c. 500–510
Syriac
The Discourses
Philoxenus of Mabbug · c. 440–523
Thirteen instructions for monks on faith, simplicity, the fear of God, gluttony and lust, written in a Syriac of unusual clarity and almost no polemic.
Miaphysite · Homilies
501–600
The Sixth Century
60 works
c. 500–510
Latin
On the Principles of Music
De Institutione Musica
Boethius · c. 477–524
Music treated as a branch of mathematics rather than an art, dividing it into the music of the cosmos, of the human person, and of instruments.
Late Antique · Treatise
c. 500–510
Latin
On Spiritual History
De Spiritalis Historiae Gestis
Avitus of Vienne · c. 470–c. 519
Five books of hexameters on creation, the fall, the sentence, the flood, and the crossing of the Red Sea, with a serpent given real rhetorical craft.
c. 500–520; first cited 533
Greek
The Corpus Areopagiticum
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite
Four treatises and ten letters written under the name of Paul's Athenian convert: on the divine names, on mystical theology, and on the ranked hierarchies of angels and of the church.
c. 500–520
Greek
The Mystical Theology
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite
Five very short chapters stripping away every name given to God, affirmative and negative alike, until the soul is united to the one beyond assertion and denial.
Byzantine · Mystical
511
Latin
The Life of Severinus
Eugippius · c. 465–c. 535
The life of a monk who organised the defence, provisioning, and eventual evacuation of the Roman towns along the Danube as the frontier collapsed.
Western · Biography
c. 512–534
Latin
Rule for Nuns
Regula Virginum
Caesarius of Arles · c. 470–542
A rule for a community of women written for his sister's monastery, requiring strict enclosure, insisting every nun learn to read, and forbidding the acceptance of dowries.
Western Monastic · Rule
c. 512–513
Latin
Against Eutyches and Nestorius
Contra Eutychen et Nestorium
Boethius · c. 477–524
A short treatise applying strict logical definitions to the christological question, and defining a person as an individual substance of a rational nature.
Late Antique · Theology
512–538
Syriac
The Letters and Cathedral Homilies
Severus of Antioch · c. 465–538
The correspondence and preaching of the greatest Miaphysite theologian, surviving almost entirely in Syriac translation after the Greek was destroyed.
Miaphysite · Letters
c. 500–518
Greek
Theophrastus
Aeneas of Gaza · d. c. 518
A Platonic dialogue arguing against the pre-existence of souls and the eternity of the world, and for the resurrection of the body.
Byzantine · Dialogue
c. 503–542
Latin
The Sermons
Caesarius of Arles · c. 470–542
Around two hundred and fifty short sermons in deliberately plain Latin, attacking drunkenness, sorcery, and the survival of pagan festivals among nominally Christian peasants.
Western · Homilies
c. 518–522
Latin
On the Trinity
De Trinitate
Boethius · c. 477–524
A very short treatise applying the Aristotelian categories to God, and asking which of them can be predicated of a being who is wholly simple.
Late Antique · Theology
c. 520
Latin
The Life of Saint Genevieve
Anonymous
The life of the consecrated woman who is said to have kept Paris from panic when Attila approached, and organised grain convoys during a siege.
Western · Biography
c. 523
Latin
To Peter on the Faith
De Fide ad Petrum
Fulgentius of Ruspe · c. 462–527
A compact rule of faith written for a man setting off for Jerusalem, summarising Augustine's teaching on the Trinity, the incarnation, and predestination in numbered propositions.
Western · Handbook
c. 524
Latin
The Consolation of Philosophy
De Consolatione Philosophiae
Boethius · c. 477–524
Written in prison awaiting execution on a false charge. Lady Philosophy visits the condemned man and works him through fortune, happiness, providence, and how human freedom survives divine foreknowledge.
Late Antique · Dialogue
524
Syriac
Letter on the Himyarite Martyrs
Simeon of Beth Arsham · d. c. 540
An eyewitness report of the massacre of the Christians of Najran in southern Arabia, naming the dead and describing the burning of the church.
Miaphysite · Letter
525
Latin
The Easter Tables
Dionysius Exiguus · c. 470–c. 544
A continuation of the Alexandrian Easter cycle in which the compiler declined to number years from the persecuting emperor Diocletian and counted instead from the incarnation.
Western · Chronology
c. 500–526
Latin
The Dionysian Collection of Canons
Dionysius Exiguus · c. 470–c. 544
Greek conciliar canons translated into Latin and gathered with the decretals of the popes into a single ordered collection.
Western · Canon law
529
Greek
Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World
John Philoponus · c. 490–c. 570
A Christian grammarian dismantles the Aristotelian arguments for an eternal universe, and in doing so attacks Aristotle's physics of motion and the fifth element.
Alexandrian · Philosophy
529
Latin
The Canons of the Second Council of Orange
The Council of Orange
Twenty-five canons settling the long quarrel over grace: the beginning of faith is itself God's gift, but the council pointedly declines to teach predestination to damnation.
