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.
101–200
1 work
c. 170; survives in fragments
Greek
Dionysius of Corinth
Seven letters to churches across the Mediterranean, quoted by Eusebius. One thanks Rome for the money it has sent to poorer congregations since Clement's day; another complains that his own letters are already being tampered with by people who add and subtract at will.
201–300
1 work
c. 240–270; survives in fragments
Syriac
Mani · 216–274 or 277
A retelling of the fallen watchers and their monstrous offspring, taken over from an older Aramaic book found among the Dead Sea Scrolls and rewritten as Manichaean scripture. Fragments survive in Middle Persian, Sogdian, Uyghur, Parthian, and Coptic.
401–500
1 work
c. 435–441
Greek
Contra Iulianum
Cyril of Alexandria · c. 376 – 444
A reply to the emperor Julian's Against the Galileans, written eighty years after the fact because the book was still circulating and still doing damage. Cyril quotes Julian at length, section by section, before answering.
501–600
3 works
c. 515–520
Latin
Excerpta ex Operibus Sancti Augustini
Eugippius · c. 460 – c. 533
Three hundred and forty-eight passages cut from Augustine and arranged for monks who would never see the originals, made at a monastery near Naples by the abbot who also wrote the Life of Severinus.
c. 505–523
Latin
Boethius · c. 477 – c. 524
Boethius set out to translate all of Aristotle and all of Plato and prove them compatible, and was executed long before finishing. What he completed was the logic: the Categories, On Interpretation, and Porphyry's Isagoge, each with commentary.
c. 526
Latin
Institutiones Grammaticae
Priscian
Eighteen books on Latin, written at Constantinople for Greek-speaking officials, quoting several hundred Latin authors — many of whom survive only in these citations.
801–900
2 works
c. 865–870
Latin
Vox Spiritualis Aquilae
John Scotus Eriugena · c. 815 – c. 877
The voice of the spiritual eagle sounds in the ears of the church. Eriugena reads the prologue as the whole of theology in fourteen verses, with creation as God's self-utterance and the incarnation as the same Word said again in flesh.
c. 858–878
Latin
Anastasius Bibliothecarius · c. 810 – c. 878
The papal librarian, who knew Greek in a Rome where almost nobody did, translating the acts of councils, the Greek lives of the saints, Maximus, and the Dionysian scholia — and writing prefaces explaining to Latin readers what they were about to encounter.
901–1000
1 work
c. 910–913
Greek
Arethas of Caesarea · c. 860 – c. 939
A reworking of Andrew of Caesarea with more history in it — the seven churches given their actual circumstances, the plagues read against the Arab and Bulgar wars the writer had lived through.
1601–1700
1 work
transmitted orally from the 17th century; written down later
Japanese
Tenchi Hajimari no Koto
The hidden Christians of Japan
The Christian story as it survived two centuries of secrecy without priests or books — creation, the nativity, and the passion, mingled with Buddhist and folk elements.
10 of 1774 works