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.
300–201 BC
1 work
c. 260–250 BC
Greek
Cleanthes of Assos · c. 330 – c. 230 BC
Thirty-nine lines from the second head of the Stoic school, addressed to the most glorious of immortals, many-named, forever all-powerful — who guides the common law through all things, from whom we are sprung, and who can straighten even what is crooked and make the unloved lovely.
201–300
1 work
c. 233
Greek
401–500
1 work
c. 407
Greek
Ad eos qui scandalizati sunt
John Chrysostom · c. 347 – 407
Written in exile for those whose faith his own downfall had shaken. If a bishop can be deposed by intrigue and the church left to men who bought their sees, where is providence? Chrysostom answers that God's government is not legible from inside a single lifetime, and that scandal is a wound taken by the one who takes it.
501–600
1 work
c. 524
Latin
De Consolatione Philosophiae
Boethius · c. 477–524
Written in prison awaiting execution on a false charge. Lady Philosophy visits the condemned man and works him through fortune, happiness, providence, and how human freedom survives divine foreknowledge.
1301–1400
1 work
1377–1378
Italian
Il Dialogo della Divina Provvidenza
Catherine of Siena · 1347–1380
A conversation between a soul and God the Father, built on the image of Christ as a bridge over the flood, and unsparing about corrupt clergy.
1501–1600
2 works
1525
Latin
Huldrych Zwingli · 1484–1531
The first Reformed systematic theology, with a symbolic reading of the Lord's Supper and a strong emphasis on providence and the sovereignty of God.
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.
1601–1700
2 works
1681
French
Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet · 1627–1704
World history written for the dauphin as a single providential design running from creation through Israel and Rome to the church of the present.
1682
English
Mary Rowlandson · c. 1637–1711
A minister's wife taken captive by Narragansett and Nipmuc raiders describes eleven weeks of forced marches, hunger, and her attempts to read providence in it.
9 of 1774 works