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The Library

Forty Centuries of Christian Writing

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.

1401–1500

The Fifteenth Century

1 work

1420

Czech

The Taborite Articles

The community of Tábor

The demands of the radical Hussite wing: no purgatory, no images, no vestments, worship in barns if necessary, and a community holding goods in common.

Hussite · Manifesto

1501–1600

The Sixteenth Century

5 works

1522

German

On the Removal of Images

Andreas Karlstadt · c. 1486–1541

An argument that images in churches break the first commandment and must be taken down at once, whatever the weak may feel about it.

Radical Reformation · TreatiseExodus

July 1524

German

Sermon to the Princes

Thomas Müntzer · c. 1489–1525

A sermon on Daniel preached to the Saxon rulers, warning that if they will not clear the godless from among God's people the sword will be taken from them.

Radical Reformation · HomilyDaniel

1531

German

Chronicle, Book of Time and Historical Bible

Sebastian Franck · c. 1499–c. 1543

A world history sympathetic to heretics, arguing that the true church has been invisible since the apostles and that God speaks in every age and nation.

Radical Reformation · Chronicle

1531

Latin

On the Errors of the Trinity

Michael Servetus · c. 1511–1553

An argument that the Nicene formula is unscriptural and philosophically confused, and that the church went wrong at the moment it adopted the word substance.

Radical Reformation · Theology

1578

Latin

On Jesus Christ the Saviour

Fausto Sozzini · 1539–1604

A denial that Christ's death was a satisfaction for sin, arguing instead that he saves by revealing the way to immortality and by his example and resurrection.

Radical Reformation · Theology

1601–1700

The Seventeenth Century

1 work

1652

English

The Law of Freedom in a Platform

Gerrard Winstanley · 1609–1676

A commonwealth without buying or selling, in which the earth is a common treasury and clergy are replaced by weekly public teaching on any useful subject.

Radical Reformation · Political theory