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.
301–400
4 works
c. 350–355
Greek
De Decretis
Athanasius of Alexandria · c. 296–373
A defence of the council's use of a word not found in scripture, arguing that non-biblical language was needed precisely to protect the biblical sense.
c. 360
Greek
Eunomius of Cyzicus · c. 325 – c. 395
A tight, almost geometric argument that God's essence is unbegottenness; that the Son, being begotten, is therefore of a different essence; and — most provocative of all — that the human mind can know God's essence as well as God knows it, since a name given rightly reaches the thing itself.
c. 380–383
Greek
Gregory of Nyssa · c. 335 – c. 395
A vast reply to the claim that unbegottenness names God's essence. Gregory argues that names are human tools invented for human use, that God's essence is infinite and therefore unbounded by any concept, and that the soul's approach to God is a journey with no arrival — always further in, never at the end.
389
Latin
De Magistro
Augustine of Hippo · 354–430
A conversation with his teenage son Adeodatus about how words mean anything at all, concluding that no human being teaches another and that Christ teaches within.
601–700
2 works
c. 620–636; unfinished at his death
Latin
Etymologiae
Isidore of Seville · c. 560–636
Twenty books explaining the whole of knowledge by way of the origins of words — grammar, medicine, law, God, animals, ships, farming, furniture.
c. 660
Latin
Anonymous
A Frankish world chronicle continuing Gregory of Tours, in Latin so broken that historians use it to study the emergence of the Romance languages.
801–900
3 works
841–843
Latin
Nithard · c. 800–845
A grandson of Charlemagne records the civil war among his grandsons, and quotes the Strasbourg oaths verbatim in both the Romance and Germanic vernaculars.
854
Latin
Paulus Albarus · c. 800–861
A defence of the Córdoba martyrs that breaks off to lament that young Christians now read Arabic poetry with delight and can barely write a decent Latin letter.
c. 870–880
Old Church Slavonic
Anonymous
The life of the missionary called Cyril, who devised an alphabet for the Slavs, translated the liturgy, and defended vernacular worship against those who allowed only three sacred languages.
901–1000
1 work
c. 965–990
Georgian
Ioane Zosime · 10th century
Liturgical hymns and calendars compiled at Sinai and Mar Saba, including a celebrated praise of the Georgian language as a tongue laid in the tomb until the last day.
1001–1100
1 work
1026–1027
Arabic
Kitab al-Majalis
Elias of Nisibis · 975–1046
The record of seven courteous conversations with a Muslim vizier on the Trinity, the unity of God, and the merits of Syriac and Arabic as languages of learning.
1201–1300
1 work
c. 1230–1245
Latin
Summulae Logicales
Peter of Spain · c. 1215–1277
A textbook of logic covering the Aristotelian syllogism and then the medieval theory of how terms actually refer in a sentence.
1301–1400
1 work
c. 1396–1400
Old Church Slavonic
Epiphanius the Wise · c. 1350–c. 1420
The missionary who devised an alphabet for the Komi people, translated the liturgy into their language, and cut down their sacred birch — told in an ornate style of word-weaving.
1501–1600
2 works
1530
German
Martin Luther · 1483–1546
A defence of adding the word alone to justified by faith, and a description of how hard it is to make Hebrew speak German without sounding like a foreigner.
New Testament 1522; complete Bible 1534
German
Martin Luther · 1483–1546
The whole Bible from Hebrew and Greek into a German shaped, as its translator said, by listening to the mother in the house and the common man in the market.
1601–1700
6 works
1611
English
The forty-seven translators
A revision by six companies of scholars working to fifteen rules, told to follow the Bishops' Bible where they could and to avoid marginal notes on doctrine.
preached c. 1600–1624; published 1629
English
Lancelot Andrewes · 1555–1626
Court sermons of intricate wordplay and close attention to the Greek and Hebrew, including the nativity sermon on the cold coming the wise men had of it.
1643
English
Roger Williams · c. 1603–1683
A phrasebook of Narragansett with observations on their hospitality, government, and religion, and verses observing that the English are often the worse people.
1651
Vietnamese
Cathechismus
Alexandre de Rhodes · 1593–1660
A catechism in parallel Latin and Vietnamese, published with a dictionary and grammar using a romanised script the Jesuits had developed.
1654; letters to 1671
French
Marie of the Incarnation · 1599–1672
A widow who left her son to enter a convent, then sailed to Quebec to found a school, writing home about mystical states, Iroquois raids, and Algonquian grammar.
1658
Latin
Orbis Sensualium Pictus
Jan Amos Comenius · 1592–1670
A picture book teaching Latin and the world together, with numbered images of trades, animals, and the soul, each keyed to a numbered phrase.
21 of 1774 works