The Library
1774 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
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.
c. 75
Greek
Bellum Judaicum
Flavius Josephus · c. 37 – c. 100
Seven books on the revolt of 66–73 by a man who commanded in Galilee, surrendered, and then watched the siege of Jerusalem from the Roman side. It ends with the burning of the temple and the last stand at Masada.
101–200
4 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. 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. 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. 170–200; date disputed
Latin
Anonymous
A damaged list of the books a Roman congregation read publicly, with brief comments on why some are accepted, some allowed privately, and some rejected outright.
201–300
1 work
c. 222–235
Greek
Philosophumena
Hippolytus of Rome · c. 170–c. 235
Ten books arguing that every heresy is a Greek philosophy in disguise, with long quotations from the systems described and a bitter account of the Roman church under Callistus.
301–400
2 works
c. 366–384
Latin
Damasus I · c. 305 – 384
Some sixty verse inscriptions composed by a bishop of Rome for the tombs of martyrs in the catacombs, cut in a purpose-designed letterform by the calligrapher Filocalus and set up where pilgrims would read them.
384
Latin
Relatio III
Quintus Aurelius Symmachus · c. 345 – c. 402
A prefect of Rome petitions the emperor to restore the altar of Victory to the senate house, speaking in the voice of Rome herself: this worship brought the world under our laws, and one road alone cannot lead to so great a mystery.
401–500
3 works
440–461
Latin
Leo the Great · c. 400–461
Ninety-six short sermons for the feasts and fasts of the Roman year, in a compressed and balanced Latin built for oral delivery.
c. 498–518
Greek
Zosimus
The decline of the empire from Augustus to 410, written by a pagan civil servant who says outright why it happened: Rome prospered while it kept the ancestral rites and collapsed once Constantine abolished them.
c. 500; attribution disputed
Latin
Anonymous
A Roman list of the canonical scriptures, the approved councils and fathers, and a long catalogue of books to be rejected as apocryphal.
501–600
3 works
519–520
Latin
John Maxentius
A delegation of monks from the Danube frontier arrives in Rome insisting that the church must say one of the Trinity suffered in the flesh, and refuses to leave until it does. Rome resists; Constantinople eventually agrees.
begun c. 530, continued to the 9th century
Latin
Liber Pontificalis
Anonymous
Serial biographies of the bishops of Rome from Peter onward, recording each one's origin, building projects, ordinations, and burial place.
593
Latin
Gregory the Great · c. 540 – 604
Twenty-two sermons on the throne vision and the temple, broken off unfinished when the Lombards reached the walls of Rome. Gregory stops mid-book and tells the congregation he can no longer take pleasure in exposition, because everywhere he looks the city is a ruin and the people gone.
701–800
3 works
c. 700–750
Latin
Ordo Romanus I
Anonymous
A stage-by-stage description of a papal mass in Rome — the procession, the vesting, who carries what, where each official stands.
c. 750; Roman material a century older
Latin
Liber Sacramentorum Romanae Ecclesiae
Anonymous
A Roman mass book copied in Francia, probably at Chelles by nuns, and adapted for Gallican use on the way. It carries the scrutinies of Lent, the Holy Week rites, the Easter vigil with its blessing of the font, and prayers for the sick and the dying.
c. 784–791 in its Frankish form
Latin
Anonymous
The book of prayers said by the celebrant at mass, sent from Rome to Charlemagne and then supplemented to cover what Frankish use required.
1101–1200
1 work
c. 1140–1150
Greek
John Zonaras · 12th century
A world history from creation to 1118, preserving long stretches of Roman historians whose own texts have since been lost.
19 of 1774 works