The Library
1780 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.
101–200
1 work
c. 150–200
Greek, surviving in Coptic
Letter to Rheginos
Anonymous
A short letter to a student worried about death, arguing that the resurrection is not a future event to be waited for but a present one already accomplished — flee the divisions and the fetters, and you have risen already.
201–300
1 work
252
Latin
De Mortalitate
Cyprian of Carthage · c. 210–258
Written during a plague that killed Christians and pagans alike, answering the complaint that the faithful were not being spared, and asking why people who say they long for heaven grieve at going there.
401–500
1 work
404–407
Greek
John Chrysostom · c. 347 – 407
Seventeen letters written in exile to the deaconess who had supported him, and who was being prosecuted for it. He is walking under guard through Armenia in winter, ill and losing his teeth, and spends the letters consoling her — nothing is truly dreadful but sin.
501–600
1 work
c. 500–600
Hebrew and Aramaic
The academies of Galilee
Sermons for the festivals and the special sabbaths rather than for the weekly cycle, including a sequence of seven for the weeks of consolation after the fast of the ninth of Av, working through Isaiah's comfort ye, comfort ye my people.
1301–1400
2 works
c. 1308–1318
Middle High German
Meister Eckhart · c. 1260–1328
Written for a queen in grief: consolation not by softening loss but by arguing that whoever is wholly given over to God cannot be robbed of anything that matters.
c. 1400–1415
Latin
Ars Moriendi
Anonymous
How to die well: the five temptations that come at the end — doubt, despair, impatience, pride, avarice — each with the answer to be made, and the questions to put to the dying.
1401–1500
2 works
1418
Latin
Jean Gerson · 1363–1429
Written in exile after Constance in imitation of Boethius, on how to keep hope when reform has failed and the church one worked for looks no better.
written 1366; printed from 1470s
Latin
De Remediis Utriusque Fortunae
Francesco Petrarca · 1304–1374
Two hundred and fifty-four dialogues in which Reason answers Joy, Hope, Sorrow, and Fear on everything from wealth and fame to gout, exile, and the death of a child.
1501–1600
4 works
1520
Latin
Martin Luther · 1483–1546
Written for a dangerously ill elector as a replacement for the fourteen holy helpers: seven images of evil and seven of good, to be set before a suffering mind.
1524–1558
German
Katharina Schütz Zell · 1498–1562
A defence of clerical marriage after marrying a priest, letters of consolation to women whose husbands were exiled, a hymnbook, and a funeral sermon she preached herself.
1534
English
Thomas More · 1478–1535
Written in the Tower awaiting execution, framed as Hungarians discussing the Turkish threat, and really about how to face the loss of everything including one's nerve.
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
1 work
1651
English
Jeremy Taylor · 1613–1667
How to prepare for death across a whole life rather than at the end of one, written after the deaths of his patron's wife and his own sons.
13 of 1780 works