The Library
1277 works catalogued century by century, from the literature the Bible was written among to the present — each with a note on what it is, why it lasted, and where to read it.
Browse by century
Start here
A shortlist across the whole catalogue, for a reader who has to choose.
c. 90–110
Greek
Didache ton dodeka apostolon
Anonymous
A short manual of Christian practice for a congregation still finding its footing: the Two Ways of life and death, then plain instructions for baptism, fasting, the eucharistic prayers, and how to tell a true travelling prophet from a freeloader.
c. 100–150; date disputed
Greek
Anonymous
A hundred and fourteen sayings of Jesus with no narrative, no passion, and no resurrection, some close to the canonical gospels and others enigmatic in a way that invites an inner, secret reading.
c. 155
Greek
Justin Martyr · c. 100–165
A philosopher's open letter to the emperor, answering the rumours that Christians were atheists and cannibals by simply describing what they believed and did — including the earliest detailed account of a Sunday gathering.
c. 180
Greek
Adversus Haereses
Irenaeus of Lyons · c. 130–c. 202
Five books setting out the Gnostic systems in detail and then dismantling them, on the grounds that the God who made matter is the God who redeemed it, and that Christ recapitulates in himself everything Adam lost.
197
Latin
Apologeticum
Tertullian · c. 155–c. 220
A defence addressed to the governors of the empire, arguing that Christians are tried by a procedure used for no other crime, and that the blood of the martyrs is seed.
c. 198–203
Greek
Stromateis
Clement of Alexandria · c. 150–c. 215
Deliberately unsystematic notebooks arguing that philosophy was God's covenant with the Greeks as the law was with the Jews, and sketching the true gnostic — the mature Christian whom knowledge makes loving rather than superior.
203
Latin
Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis
Vibia Perpetua and an editor · Perpetua d. 203
A young Carthaginian mother's own record of her arrest, her father's pleading, her nursing infant, and four dreams — a ladder guarded by a dragon, a contest in the arena — completed by an eyewitness account of her death.
c. 204
Greek
Hippolytus of Rome · c. 170–c. 235
A verse-by-verse exposition written during persecution, arguing from the four kingdoms that the end is not as near as the excited were claiming, and dwelling on Susanna as a figure of the church.
c. 207–212
Latin
Adversus Marcionem
Tertullian · c. 155–c. 220
Five books dismantling Marcion's two gods, his edited gospel, and his shortened Paul, arguing that the God of Israel and the Father of Jesus are one and that the creation he made is good.
c. 213
Latin
Adversus Praxean
Tertullian · c. 155–c. 220
Against the view that Father and Son are merely names for one figure, Tertullian works out a God who is one substance in three persons, and a Christ of two conditions in one person.
c. 215; authorship disputed
Greek
Attributed to Hippolytus of Rome · c. 170–c. 235
A manual of ordination prayers, the three-year catechumenate, the baptismal rite with its questions and anointings, and the eucharistic prayer that follows.
c. 233
Greek
c. 248
Greek
Contra Celsum
Origen of Alexandria · c. 185–c. 253
A point-by-point reply, seventy years late, to the most intelligent pagan attack on Christianity ever written — quoting Celsus so fully that his lost book can be largely reconstructed from it.
251
Latin
De Lapsis
Cyprian of Carthage · c. 210–258
After the Decian persecution, an unsparing analysis of why so many complied so quickly, and a refusal to let confessors hand out forgiveness in place of the bishop and a period of penance.
252
Latin
De Mortalitate
Cyprian of Carthage · c. 210–258
Written during a plague that killed Christians and pagans alike, answering the complaint that the faithful were not being spared, and asking why people who say they long for heaven grieve at going there.
c. 303–311
Latin
Divinae Institutiones
Lactantius · c. 250–c. 325
Seven books written during the Great Persecution, setting out Christianity as a complete philosophy — false religion, the origin of error, justice, true worship, and the life of blessedness — in the most polished Latin any Christian had yet written.
c. 318
Greek
De Incarnatione Verbi Dei
Athanasius of Alexandria · c. 296–373
A short, unhurried argument that the Word took a body because a creation running back toward nothing could only be restored from inside it — and that the resurrection is the demonstrable proof, visible in martyrs who no longer fear dying.
325; revised 381
Greek
The Council of Nicaea
The confession drawn up by the first ecumenical council, declaring the Son to be of one substance with the Father, and anathematising those who said there was a time when he was not.
c. 330–345
Coptic
Pachomius · c. 292–348
Regulations for a walled community of monks living, working, eating, and praying together under a superior, with detailed provision for admission, clothing, meals, and correction.
c. 339–345
Greek
Orationes contra Arianos
Athanasius of Alexandria · c. 296–373
Three long discourses arguing text by text that the Son is eternally begotten, and that if he were a creature then creatures would be worshipping a creature.
c. 348–350
Greek
Cyril of Jerusalem · c. 313–386
Lectures delivered to candidates for baptism through Lent, then five more given in Easter week explaining the rites they had just been through for the first time.
c. 350–380
Gothic
Ulfilas · c. 311–383
A translation of most of the Bible into Gothic by a missionary bishop who invented an alphabet to do it, said to have omitted the books of Kings as too warlike for his converts.
329–373
Greek
Athanasius of Alexandria · c. 296–373
Annual letters announcing the date of Easter and offering pastoral instruction — the thirty-ninth of which lists the books of scripture that may be read in church.
c. 367
Greek
Athanasius of Alexandria · c. 296–373
Advice on how to use the psalter, arguing that the psalms are unique in scripture because in reading them you speak the words as your own.
1–40 of 1277 matching · 1277 in the Library