguished writers of the early Church. As early as the fourth century, his orthodoxy was suspect, in part because he believed in the pre-existence of souls...

‘de Oratione, Gr. et Lat.’ (London, sumptibus editoris), in 1728, and a sermon on the act against profane swearing in 1731.