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.
601–700
55 works
c. 605–615
Syriac
Babai the Great · c. 551–628
A systematic christology of two natures and two hypostases in one person of union, worked out for a church living under Persian rule with no emperor to appeal to.
c. 598–615
Latin
De Ecclesiasticis Officiis
Isidore of Seville · c. 560–636
An account of the origin of each order of ministry and each part of the liturgy, written to explain to Spanish clergy why they do what they do.
c. 613
Latin
De Natura Rerum
Isidore of Seville · c. 560–636
A short handbook on the heavens, the seasons, thunder, tides, and pestilence, written for a Visigothic king who had asked about eclipses.
c. 615–619
Greek
Pratum Spirituale
John Moschus · c. 550–619
Over two hundred short anecdotes collected on a lifetime of travel between the monasteries of Palestine, Sinai, and Egypt, gathered as the Persian invasion destroyed them.
c. 612–615
Latin
Sententiae
Isidore of Seville · c. 560–636
Three books of doctrine and moral instruction assembled almost entirely from Augustine and Gregory the Great, arranged by topic.
c. 600–650
Greek
Klimax
John Climacus · c. 579–c. 649
Thirty steps from renunciation to love, each a chapter on one virtue or vice, written by an abbot of Sinai in a compressed and aphoristic Greek.
c. 620
Greek
Antiochus of Palestine · 7th century
A hundred and thirty short chapters on the virtues and vices, compiled at the monastery of Mar Saba for monks scattered by the Persian sack of Jerusalem.
c. 620–636; unfinished at his death
Latin
Etymologiae
Isidore of Seville · c. 560–636
Twenty books explaining the whole of knowledge by way of the origins of words — grammar, medicine, law, God, animals, ships, farming, furniture.
c. 626
Greek
Maximus the Confessor · c. 580–662
Four hundred short sentences on the passions, self-love, and the love that reaches through the neighbour to God, in the tradition of Evagrius but corrected on the body.
c. 622–630
Greek
George of Pisidia · 7th century
Verse accounts of Heraclius's Persian campaigns and the siege of Constantinople, alongside a poem on the six days of creation.
c. 628–630
Greek
Maximus the Confessor · c. 580–662
A reading of the eucharistic liturgy in which the church building, the entrances, and the readings each figure the movement of the whole cosmos toward God.
c. 628–634
Greek
Maximus the Confessor · c. 580–662
Solutions to difficult passages in Gregory of Nazianzus and Pseudo-Dionysius, which become an entire cosmology of the logoi — the divine intentions by which each created thing is what it is.
c. 630
Greek
Thalassius the Libyan · 7th century
Four hundred brief sentences on the ascetic life addressed to a fellow monk, closely related to the work of his friend Maximus.
c. 630
Greek
Chronicon Paschale
Anonymous
A world chronicle from Adam to 628, organised around the Easter cycle, with a detailed eyewitness account of the Avar siege of Constantinople.
c. 630–634
Greek
Maximus the Confessor · c. 580–662
Sixty-five answers to difficulties in scripture, each opening into an argument about the passions, the fall, and how the incarnation heals the will.
c. 632–633
Latin
Cummian · 7th century
An Irish abbot explains why, after a year shut in with the computistical texts, he has abandoned the Irish Easter reckoning for the Roman one.
633
Latin
The Fourth Council of Toledo
Seventy-five canons standardising the Spanish liturgy and clerical education, and regulating the status of Jews and of forcibly baptised converts.
634
Greek
Sophronius of Jerusalem · c. 560–638
A newly elected patriarch's statement of faith, insisting against the imperial compromise that Christ has two natural activities, not one.
c. 634–640
Greek
Doctrina Jacobi Nuper Baptizati
Anonymous
A dialogue among Jews forcibly baptised at Carthage, arguing about the messiah, and reporting in passing a prophet arisen among the Saracens.
c. 635–650
Syriac
Sahdona · 7th century
A long treatise on the monastic life whose second part turns to prayer, the reading of scripture, and the fear of God with unusual warmth.
c. 641–642
Greek
Leontius of Neapolis · 7th century
The life of a patriarch of Alexandria who kept a register of the city's poor, called them his lords and masters, and ran hospitals and hostels from church funds.
c. 639–643
Latin
Jonas of Bobbio · 7th century
The life of the Irish founder of Luxeuil and Bobbio, written a generation later by a monk of his own house, including his quarrel with the Frankish court.
