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
2 works
c. 41
Greek
In Flaccum
Philo of Alexandria · c. 20 BC – c. AD 50
The pogrom of AD 38 in Alexandria told by a witness: the mock-crowning of a beggar to insult the Jewish king, the houses looted, the elders flogged in the theatre, and the governor who allowed it dragged off to exile and killed.
c. 41
Greek
Legatio ad Gaium
Philo of Alexandria · c. 20 BC – c. AD 50
Philo leads a delegation to Caligula to plead that Jews not be compelled to set up the emperor's statue, and is kept walking behind him through a villa's gardens while the emperor asks why they will not eat pork.
101–200
10 works
c. 112
Latin
Epistulae X
Pliny the Younger · c. 61 – c. 113
A provincial governor's correspondence with Trajan, including the letter asking what to do about Christians. He has been executing those who persist, torturing two deaconesses, and finding nothing but a depraved and excessive superstition — they meet before dawn, sing to Christ as to a god, and bind themselves by oath not to steal or commit adultery.
c. 116
Latin
Annales
Tacitus · c. 56 – c. 120
Rome from Tiberius to Nero, told with contempt for nearly everyone in it. In the fifteenth book, Nero fastens the guilt for the fire on a class hated for their abominations, whose founder Christus was executed by Pontius Pilate — and the crowd's pity turns to the victims covered in skins and torn by dogs.
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. 160s; lost, echoed in Minucius Felix
Latin
Marcus Cornelius Fronto · c. 100 – c. 170
A speech by Marcus Aurelius's own tutor, known only through the charges Minucius Felix puts in a pagan's mouth in order to refute them: the infant covered in dough and stabbed by an initiate who does not know what he is cutting, and the lamp overturned at the feast.
c. 170–177; survives in fragments
Greek
Melito of Sardis · d. c. 180
A petition to the emperor arguing that the faith and the empire grew up together under Augustus and have prospered together since, and that only bad emperors — Nero and Domitian — have persecuted it.
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.
c. 170–180
Greek
Ta eis heauton
Marcus Aurelius · 121–180
Private notes written on campaign by an emperor reminding himself to be patient with fools, to accept what the whole sends, and to be ready to leave. A single line rejects the soul that is ready to depart out of mere opposition, as the Christians do, rather than by judgement.
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.
197
Latin
Apologeticum
Tertullian · c. 155–c. 220
A defence addressed to the governors of the empire, arguing that Christians are tried by a procedure used for no other crime, and that the blood of the martyrs is seed.
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
5 works
212
Latin
Ad Scapulam
Tertullian · c. 155–c. 220
An open letter to a persecuting proconsul, warning him without threatening him and stating plainly that it is no part of religion to compel religion.
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.
251
Latin
De Lapsis
Cyprian of Carthage · c. 210–258
After the Decian persecution, an unsparing analysis of why so many complied so quickly, and a refusal to let confessors hand out forgiveness in place of the bishop and a period of penance.
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.
c. 250–300
Greek or Latin
Anonymous
Two chapters of unrelieved threat against the nations — Babylon, Asia, Egypt, Syria — written for Christians under persecution and promising that the sword will come, that mothers will be widowed and their houses given to others, and that the elect are to hold on and not fear.
301–400
6 works
306
Greek
Peter of Alexandria · d. 311
Fourteen rulings grading the penance owed by Christians who failed under persecution — those who bribed officials, those who sent slaves in their place, those who fled — with a different penalty for each.
c. 303–311
Latin
Divinae Institutiones
Lactantius · c. 250–c. 325
Seven books written during the Great Persecution, setting out Christianity as a complete philosophy — false religion, the origin of error, justice, true worship, and the life of blessedness — in the most polished Latin any Christian had yet written.
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. 313–316
Latin
De Mortibus Persecutorum
Lactantius · c. 250–c. 325
A grimly satisfied account of how each emperor who persecuted the church came to a bad end, closing with Constantine's victory and the edict of toleration.
c. 313–325
Greek
Historia Ecclesiastica
Eusebius of Caesarea · c. 260–339
A history of the church from the apostles to Constantine, assembled from documents, letters, and now-lost sources that Eusebius quotes at length because he had them and knew others might not.
c. 358
Greek
Athanasius of Alexandria · c. 296–373
A partisan account of the persecution of Nicene bishops under Constantius, written in hiding, and among the earliest Christian arguments that an emperor has no authority over doctrine.
501–600
1 work
c. 566–569
Syriac
John of Ephesus · c. 507–c. 588
Fifty-eight portraits of Syrian ascetics the author knew, many of them women, and many living in hiding during the persecution of anti-Chalcedonians.
1401–1500
1 work
c. 1430–1440
Armenian
Thomas of Metsoph · c. 1378–1446
An eyewitness account of Timur's campaigns through Armenia, the massacres and deportations, and the survival of the church under successive conquerors.
1501–1600
5 works
1524
German
Balthasar Hubmaier · c. 1480–1528
Thirty-six short theses arguing that heretics are to be won by argument and not by fire, and that those who burn them are the greater heretics.
1554
Latin
Sebastian Castellio · 1515–1563
An anthology of passages against persecution — from the fathers, from Luther, even from Calvin's own early work — published under a pseudonym after Servetus was burned.
1561
French
Guido de Brès · 1522–1567
A confession written for the persecuted Reformed churches of the Low Countries and thrown over a castle wall to the authorities with a plea for toleration.
1563, expanded to 1583
English
John Foxe · 1516/17–1587
A vast history of Christian persecution culminating in the Marian burnings, built from trial records, letters, and eyewitness interviews, and heavily illustrated.
c. 1584–1606
French
Charlotte Arbaleste de Mornay · 1550–1606
A Huguenot noblewoman's account, written for her son, of escaping the Saint Bartholomew's Day massacre with a small child and of thirty years of flight and exile.
1601–1700
1 work
c. 1614–1650
Japanese
The hidden Christians of Japan and their persecutors
Edicts of expulsion, apostasy registers, and the fumi-e images that suspects were required to tread on, alongside the prayers hidden communities memorised for seven generations.
31 of 1577 works