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.
200–101 BC
1 work
c. 130–100 BC
Greek
Anonymous
Six passages the Greek adds to a book whose Hebrew never names God: Mordecai's dream of two dragons, the texts of the royal edicts, prayers from Mordecai and Esther, and the scene where Esther faints and the king's face changes from wrath to gentleness.
100–1 BC
1 work
c. 150 BC – AD 50
Greek
Anonymous
Fifteen verses supplying the prayer Chronicles says the worst king of Judah prayed in captivity and does not quote. The sins are more in number than the sand of the sea; the knees of the heart are bent; and the God who appointed repentance did so not for the righteous, who never needed it, but for the sinner.
201–300
4 works
c. 200–206
Latin
c. 233
Greek
c. 251–252
Latin
De Dominica Oratione
Cyprian of Carthage · c. 210–258
A clause-by-clause exposition insisting that the prayer is corporate from its first word: no Christian says my Father, because prayer is never private property.
c. 250–300; Papyrus Rylands 470
Greek
Sub Tuum Praesidium
Anonymous
Three lines on a scrap of Egyptian papyrus, asking the Mother of God for shelter and begging her not to overlook the petitions of those in need but to deliver them from danger.
301–400
5 works
337–345
Syriac
Aphrahat · c. 280–c. 345
Twenty-three treatises by the Persian Sage on faith, love, fasting, prayer, war, humility, and the sons of the covenant — written entirely outside the Greek theological world.
c. 350–356
Greek
Euchologion
Serapion of Thmuis · d. after 362
Thirty prayers for a bishop's own use: the eucharistic prayer, blessings of oil and water, prayers over the sick, over the newly baptised, over the dead, and for the ordination of deacons, presbyters, and bishops.
c. 367
Greek
Athanasius of Alexandria · c. 296–373
Advice on how to use the psalter, arguing that the psalms are unique in scripture because in reading them you speak the words as your own.
c. 393
Greek
Evagrius Ponticus · 345–399
A hundred and fifty-three brief chapters on prayer stripped of images and concepts, defining the theologian as the one who prays truly.
c. 397–400
Latin
Confessiones
Augustine of Hippo · 354–430
A life told as prayer: a restless African rhetorician traces his own thefts, ambitions, and long detour through Manichaeism and Neoplatonism, then turns in the final books to memory, time, and the opening verses of Genesis.
401–500
2 works
c. 426–429
Latin
Collationes
John Cassian · c. 360–435
Twenty-four conversations with the elders of Egypt on the goal of monastic life, discernment, unceasing prayer, and the way the mind wanders even at prayer.
428–429
Latin
De Dono Perseverantiae
Augustine of Hippo · 354 – 430
The last thing Augustine finished. Even holding on to the end is a gift, not an achievement — which means no one can know they have it, and the church prays for perseverance precisely because it cannot be secured. Answering monks in Gaul who said this made preaching pointless, he replies that preaching is one of the means by which the gift is given.
501–600
1 work
c. 530
Latin
Regula Benedicti
Benedict of Nursia · c. 480–c. 547
Seventy-three short chapters ordering a monastery's day around prayer, reading, and manual work, with a striking moderation about food, sleep, and the failings of ordinary people.
601–700
3 works
c. 635–650
Syriac
Sahdona · 7th century
A long treatise on the monastic life whose second part turns to prayer, the reading of scripture, and the fear of God with unusual warmth.
c. 670–690
Syriac
Isaac of Nineveh · 7th century
Homilies on solitude, tears, humility, and the merciful heart that burns for the whole creation — including the argument that even hell is the working of love.
c. 680
Syriac
Shem'on d-Taybutheh · 7th century
A physician-monk describes the stages of contemplative prayer alongside an account of the brain, the nerves, and the humours, treating soul and body as one subject.
801–900
1 work
c. 860–870
Hebrew and Aramaic
Seder Rav Amram
Amram ben Sheshna · d. c. 875
Written in answer to a request from the Jews of Spain for the order of prayers for the whole year, setting out the daily, sabbath, and festival services with the legal rulings that govern them.
1001–1100
4 works
c. 1002
Armenian
Narek
Grigor Narekatsi · c. 951–1003
Ninety-five prayers of overwhelming self-accusation and equally overwhelming hope, addressed to God from a monk who piles up images faster than any translator can follow.
c. 1030–1050
Latin
John of Fécamp · c. 990–1078
Prayer written in the first person, woven from Augustine and Gregory into a continuous address to God on longing, compunction, and the desire to see him.
c. 1070–1080
Latin
Anselm of Canterbury · 1033–1109
Prayers written for individuals to use alone and slowly, addressed to Christ and the saints with an emotional directness quite unlike the liturgy.
