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.
201–300
117 works
c. 200–204
Greek
Hippolytus of Rome · c. 170–c. 235
A systematic reading of Daniel and Revelation to establish who the antichrist will be, where he will come from, and how the faithful are to recognise the last days without panicking.
c. 200–206
Latin
Ad Uxorem
Tertullian · c. 155–c. 220
Two books asking his wife not to remarry if he dies first, and if she must, not to marry a pagan — closing with a famous description of a household where both partners share the faith.
c. 200–204; survives complete only in Georgian
Greek, surviving in Georgian
Hippolytus of Rome · c. 170 – c. 235
A reading of the Song in which the bride is the church and the bridegroom the Word, breaking off at chapter three. The women at the tomb become the new Eve, sent to the apostles as apostles themselves.
c. 203
Latin
De Paenitentia
Tertullian · c. 155–c. 220
Two repentances are described: the one that leads to baptism, and the single painful public penance allowed to a believer who falls afterwards.
c. 200–206
Latin
203
Latin
Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis
Vibia Perpetua and an editor · Perpetua d. 203
A young Carthaginian mother's own record of her arrest, her father's pleading, her nursing infant, and four dreams — a ladder guarded by a dragon, a contest in the arena — completed by an eyewitness account of her death.
c. 203
Greek
Quis Dives Salvetur
Clement of Alexandria · c. 150 – c. 215
A sermon on the rich young ruler arguing that the command is to be poor in the soul's attachment rather than in the purse, since a man stripped of property may still be consumed by wanting it. It closes with the story of John and the young man who became a bandit chief, whom the old apostle rode into the hills to reclaim.
c. 204
Greek
Hippolytus of Rome · c. 170–c. 235
A verse-by-verse exposition written during persecution, arguing from the four kingdoms that the end is not as near as the excited were claiming, and dwelling on Susanna as a figure of the church.
c. 203–211
Latin
De Idololatria
Tertullian · c. 155–c. 220
A hard look at which trades a Christian may follow in a city where idolatry is woven into commerce, teaching, civic office, and the making of statues.
c. 206
Latin
De Carne Christi
Tertullian · c. 155–c. 220
Against Marcion and Valentinus, an insistence that Christ was born of a real woman with a real body — including the notorious argument that it is to be believed precisely because it is unfitting.
c. 207–212
Latin
Adversus Marcionem
Tertullian · c. 155–c. 220
Five books dismantling Marcion's two gods, his edited gospel, and his shortened Paul, arguing that the God of Israel and the Father of Jesus are one and that the creation he made is good.
c. 208–212
Latin
De Resurrectione Carnis
Tertullian · c. 155–c. 220
A defence of the resurrection of the body in its full physicality against those who would spiritualise it, arguing that flesh is the hinge of salvation.
c. 208
Latin
De Virginibus Velandis
Tertullian · c. 155–c. 220
An argument that unmarried women should be veiled in church like everyone else, opening with the claim that custom must yield to truth because Christ called himself truth and not custom.
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. 210
Latin
De Anima
Tertullian · c. 155–c. 220
A long enquiry into what the soul is, where it comes from, and what happens to it at death, drawing on medicine, philosophy, dreams, and the testimony of a woman in his own congregation who saw souls.
c. 200–215; survives in fragments
Greek
Hypotyposeis
Clement of Alexandria · c. 150 – c. 215
Eight books of brief notes on the whole of scripture, condemned by Photius for saying strange things and lost apart from quotations. It preserved the tradition that Mark wrote at Rome from Peter's preaching, and that John, seeing the bodily facts already set down, composed a spiritual gospel.
211
Latin
De Corona
Tertullian · c. 155–c. 220
Prompted by a soldier who refused the ceremonial garland, an argument that military service is incompatible with the gospel — and, in passing, a list of Christian customs kept without any scriptural warrant.
212
Latin
Ad Scapulam
Tertullian · c. 155–c. 220
An open letter to a persecuting proconsul, warning him without threatening him and stating plainly that it is no part of religion to compel religion.
