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
collected c. 350–500
Greek
Apophthegmata Patrum
Anonymous
Short exchanges between monks and their visitors, usually beginning with a request for a word, and answered in one or two sentences that rarely explain themselves.
501–600
1 work
c. 550–565
Greek
Dorotheus of Gaza · c. 505–c. 565
Seventeen talks to his own monks on humility, refusing to trust one's own judgement, and bearing with people — including the image of God as the centre of a circle from which all lives are radii.
1101–1200
1 work
c. 1121–1125
Latin
Bernard of Clairvaux · 1090–1153
Benedict's twelve steps of humility read in reverse as twelve steps of pride, each a recognisable social type from the monk who fidgets to the one who rebels openly.
1201–1300
1 work
c. 1220–1226
Latin
Francis of Assisi · 1181/82–1226
Twenty-eight short sayings on obedience, on knowledge that puffs up, on the friar who is disturbed by anything at all, and on true and perfect joy.
1401–1500
2 works
c. 1418–1427
Latin
De Imitatione Christi
Thomas à Kempis · c. 1380–1471
Four short books of counsel on self-knowledge, inner detachment, the consolations of the interior life, and the sacrament — written in aphorisms brief enough to stop a reader on almost every page.
c. 1425–1440
Latin
Thomas à Kempis · c. 1380–1471
Conferences to young canons on humility, silence, the danger of curiosity, and the ordinary discipline of a house of the Common Life.
6 of 1774 works