Forty Centuries of Christian Writing

The Calendar of Willibrord

Willibrord and his circle · c. 658–739

A working liturgical calendar from a missionary bishop's own book, with a marginal note in his hand recording the year of his consecration.

The Great Canon

Andrew of Crete · c. 650–740

Two hundred and fifty stanzas of penitence, running through the whole Bible and applying every figure in it to the singer's own soul.

The Life of Wilfrid

Stephen of Ripon · 8th century

The combative career of the bishop who argued the Roman case at Whitby, was repeatedly expelled from his see, and twice appealed to Rome over the head of his king.

The First Roman Ordo

Ordo Romanus I

Anonymous

A stage-by-stage description of a papal mass in Rome — the procession, the vesting, who carries what, where each official stands.

Commentary on Luke

The Venerable Bede · c. 673–735

A patient exposition of the third gospel that marks in the margin which father each borrowed passage comes from, so a reader can tell Bede's own words from Ambrose's.

The Disputation of the Monk of Bet Hale

Anonymous

A conversation between a monk and an Arab notable staying at his monastery, ranging over the cross, images, and why Christians do not pray toward a single direction.

On the Tabernacle

The Venerable Bede · c. 673–735

An allegorical reading of the desert tabernacle in which every measurement, curtain, and vessel figures the church and the Christian life.

On the Reckoning of Time

De Temporum Ratione

The Venerable Bede · c. 673–735

A complete treatment of time — the day, the moon, the tides, the Easter cycle — closing with a world chronicle and an account of the six ages.

Lives of the Abbots of Wearmouth and Jarrow

The Venerable Bede · c. 673–735

The history of his own monastery through its founders, including the book-buying journeys to Rome that built the library Bede worked in.

The Scarapsus

Pirmin · d. 753

A short handbook of the faith for missionaries working among recently converted Germanic peoples, running from creation to judgement and listing forbidden pagan customs.

The Greater Chronicle

The Venerable Bede · c. 673–735

A universal chronicle from creation to 725 arranged in six ages, forming the closing section of On the Reckoning of Time.

On the Divine Liturgy

Germanus of Constantinople · c. 634–c. 740

A commentary reading each part of the eucharistic service as a moment in the life of Christ, with the church building itself as heaven on earth.

Three Treatises on the Divine Images

John of Damascus · c. 675–749

A defence of icons written from safety under Muslim rule against a Christian emperor destroying them, arguing that since God took flesh, matter may be depicted and honoured.

Letter to Egbert

The Venerable Bede · c. 673–735

Written months before his death to a former pupil now a bishop, complaining of absentee clergy, fraudulent monasteries founded as tax shelters, and dioceses too large to serve.

Letter on the Death of Bede

Cuthbert of Jarrow · 8th century

A pupil's account of Bede's last days, dictating a translation of John's gospel into English between fits of breathlessness and finishing the final sentence on the day he died.

The Life of Guthlac

Felix · 8th century

A warrior of noble birth becomes a hermit on an island in the fens, where he is tormented by demons who speak British and drag him to the mouth of hell.

The Letters

Boniface · c. 675–754

The correspondence of an English missionary among the Germans — requests for books and warm clothing, appeals to Rome, complaints about wandering bishops, and letters to and from abbesses at home.

The Fount of Knowledge

Pege Gnoseos

John of Damascus · c. 675–749

Three parts — philosophical definitions, a catalogue of a hundred heresies, and the exposition of the orthodox faith — assembled as one complete course of instruction.

The Canons

Cosmas of Maiuma · c. 675–c. 751

Festal hymns in the canon form for Christmas, Epiphany, and Holy Week, written at Mar Saba alongside his foster-brother John of Damascus.

The Sacred Parallels

Sacra Parallela

John of Damascus · c. 675–749

An alphabetical anthology of scriptural and patristic passages arranged by subject, pairing virtues with the vices opposed to them.

