The Library
1780 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
109 works
c. 108
Greek
Epictetus, recorded by Arrian · c. 50 – c. 135
A freed slave teaching Stoicism in Nicopolis, taken down by a student. Some things are up to us and some are not; the rest follows. In one passage he asks why, if madness and habit can make the Galilaeans fearless of tyrants, reason cannot do the same.
c. 108
Greek
Ignatius of Antioch · c. 35–c. 108
Written under armed guard on the road to execution in Rome. Ignatius urges the churches he passes to hold to their bishops and to the reality of Christ's flesh, and begs the Roman Christians not to intervene to save him.
c. 110–135
Greek
Polycarp of Smyrna · c. 69–c. 155
A pastoral letter accompanying a collection of Ignatius's correspondence, urging perseverance, warning a presbyter who had mishandled money, and quoting the New Testament almost continuously.
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. 116
Latin
Annales
Tacitus · c. 56 – c. 120
Rome from Tiberius to Nero, told with contempt for nearly everyone in it. In the fifteenth book, Nero fastens the guilt for the fire on a class hated for their abominations, whose founder Christus was executed by Pontius Pilate — and the crowd's pity turns to the victims covered in skins and torn by dogs.
c. 100–130
Greek
Anonymous
An Egyptian Jewish oracle burning with rage at Rome for the temple, running through the emperors by the numerical value of their initials and promising that Nero will return from the East to destroy the city that destroyed Jerusalem.
c. 100–130
Greek
Paraleipomena Jeremiou
Anonymous
Jeremiah's servant Abimelech sleeps sixty-six years under a tree and wakes with figs still fresh in his basket to find the exile over. The book ends with Jeremiah proclaiming the Son of God, being stoned by the people, and a stone taking his shape so that he can finish the message.
c. 110–130; survives in fragments
Greek
Papias of Hierapolis · c. 60–c. 130
Five lost books gathering what Papias could learn from those who had heard the apostles, surviving only where Irenaeus and Eusebius quote him — including his notes on how Mark and Matthew came to be written.
c. 100–150; survives in fragments
Aramaic
Anonymous
An Aramaic gospel close to Matthew but not identical, known from Jerome and marginal notes in medieval manuscripts. The rich young ruler scratches his head while his brothers go dressed in filth; the man with the withered hand says he was a mason and begs not to have to eat in shame.
c. 121
Latin
De Vita Caesarum
Suetonius · c. 69 – c. 122
Twelve imperial lives assembled from rumour, archive, and gossip in roughly equal parts. Claudius expels the Jews from Rome for rioting at the instigation of one Chrestus; Nero punishes the Christians, a class given to a new and mischievous superstition.
c. 100–150; survives in fragments
Greek
Papyrus Egerton 2
Anonymous
Four scraps of a codex bought in Egypt in 1934. A controversy with the lawyers, an attempted stoning, a leper healed, the tribute question, and a broken miracle at the Jordan where something is sown on the water and fruit appears.
c. 124–125; one fragment survives
Greek
Quadratus
The first Christian defence addressed to an emperor, of which Eusebius preserves a single paragraph noting that some healed by Jesus had lived into the writer's own lifetime.
c. 125–140
Greek
Aristides of Athens
A philosopher sorts humanity into races by what they worship — barbarians, Greeks, Jews, Christians — and argues that only the last have understood God, closing with a description of how they treat the poor.
c. 120–160; survives in fragments
Greek
Anonymous
Known from seven passages in Epiphanius. It begins not with a birth but with John the Baptist, whose locusts have become honey-cakes, and has Jesus say he came to abolish sacrifice — and that if you do not stop sacrificing, wrath will not stop for you.
c. 120–150; survives in fragments
Greek
Anonymous
A gospel of the Greek-speaking Egyptian church, surviving only in exchanges between the Lord and Salome quoted by Clement. When she asks how long death will hold sway he answers, as long as you women bear children — and when she says she has done well not to bear, he does not contradict her.
c. 130
Greek
Anonymous
An uncompromising argument that the Jewish law was always meant allegorically and never literally, closing with a version of the Two Ways also found in the Didache.
c. 130–150
Greek
Anonymous
A guided tour of the places of punishment and reward, with torments matched precisely to the sins that earned them.
c. 130–145; survives in fragments
Greek
Basilides
Twenty-four books of commentary, of which a few paragraphs survive in Clement and Hippolytus. From a God who is not, a seed containing everything unfolds; suffering is never undeserved, since the martyr is paying for sins we cannot see, and even the sinless infant carries the capacity to sin.
c. 100–150
Greek, surviving in Coptic
Apocryphon of James
Anonymous
Five hundred and fifty days after the resurrection the risen Lord returns while the twelve are sitting writing down what they remember, and takes James and Peter aside. Be full, be lacking; seek death as the dead seek life. Then he departs and the two try to follow him up and are called back.
c. 100–150; date disputed
Greek
Anonymous
A hundred and fourteen sayings of Jesus with no narrative, no passion, and no resurrection, some close to the canonical gospels and others enigmatic in a way that invites an inner, secret reading.
