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
1 work
c. 391–392
Latin
De Utilitate Credendi
Augustine of Hippo · 354 – 430
To a friend still with the Manichaeans, who had promised reason and delivered a story. Augustine answers that everyone believes far more than they can verify — that these are your parents, that this city exists — and that belief on trustworthy authority is not the opposite of knowledge but the road to it.
1001–1100
1 work
c. 1065–1067
Latin
Peter Damian · c. 1007–1072
Prompted by a dinner conversation: can God restore a woman's virginity, or undo the past? An argument that logical rules must not be allowed to bind God.
1501–1600
2 works
May 1520
German
Martin Luther · 1483–1546
An answer to the charge that justification by faith destroys morality: the first good work is faith itself, and every other work flows from it through the commandments.
1522
German
Martin Luther · 1483–1546
A short introduction defining faith as a living, busy, active thing that cannot help doing good works, and asking the reader not to confuse it with mere assent.
1601–1700
1 work
1642 unauthorised; 1643 authorised
English
Thomas Browne · 1605–1682
A physician's private account of his own faith, full of paradox and curiosity, professing to love to lose himself in a mystery and to pursue his reason to an O altitudo.
1801–1900
1 work
1843
Danish
Frygt og Bæven
Søren Kierkegaard · 1813–1855
A pseudonymous meditation circling Abraham on the road to Moriah, refusing to let the story be admired at a distance, and asking whether faith can require a suspension of the ethical that no philosophical system can absorb.
6 of 1774 works