The Library
1774 works catalogued century by century, from the literature the Bible was written among to the present — each with a note on what it is, why it lasted, and where to read it.
301–400
2 works
c. 390
Latin
De Vera Religione
Augustine of Hippo · 354 – 430
Addressed to the patron who had led him into Manichaeism. Philosophy and religion should never have been separated, Augustine argues; evil is not a thing but a defect in a good thing; and the mind that judges between better and worse is already reaching for a standard above itself.
388–395
Latin
De Libero Arbitrio
Augustine of Hippo · 354–430
A dialogue on where evil comes from if God is good, answering that evil is not a substance but a turning of the will away from the greater good to a lesser one.
801–900
1 work
851
Latin
John Scotus Eriugena · c. 815–c. 877
Commissioned to refute Gottschalk, he argues that since God is simple and outside time there can be no double anything in him, and that evil has no substance to be predestined.
1001–1100
1 work
c. 1085–1090
Latin
Anselm of Canterbury · 1033–1109
How a creature made good and made free could choose evil, when evil is nothing and God gave no evil will to choose with.
1201–1300
1 work
c. 1240–1250
Latin
Liber de Duobus Principiis
Anonymous
A scholastic defence of two eternal principles, good and evil, arguing that a wholly good God cannot be the origin of a world containing so much wrong.
1601–1700
1 work
1697
French
Pierre Bayle · 1647–1706
A biographical dictionary whose footnotes swallow the entries, raising sceptical difficulties about miracles, providence, and the problem of evil at every turn.
6 of 1774 works