Western · Canons
c. 500–530
Latin
The Rule of the Master
Regula Magistri
Anonymous
An enormously detailed and controlling rule for an Italian monastery, prescribing everything from the abbot's absolute authority to who inspects the loaves.
Western Monastic · Rule
c. 530
Latin
The Rule of Saint Benedict
Regula Benedicti
Benedict of Nursia · c. 480–c. 547
Seventy-three short chapters ordering a monastery's day around prayer, reading, and manual work, with a striking moderation about food, sleep, and the failings of ordinary people.
begun c. 530, continued to the 9th century
Latin
The Book of the Pontiffs
Liber Pontificalis
Anonymous
Serial biographies of the bishops of Rome from Peter onward, recording each one's origin, building projects, ordinations, and burial place.
Western · Chronicle
537
Latin
The Variae
Cassiodorus · c. 485–c. 585
Official letters drafted for the Ostrogothic kings of Italy, collected as models of style, and covering everything from theology to sewer repair and the price of pepper.
Western · Letters
c. 540
Latin
Commentary on the Apocalypse
Primasius of Hadrumetum · d. c. 560
A North African exposition drawing heavily on Tyconius and Augustine, reading the visions as the church's present struggle rather than a timetable.
Western · CommentaryRevelation
c. 520–555
Greek
The Kontakia
Romanos the Melodist · c. 490–c. 556
Long sung sermons in stanzas with a repeated refrain, giving speeches to Mary, to Judas, to the woman at the well, and to Adam pleading at the gate of paradise.
c. 525–545
Greek
The Letters
Barsanuphius and John of Gaza · 6th century
Around eight hundred and fifty replies from two enclosed elders to monks and laypeople who wrote to them with questions, from prayer and doubt to lawsuits and illness.
Byzantine · Letters
c. 530–545
Latin
On the Ruin of Britain
De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae
Gildas · c. 500–c. 570
A furious sermon on the Saxon conquest as divine judgement, naming five British kings and denouncing them and the clergy in scriptural language.
Celtic · Polemic
c. 542
Latin
Handbook of the Divine Law
Instituta Regularia Divinae Legis
Junillus Africanus
A catechism-style introduction to reading scripture — its kinds of book, its authority, its style — adapted from a Syriac original of the school of Nisibis.
Western · Hermeneutics
543
Greek
Letter to Menas Against Origen
Justinian I · 482–565
An imperial letter listing and condemning the errors attributed to Origen — pre-existent souls, the restoration of all things — and requiring bishops to subscribe.
Byzantine · Edict
c. 543
Greek
Against the Nestorians and Eutychians
Leontius of Byzantium · c. 485–c. 543
A technical defence of Chalcedon arguing that Christ's humanity has no independent person of its own but subsists within the person of the Word.
Byzantine · Theology
544
Latin
On the Acts of the Apostles
De Actibus Apostolorum
Arator · c. 490–c. 550
Acts retold in hexameters and read allegorically throughout, publicly recited over four days in a Roman basilica to enthusiastic crowds.
Western · PoetryActs
c. 540–544
Syriac
The Synodical Canons
Mar Aba I · d. 552
Rulings by a convert from Zoroastrianism who became patriarch, chiefly on marriage law, forbidding the close-kin unions customary in Persian society.
Church of the East · Canon law
c. 546
Latin
Abridgement of the Canons
Breviatio Canonum
Ferrandus of Carthage · d. c. 546
Two hundred and thirty-two canons drawn from Greek and African councils and rearranged by subject rather than by council.
Western · Canon law
547–548
Latin
In Defence of the Three Chapters
Facundus of Hermiane · 6th century
Twelve books arguing that condemning long-dead theologians to appease the Miaphysites betrays Chalcedon, addressed to the emperor who was doing it.
Western · Polemic
c. 540–548
Latin
Exposition of the Psalms
Expositio Psalmorum
Cassiodorus · c. 485–c. 585
A commentary on all one hundred and fifty psalms that pauses constantly to identify figures of speech, treating the psalter as a textbook of rhetoric as well as prayer.
Western · CommentaryPsalms
c. 525–550
Latin
The Penitential of Finnian
Finnian · 6th century
A tariff of penances matching each sin with its remedy, and prescribing that contraries be cured by contraries — the greedy to give, the angry to be patient.
Celtic · Penitential
c. 547–550
Greek
Christian Topography
Cosmas Indicopleustes · 6th century
A merchant-turned-monk argues that the universe is shaped like the tabernacle of Moses, and reports at first hand on the Christians of Ceylon and the Malabar coast.
c. 550–569
Syriac
The Chronicle
Pseudo-Zachariah of Mytilene
A Syriac compilation covering the fifth and sixth centuries from a Miaphysite standpoint, incorporating an earlier Greek history now lost.
Miaphysite · History
551
Latin
The Origin and Deeds of the Goths
Getica
Jordanes · 6th century
A condensed version of Cassiodorus's lost Gothic history, tracing the Goths from Scandinavia to Italy and describing the battle against Attila.
Western · History