The Library
1577 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.
101–200
1 work
c. 190; survives in fragment
Greek
Polycrates of Ephesus · c. 130–196
A courteous refusal: the churches of Asia will keep Easter on the fourteenth of Nisan as their fathers did, whatever Rome prefers, and Polycrates lists the graves that prove it.
201–300
1 work
c. 235; recovered at Tura in 1941
Greek
Peri Pascha
Origen of Alexandria · c. 185 – c. 253
An argument that pascha does not mean passion, as everyone was saying, but passage — and that the lamb eaten in haste with the loins girded is the Word consumed by a soul already on the road out.
301–400
1 work
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.
501–600
2 works
525
Latin
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.
c. 595–613
Latin
Columbanus · c. 543–615
Letters to three popes and to his own monks, defending the Irish Easter calculation and addressing the bishop of Rome with startling directness.
601–700
2 works
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. 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.
701–800
1 work
725
Latin
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.
1001–1100
1 work
c. 1040
Latin
Wipo of Burgundy · c. 995–c. 1050
An Easter sequence in dialogue form, asking Mary Magdalene what she saw on the way and letting her answer.
9 of 1577 works