The Library
1577 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
2 works
362
Greek
Gregory of Nazianzus · c. 329 – 390
Ordained against his will by his own father, Gregory ran away, then came back and explained himself. The care of souls is the art of arts, he argues, because a physician treats bodies that can be examined and a pastor treats what cannot be seen — and no two people can be handled the same way.
c. 386
Greek
De Sacerdotio
John Chrysostom · c. 347–407
A dialogue defending the author's own flight from ordination, which turns into an unsparing account of what pastoral office demands and how easily preaching curdles into performance.
401–500
4 works
c. 403–405
Latin
De Catechizandis Rudibus
Augustine of Hippo · 354–430
Practical advice to a deacon who found teaching beginners boring: how to tell the story from creation to the church, how long to take, and what to do when the listener looks tired.
c. 391–430
Latin
Augustine of Hippo · 354–430
Some nine hundred surviving sermons taken down by stenographers as he preached, ranging from great feasts to ordinary weekdays, and often interrupted by the congregation.
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.
c. 393–435
Greek
Isidore of Pelusium · c. 360–c. 435
Around two thousand very short letters of exegesis, moral advice, and blunt rebuke, addressed to bishops, officials, and monks alike.
501–600
2 works
c. 503–542
Latin
Caesarius of Arles · c. 470–542
Around two hundred and fifty short sermons in deliberately plain Latin, attacking drunkenness, sorcery, and the survival of pagan festivals among nominally Christian peasants.
590
Latin
Regula Pastoralis
Gregory the Great · c. 540–604
Who should take pastoral charge, how he should live, and — in the long third part — how the same truth must be spoken differently to the poor and the rich, the joyful and the grieving, the reticent and the talkative.
1201–1300
1 work
c. 1208–1215
Latin
Robert of Flamborough · d. c. 1224
A confessor's manual in dialogue form, showing how to question a penitent gently, in what order, and how to avoid suggesting sins they had not thought of.
1401–1500
2 works
1402
Latin
Jean Gerson · 1363–1429
Lectures on what makes an act sinful, on the binding force of human law, and on when a Christian's conscience may resist an ecclesiastical command.
15th century
Latin
Anonymous
Instructions for priests attending the dying: what to ask, what to read aloud, how to prompt the acts of faith and contrition, and what to do when speech fails.
1501–1600
1 work
c. 1516–1546
German
Martin Luther · 1483–1546
Letters to the bereaved, the anxious, the dying, and the suicidal, including several to people in the despair he called Anfechtung and knew himself.
1601–1700
2 works
written c. 1632; published 1652
English
George Herbert · 1593–1633
A portrait of the ideal country clergyman — his house, his wife, his charity, his catechising, and his practice of walking his parish rather than staying indoors.
1656
English
Richard Baxter · 1615–1691
A charge to ministers to catechise every family in the parish personally, house by house, and an unsparing account of the author's own failures at it.
1801–1900
1 work
1875–1894
English
Charles Haddon Spurgeon · 1834–1892
Friday afternoon talks to the men of Spurgeon's own pastors' college: on private prayer, on choosing a text, on the voice, on when to be brief, and on the fainting fits that visit even successful preachers.
15 of 1577 works