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. 203–213
Latin
Scorpiace
Tertullian · c. 155–c. 220
Written against Gnostics who told Christians it was permissible to deny the faith under torture, arguing that martyrdom is willed by God and not merely tolerated.
c. 215; authorship disputed
Greek
Attributed to Hippolytus of Rome · c. 170–c. 235
A manual of ordination prayers, the three-year catechumenate, the baptismal rite with its questions and anointings, and the eucharistic prayer that follows.
c. 210–222
Syriac
Philip, recording Bardaisan of Edessa · Bardaisan, 154–222
A dialogue against astral fatalism, arguing that if the stars governed conduct then custom could not differ from country to country — yet Brahmins eat no meat, Britons share wives, Persians marry their daughters, and Christians in every nation keep the same law regardless of the sky they were born under.
c. 217–222
Latin
De Pudicitia
Tertullian · c. 155–c. 220
A furious response to a bishop who offered forgiveness to the sexually lapsed, denying that the church has power to remit such sins at all.
c. 217
Latin
De Monogamia
Tertullian · c. 155–c. 220
A late and severe argument that a Christian may marry only once, remarriage after a spouse's death being a concession the Spirit has now withdrawn.
c. 221; survives in fragments
Greek
Julius Africanus · c. 160–c. 240
A universal chronology in five books synchronising biblical history with Greek and Near Eastern records, dating creation and placing the incarnation within a scheme of world ages.
c. 217–222
Greek
Philostratus · c. 170 – c. 250
The life of a first-century wandering Pythagorean sage commissioned by the empress Julia Domna: miraculous birth, travels to India and Egypt, healings, an exorcism, a girl raised from her bier, a trial before Domitian, a disappearance, and an appearance afterwards to a doubting disciple.
c. 200–250
Greek, surviving in Coptic
Anonymous
The longest Valentinian text to survive, and the most systematic: a single Father rather than a pair, a fall caused by the Word's own excess of love rather than by Sophia's error, and a redemption in which even the material order is finally reconciled.
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.
c. 200–250
Syriac
Anonymous
Thomas is sold as a slave and carried to India, where he builds a palace in heaven for a king who paid for one on earth — and where the Hymn of the Pearl tells of a prince sent to Egypt who forgets who he is.
c. 200–250
Syriac
Anonymous
A prince is sent from the East to Egypt to fetch a pearl from a serpent, puts on Egyptian clothes, eats their food, forgets who he is and falls asleep — until a letter arrives from his parents that flies to him and speaks, and he remembers, takes the pearl, and goes home to a robe that has been kept for him and turns out to be his own likeness.
c. 200–250
Greek, surviving in Coptic
Hypostasis of the Archons
Anonymous
A retelling of Genesis 1 to 6 in which the rulers who made the world cannot see the light above them, Eve is the spiritual one who wakes Adam, and the serpent is the instructor. Norea, Seth's sister, burns down the ark and is rescued from the rulers by the angel Eleleth.
c. 200–250
Greek, surviving in Coptic
Anonymous
Christ speaks in the first person and says that it was not he who died: another drank the gall and vinegar, another carried the cross on his shoulder, and he himself was above, laughing at their ignorance.
c. 220–230
Greek
De Principiis
Origen of Alexandria · c. 185–c. 253
The first attempt at a complete Christian account of God, creation, freedom, and the end of all things — argued speculatively and offered as exploration rather than settled doctrine.
c. 200–250
Greek, surviving in Coptic
Anonymous
Peter watches the crucifixion and sees two figures — one being nailed, and one above the cross, glad and laughing — and is told that the living Jesus cannot be touched. It attacks the bishops and deacons as dry canals who call themselves what they are not.
c. 200–250
Greek, surviving in Coptic
Anonymous
The Saviour speaks to Thomas, called his twin, about the fire of lust that keeps souls drunk and bound to visible bodies, and pronounces a long chain of woes on those who hope in the flesh and in the prison that will perish.
c. 230
Syriac
Didascalia Apostolorum
Anonymous
A Syrian church order on the duties of bishops, the seating of the congregation, the reconciliation of penitents, the care of widows, and the ministry of deaconesses to women.
c. 230; survives in fragments
Greek
Julius Africanus · c. 160 – c. 240
An attempt to reconcile the two genealogies of Jesus through levirate marriage: Joseph's father had two fathers, one by nature and one by law, so both lists are true. Africanus says the desposyni, the Lord's own surviving relatives, preserved the record.
c. 231; survives in fragments
Greek
Kestoi
Julius Africanus · c. 160 – c. 240
An encyclopedia in twenty-four books dedicated to Severus Alexander, mixing agriculture, medicine, military engineering, tactics, and frank magic — how to make a horse sweat, how to poison a well, what to chant over a wound.
c. 200–250
Greek, surviving in Coptic
Anonymous
The longest text in the Nag Hammadi library and among the most damaged: an ascent through successive baptisms and levels of being, each named and enumerated, told by a visionary who claims descent from Zoroaster.
c. 233
Greek
1–40 of 117 matching · 1780 in the Library