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
4 works
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. 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. 180–190; survives in fragments
Greek
Rhodon
A pupil of Tatian reports on the state of Marcion's school a generation after its founder: split into factions that cannot agree whether there are two first principles or three, and led by an old man named Apelles who, pressed on how he knew, admitted he did not know and simply believed.
c. 200
Latin
De Praescriptione Haereticorum
Tertullian · c. 155–c. 220
A lawyer's move: Tertullian argues that heretics have no standing to appeal to Scripture at all, because the Scriptures belong to the churches the apostles founded — and asks what Athens has to do with Jerusalem.
201–300
3 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. 213
Latin
Adversus Praxean
Tertullian · c. 155–c. 220
Against the view that Father and Son are merely names for one figure, Tertullian works out a God who is one substance in three persons, and a Christ of two conditions in one person.
c. 222–235
Greek
Philosophumena
Hippolytus of Rome · c. 170–c. 235
Ten books arguing that every heresy is a Greek philosophy in disguise, with long quotations from the systems described and a bitter account of the Roman church under Callistus.
301–400
4 works
c. 363–373
Syriac
Ephrem the Syrian · c. 306–373
Polemic set to popular tunes, answering the followers of Bardaisan, Marcion, and Mani in the same metres they used for their own hymns.
c. 375–380; survives in fragments
Greek
Apollinaris of Laodicea · c. 310 – c. 390
A friend of Athanasius who pressed the unity of Christ until something had to give: the Word took a human body and a human animal soul, but stood himself in the place of the human mind, because two complete beings cannot become one and two wills would be two persons.
374–377
Greek
Panarion
Epiphanius of Salamis · c. 315–403
Eighty heresies described and refuted in order, each presented as a snakebite for which the book supplies the antidote, quoting sources now lost.
c. 380–385; recovered at Würzburg in 1885
Latin
Priscillian of Ávila · c. 340 – 385
Eleven pieces by a Spanish ascetic accused of Manichaeism and magic: a defence answering the charges point by point, an argument that apocryphal books may be read with discernment rather than banned outright, and instruction on fasting and scripture for a lay movement of men and women studying together.
401–500
1 work
434
Latin
Vincent of Lérins · d. c. 445
How to tell catholic truth from novelty: hold what has been believed everywhere, always, and by everyone — with a careful account of how doctrine may nevertheless grow.
701–800
2 works
725
Latin
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.
c. 743
Greek
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.
901–1000
1 work
c. 970–990
Old Church Slavonic
Cosmas the Priest · 10th century
An attack on a Bulgarian movement that rejected the material world, the cross, the sacraments, and the wealthy clergy — while conceding that the clergy deserved much of the criticism.
1001–1100
3 works
c. 1025–1034
Latin
Adémar of Chabannes · c. 989–1034
A history of the Franks and of Aquitaine by a monk who also forged an apostolic pedigree for his own monastery's patron and staged a council to confirm it.
c. 1030–1046
Latin
Rodulfus Glaber · c. 985–c. 1047
A restless monk's account of the years around the millennium — famines, portents, relic discoveries, heretics burned at Orléans, and the world putting on a white mantle of churches.
11th century; attribution debated
Greek
Michael Psellos · 1018–c. 1078
A dialogue classifying demons by the element they inhabit, reporting the practices of a heretical sect, and treating some possession as physical illness.
1101–1200
3 works
c. 1110
Greek
Euthymios Zigabenos · 12th century
A commissioned survey of every heresy from the ancient sects to the Bogomils and Islam, each described and answered from the fathers.
1179
Latin
The Third Lateran Council
Twenty-seven canons requiring a two-thirds majority for papal elections, a free school in every cathedral, and measures against usury, Cathars, and lepers' exclusion from churches.
c. 1188–1190
Latin
Huguccio of Pisa · d. 1210
The most detailed commentary on Gratian, ranging over marriage, papal power, and whether a pope who falls into heresy may be judged by the church.
1201–1300
2 works
c. 1240–1250
Latin
Liber de Duobus Principiis
Anonymous
A scholastic defence of two eternal principles, good and evil, arguing that a wholly good God cannot be the origin of a world containing so much wrong.
c. 1290–1300
Old French
Le Mirouer des simples ames
Marguerite Porete · d. 1310
A dialogue among Love, Reason, and the Soul describing a soul so annihilated in God that it no longer needs the virtues, having become what it loves.
1301–1400
6 works
c. 1323–1324
Latin
Bernard Gui · c. 1261–1331
An inquisitor's manual describing the beliefs of Cathars, Waldensians, and Spiritual Franciscans, with model interrogations and the sentences appropriate to each.
12 November 1323
Latin
Pope John XXII · c. 1244–1334
A bull declaring it heretical to assert that Christ and the apostles owned nothing whatever, overturning what the Franciscans had been taught to believe for a century.
1326
Latin
Rechtfertigungsschrift
Meister Eckhart · c. 1260–1328
A reply to the inquisitors of Cologne, answering each extracted proposition and insisting that he may have erred but cannot be a heretic, since heresy is a matter of the will.
c. 1332–1334
Latin
Opus Nonaginta Dierum
William of Ockham · c. 1287–1347
A line-by-line refutation of the papal bulls on Franciscan poverty, written in three months, arguing that a pope who teaches heresy forfeits his office.
c. 1334–1347
Latin
William of Ockham · c. 1287–1347
An immense unfinished dialogue on heresy, papal error, and where authority in the church finally rests — canvassing every position without always declaring for one.
c. 1379–1381
Latin
John Wycliffe · c. 1328–1384
A denial of transubstantiation on philosophical grounds: an accident cannot exist without a subject, so the bread must remain bread while being also Christ's body sacramentally.
1401–1500
1 work
written 1376; widely copied thereafter
Latin
Directorium Inquisitorum
Nicholas Eymerich · c. 1316–1399
A systematic manual of inquisitorial law and procedure, defining heresy, listing condemned propositions, and prescribing the conduct of trials.
1501–1600
2 works
1524
German
Balthasar Hubmaier · c. 1480–1528
Thirty-six short theses arguing that heretics are to be won by argument and not by fire, and that those who burn them are the greater heretics.
1531
Latin
Michael Servetus · c. 1511–1553
An argument that the Nicene formula is unscriptural and philosophically confused, and that the church went wrong at the moment it adopted the word substance.
32 of 1577 works