The Library
1774 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.
1400–1301 BC
1 work
c. 1350 BC
Egyptian
Attributed to Akhenaten
Carved in a courtier's tomb at Amarna. When the sun sets the land is in darkness as though dead, lions come out and every snake bites; when it rises the Two Lands are in festival, people wash and dress and lift their arms, the cattle browse, the birds fly up with wings adoring.
300–201 BC
1 work
c. 260–250 BC
Greek
Cleanthes of Assos · c. 330 – c. 230 BC
Thirty-nine lines from the second head of the Stoic school, addressed to the most glorious of immortals, many-named, forever all-powerful — who guides the common law through all things, from whom we are sprung, and who can straighten even what is crooked and make the unloved lovely.
200–101 BC
1 work
c. 150–100 BC
Greek
Anonymous
Inserted into the third chapter of Daniel: a confession from inside the furnace that there is no prince or prophet or place to offer sacrifice any more, followed by a litany calling on frost and dew, whales, fowls, and all the works of the Lord to bless him.
101–200
1 work
c. 150–200
Greek
Anonymous
Travel tales of the apostle John including a hymn danced in a circle before the passion, and a Christ whose body leaves no footprints and changes shape.
201–300
4 works
c. 200–250
Greek, surviving in Coptic
Anonymous
Three hymns of ascent and return, said to be copied from stone pillars Seth set up, with instructions on the order in which they are to be said going up and coming back down.
c. 3rd century
Greek
Phos Hilaron
Anonymous
A short hymn sung at the lighting of the lamps: having come to the setting of the sun and seen the evening light, we praise Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — worthy at every moment to be hymned by reverent voices.
c. 250–300
Greek, surviving in Coptic
Anonymous
Hermes leads a pupil through the last stages of initiation into silence, where the two of them see the eighth sphere and hear the ninth singing, and the pupil finds he can no longer speak in his own words but only in a hymn of vowels.
c. 280–300
Greek
Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1786
Anonymous
The tail of a hymn to the Trinity on the back of a grain account, written with Greek vocal notation above the words — let all the powers cry amen, amen, might and praise to the only giver of all good things.
501–600
1 work
c. 535–536
Greek
Ho Monogenes
Attributed to Justinian I · c. 482 – 565
A short hymn, sung at every Byzantine liturgy since, compressing the whole Chalcedonian settlement into one sentence: the immortal Word became flesh of the Theotokos, was crucified, and trampled down death by death, being one of the Holy Trinity.
801–900
1 work
c. 9th century; attribution debated
Latin
Attributed to Rabanus Maurus · c. 780 – 856
Seven stanzas calling the Spirit to visit the minds he made — the finger of God's right hand, the gift, the living fount, fire, love — and asking him to pour speech into the mouth and light into the senses.
10 of 1774 works