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.
101–200
2 works
c. 176–180
Greek
Legatio pro Christianis
Athenagoras of Athens
A calm, lawyerly petition to Marcus Aurelius answering the three standing charges — atheism, cannibalism, incest — and including an early statement of the Trinity in passing.
c. 180
Greek
Ad Autolycum
Theophilus of Antioch · d. c. 183
Three books to a sceptical friend: on why God is seen only by the pure in heart, on the folly of the poets, and on the greater antiquity of Moses, with a chronology from creation.
201–300
7 works
c. 200–210
Greek
Hippolytus of Rome · c. 170 – c. 235
A refutation of the Smyrnaean who taught that the Father himself was born and suffered, arguing from the scriptures that the Word is distinct from the one who sent him without there being two Gods.
c. 213
Latin
Adversus Praxean
Tertullian · c. 155–c. 220
Against the view that Father and Son are merely names for one figure, Tertullian works out a God who is one substance in three persons, and a Christ of two conditions in one person.
c. 245
Greek
Origen of Alexandria · c. 185–c. 253
The stenographic record of a synod at which Origen cross-examines a bishop on the relation of the Son to the Father, and then on whether the soul is the blood.
c. 245–250
Latin
De Trinitate
Novatian · c. 200–c. 258
A careful exposition of the rule of faith: God the Father almighty, the Son who is truly God and truly man, and the Holy Spirit — written before the vocabulary of Nicaea existed.
c. 260–270
Greek
Gregory Thaumaturgus · c. 213–c. 270
A short trinitarian confession said to have been given to Gregory in a vision, stating the full equality of the three without the philosophical apparatus of the next century.
c. 3rd century
Greek
Phos Hilaron
Anonymous
A short hymn sung at the lighting of the lamps: having come to the setting of the sun and seen the evening light, we praise Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — worthy at every moment to be hymned by reverent voices.
c. 280–300
Greek
Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1786
Anonymous
The tail of a hymn to the Trinity on the back of a grain account, written with Greek vocal notation above the words — let all the powers cry amen, amen, might and praise to the only giver of all good things.
301–400
14 works
325; revised 381
Greek
The Council of Nicaea
The confession drawn up by the first ecumenical council, declaring the Son to be of one substance with the Father, and anathematising those who said there was a time when he was not.
c. 339–345
Greek
Orationes contra Arianos
Athanasius of Alexandria · c. 296–373
Three long discourses arguing text by text that the Son is eternally begotten, and that if he were a creature then creatures would be worshipping a creature.
c. 335–340; survives in fragments
Greek
Marcellus of Ancyra · c. 285 – c. 374
A defender of Nicaea who defended it too far: the Word was in God from eternity but became Son only at the incarnation, and at the end will be reabsorbed, so that the kingdom of Christ has a term. Eusebius wrote two books against him.
c. 356–360
Latin
De Trinitate
Hilary of Poitiers · c. 310–367
Twelve books written in exile in Asia Minor, bringing the Greek arguments against Arianism into Latin for a Western church that had barely followed the controversy.
c. 359–361
Greek
Athanasius of Alexandria · c. 296 – 373
Written from hiding in the desert to a bishop who had reported a group willing to confess the Son fully but not the Spirit. Athanasius argues that a created Spirit would break the Trinity into unlike parts, and that since we are made divine by the Spirit, the Spirit cannot be a creature.
c. 357–363
Latin
Adversus Arium
Marius Victorinus · c. 290 – c. 364
A famous Roman rhetorician who converted late and publicly, writing Trinitarian theology in the language of Neoplatonic metaphysics: being, life, and understanding as one movement out and back, with the Son as the act by which what is at rest becomes what moves.
374
Greek
Ancoratus
Epiphanius of Salamis · c. 315 – 403
A letter to Christians in Pamphylia who asked for something to hold on to, written three years before the Panarion and covering the same ground more calmly: the Trinity, the resurrection of this same body, and a warning against Origen's allegory.
c. 375; survives in Jerome's Latin
Greek, surviving in Latin
Didymus the Blind · c. 313 – 398
By a man blind from the age of four who ran the catechetical school at Alexandria and had the scriptures read aloud to him until he knew them entire. The argument turns on participation: the Spirit is shared in and never shares in anything, and only what is uncreated can be participated without being diminished.
