Codices and Quadragesimas

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent.* This season of preparation is observed by Christians of many traditions (albeit on slightly different schedules: e.g., for Eastern Orthodoxy, Lent of 2023 will begin next Monday). Like Ramadan in the Muslim faith or the High Holy Days for Jews, Lent is a time of fasting and of special focus upon divine things.

CLT is not religiously affiliated, but a substantial proportion of the great books were composed by devout men and women, and religious devotion—both as a human phenomenon, and as a reflection of, or failure to reflect, its professed Object—is a natural topic of the Great Conversation. We’d therefore like to propose a selection of books from our Author Bank that we think would make edifying reading over the next six weeks. (It is more conventional to give something up for Lent, of course, but there is certainly no rule that one cannot add something in.)

At first we considered naming forty books, since there are forty days in Lent. However, being cognizant that of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh, we chose to cut our total down to a nice round baker’s dozen, hailing from all throughout history.

• Confucius, The Analects (ca. 300-200 BC?). This compilation of the sayings of Confucius was set down by his disciples. The sage took the religion of ancient China for granted; his attitude toward what he euphemistically calls “Heaven,” and his insistence it demands right conduct, may strike the Christian reader much as Socrates strikes in the Apology, by his choice of non-retaliation and his statement “I shall obey God rather than you.”
• Origen, On Prayer (232-235). Prayer is one of the most typical activities of any religion; Origen is one of the earliest and most important Biblical theologians in Christian history. He examines and rebuts a number of objections to prayer, sets forth the real aims of prayer, and comments on the text of the Our Father, one of the most famous Christian prayers.
• St. Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses (ca. 390). Part of the group called the Cappadocian Fathers (fourth-century theologians from what is now central Turkey, renowned for their defense of the doctrine of the Trinity), St. Gregory of Nyssa here interprets the life of Moses as an archetype of the spiritual maturation of every human soul.
• St. Augustine, Confessions (397-400). This has been called the first autobiography, and is widely hailed as a classic by Christians and non-Christians alike. It relates Augustine’s tumultuous youth, striving to find intellectual, personal, and professional satisfaction, and his eventual conversion to Christianity.
• St. Gregory the Great, Pastoral Care (ca. 590). Composed by one of the most brilliant, generous, and tireless men ever to claim the Papacy, this remarkably sensitive and insightful guide to governing people in a religious institution was one of the most popular books of the Middle Ages.
• The Pearl Poet, “Pearl“ (ca. 1350-1400). This fourteenth-century poem from central England is a classic example of “vision” literature. A man’s recently-deceased daughter appears to him in a dream, urging him to rejoice in her heavenly bliss rather than grieving his own pain, and resolving questions from him that arise from his earth-bound perspective.
• St. Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ (1418-1427). One of the most enduring works of late medieval Catholic mysticism, the Imitation has earned devoted readers not only among Catholics, not only from other denominations, but even from other religions.
• John Donne, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions (1623). Written during a life-threatening illness, this collection of twenty-three meditations on Christ, death, resurrection, and the mutual inter-animation of humanity contains some of the most celebrated prose in the English language.