c. 140; survives in fragments
Greek
Phlegon of Tralles
A chronicle by a freedman of Hadrian, lost apart from quotations. Origen and Africanus report that it recorded a great eclipse and an earthquake in Bithynia in the fourth year of the two hundred and second Olympiad, and Origen adds that Phlegon mentioned Christ's foreknowledge of events.
c. 100–150
Greek, surviving in Coptic
Anonymous
A philosophical letter to disciples, arguing that the three opinions about the world — chance, providence, and fate — are all wrong, and setting out instead an unbegotten Father and the immortal beings unfolding from him.
c. 140; lost, known through references
Greek
Aristo of Pella
A Jewish Christian and an Alexandrian Jew dispute the messiah from the prophets, and the Jew asks for baptism at the end. Celsus read it and thought it deserved pity rather than hatred; Origen defended it.
c. 144; lost, known through opponents
Greek
Marcion of Sinope · c. 85–c. 160
A systematic set of contradictions between the Old Testament and the gospel, arguing that the creator God of Israel is a lesser being than the alien God of love revealed by Jesus. Known only from the refutations of Tertullian and others.
c. 144; reconstructed from quotations
Greek
Marcion of Sinope · c. 85 – c. 160
One gospel and ten letters of Paul, with the Old Testament discarded entirely and everything Marcion judged to be Judaizing interpolation cut away. There is no nativity; the Lord simply appears at Capernaum in the fifteenth year of Tiberius.
c. 140–155
Greek
Poimen
Hermas
Visions, commands, and parables given to a freed slave in Rome by an ancient woman who is the church and an angel dressed as a shepherd, mostly concerned with whether a Christian who sins gravely after baptism can repent again.
c. 150; survives in fragment
Greek
Anonymous
A passion narrative that exonerates Pilate, blames Herod and the Jewish leaders, and stages the resurrection itself with two angels and a walking, talking cross.
Jewish core, Christian redaction c. 150
Greek
Anonymous
A history of the world in ten generations, into which a Christian editor has inserted the life of Christ, the twelve, and a long final judgement where the saved are given the chance to intercede for the damned and God grants it.
c. 100–300; date heavily disputed
Greek
Anonymous
Solomon is given a ring by Michael and uses it to compel every demon to appear, state its name, say what illness it causes and which angel undoes it, and then carry stone for the temple. He loses everything at the end over a foreign woman.
c. 100–200
Greek, surviving in Coptic
Anonymous
Adam in his seven hundredth year tells Seth what he learned from three visitors: that the creator is not the highest God, that a race descended from Seth will survive flood and fire, and that thirteen kingdoms will each give a false account of where the illuminator came from.
c. 140–160
Greek
Anonymous
Not a letter and not by Clement: a plain sermon urging a congregation to think of Christ as they would of God, to repent while there is still time, and to match profession with conduct.
c. 130–180
Greek, surviving in Coptic
Anonymous
Jesus laughs at the disciples for giving thanks over bread and takes Judas aside as the only one who can bear to hear the truth. Judas will exceed them all — by handing over the man who clothes him.
c. 120–180; survives in fragment
Greek
Anonymous
After the Saviour departs, Mary Magdalene comforts the frightened disciples and reports a vision she alone received; Andrew and Peter object that he would not have spoken privately to a woman.
c. 100–200
Greek
The Greek Apocalypse of Baruch
Anonymous
Baruch weeps over the ruins and is taken through five heavens, where he sees the builders of the tower punished, the phoenix that shields the earth from the sun's heat, and angels bringing baskets of flowers that turn out to be human virtues.
c. 140–160; survives in fragments
Greek
Valentinus · c. 100 – c. 175
Six or seven passages preserved by Clement and Hippolytus, plus a short poem in which the poet sees all things hanging on spirit and borne by it. One fragment describes the angels taking fright at Adam because the being they had made spoke greater things than they had put in him.
c. 150
Greek, surviving in Coptic
Anonymous
A badly damaged conversation between the Lord and Judas, Matthew, and Mary, on the crossing place, the garment of life, and what the disciples should pray. Mary asks the sharpest questions and is praised as one who understood completely.
c. 130–200
Greek or Latin
Anonymous
God rehearses everything he did for Israel in the wilderness and declares that the house is now to be given to a people coming from the east, closing with Ezra on Mount Zion watching a great multitude receive crowns from the Son of God.
c. 150
Greek
Anonymous
The story of Mary before the gospels begin: her miraculous birth to Joachim and Anna, her upbringing in the temple, her betrothal to an older widower, and a defence of her virginity after Jesus's birth.
c. 155–160
Greek
The Church at Smyrna
An eyewitness account, circulated as a letter, of the arrest and burning of the aged bishop of Smyrna, who had known the apostolic generation and refused at the last to swear by the emperor's fortune.
c. 155
Greek
Justin Martyr · c. 100–165
A philosopher's open letter to the emperor, answering the rumours that Christians were atheists and cannibals by simply describing what they believed and did — including the earliest detailed account of a Sunday gathering.
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