• 
• 
• 
• 

Order Christian History #116: Twenty-Five Writings that Changed the Church and the World in print.

Subscribe now to get future print issues in your mailbox (donation requested but not required).

From 2,000 years ago to the day before yesterday … Here’s where the writings described in this issue fall into the sweep of the last 2,000 years of history.

The top 25 (in red) … … and some others we love from our top 100

First through fourth centuries

• Irenaeus, Against Heresies (c. 175–185) [#21]

• Apostolic Tradition (c. 200)

• Athanasius, On the Incarnation (c. 319) [#9]

• The Nicene Creed (325, revised 381) [#7]

• Athanasius, Life of Antony (c. 356–362)

• The Apostles’ Creed (390 or earlier)>

• Augustine, On Christian Teaching (397, 4th book added in 426) [#18]

• Augustine, Confessions (c. 398) [#1]

 

Fifth and sixth centuries

• Augustine, On the Trinity (c. 400–428) [#19]

• Augustine, City of God (413–426) [#4]

• Cyril, On the Unity of Christ (440)

• Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy (c. 523)  

• Benedict, Rule (c. 540s) [#11]

• Pope Gregory I (“Gregory the Great”), Pastoral Rule (c. 591) [#24]

 

Eleventh through fifteenth centuries

• Anselm, Why God Became Man (c. 1095–1098) [#17]

• Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermons on the Song of Songs (begun 1136) 

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae (1265–1274) [#2]

• Dante Alighieri, Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1320) [#16]

• Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love (1395) 

• Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ  (c. 1418–1427) [#10]

 

Sixteenth century

• Martin Luther, Lectures on Romans (c. 1515–1516) [#25]

• Martin Luther, 95 Theses (1517) [#5]

• Martin Luther, Freedom of a Christian (1520) [#14]

• John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536) [#3] 

• Book of Common Prayer (1549) [#12]

• John Foxe, Actes and Monuments (Foxe’s Book of Martyrs) (1563) 

• Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle (1577)

• John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul (c. 1578) 

 

 

Seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

• Westminster Confession (1646) [#20]

• John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress (1678) [#6]

• Jonathan Edwards, Treatise on Religious Affections (1746) [#23]

• John Wesley, A Plain Account of Christian Perfection (1777) [#22]

 

Nineteenth and twentieth centuries

• Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) 

• Thérèse of Lisieux, The Story of a Soul (1898)

• Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics (1932–1967) [#15]

• Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (1937) [#13]

• Thomas Merton, Seven Storey Mountain (1948)

• C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952) [#8]

• Catherine Marshall, Beyond Ourselves (1961)

• Martin Luther King Jr., "Letter from Birmingham Jail" (1963)

This article is from Christian History magazine #116 Twenty-Five Writings that Changed the Church and the World. Read it in context here!

By the editors

Show more