The Library
1693 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.
300–201 BC
1 work
begun c. 250 BC, completed over two centuries
Greek
The translators of Alexandria
The Hebrew scriptures rendered into Greek at Alexandria, beginning with the Torah under Ptolemy II and extending over generations to the rest. Its readings often differ from the Hebrew that later became standard, and its Jeremiah is a seventh shorter.
200–101 BC
2 works
c. 180 BC; Greek translation c. 132 BC
Hebrew
Ecclesiasticus
Jesus ben Sira
A Jerusalem teacher's collected wisdom on friendship, money, daughters, physicians, table manners, and the fear of the Lord, ending with a hymn in praise of famous men that runs from Enoch to the high priest Simon coming out of the sanctuary.
c. 2nd century BC
Hebrew
1–100
1 work
c. 97
Greek
Contra Apionem
Flavius Josephus · c. 37 – c. 100
A defence of Jewish antiquity against Greek writers who said the nation was recent and its books unreliable, answering the slanders about the temple one by one and setting out which books the Jews count as sacred and why.
101–200
6 works
c. 144; reconstructed from quotations
Greek
Marcion of Sinope · c. 85 – c. 160
One gospel and ten letters of Paul, with the Old Testament discarded entirely and everything Marcion judged to be Judaizing interpolation cut away. There is no nativity; the Lord simply appears at Capernaum in the fifteenth year of Tiberius.
c. 144; lost, known through opponents
Greek
Marcion of Sinope · c. 85–c. 160
A systematic set of contradictions between the Old Testament and the gospel, arguing that the creator God of Israel is a lesser being than the alien God of love revealed by Jesus. Known only from the refutations of Tertullian and others.
c. 160–190
Greek
Anonymous
A letter from the Corinthians reporting two teachers who deny the resurrection of the flesh, and Paul's reply insisting on it from the seed sown in the ground and the bones of Elisha that raised a dead man on contact.
c. 180
Greek
Adversus Haereses
Irenaeus of Lyons · c. 130–c. 202
Five books setting out the Gnostic systems in detail and then dismantling them, on the grounds that the God who made matter is the God who redeemed it, and that Christ recapitulates in himself everything Adam lost.
c. 170–200; date disputed
Latin
Anonymous
A damaged list of the books a Roman congregation read publicly, with brief comments on why some are accepted, some allowed privately, and some rejected outright.
c. 200; survives in a fragment
Greek
Serapion of Antioch · d. c. 211
A bishop who had allowed a congregation at Rhossus to read the Gospel of Peter without looking at it first writes back, having now read it, to withdraw permission — receiving Peter and the other apostles as Christ, but rejecting what falsely bears their names.
201–300
6 works
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. 236
Greek
Origen of Alexandria · c. 185 – c. 253
Africanus had written to say that the story of Susanna cannot be genuine, since its wordplay works only in Greek. Origen concedes the philological point and argues for keeping the book anyway, on the ground that the churches read it and providence has provided for the churches.
c. 244; survives in Latin
Greek, surviving in Latin
Origen of Alexandria · c. 185 – c. 253
Thirty-nine short sermons on the infancy narrative and the opening of the ministry, opening with the observation that many had tried to write gospels and only four were approved — and naming some of the others.
c. 240–270; survives in fragments
Syriac
Evangelion
Mani · 216–274 or 277
The first of Mani's own scriptures, arranged in twenty-two chapters after the letters of the Syriac alphabet, opening with his declaration that he is an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of the Father — the same words Paul used, claimed for a different revelation.
c. 260–264; survives in fragments
Greek
Dionysius of Alexandria · c. 190 – c. 265
An answer to Egyptian millenarians, arguing on grounds of vocabulary, grammar, and style that whoever wrote Revelation cannot be the man who wrote the fourth gospel — the one writes flawless Greek and never names himself, the other names himself constantly and writes barbarously.
c. 3rd–4th century
Latin
Attributed to Paul
Twenty short verses supplying the letter Colossians 4:16 says Paul sent to Laodicea and which nobody had. It is assembled almost entirely out of phrases from Philippians and says nothing that Paul had not already written elsewhere — which may be why it survived so long unchallenged.
301–400
4 works
c. 314–324; ten of twenty books survive
Greek
Demonstratio Evangelica
Eusebius of Caesarea · c. 260 – c. 340
The companion to the Preparation, and the harder half: having shown why Christians abandoned Greek religion, Eusebius now has to show why they kept the Jewish scriptures while refusing the Jewish law. The answer runs through the prophets text by text, arguing that the patriarchs lived by a religion older than the law and that Christians have returned to it.
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.
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.
397
Latin
The Council of Carthage
Rulings of a North African synod on clergy, discipline, and the books that may be read in church as divine scripture.
401–500
1 work
c. 500; attribution disputed
Latin
Anonymous
A Roman list of the canonical scriptures, the approved councils and fathers, and a long catalogue of books to be rejected as apocryphal.
501–600
1 work
508; survives in fragments
Syriac
Polycarp, for Philoxenus of Mabbug
A new Syriac New Testament commissioned because the Peshitta was judged too loose to settle Christological arguments, and because it lacked five books. It included 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and Revelation for the first time in Syriac.
601–700
1 work
c. 611
Greek
Andrew of Caesarea
Revelation read on three levels at once — literal, moral, and spiritual — with the millennium taken as the present age of the church rather than a coming one, and Gog and Magog as nations still to appear.
23 of 1693 works