645
Greek
Maximus the Confessor · c. 580–662
The transcript of a public debate at Carthage in which Maximus argues that a will belongs to a nature rather than a person, so Christ must have two.
c. 640–660
Greek
Leontius of Neapolis · 7th century
The life of a monk who left the desert for the city and feigned madness — dragging a dead dog through the gate, upsetting market stalls — to hide his holiness and shame the respectable.
c. 650–680
Latin
Cogitosus · 7th century
The life of the abbess of Kildare, full of miracles of provision — butter multiplied, beer for churches — and a description of her double monastery of men and women.
c. 630–658
Syriac
Isho'yahb III · d. 659
The correspondence of a patriarch governing his church through the Arab conquest, including complaints that Christians in Oman were abandoning the faith over a tax.
c. 660
Latin
Ildefonsus of Toledo · c. 607–667
An ornate defence of Mary's virginity written in a deliberately elaborate style, addressed to three named unbelievers as if in court.
c. 660
Latin
Anonymous
A Frankish world chronicle continuing Gregory of Tours, in Latin so broken that historians use it to study the emergence of the Romance languages.
c. 660–680
Syriac
Anonymous
A short Syriac chronicle covering the end of the Sasanian empire and the Arab conquest, written by a Christian in what is now south-western Iran.
c. 661
Armenian
Attributed to Sebeos · 7th century
A history of Armenia between the Persian and Roman empires, ending with the Arab conquests and an early outside account of the preaching of Muhammad.
c. 660–670
Armenian
Anania Shirakatsi · c. 610–685
A treatise on the shape of the earth, the movement of the heavens, and the calendar, by a scholar who travelled to Byzantium to find someone who could teach him mathematics.
c. 658–680
Old English
Caedmon · 7th century
Nine lines in praise of the creator, said by Bede to have been given in a dream to an illiterate cowherd at Whitby who then became a poet.
c. 680
Syriac
Shem'on d-Taybutheh · 7th century
A physician-monk describes the stages of contemplative prayer alongside an account of the brain, the nerves, and the humours, treating soul and body as one subject.
c. 670–690
Syriac
Isaac of Nineveh · 7th century
Homilies on solitude, tears, humility, and the merciful heart that burns for the whole creation — including the argument that even hell is the working of love.
680–681
Greek
The Third Council of Constantinople
The sixth ecumenical council declares two natural wills and two natural operations in Christ, the human will always freely following the divine.
c. 679–688
Latin
De Locis Sanctis
Adomnán of Iona · c. 624–704
A description of Jerusalem, Palestine, and Egypt taken down from a Frankish bishop shipwrecked on Iona, complete with sketch plans of churches.
c. 680–690
Latin
Enigmata
Aldhelm · c. 639–709
A hundred verse riddles in which ordinary things — a candle, a bookcase, silkworms, a storm — speak in the first person about what they are.
c. 680–690
Syriac
Dadisho Qatraya · 7th century
A commentary on an earlier ascetic classic, written for solitaries and much concerned with the discipline of the seven weeks of enclosed retreat.
c. 686
Greek
Hodegos
Anastasius of Sinai · c. 630–c. 700
A practical manual for arguing with Miaphysites, including definitions of the technical terms, advice on debating tactics, and warnings about opponents' tricks.
c. 687
Syriac
Ktaba d-rish melle
John bar Penkaye · 7th century
A world history in fifteen books whose last section covers the author's own lifetime — the Arab conquests, a civil war among the conquerors, and a plague.
1–40 of 55 matching · 1277 in the Library