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.
200–101 BC
1 work
c. 124 BC
Greek
Abridged from Jason of Cyrene
A rhetorical history of the same revolt as First Maccabees, told for effect rather than for the record. Heliodorus is flogged by an apparition in the treasury; Eleazar refuses to pretend to eat pork; a mother watches seven sons die and tells the last that God made the world out of things that did not exist.
100–1 BC
1 work
c. 30 BC – AD 30
Hebrew, surviving in Latin
The Assumption of Moses
Anonymous
Moses hands the books to Joshua and foretells the whole of Israel's history to the writer's own day, culminating in a Levite named Taxo who takes his seven sons into a cave to die rather than transgress — and God's kingdom appearing throughout his creation.
1–100
3 works
1st century
Greek
c. AD 40–100
Greek
Anonymous
A philosophical address arguing that devout reason rules the passions, proved at unbearable length from the torture of Eleazar and the seven brothers and their mother, who die one by one rather than eat what the law forbids.
c. 70–100 (the Vision, chs. 6–11)
Greek, surviving complete in Ge'ez
Anonymous
Isaiah is carried up through seven heavens, each brighter than the last, and watches the Beloved descend through them disguised — taking on the form of each rank of angels so that none recognises him — until he is born, crucified, and climbs back in glory.
101–200
15 works
c. 108
Greek
Ignatius of Antioch · c. 35–c. 108
Written under armed guard on the road to execution in Rome. Ignatius urges the churches he passes to hold to their bishops and to the reality of Christ's flesh, and begs the Roman Christians not to intervene to save him.
c. 155–160
Greek
The Church at Smyrna
An eyewitness account, circulated as a letter, of the arrest and burning of the aged bishop of Smyrna, who had known the apostolic generation and refused at the last to swear by the emperor's fortune.
c. 155–160
Greek
Justin Martyr · c. 100–165
A short supplement provoked by the execution of three Christians in Rome, arguing that Christians are punished for the name alone and that whatever any philosopher said truly belongs to Christ.
c. 165
Greek
De Morte Peregrini
Lucian of Samosata · c. 125 – c. 180
A charlatan joins the Christians, becomes their prophet and interpreter of books, is imprisoned and showered with support — widows and orphans waiting at the prison from dawn, meals brought in, delegates sent from Asia — then is expelled for eating something forbidden, and finally burns himself alive at Olympia.
c. 165
Greek
Anonymous
The court transcript of Justin's trial before the prefect Rusticus. Asked where the Christians assemble, Justin says he lodges above the baths of a man named Martin and knows of no other meeting place. Six others answer in turn and all are beheaded.
c. 160–170
Greek
Anonymous
Two men are tried and burned at Pergamum. A woman in the crowd named Agathonice sees a vision of glory, throws off her cloak, and lays herself on the stake unasked, while the crowd shouts at her to think of her son.
c. 150–200
Greek, surviving in Coptic
Anonymous
The Lord prepares James for his own martyrdom before and after the crucifixion, and teaches him the passwords for getting past the toll-collectors of the heavens: I am a son from the Father, and I go to what is mine.
c. 150–200
Greek, surviving in Coptic
Anonymous
James speaks from the temple steps and reports that the Lord embraced and kissed him and called him beloved, then is thrown down, stoned, and crushed with a fuller's club while praying for his killers.
c. 160–190
Greek
An elder of Asia
Paul's travels from Damascus to his beheading in Rome, including the baptised lion that later refuses to eat him in the arena, and the description of the man himself — small, bald, bandy-legged, eyebrows meeting, nose slightly hooked, full of grace.
177
Greek
The Churches of Lyons and Vienne
An account sent to the churches of Asia describing a local pogrom: the mob, the amphitheatre, the aged bishop Pothinus, and the slave Blandina, who outlasted her torturers.
180
Latin
Anonymous
The bare transcript of a hearing in Carthage: a proconsul offering an easy way out, twelve Christians declining it, and a sentence carried out the same day.
c. 160–190
Greek
Anonymous
A young woman of Iconium breaks her engagement after hearing Paul preach chastity, survives fire and wild beasts, baptises herself, and goes off to teach.
c. 180–190
Greek
Anonymous
Peter's contest with Simon Magus in Rome, ending with the sorcerer's flight and fall, and with Peter's own crucifixion head downward after meeting Christ on the road out of the city.
c. 150–200; survives in fragments
Greek
Anonymous
The preaching, imprisonment, and crucifixion of Andrew in Patras, framed by long speeches urging converts to withdraw from marriage and the body.
197
Latin
Ad Martyras
Tertullian · c. 155–c. 220
A short letter to Christians awaiting execution, reframing the prison as a training ground and urging them not to waste the opportunity by quarrelling among themselves.
