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.
201–300
2 works
c. 210–222
Syriac
Philip, recording Bardaisan of Edessa · Bardaisan, 154–222
A dialogue against astral fatalism, arguing that if the stars governed conduct then custom could not differ from country to country — yet Brahmins eat no meat, Britons share wives, Persians marry their daughters, and Christians in every nation keep the same law regardless of the sky they were born under.
c. 246; survives in Rufinus's abridgement
Greek, surviving in Latin
Origen of Alexandria · c. 185 – c. 253
Fifteen books on Paul's hardest letter, holding together a real freedom of the will and a real grace, and reading the hardened Pharaoh and the vessels of wrath as descriptions of a mercy working on a longer scale than one life.
301–400
3 works
c. 391–393
Greek
John Chrysostom · c. 347 – 407
Thirty-two sermons on Romans, insisting throughout that grace does not remove the will but frees it, and that Paul's hardest chapters are about God's dealings with two peoples rather than about the fate of individuals.
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.
396
Latin
Ad Simplicianum
Augustine of Hippo · 354 – 430
Ambrose's old mentor sent two questions about Romans. Working on Jacob and Esau, loved and hated before either was born, Augustine gives up the position he had held for ten years — that God foresees who will believe and elects accordingly — and concludes instead that the will to believe is itself God's gift.
401–500
3 works
c. 405; survives in fragments
Latin
De Natura
Pelagius · c. 354–c. 420
An argument that God would not command what cannot be done, so human beings must be able to keep the commandments — known chiefly from Augustine's line-by-line rebuttal.
413
Latin
Pelagius · c. 354 – c. 420
Written to a Roman heiress of fourteen who had refused a marriage for the veil. Pelagius tells her to begin by measuring the good her own nature is capable of, since God would not command what could not be done, and no one is excused by a weakness they were born with.
426
Latin
De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio
Augustine of Hippo · 354 – 430
Written for monks at Hadrumetum who had read Augustine on grace and concluded that correction was pointless, since nothing they did was theirs. He answers that scripture plainly commands and plainly promises, so both the will and the grace that moves it must be real, and that God crowns his own gifts in us.
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.
1101–1200
1 work
c. 1128
Latin
Bernard of Clairvaux · 1090–1153
Free choice makes an act ours; grace makes it good. Bernard distinguishes freedom from necessity, from sin, and from sorrow, and gives the first only to the will.
1501–1600
3 works
1524
Latin
De Libero Arbitrio
Desiderius Erasmus · c. 1466–1536
A careful, deliberately undogmatic argument that scripture is obscure on the will, that some human cooperation with grace must be assumed, and that certainty here is not required.
1525
Latin
De Servo Arbitrio
Martin Luther · 1483–1546
Luther's reply to Erasmus on free will, arguing that the human will is not neutral ground but is ridden by one rider or another, and that salvation is God's work from first to last.
1588
Latin
Concordia
Luis de Molina · 1535–1600
A proposal that God knows what every free creature would do in any circumstance, and providentially arranges circumstances accordingly.
13 of 1774 works