Skip to content

The Library

Forty Centuries of Christian Writing

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.

401–500

The Fifth Century

1 work

c. 470–500

Syriac

Sermons on Faith

Memre

Narsai · c. 399–c. 502

Metrical homilies from the school of Nisibis on creation, the incarnation, baptism, and the eucharist, in the Antiochene christological tradition.

Church of the East · Verse homilies

501–600

The Sixth Century

1 work

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

601–700

The Seventh Century

5 works

c. 605–615

Syriac

The Book of the Union

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.

Church of the East · Theology

c. 615

Syriac

Commentary on the Liturgical Offices

Gabriel of Qatar

A working explanation of the daily office as celebrated in the Gulf: why the psalms fall in that order, what each procession and each veil means, and what a monk should be thinking during the parts where nothing is said.

Church of the East · CommentaryPsalmsMatthew1 Corinthians

c. 635–650

Syriac

The Book of Perfection

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.

Church of the East · Ascetical

c. 635–641

Chinese

The Sutra of Jesus the Messiah

Alopen and the Church of the East mission

The gospel explained to a Tang audience in Buddhist and Daoist vocabulary: God is the Emperor of Heaven, the Messiah is born of the Cool Breeze upon a chosen woman, and the duties owed are to God, to the emperor, and to one's parents, in that order.

Church of the East · TreatiseMatthewLukeJohnExodus

c. 630–658

Syriac

The Letters

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.

Church of the East · Letters

701–800

The Eighth Century

1 work

c. 760–780

Syriac

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.

Church of the East · Mystical