Essential Texts of the Tradition

[Binto]

So what are the essential theological/spiritual/philosophical texts that a good student of the Catholic tradition should have in his bookshelf? And I’m talking about gems on par with the “Apology”, the “Summa”, the “Oddesy”, “Confessions”, “Nichomeon Ethics”, etc. So I’m talking about THE BEST OF THE BEST here. “Those who wrote it first wrote it best”, as my old teacher would say. So unless it’s just PHENOMONALLY foundational, then don’t worry about posting. An exemption from the past hundred years or so could be the likes of “The Story of a Soul” by the Little Flower.

Looking forward to this thread!!

 

[Neofight]

My own thoughts are that you teacher’s assessment does not carry over to theology, because through time, especially the last 100 years, there are many papal encyclical that reference early Church writing that make the originals even better…see V2 documents and writings of JP2 and his successors.

 

[Rohzek]

I suggest Tychonius’ Book of Rules. It was one of the most influential and often cited theological texts in all of the Middle Ages. It seems to have been sorta neglected since the beginning of modernity. I’m not sure why that is.