Key passages from the classics the church has long read, from the Fathers to Wesley, in public-domain translations.
The Church Fathers
The Didache (Teaching of the Twelve Apostles)The Didache is a short manual from a church of the late first or early second century, setting out the way of life taught before baptism and directions for baptism, prayer, the Eucharist and church order; it is read for the closest view we have of how Christians just after the apostles learned, worshipped and lived.Against HeresiesIrenaeus of Lyons wrote Against Heresies around 180 to answer teachers of a secret knowledge with the one faith the whole church received from the apostles and with Christ, who gathers up in himself all that was lost in Adam.On the IncarnationAthanasius's On the Incarnation explains, beginning from creation, why the Word of God became man, died and rose again, and it remains the early church's classic account of how the incarnation, the cross and the resurrection belong together.ConfessionsAugustine's Confessions tells the story of his restless youth and his turning to God, written from first line to last as a prayer that confesses both his sin and God's praise.The City of GodWritten between 413 and 426 in answer to the sack of Rome, Augustine's City of God tells of two cities made by two loves, mingled in history until the judgment, and of the hope of those who live in this world as pilgrims.CommonitoryThe Commonitory, written by Vincent of Lérins around 434, is a short notebook on telling the catholic faith from heresy, read still for its rule of holding what has been believed everywhere, always, by all, and for its picture of doctrine that grows without becoming something else.
The Middle Ages
ProslogionAnselm's Proslogion is a prayer of faith seeking understanding, a short book that, speaking to God throughout, sets out to show by a single argument that God, that than which nothing greater can be conceived, truly exists and is all that we believe him to be.Why God Became Man (Cur Deus Homo)In Why God Became Man Anselm of Canterbury and his pupil Boso ask, step by step, why God had to become man and die; his answer, a debt of honour that only one who is both God and man could pay, has shaped Western thinking about the cross ever since.Summa TheologiaeThomas Aquinas's unfinished Summa Theologiae sets out the whole of Christian teaching, from God to Christ our way back to him, in short articles that hear the objections before they answer, and it is still read for its clarity, its fairness and its conviction that grace perfects nature.
The Reformation
The Ninety-five ThesesLuther's Ninety-five Theses of 1517, sent with a letter to Archbishop Albert of Mainz, called for a debate on repentance and the power of indulgences; they are read as the first step of the Reformation and for their claim that the true treasure of the Church is the gospel.Concerning Christian LibertyLuther's Concerning Christian Liberty, sent to Pope Leo X with a letter in 1520 as excommunication loomed, gathers the whole Christian life into one paradox: by faith a Christian is a free lord of all, and by love a servant of all.Institutes of the Christian ReligionFirst published in 1536 and rewritten until 1559, Calvin's Institutes sets out the Christian faith from the knowledge of God and ourselves to Christ's redemption, the way we receive his grace, and the church, and it has shaped the Reformed churches ever since.
After the Reformation
The Pilgrim’s ProgressJohn Bunyan's dream of a burdened man who flees the City of Destruction, loses his burden at the cross and comes through many dangers to the Celestial City has shown readers for more than three centuries what it is to live the Christian life as a pilgrimage.The Scripture Way of SalvationPublished by John Wesley in 1765, this short sermon asks what salvation is, what the faith is that saves, and how that faith justifies and sanctifies, and so maps the whole way of salvation the Methodist revival preached.