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.
401–500
2 works
c. 425–440
Greek
Mark the Monk
Two hundred short sentences on how the law works inside a person, insisting against one party that baptism gives everything and against another that nothing is received without being worked out — grace is complete and hidden, and is uncovered by keeping the commandments.
c. 450–460
Greek
Diadochus of Photike · c. 400 – c. 486
A hundred chapters on how to tell the movements of grace from the movements of delusion, and the first text to prescribe the continuous repetition of the name of Jesus as the way to occupy a mind that will otherwise wander.
601–700
2 works
c. 630
Greek
Thalassius the Libyan · 7th century
Four hundred brief sentences on the ascetic life addressed to a fellow monk, closely related to the work of his friend Maximus.
c. 630–650
Greek
Maximus the Confessor · c. 580 – 662
Two centuries of short, deliberately difficult sentences on God, creation, and the Word made flesh, arranged so that the reader has to supply the connections. God is always willing to become man, one of them says, in those who are willing.
4 of 1693 works