375
Greek
De Spiritu Sancto
Basil the Great · c. 330–379
An argument built on prepositions: Basil defends worshipping the Spirit with the Father and the Son, appealing to the church's unwritten liturgical practice as evidence of what it has always believed.
378–380
Latin
De Fide
Ambrose of Milan · c. 339 – 397
Written at the request of the young emperor Gratian, who was leaving for a war against the Goths and asked his bishop for an account of the faith he was defending. Ambrose supplies a defence of the Son's full divinity and, in the later books, a good deal of advice the emperor had not asked for.
380
Greek
Gregory of Nazianzus · c. 329–390
Five sermons preached in a small chapel in an Arian-dominated Constantinople, on the limits of theological speech and on the Son and the Spirit as fully God.
381
Greek
The Council of Constantinople
The Nicene confession expanded to state the Spirit's divinity and lordship, and to add clauses on the church, baptism, and the life of the world to come.
381
Latin
Ambrose of Milan · c. 339–397
A Latin presentation of the Greek case for the Spirit's divinity, written for the emperor Gratian and drawing openly on Basil and Didymus.
c. 390
Greek
Ad Ablabium
Gregory of Nyssa · c. 335 – c. 395
A short answer to the obvious objection: if Peter, James, and John are three men, why are Father, Son, and Spirit not three Gods. Gregory replies that calling three men three is already a loose habit of speech, and that the divine persons are one because every divine action begins in the Father, proceeds through the Son, and is completed in the Spirit as a single motion.
401–500
2 works
c. 400–427
Latin
De Trinitate
Augustine of Hippo · 354–430
Fifteen books written over a quarter of a century, arguing the doctrine from scripture and then searching the human mind — memory, understanding, will — for a created trace of the Trinity.
c. 450–550
Latin
Quicunque Vult
Anonymous
A long rhythmic confession of the Trinity and the incarnation, stating each proposition and its converse, and framed by warnings about the necessity of holding the catholic faith.
501–600
1 work
c. 518–522
Latin
De Trinitate
Boethius · c. 477–524
A very short treatise applying the Aristotelian categories to God, and asking which of them can be predicated of a being who is wholly simple.
701–800
1 work
c. 755–770
Arabic
Anonymous
A defence of the Trinity and the incarnation for a Muslim readership, arguing from the Qur'an's own vocabulary as readily as from the Bible.
801–900
2 works
802
Latin
Alcuin of York · c. 735–804
A summary of Augustine's trinitarian teaching in three short books, followed by twenty-eight questions and answers for classroom use.
c. 885
Greek
Photius of Constantinople · c. 815–c. 893
A sustained argument that the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, and that the Latin addition to the creed is both unauthorised and incoherent.
1001–1100
1 work
c. 1092–1094
Latin
Anselm of Canterbury · 1033–1109
A refutation of Roscelin's claim that if the three persons are one thing then all three became incarnate, turning on what it means for a universal to be real.
1101–1200
4 works
c. 1112–1117
Latin
Rupert of Deutz · c. 1075–1129
The whole of scripture read as the successive work of Father, Son, and Spirit, in forty-two books following the Bible from Genesis to the last judgement.
c. 1121–1124
Latin
William of Saint-Thierry · c. 1085–1148
A short prayer-treatise on the desire to see God, insisting that love itself is the faculty of knowing him and that the Spirit is the love between Father and Son given to us.
c. 1162–1173
Latin
Richard of Saint Victor · d. 1173
An argument for the Trinity from the nature of love itself: perfect charity cannot be solitary, and requires not only a beloved but a third with whom love is shared.
c. 1183–1200
Latin
Liber de Concordia Novi ac Veteris Testamenti
Joachim of Fiore · c. 1135–1202
A system of correspondences between the two testaments yielding three ages of history — of the Father, the Son, and a coming age of the Spirit in which the church will be renewed.
1601–1700
1 work
1657
English
John Owen · 1616–1683
Distinct communion with the Father in love, the Son in grace, and the Spirit in comfort — an experiential trinitarian theology rather than an abstract one.
1901–2000
1 work
1952, from wartime broadcasts
English
C. S. Lewis · 1898–1963
Radio talks given to wartime Britain and later gathered into one book: the moral law as a clue to the universe, then what Christians believe, Christian behaviour, and finally the doctrine of the Trinity — all in the plainest possible language.
36 of 1577 works