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.
1–100
1 work
c. 90–125; survives in fragments
Greek
Kerygma Petrou
Attributed to Peter
A missionary sermon in Peter's name, preserved in a handful of quotations by Clement of Alexandria. It sets Christians apart as a third people who worship neither as the Greeks, who serve wood and stone, nor as the Jews, who serve angels and months and moons.
301–400
1 work
c. 350–380
Gothic
Ulfilas · c. 311–383
A translation of most of the Bible into Gothic by a missionary bishop who invented an alphabet to do it, said to have omitted the books of Kings as too warlike for his converts.
401–500
2 works
c. 443–450
Greek
Sozomen · c. 400–c. 450
A parallel history covering much the same period as Socrates, with far more attention to monasticism and to the conversion of peoples beyond the empire.
c. 450–460
Latin
Confessio
Patrick · 5th century
A defence written in awkward, unschooled Latin by a former slave who returned to convert the people who had kidnapped him, answering British churchmen who questioned his fitness.
501–600
2 works
c. 590–600
Latin
Columbanus · c. 543–615
A severe Irish rule for the monasteries he founded across Gaul and Italy, paired with a penitential assigning a specific penance to each named sin.
590–604
Latin
Gregory the Great · c. 540–604
Over eight hundred surviving letters administering the estates of the Roman church, negotiating with Lombards, and instructing the mission he sent to England.
701–800
6 works
c. 703–728
Latin
Willibrord and his circle · c. 658–739
A working liturgical calendar from a missionary bishop's own book, with a marginal note in his hand recording the year of his consecration.
c. 720–730
Latin
Pirmin · d. 753
A short handbook of the faith for missionaries working among recently converted Germanic peoples, running from creation to judgement and listing forbidden pagan customs.
c. 716–754
Latin
Boniface · c. 675–754
The correspondence of an English missionary among the Germans — requests for books and warm clothing, appeals to Rome, complaints about wandering bishops, and letters to and from abbesses at home.
731
Latin
Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum
The Venerable Bede · c. 673–735
The conversion of the English told from Roman Britain to Bede's own day, with named sources, dated events, and a monk's eye for the moment a king's council decides the fate of a people.
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.
c. 780–820
Syriac
Timothy I · c. 728–823
The correspondence of a patriarch in Baghdad appointing bishops for Tibet and China, hunting for manuscripts of Aristotle, and negotiating with the caliph's officials.
801–900
6 works
c. 825–840
Old Saxon
Anonymous
The gospel retold in alliterative Germanic verse for recently conquered Saxons: Christ as a liege-lord, the disciples as his warrior band, the nativity in a hall.
c. 836
Latin
Rudolf of Fulda · d. 865
The English abbess whom Boniface summoned to Germany, learned in scripture and canon law, consulted by bishops, and buried beside him at his own request.
c. 840
Syriac
Thomas of Marga · 9th century
A history of the great monastery of Beth Abhe and its abbots, full of anecdote about monks, demons, mission journeys, and quarrels over books.
c. 870–876
Latin
Rimbert · d. 888
The career of a missionary to Denmark and Sweden, including a shipwreck, a Viking raid that destroyed his church, and the calm return to start again.
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.
c. 885–890
Old Church Slavonic
Anonymous
The career of Cyril's brother, who continued the Slavonic mission in Moravia, was imprisoned by Frankish bishops, and translated most of the Bible before his death.
901–1000
3 works
c. 893–916
Old Church Slavonic
Clement of Ohrid · c. 840–916
Simple festal sermons written for newly converted Bulgarian congregations by a disciple of Cyril and Methodius who trained thousands of Slavonic clergy.
c. 967–968
Latin
Adalbert of Magdeburg · d. 981
A continuation of Regino's chronicle to 967 by a monk who had led a failed mission to the Rus and returned with nothing to show for it.
c. 999
Latin
John Canaparius · d. 1004
The bishop who twice abandoned his see in despair at his flock and was killed preaching to the Prussians, written within two years of his death.
1001–1100
2 works
c. 1044
Latin
Gerard of Csanád · c. 980–1046
A commentary on the song of the three young men, digressing constantly into complaints about pagan Hungarians, false teachers, and the state of learning on the frontier.
c. 1073–1076
Latin
Adam of Bremen · d. c. 1085
A history of the northern mission whose fourth book describes Scandinavia, the pagan temple at Uppsala, and lands to the west including Vinland.
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
7 works
1541
Spanish
Toribio de Benavente Motolinía · c. 1482–1569
An early friar's account of the conquest's aftermath — mass baptisms, epidemics, the destruction of temples — by a man the Nahuas named for his poverty.
1542–1552
Spanish
Francis Xavier · 1506–1552
Letters from India, the Moluccas, and Japan on baptisms, language difficulties, the failures of Portuguese colonists, and his plan to enter China.
c. 1547–1558
Spanish
Ignatius of Loyola · 1491–1556
A religious order without choir office, without a habit, and without enclosure, governed centrally and free to be sent anywhere in the world at short notice.
1564
Nahuatl
Coloquios y Doctrina Cristiana
Bernardino de Sahagún and Nahua elders
A reconstruction of the 1524 debates between the first friars and Aztec priests, giving the Nahua side space to argue that their gods gave them life and food.
c. 1545–1579
Nahuatl
Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España
Bernardino de Sahagún and his Nahua collaborators · c. 1499–1590
Twelve books on Nahua religion, government, medicine, trade, and natural history, compiled from interviews with elders and written in Nahuatl by native scribes.
c. 1574–1581
Spanish
Diego Durán · c. 1537–1588
Aztec history and religion recorded from native accounts and painted books by a friar raised in Mexico who spoke Nahuatl from childhood.
1588
Latin
José de Acosta · 1540–1600
A manual of missionary method arguing that peoples differ in their capacities and customs and must be approached differently, and that force produces only pretence.
1601–1700
6 works
written to 1610; published 1615
Italian
Matteo Ricci · 1552–1610
An account of thirty years in China — learning the language, becoming a scholar in Chinese terms, the mathematics that opened doors, and the slow gathering of converts.
1627
Spanish
De Instauranda Aethiopum Salute
Alonso de Sandoval · 1576–1652
A study of African peoples, languages, and the conditions of the slave ships arriving at Cartagena, written by a priest who met each vessel.
1627
Latin
Hugo Grotius · 1583–1645
An apologetic written originally in Dutch verse for sailors, arguing the historical credibility of the gospels for readers who would meet Muslims and Jews on their voyages.
1632–1673
French
The Jesuits of New France
Annual reports from missionaries among the Huron, Iroquois, and Algonquian peoples, describing customs, languages, epidemics, torture, and their own deaths.
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.
1671
English
John Eliot · 1604–1690
Model conversations for Native preachers to use with their own relatives, written to be practised — and giving the sceptical side arguments of real force.
37 of 1577 works