Forty Centuries of Christian Writing

The Letters

Maximus the Confessor · c. 580 – 662

Forty-five letters to officials, monks, and bishops across the Mediterranean, written while Maximus moved from Constantinople to Africa to Rome ahead of the armies. The second, on love, argues that charity is what makes one nature out of many persons, as God is one nature in three.

The Right of Magistrates

Theodore Beza · 1519–1605

Written after the Saint Bartholomew's Day massacre: lesser magistrates may lawfully resist a tyrant, since rulers hold office by a covenant with the people.

A Defence of Liberty Against Tyrants

Vindiciae contra Tyrannos

Anonymous

Four questions on whether subjects must obey a ruler who commands against God, and who may resist — answered by a double covenant between God, king, and people.

The Cost of Discipleship

Nachfolge

Dietrich Bonhoeffer · 1906–1945

An exposition of the Sermon on the Mount written while training pastors for an illegal seminary under the Nazi regime, opening with the distinction between cheap grace — forgiveness without repentance, grace as a doctrine rather than a call — and costly grace.

Letters and Papers from Prison

Widerstand und Ergebung

Dietrich Bonhoeffer · 1906–1945

Letters smuggled out of Tegel prison to family and to his friend Eberhard Bethge, mixing ordinary requests with the fragmentary late thinking about a world come of age and what Christ actually is for us today.