-- Walther Library Staff

The Ad Hoc Digital Library was initiated during the 1997/1998 academic year with the support of a Faculty Support Project grant from the Yale University Library and Yale Information Technology Services. It is a structured, annotated, web-searchable database that contains electronic images and texts related to the history of Christianity. Because of copyright restrictions, some of the images and texts contained in the database are not accessible to the general public. 

Dr. Dana Sutton, Professor of Classics at the University of California in Irvine has recently begun compiling this rich resource, "an analytic bibliography of Latin texts written during the Renaissance and later freely available to the general public on the Web (access-restricted sites are not included)."1 Here you will find a descriptive catalog of the original latin texts of Luther and other Lutheran writers, a link to the resource and a description of its file format. Ad fontes, amici!

Beginning with his stay at Wartburg Castle in 1521, Dr. Luther translated the Bible into the German language. With the help of his friends, the reformer continued to refine the translation up until his death. This electronic edition is the text of the 1545 edition, considered the last authoritative printing.

Yes — this work is in German! And, Yes — if you do not read German, you will still be able to use it! Simply put, this work contains both a thorough biography in German (The part you can't use if you can't read German) and thorough bibliography, which includes references to titles in English and other languages. This useful work classifies the items into categories such as works about the subject and works by the subject. Where materials exist online, it gives the URL for the resource as well. All-in-all, a very useful site.

You're serving your first parish. As you prepare for your first few August worship services, you notice in Lutheran Worship the day of St. Lawrence falls on a Sunday. "St. Lawrence?" you exclaim, "Who is St. Lawrence?" In your moment of minor crisis, this resource, provided by the folks at Catholic Online can help you get started. This online directory of saints provides short, one page biographies of saints in the Catholic Church, many of whom are remembered by even Lutheran Christians as fathers and mothers in the faith. It also has a FAQ on the Catholic view of angels. A search engine helps you find one in the many pages available at the site. The information here is, of course, from the Catholic perspective and tends to be long on folklore. Still, it provides a place to learn a few details about these faithful Christians. From there you can decide if detailed historical study might add some images and illustrations to Bible classes, sermons and Sunday School gatherings.

Christian Classics Ethereal Library

The Christian Classics Ethereal Library is a treasure trove of the finest devotional material written by Christians from the days of the Early Church to the Twentieth Century. Most of the works are public domain texts and are available in multiple formats.

Looking for just that turn of the phrase to bring home a point in your sermon? You think in KJV, but still can't fish out that key Bible passage for your eager parishoners? Then this resource is for you. Concordances of Great Books provides a search engine to each of over two hundred titles, most of which are classics of world literature. The majority of the works are from spiritually-oriented texts. It is highly ecclectic -- Augustine and Josephus are alongside the Book of Mormon and the Bhagavad-Gita. Yet there are many texts that you would read for edification and apologetic purposes. No, Luther texts are not in the collection -- yet! Still, all and all, a powerful resource that will draw you back time and again.

The ECOLE Initiative is the place on the Internet to begin your research into the history of the Church before the Reformation. The site contains articles by philosophers, theologians and historians. A detailed timeline helps you place people, events and ideas in chronological context. A massive, online bibliography of primary sources leads you to texts and images from this period of the Church's history. Directories of email discussion groups and web sites help you discover new treasures. If you are taking classes in the history of the Church, this is a place you must visit.

This site is an online reader for the history courses of Hannover College. The library of this school is a fellow member of PALNI. This reader includes a wide range of texts assigned to undergraduates, including many that are of interest to students of Christian History. If it's big, and you can't find it anywhere else, try Hannover's text project.

You've read plenty of interpretations of history. Have you ever wondered if they were telling you the truth? Did you ever what to know the whole story? Now you can! The Internet Modern History Sourcebook catalogs primary sources of historic significance. This sourcebook contains texts from the Reformation era. Paul Halsall at Fordham University has designed this resource as a place for college professors and students to locate the key texts in history. Each entry is briefly annotated. So you're looking for something a wee bit more ancient? Visit the Fordham sourcebooks for other periods, places and subjects.

Finding primary sources on the Middle Ages can often be more difficult than finding a needle in a hay stack -- or a page on the World Wide Web. Labyrinth is designed to be both a storehouse of such texts and a gateway to resources for teaching about the Medieval period. In addition to texts, images and commentaries, this site also provides curricular material to assist professors in teaching about this important age of Church History.

Once a year, the Lutheran Historical Conference compiles a bibliography of articles, chapters in books, books, dissertations, theses and other items related to the history of Lutheranism in America. Arranged by year, this is an online version of the print resource.

This text archive collects texts by and about Martin Luther and other Lutherans. Project Wittenberg is sponsored by Concordia Theological Seminary and sited at CTS' website. This Project is the first step towards an online, electronic library for Lutheranism. The texts first appear at this site and in ASCII format. To view HTML versions of some of the documents, see Project Wittenberg's home page.

This classic history of the church set the standard for all general histories to follow. Thorough and well-documented, it is still a classic resource and a good place to be research on historical topics. The Christian Classics Ethereal Library edition is in draft form, set in HTML. Look forword to a more polished edition to follow.