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
3 works
357–378
Greek
Basil the Great · c. 330–379
Over three hundred letters of consolation, canon law, church politics, famine relief, and friendship, including the canonical letters that still govern Orthodox penitential practice.
c. 382
Greek
De Vita Sua
Gregory of Nazianzus · c. 329–390
Nearly two thousand lines of autobiographical verse, unsparing about his own reluctance, his friendship with Basil, and the ecclesiastical politics that drove him out of Constantinople.
c. 393–431
Latin
Paulinus of Nola · c. 354–431
The correspondence and annual birthday poems of a wealthy senator who gave away an enormous fortune to live beside the tomb of a minor saint.
401–500
3 works
401–402
Latin
Jerome · c. 347 – 420
Two old friends who had studied together and shared a monastery tear each other apart in print over how much of Origen either of them had once believed. Jerome accuses Rufinus of doctoring his translations; Rufinus quotes Jerome's own earlier praise of Origen back at him.
404–407
Greek
John Chrysostom · c. 347 – 407
Seventeen letters written in exile to the deaconess who had supported him, and who was being prosecuted for it. He is walking under guard through Armenia in winter, ill and losing his teeth, and spends the letters consoling her — nothing is truly dreadful but sin.
c. 386–430
Latin
Augustine of Hippo · 354–430
More than three hundred letters on doctrine, discipline, lawsuits, slavery, and the coercion of schismatics, including a long and difficult correspondence with Jerome.
1001–1100
1 work
c. 1080–1083
Latin
Liber Confortatorius
Goscelin of Saint-Bertin · c. 1035–c. 1107
A long letter of consolation from a monk to a young woman who has enclosed herself as an anchoress, mixing spiritual counsel with unmistakable personal grief at the separation.
1101–1200
3 works
c. 1112–1125
Latin
Eadmer of Canterbury · c. 1060–c. 1126
A secretary's record of his archbishop's conversation, temper, table talk, and exile, taken down while Anselm was alive and hidden when he ordered it destroyed.
c. 1142
Latin
Aelred of Rievaulx · 1110–1167
Written at Bernard's insistence, on charity as the sabbath of the soul, and including a grief-stricken passage on the death of a friend.
c. 1160–1165
Latin
De Spiritali Amicitia
Aelred of Rievaulx · 1110–1167
A dialogue rewriting Cicero on friendship for the cloister, arguing that a friend is the guardian of love, and that God is friendship.
1201–1300
1 work
c. 1222–1236
Latin
Jordan of Saxony · c. 1190–1237
Letters from the head of an order to a nun he loved, unembarrassed about affection, missing her, and apologising for how rarely he can write.
1301–1400
1 work
c. 1350–1366
Latin
Rerum Familiarium Libri
Francesco Petrarca · 1304–1374
Letters gathered and polished for publication, including several addressed to Cicero and Augustine as though they were living correspondents.
12 of 1774 works