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
2 works
252
Latin
De Mortalitate
Cyprian of Carthage · c. 210–258
Written during a plague that killed Christians and pagans alike, answering the complaint that the faithful were not being spared, and asking why people who say they long for heaven grieve at going there.
c. 247–264; survives in fragments
Greek
Dionysius of Alexandria · c. 190–265
Fragments preserved by Eusebius on persecution, plague, the Easter date, the Trinity, and a careful literary argument that the author of Revelation was not the author of the fourth gospel.
501–600
2 works
c. 545–553
Greek
Procopius of Caesarea · c. 500 – c. 565
Eight books on Justinian's campaigns in Persia, Africa, and Italy, by the secretary who accompanied Belisarius through most of them — including the fullest ancient description of a pandemic, the plague that reached Constantinople in 542.
c. 593–594
Greek
Evagrius Scholasticus · c. 536–c. 594
A history from Ephesus in 431 to 594, covering the christological councils, the Persian wars, and an eyewitness account of the plague.
601–700
1 work
c. 687
Syriac
Ktaba d-rish melle
John bar Penkaye · 7th century
A world history in fifteen books whose last section covers the author's own lifetime — the Arab conquests, a civil war among the conquerors, and a plague.
701–800
1 work
c. 775
Syriac
Anonymous
A world chronicle whose final book is a monk's eyewitness account of plague, famine, locusts, and Abbasid taxation in northern Mesopotamia.
1301–1400
2 works
c. 1354
Italian
Specchio di vera penitenza
Jacopo Passavanti · c. 1302–1357
Lenten sermons on confession and penance, illustrated with vivid cautionary tales of the damned appearing to the living.
c. 1400–1415
Latin
Ars Moriendi
Anonymous
How to die well: the five temptations that come at the end — doubt, despair, impatience, pride, avarice — each with the answer to be made, and the questions to put to the dying.
1601–1700
1 work
c. 1636
German
Nun danket alle Gott
Martin Rinkart · 1586–1649
A hymn of thanksgiving written by the only surviving pastor in a walled town during the Thirty Years' War, where he buried some four thousand people.
9 of 1693 works