The Library
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.
201–300
3 works
c. 242; survives in fragments
Middle Persian
Mani · 216–274 or 277
Mani's own summary of his religion, written in Persian and presented to the emperor Shapur I. It opens with the claim that wisdom has come down through Buddha, Zoroaster, and Jesus in turn, and has now come complete through the seal of the prophets.
c. 240–270; survives in fragments
Syriac
Evangelion
Mani · 216–274 or 277
The first of Mani's own scriptures, arranged in twenty-two chapters after the letters of the Syriac alphabet, opening with his declaration that he is an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of the Father — the same words Paul used, claimed for a different revelation.
c. 240–270; survives in fragments
Syriac
Mani · 216–274 or 277
A retelling of the fallen watchers and their monstrous offspring, taken over from an older Aramaic book found among the Dead Sea Scrolls and rewritten as Manichaean scripture. Fragments survive in Middle Persian, Sogdian, Uyghur, Parthian, and Coptic.
301–400
5 works
c. 330–348; survives complete in Latin
Greek, surviving in Latin
Hegemonius
A staged public debate in Mesopotamia between a bishop and Mani, judged by pagan referees, followed by a hostile biography in which Mani is made the heir of a line of frauds and dies flayed at the Persian king's order.
c. 388–390
Latin
De Moribus Ecclesiae Catholicae
Augustine of Hippo · 354 – 430
Written soon after his baptism against the Manichaeans he had spent nine years among. It defines the four cardinal virtues as four forms of one love — temperance is love keeping itself whole, courage is love bearing everything — and then contrasts the ascetics he saw in Rome and Milan with the conduct of the Manichaean elect.
c. 390
Latin
De Vera Religione
Augustine of Hippo · 354 – 430
Addressed to the patron who had led him into Manichaeism. Philosophy and religion should never have been separated, Augustine argues; evil is not a thing but a defect in a good thing; and the mind that judges between better and worse is already reaching for a standard above itself.
c. 391–392
Latin
De Utilitate Credendi
Augustine of Hippo · 354 – 430
To a friend still with the Manichaeans, who had promised reason and delivered a story. Augustine answers that everyone believes far more than they can verify — that these are your parents, that this city exists — and that belief on trustworthy authority is not the opposite of knowledge but the road to it.
c. 400
Latin
Augustine of Hippo · 354–430
Thirty-three books answering the Manichaean bishop whose arguments had once impressed him, defending the Old Testament and the goodness of the created order.
701–800
1 work
c. 792
Syriac
Ktaba d-eskoliyon
Theodore bar Koni · 8th century
Questions and answers on the whole Bible, closing with an account of the religions and sects of Mesopotamia, including Manichaeans, Marcionites, and Muslims.
9 of 1693 works