The Penitential of Egbert

Egbert of York · d. 766

A northern English tariff of penances covering perjury, theft, violence, sexual sin, and the eating of blood, with reductions for the poor and the ill.

The Dream of the Rood

Anonymous

A dreamer sees the cross, which then speaks: a tree cut down and made to hold its lord, forbidden to bend or fall, sharing the wounds driven through him.

The Ecclesiastical History of the English People

Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum

The Venerable Bede · c. 673–735

The conversion of the English told from Roman Britain to Bede's own day, with named sources, dated events, and a monk's eye for the moment a king's council decides the fate of a people.

The Definition of the Council of Hieria

The Council of Hieria

The iconoclast council's ruling that any image of Christ either divides his natures or confuses them, and that the only permitted image is the eucharist.

The Rule for Canons

Chrodegang of Metz · c. 712–766

A rule for cathedral clergy living in common — shared meals, a daily chapter meeting, a dormitory — without the vow of poverty a monk would take.

On the Triune Nature of God

Anonymous

A defence of the Trinity and the incarnation for a Muslim readership, arguing from the Qur'an's own vocabulary as readily as from the Bible.

The Life of Boniface

Willibald · 8th century

The career of the missionary from Devon who felled the oak of Thor at Geismar, reorganised the Frankish church, and was killed in Frisia holding a book over his head.

Commentary on the Apocalypse

Ambrosius Autpertus · c. 730–784

Ten books reading Revelation as the present life of the church rather than a forecast, with long passages on the interior conflict of the soul.

Letter on the Three Stages of the Solitary Life

Joseph Hazzaya · 8th century

A map of the spiritual life in three stages — bodily, psychic, spiritual — with a precise phenomenology of the lights and stirrings that accompany each.

The Homilies and Letters

John of Dalyatha · 8th century

Writings of a solitary in the mountains of northern Iraq on the vision of the divine light and the wonder that overtakes the mind in prayer.

The Chronicle of Zuqnin

Anonymous

A world chronicle whose final book is a monk's eyewitness account of plague, famine, locusts, and Abbasid taxation in northern Mesopotamia.

Commentary on the Apocalypse

Beatus of Liébana · c. 730–800

A compilation of earlier commentary on Revelation assembled in the Asturian mountains, and copied for centuries in manuscripts illuminated with the most startling images in medieval art.

The Life of Willibald

Hodoeporicon

Hugeburc of Heidenheim · 8th century

An account of a seven-year pilgrimage from England to Jerusalem and back, taken down from the traveller's own dictation, including his arrest as a spy and a smuggled jar of balsam.

The Apology before the Caliph al-Mahdi

Timothy I · c. 728–823

A patriarch's own record of two days of courteous questioning by the caliph on the Trinity, the crucifixion, and whether the gospels foretold Muhammad.

Against Elipandus

Beatus of Liébana and Etherius of Osma

A furious reply to the archbishop of Toledo, who had taught that Christ in his humanity is God's son by adoption rather than by nature.

The Homiliary

Paul the Deacon · c. 720–799

Patristic sermons selected and arranged for every day of the church year, commissioned by Charlemagne to give clergy something reliable to read aloud.

The Definition of the Second Council of Nicaea

The Second Council of Nicaea

The seventh ecumenical council restores images, distinguishing the honour offered to an icon, which passes to its subject, from the worship due to God alone.

History of the Lombards

Paul the Deacon · c. 720–799

The Lombard people from their origins in Scandinavia to the eighth century, told with a storyteller's ear for legend and a courtier's caution.

The General Admonition

Admonitio Generalis

Charlemagne and his court

Eighty-two chapters ordering the clergy of the empire to correct their books, learn the creed and the Lord's Prayer, preach in a language people understand, and open schools.

The Gregorian Sacramentary

Anonymous

The book of prayers said by the celebrant at mass, sent from Rome to Charlemagne and then supplemented to cover what Frankish use required.