1077–1078
Latin
Proslogion
Anselm of Canterbury · 1033–1109
A prayer that turns into an argument: seeking God, Anselm arrives at the thought of that than which nothing greater can be conceived, and concludes that such a being cannot exist in the mind alone.
1101–1200
1 work
c. 1150–1173
Latin
Scala Claustralium
Guigo II · d. 1188
Four rungs — reading, meditation, prayer, contemplation — described with a domestic image: reading puts food in the mouth, meditation chews it, prayer finds the flavour.
1201–1300
1 work
c. 1240–1260
Latin
David of Augsburg · c. 1200–1272
A novice master's practical guidance on the stages of prayer and the reform of the inner and outer person, written without visionary claims of any kind.
1301–1400
2 works
c. 1375
Middle English
Anonymous
Counsel from an unnamed director to a young contemplative: God cannot be reached by thinking, so put every thought — even good ones — under a cloud of forgetting, and press toward him with a naked intent of love.
c. 1380–1395
Middle English
Anonymous
A shorter, warmer sequel by the author of The Cloud, answering a disciple's questions and insisting the work is simply to offer God the naked fact that you are.
1501–1600
9 works
1512–1513
Armenian
Hakob Meghapart · 16th century
A book of prayers for healing and protection, printed at Venice — the first book ever printed in Armenian.
1527
Spanish
Francisco de Osuna · c. 1497–c. 1541
A method of recollected prayer that gathers the scattered faculties inward and lets the mind rest without images or discursive thought.
1522–1524; published 1548
Spanish
Exercitia Spiritualia
Ignatius of Loyola · 1491–1556
Not a book to read but a thirty-day programme to be led through: structured meditations on sin, the life of Christ, the passion and the resurrection, with rules for telling which interior movements come from God.
1549; revised 1552 and 1662
English
Thomas Cranmer · 1489–1556
One book putting the whole worship of a church — daily prayer, communion, baptism, marriage, burial — into the language of the people, with a lectionary that walks a congregation through most of the Bible in a year.
1554
Spanish
Luis de Granada · 1504–1588
A method of mental prayer with meditations for every day of the week, written in Spanish for ordinary readers rather than for religious.
1562–1565
Spanish
Libro de la Vida
Teresa of Ávila · 1515–1582
Written under obedience for her confessors, describing twenty years of unsatisfying prayer, then the transverberation, with constant nervous asides about her own unreliability.
c. 1566
Spanish
Teresa of Ávila · 1515–1582
Practical instruction for her nuns on detachment, humility, and mental prayer, structured around the Lord's Prayer and full of dry humour about convent life.
1577
Spanish
El Castillo Interior
Teresa of Ávila · 1515–1582
The soul imagined as a castle of many rooms with God at the centre. Teresa maps the seven dwelling places a person passes through, describing prayer with the practicality of a woman who also had convents to run.
c. 1578–1585
Spanish
La Noche Oscura del Alma
John of the Cross · 1542–1591
A poem and its commentary on the two nights the soul passes through — of the senses and then of the spirit — in which God withdraws every consolation precisely in order to purify love of its self-interest.
1601–1700
7 works
c. 1628–1638
Spanish
Juan Falconi · 1596–1638
Letters and treatises urging a simple prayer of faith, resting on God's will without effort or reflection, addressed largely to laypeople.
1633
English
George Herbert · 1593–1633
A hundred and sixty short poems arranged as a walk through a church, recording a long argument with God that ends with the guest sitting down and eating.
compiled c. 1600–1626; published 1648
Greek
Preces Privatae
Lancelot Andrewes · 1555–1626
A private prayer book woven almost entirely from scripture and the liturgies of East and West, arranged by the days of the week and the hours.
c. 1650–1657
French
Jean-Jacques Olier · 1608–1657
The spirituality of the Sulpician seminaries — adoration of the Word, union with Jesus, and a method of prayer taught to generations of French priests.
1675
Spanish
Miguel de Molinos · 1628–1696
A method of interior quiet in which the soul ceases from acts and simply rests in God, leaving even meditation and petition behind.
1–40 of 43 matching · 1780 in the Library