Twenty texts for twenty centuries

Suppose you knew someone who wanted to read broadly in the Christian tradition. Specifically, this someone requested twenty Christian texts—no more, no less—one from each century of the church’s existence (present century excluded).

What would you assign? Who would be on your list?

For the purposes of this hypothetical, the texts are not supposed to be “the best” or the most influential or the most significant or what have you. Nor need they represent the full gamut or spectrum of Christian faith, doctrine, practice, and liturgy—as if that were possible.

At the same time, while the someone in question is a sharp reader, they are an Anglophone normie, not a polyglot scholar. You’re not, for example, going to assign the Summa Theologiae of Saint Thomas. You’re aiming for reasonably accessible texts by great Christian writers that, together, offer a snapshot of what it means to be Christian; what it means to live as a Christian; what it means to believe as a Christian; and so on.

You could tweak the rules as you please. These are my rules. Here are my answers.

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First century: The Gospel According to Saint John.

Second century: Saint Ignatius of Antioch, Letters.

Third century: Origen, An Exhortation to Martyrdom.

Fourth century: Saint Athanasius, On the Incarnation.

Fifth century: Saint Cyril of Alexandria, On the Unity of Christ.

Sixth century: Pope Saint Gregory the Great, Homilies on the Gospels.

Seventh century: Saint Maximus Confessor, The Lord’s Prayer.

Eighth century: Saint John of Damascus, Exposition of the Orthodox Faith.

Ninth century: St. Theodore the Studite, On the Holy Icons.

Tenth century: Saint Gregory of Narek, Festal Works.

Eleventh century: Saint Anselm, Cur Deus Homo?

Twelfth century: Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, On Loving God.

Thirteenth century: Saint Bonaventure, Journey of the Mind Into God.

Fourteenth century: Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love.

Fifteenth century: Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ.

Sixteenth century: John Calvin, Book II of Institution of Christian Religion.

Seventeenth century: Saint Francis de Sales, An Introduction to the Devout Life.

Eighteenth century: Jonathan Edwards, Charity and Its Fruits.

Nineteenth century: Saint Thérèse of Liseux, Story of a Soul.

Twentieth century: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship.

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I will confess, I almost trolled the Prots by leaving out Calvin, Edwards, and Bonhoeffer for Saint Teresa, Saint Alphonsus Liguori, and Simone Weil. That would still be a good list! But I had to be honest. I also somewhat cheated with Julian, whose visions and writing spanned the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Were she to be moved ahead, I would remove Kempis and add Dante or Saint Catherine.

It goes without saying that, for most centuries—though curiously not for all, at least from my vantage point—you could choose a dozen or more texts. It hurts not to include Saint Augustine; but then, neither are there any Cappadocians. The fourth and fifth centuries are rich beyond compare.

It’s clear what I’m prioritizing here: brevity, clarity, piety, devotion, faith, love, prayer, discipleship. With, granted, an emphasis on the person and work of Christ. I also wanted a relative balance between East and West, Greek and Latin. It seems to me that an open-hearted reader of these twenty texts would walk away with a beautiful picture of the meaning of lived Christian faith, told from the inside. I almost envy such a person the experience.