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.
701–800
1 work
c. 760–780
Syriac
John of Dalyatha · 8th century
Writings of a solitary in the mountains of northern Iraq on the vision of the divine light and the wonder that overtakes the mind in prayer.
901–1000
1 work
c. 980–998
Greek
Symeon the New Theologian · 949–1022
Talks to his monks insisting that a Christian must consciously experience the Holy Spirit — that grace received without awareness of it is no use — with accounts of his own visions of light.
1001–1100
1 work
c. 1000–1022
Greek
Symeon the New Theologian · 949–1022
Fifty-eight poems of startling intimacy on union with God, describing the divine light seen and the body itself made a member of Christ.
1101–1200
1 work
c. 1144–1149
Latin
Abbot Suger · 1081–1151
An account of rebuilding the abbey church of Saint-Denis, with the reasoning behind its light-filled choir: the dull mind rises to truth through material things.
1201–1300
1 work
c. 1225–1228
Latin
De Luce
Robert Grosseteste · c. 1168–1253
A cosmology in which light is the first bodily form, expanding from a point to generate the spheres — creation described as a mathematical process.
1301–1400
1 work
c. 1338–1341
Greek
Gregory Palamas · 1296–1359
A defence of monks who claimed to see the uncreated light, distinguishing God's unknowable essence from the energies by which he is genuinely shared.
6 of 1774 works