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.
201–300
56 works
c. 200–204
Greek
Hippolytus of Rome · c. 170–c. 235
A systematic reading of Daniel and Revelation to establish who the antichrist will be, where he will come from, and how the faithful are to recognise the last days without panicking.
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. 200–206
Latin
Ad Uxorem
Tertullian · c. 155–c. 220
Two books asking his wife not to remarry if he dies first, and if she must, not to marry a pagan — closing with a famous description of a household where both partners share the faith.
c. 203
Latin
De Paenitentia
Tertullian · c. 155–c. 220
Two repentances are described: the one that leads to baptism, and the single painful public penance allowed to a believer who falls afterwards.
c. 200–206
Latin
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. 203–211
Latin
De Idololatria
Tertullian · c. 155–c. 220
A hard look at which trades a Christian may follow in a city where idolatry is woven into commerce, teaching, civic office, and the making of statues.
c. 206
Latin
De Carne Christi
Tertullian · c. 155–c. 220
Against Marcion and Valentinus, an insistence that Christ was born of a real woman with a real body — including the notorious argument that it is to be believed precisely because it is unfitting.
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. 208–212
Latin
De Resurrectione Carnis
Tertullian · c. 155–c. 220
A defence of the resurrection of the body in its full physicality against those who would spiritualise it, arguing that flesh is the hinge of salvation.
c. 208
Latin
De Virginibus Velandis
Tertullian · c. 155–c. 220
An argument that unmarried women should be veiled in church like everyone else, opening with the claim that custom must yield to truth because Christ called himself truth and not custom.
c. 210
Latin
De Anima
Tertullian · c. 155–c. 220
A long enquiry into what the soul is, where it comes from, and what happens to it at death, drawing on medicine, philosophy, dreams, and the testimony of a woman in his own congregation who saw souls.
211
Latin
De Corona
Tertullian · c. 155–c. 220
Prompted by a soldier who refused the ceremonial garland, an argument that military service is incompatible with the gospel — and, in passing, a list of Christian customs kept without any scriptural warrant.
212
Latin
Ad Scapulam
Tertullian · c. 155–c. 220
An open letter to a persecuting proconsul, warning him without threatening him and stating plainly that it is no part of religion to compel religion.
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. 203–213
Latin
Scorpiace
Tertullian · c. 155–c. 220
Written against Gnostics who told Christians it was permissible to deny the faith under torture, arguing that martyrdom is willed by God and not merely tolerated.
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. 217–222
Latin
De Pudicitia
Tertullian · c. 155–c. 220
A furious response to a bishop who offered forgiveness to the sexually lapsed, denying that the church has power to remit such sins at all.
c. 217
Latin
De Monogamia
Tertullian · c. 155–c. 220
A late and severe argument that a Christian may marry only once, remarriage after a spouse's death being a concession the Spirit has now withdrawn.
c. 221; survives in fragments
Greek
Julius Africanus · c. 160–c. 240
A universal chronology in five books synchronising biblical history with Greek and Near Eastern records, dating creation and placing the incarnation within a scheme of world ages.
c. 200–250
Syriac
Anonymous
Thomas is sold as a slave and carried to India, where he builds a palace in heaven for a king who paid for one on earth — and where the Hymn of the Pearl tells of a prince sent to Egypt who forgets who he is.
c. 222–235
Greek
Philosophumena
Hippolytus of Rome · c. 170–c. 235
Ten books arguing that every heresy is a Greek philosophy in disguise, with long quotations from the systems described and a bitter account of the Roman church under Callistus.
c. 220–230
Greek
De Principiis
Origen of Alexandria · c. 185–c. 253
The first attempt at a complete Christian account of God, creation, freedom, and the end of all things — argued speculatively and offered as exploration rather than settled doctrine.
c. 230
Syriac
Didascalia Apostolorum
Anonymous
A Syrian church order on the duties of bishops, the seating of the congregation, the reconciliation of penitents, the care of widows, and the ministry of deaconesses to women.
c. 233
Greek
c. 235
Greek
Origen of Alexandria · c. 185–c. 253
Written for two friends imprisoned under Maximinus, urging them not to bargain, and drawing on the Maccabean martyrs for a theology of witness unto death.
c. 238
Greek
Gregory Thaumaturgus · c. 213–c. 270
A farewell speech by a departing student describing exactly how Origen taught: logic first, then physics and ethics, then philosophy read widely, and scripture last of all.
c. 235–245; survives in fragments
Greek
Origen of Alexandria · c. 185–c. 253
The Old Testament laid out in six parallel columns — Hebrew, Hebrew in Greek letters, and four Greek versions — with marks showing where the Septuagint added to or omitted from the Hebrew.
c. 238–244
Greek
Origen of Alexandria · c. 185–c. 253
Sixteen sermons preached to an ordinary congregation, reading the days of creation, the ark, and the patriarchs for their moral and spiritual sense as much as their literal one.
c. 231–248
Greek
Origen of Alexandria · c. 185–c. 253
An immense line-by-line exposition, begun to answer a Valentinian commentary on the same gospel, spending a whole book on the opening words alone.
c. 245
Greek
Origen of Alexandria · c. 185–c. 253
The stenographic record of a synod at which Origen cross-examines a bishop on the relation of the Son to the Father, and then on whether the soul is the blood.
c. 246
Latin
Ad Donatum
Cyprian of Carthage · c. 210–258
A convert's account of his own change, set against a bleak survey of the world he left — the arena, the courts, the marriage market — written in the ornate style he soon abandoned.
c. 246
Greek
Origen of Alexandria · c. 185–c. 253
A late commentary, partly surviving in Greek and partly in an old Latin version, patient with the literal sense and unusually attentive to textual variants.
c. 247
Latin
De Idolorum Vanitate
Cyprian of Carthage · c. 210–258
A brisk argument that the gods were once men, that demons animate their images, and that the one God is known through Christ — much of it condensed from Tertullian and Minucius Felix.
c. 248
Latin
Ad Quirinum
Cyprian of Carthage · c. 210–258
Scripture passages gathered under headings — on the Jews, on Christ, on Christian conduct — with almost no comment, assembled as ammunition for argument.
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.
c. 249
Latin
De Habitu Virginum
Cyprian of Carthage · c. 210–258
Advice to consecrated women on wealth, cosmetics, jewellery, and mixed bathing, arguing that a life given to God should look different from a wealthy woman's ordinary life.
c. 245–250
Latin
De Trinitate
Novatian · c. 200–c. 258
A careful exposition of the rule of faith: God the Father almighty, the Son who is truly God and truly man, and the Holy Spirit — written before the vocabulary of Nicaea existed.
251
Latin
De Unitate Ecclesiae
Cyprian of Carthage · c. 210–258
Written during a schism over how to receive Christians who had lapsed under persecution. Cyprian argues that the church's unity is not an aspiration but a given, and that a bishop who breaks from it takes nothing with him.
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.
1–40 of 56 matching · 1277 in the Library