201–300
10 works
203
Latin
Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis
Vibia Perpetua and an editor · Perpetua d. 203
A young Carthaginian mother's own record of her arrest, her father's pleading, her nursing infant, and four dreams — a ladder guarded by a dragon, a contest in the arena — completed by an eyewitness account of her death.
c. 203–213
Latin
Scorpiace
Tertullian · c. 155–c. 220
Written against Gnostics who told Christians it was permissible to deny the faith under torture, arguing that martyrdom is willed by God and not merely tolerated.
c. 235
Greek
Origen of Alexandria · c. 185–c. 253
Written for two friends imprisoned under Maximinus, urging them not to bargain, and drawing on the Maccabean martyrs for a theology of witness unto death.
250; written down soon after
Greek
Anonymous
A presbyter at Smyrna puts woven chains on his own neck to show he will not sacrifice, then delivers a long speech in the marketplace to the crowd — Greeks and Jews together — before being burned. He notes bitterly how many have already gone up to the altars willingly.
c. 200–275
Greek, surviving in Coptic
Anonymous
An attack on almost everyone: on catholics who think dying in the arena buys salvation, on those who marry and breed, and on rival gnostic teachers named outright — Valentinus, Basilides, Isidore, and the Simonians.
259
Latin
The martyrs and an editor
A prison diary from Carthage in the year after Cyprian's death, written by the prisoners themselves until the account is finished by a survivor. They record their dreams, their hunger, a quarrel between two of them that had to be healed before they could die, and Flavian's mother asking to be allowed to be proud.
c. 258–259
Latin
Vita Cypriani
Pontius the Deacon
Written by Cyprian's own deacon within a year of his death, arguing that a bishop who lived well deserves a record as much as a layman who died well, and describing the beheading in the field at Sesti down to the cloak spread on the ground and the coins left for the executioner.
259
Latin
Anonymous
A companion's account of a mass execution in Numidia, where the condemned were made to kneel in ranks along a riverbed so the blood would run into the water, and Marian's mother kissed his neck afterwards.
12 March 295
Latin
Anonymous
A twenty-one-year-old conscript at Theveste refuses the lead seal of enlistment. The proconsul points out that there are Christians serving in the imperial bodyguard right now; Maximilian answers that they know what is good for them, and that he cannot do evil. His father takes the body home.
298
Latin
Anonymous
A centurion at Tingis throws down his belt, vine-staff, and weapons in front of the legionary standards during the emperor's birthday sacrifice, and says that from now on he serves Jesus Christ the eternal king and stops soldiering for the emperors.
301–400
2 works
c. 311–313
Greek
Eusebius of Caesarea · c. 260 – c. 340
An eyewitness record of the Diocletianic persecution in the province where Eusebius lived, year by year and name by name — the mines at Phaeno, the men blinded in one eye and hamstrung in one foot and sent to labour, and his own teacher Pamphilus in prison for two years before the end.
c. 340–380 and later
Syriac
Anonymous
Accounts of the great persecution under Shapur II, in which Christians were taxed at double rate as suspected partisans of Rome and their clergy killed when they refused to collect it. Simeon bar Sabbae is executed with a hundred of his clergy on the eve of Good Friday.
401–500
2 works
c. 460–470
Armenian
Agathangelos
The conversion of Armenia: Gregory the Illuminator kept thirteen years in a pit, the king Trdat driven mad and turned into a boar, the martyrdom of Hripsime and her companions, and the king healed and baptised with his whole nation.
c. 476–483
Georgian
Iakob Tsurtaveli
An Armenian princess married to a Georgian prince who converts to Zoroastrianism to please the Persian king. She refuses to follow him, is beaten, dragged by the hair, and imprisoned for six years in a cell where she dies, attended by the priest who wrote this down.
501–600
1 work
524
Syriac
Simeon of Beth Arsham · d. c. 540
An eyewitness report of the massacre of the Christians of Najran in southern Arabia, naming the dead and describing the burning of the church.
601–700
3 works
October 649
Greek and Latin
Martin I and the Lateran Synod · Martin I, d. 655
A hundred and five bishops at Rome condemn the Ecthesis, the Typos, and the patriarchs who framed them, and define two natural wills and two natural operations in Christ. The Greek text is the original; Maximus and his circle almost certainly wrote it.
655
Greek
Relatio Motionis
Anastasius the Disciple
A transcript taken by Maximus's own disciple. Charged with treason for losing Egypt to the Arabs, he answers the political charges first and then the real one. Told that all the patriarchs have accepted the Typos, he replies that if the whole world communicated with them, he alone would not.
665–666
Greek
Anastasius the Apocrisiarius · d. 666
Written from exile in Lazica by a companion of Maximus, describing the second trial, the mutilations carried out in the forum, the separate places of banishment, and Maximus's death — and dictated by a man whose own right hand had been cut off.
701–800
1 work
c. 760–768
Latin
Willibald · 8th century
The career of the missionary from Devon who felled the oak of Thor at Geismar, reorganised the Frankish church, and was killed in Frisia holding a book over his head.
801–900
1 work
c. 851–856
Latin
Memoriale Sanctorum
Eulogius of Córdoba · c. 800–859
An account of the Christians of Córdoba who sought execution by denouncing Muhammad publicly, defended by the author against fellow Christians who thought them suicides.
1–40 of 52 matching · 1693 in the Library