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.
301–400
87 works
306
Greek
Peter of Alexandria · d. 311
Fourteen rulings grading the penance owed by Christians who failed under persecution — those who bribed officials, those who sent slaves in their place, those who fled — with a different penalty for each.
c. 308–310; partly survives
Greek
Pamphilus of Caesarea · d. 309
Written in prison with Eusebius's help, answering charge by charge the accusations against Origen's orthodoxy, mostly by quoting him at length.
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. 313–320
Greek
Praeparatio Evangelica
Eusebius of Caesarea · c. 260–339
Fifteen books arguing that Christians were right to prefer Hebrew scripture to Greek philosophy, assembled from enormous quotations of pagan authors.
c. 313–316
Latin
De Mortibus Persecutorum
Lactantius · c. 250–c. 325
A grimly satisfied account of how each emperor who persecuted the church came to a bad end, closing with Constantine's victory and the edict of toleration.
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.
c. 318
Greek
Contra Gentes
Athanasius of Alexandria · c. 296–373
The first half of a two-part work, arguing that idolatry is a fall from the knowledge of God available through the soul and the order of creation.
c. 320; survives in fragments
Greek
Arius · c. 256–336
A popular verse exposition, apparently written to be sung, arguing that the Son is the first and greatest of creatures, made before time but not eternal.
c. 313–325
Greek
Historia Ecclesiastica
Eusebius of Caesarea · c. 260–339
A history of the church from the apostles to Constantine, assembled from documents, letters, and now-lost sources that Eusebius quotes at length because he had them and knew others might not.
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. 320–330
Greek
Onomasticon
Eusebius of Caesarea · c. 260–339
An alphabetical gazetteer of biblical places, giving each one's location in the fourth-century landscape and whether the village was still standing.
333
Latin
Itinerarium Burdigalense
Anonymous
A bare itinerary from Bordeaux to Jerusalem listing every staging post and change of horses, with terse notes on the holy places seen at the end.
c. 337–339
Greek
Vita Constantini
Eusebius of Caesarea · c. 260–339
A frankly admiring portrait of the first Christian emperor, including the vision of the cross before the Milvian Bridge and the documents of his religious policy quoted in full.
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.
337–345
Syriac
Aphrahat · c. 280–c. 345
Twenty-three treatises by the Persian Sage on faith, love, fasting, prayer, war, humility, and the sons of the covenant — written entirely outside the Greek theological world.
c. 346–350
Latin
De Errore Profanarum Religionum
Firmicus Maternus
An appeal to the sons of Constantine to suppress the mystery cults by force, describing their rites in detail in order to condemn them.
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. 350–355
Greek
De Decretis
Athanasius of Alexandria · c. 296–373
A defence of the council's use of a word not found in scripture, arguing that non-biblical language was needed precisely to protect the biblical sense.
c. 358
Greek
Athanasius of Alexandria · c. 296–373
A partisan account of the persecution of Nicene bishops under Constantius, written in hiding, and among the earliest Christian arguments that an emperor has no authority over doctrine.
c. 356–360
Latin
De Trinitate
Hilary of Poitiers · c. 310–367
Twelve books written in exile in Asia Minor, bringing the Greek arguments against Arianism into Latin for a Western church that had barely followed the controversy.
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.
c. 360
Greek
Vita Antonii
Athanasius of Alexandria · c. 296–373
The life of the Egyptian hermit who heard the gospel read in church, sold everything, and went into the desert — told as a spiritual biography of temptation, discipline, and eventual public authority.
c. 363
Latin
Marius Victorinus · c. 290–c. 364
The work of an elderly and celebrated rhetorician whose late conversion caused a sensation in Rome, reading Paul with a Neoplatonist's philosophical vocabulary.
c. 364
Greek
Basil the Great · c. 330–379
A reply to the claim that human beings can know the essence of God as God knows it, distinguishing what God is in himself from what can be known of him through his activities.
c. 364–367
Latin
Hilary of Poitiers · c. 310–367
Expositions of selected psalms written after his return from exile, applying Greek exegetical method to the Latin psalter.
c. 350–373
Syriac
Ephrem the Syrian · c. 306–373
Nativity hymns written for choirs of women to sing, turning on the paradox of the one who fills all things becoming small enough to be carried.
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.
c. 363–373
Syriac
Ephrem the Syrian · c. 306–373
Polemic set to popular tunes, answering the followers of Bardaisan, Marcion, and Mani in the same metres they used for their own hymns.
c. 370
Greek
Basil the Great · c. 330–379
Advice to his nephews on reading pagan authors: take what is useful as bees take from flowers, and leave the rest.
c. 360–373
Syriac
Ephrem the Syrian · c. 306–373
An exposition of Tatian's gospel harmony, reading each scene for its layers of meaning in the associative Syriac manner rather than the Greek analytic one.
c. 350–373
Syriac
Ephrem the Syrian · c. 306–373
Fifteen hymns imagining paradise as a mountain of ascending terraces, reading Genesis through image and paradox rather than argument.
c. 358–375
Greek
Asketikon
Basil the Great · c. 330–379
Questions and answers on the common life, arguing that solitude makes the commandment to love one's neighbour unpracticable, and binding monks to hospitals, orphanages, and schools.
c. 371
Greek
Gregory of Nyssa · c. 335–c. 395
A commendation of the celibate life written, as its author admits with some regret, by a married man who can only describe the country from outside.
375
Greek
De Spiritu Sancto
Basil the Great · c. 330–379
An argument built on prepositions: Basil defends worshipping the Spirit with the Father and the Son, appealing to the church's unwritten liturgical practice as evidence of what it has always believed.
357–378
Greek
Basil the Great · c. 330–379
Over three hundred letters of consolation, canon law, church politics, famine relief, and friendship, including the canonical letters that still govern Orthodox penitential practice.
c. 375–377
Latin
Jerome · c. 347–420
A short and frankly legendary life claiming that an older hermit than Antony had lived unknown in the desert, fed daily by a raven.
374–377
Greek
Panarion
Epiphanius of Salamis · c. 315–403
Eighty heresies described and refuted in order, each presented as a snakebite for which the book supplies the antidote, quoting sources now lost.
c. 378
Greek
Basil the Great · c. 330–379
Nine sermons on the six days of creation, preached morning and evening to a working congregation, refusing allegory and dwelling instead on the natural world as it actually is.
1–40 of 87 matching · 1277 in the Library