381
Latin
On the Holy Spirit
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.
Western · TheologyFull text
301–400
The Fourth Century
144 works
c. 380–385; recovered at Würzburg in 1885
Latin
The Würzburg Tractates
Priscillian of Ávila · c. 340 – 385
Eleven pieces by a Spanish ascetic accused of Manichaeism and magic: a defence answering the charges point by point, an argument that apocryphal books may be read with discernment rather than banned outright, and instruction on fasting and scripture for a lay movement of men and women studying together.
c. 380–383
Greek
Against Eunomius
Gregory of Nyssa · c. 335 – c. 395
A vast reply to the claim that unbegottenness names God's essence. Gregory argues that names are human tools invented for human use, that God's essence is infinite and therefore unbounded by any concept, and that the soul's approach to God is a journey with no arrival — always further in, never at the end.
c. 382
Greek
On His Own Life
De Vita Sua
Gregory of Nazianzus · c. 329–390
Nearly two thousand lines of autobiographical verse, unsparing about his own reluctance, his friendship with Basil, and the ecclesiastical politics that drove him out of Constantinople.
Cappadocian · PoetryRead elsewhere
383
Latin
Against Helvidius
De Perpetua Virginitate Beatae Mariae
Jerome · c. 347 – 420
A Roman layman had argued from the gospels that Mary bore other children after Jesus and that marriage is therefore no worse than virginity. Jerome answers by combing the usage of until and brother through the whole of scripture, and proposes that the brothers of the Lord were cousins.
c. 375–390
Greek
Commentary on the Psalms
Diodore of Tarsus · d. c. 390
A reading of the Psalms that begins by refusing allegory outright: the historical setting comes first, and a psalm about David is about David. Where a further sense is admitted it is theoria, a heightened view of the same events, never a meaning that dissolves them.
c. 380–385
Latin
The Book of Rules
Liber Regularum
Tyconius · c. 330–c. 390
Seven rules for reading scripture consistently — on the Lord and his body, on the bipartite church, on promise and law, on species and genus, on times, on recapitulation, and on the devil and his body.
Donatist · HermeneuticsFull text
384
Latin
The Third Relation
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.
c. 366–384
Latin
Against the Donatists
Optatus of Milevis
An argument that the North African schismatics have separated from a church that is catholic by definition, and that the validity of a sacrament does not depend on the holiness of the minister.
Western · PolemicRead elsewhere
c. 381–384
Latin
The Pilgrimage of Egeria
Itinerarium Egeriae
Egeria
A woman's letters home from a three-year journey to Sinai, Jerusalem, and Edessa, describing what she saw and, at length, exactly how the Jerusalem church kept Holy Week.
Western · Travel journalRead elsewhere
c. 350–390; authorship disputed
Greek
The Mystagogical Catecheses
Cyril or John of Jerusalem
Five addresses given in Easter week to those baptised days before, explaining at last what had been done to them: the renunciation facing west, the anointing, the threefold immersion, the white robe, and the eucharist, taken with the hands making a throne for the King.
c. 385
Greek
The Great Catechism
Oratio Catechetica Magna
Gregory of Nyssa · c. 335–c. 395
A handbook for teachers rather than converts, arguing the faith differently against Jews, pagans, and heretics, and explaining the incarnation as a ransom that caught the devil like a fish on a hook.
Cappadocian · CatechesisRead elsewhere
c. 386
Latin
The Hymns
Ambrose of Milan · c. 339–397
Short hymns in a plain marching metre, written to be sung by a congregation occupying a basilica against imperial troops.
Western · HymnsFull text
386–387
Greek
On the Incomprehensible Nature of God
John Chrysostom · c. 347 – 407
Twelve sermons preached at Antioch against Eunomians who claimed to know God's essence. Chrysostom points at the seraphim, who cover their faces, and asks what a man is doing measuring what angels will not look at directly — then closes each sermon by begging his congregation not to leave before the prayers.
c. 386
Greek
For the Temples
Oration XXX
Libanius · c. 314 – c. 393
An appeal to Theodosius against the monks pulling down temples in the countryside — men in black, he says, who eat more than elephants and claim to be at war with stones. The temples are imperial property, the farmers have nothing else, and no law has authorised any of it.
c. 386
Greek
On the Priesthood
De Sacerdotio
John Chrysostom · c. 347–407
A dialogue defending the author's own flight from ordination, which turns into an unsparing account of what pastoral office demands and how easily preaching curdles into performance.
387
Greek
Homilies on the Statues
John Chrysostom · c. 347–407
Twenty-one sermons preached to a terrified Antioch after a riot toppled the imperial statues and the city awaited punishment, holding the congregation together week by week.
Antiochene · HomiliesRead elsewhere
386–387
Greek
Discourses Against Judaizing Christians
John Chrysostom · c. 347–407
Eight sermons attacking members of his own congregation who attended synagogue festivals, in language of extreme violence.
Antiochene · HomiliesRead elsewhere
386–387
Latin
Soliloquies
Soliloquia
Augustine of Hippo · 354–430
A dialogue between Augustine and his own reason, written at a country villa in the months between his conversion and his baptism, asking to know God and the soul and nothing more.
Western · DialogueFull text
c. 387
Greek
Commentary on Zechariah
Didymus the Blind · c. 313–398
Dictated by a scholar blind from childhood who ran the Alexandrian catechetical school, reading the prophet in the full allegorical manner of Origen.
c. 388–389
Greek
On Wealth and Poverty
John Chrysostom · c. 347–407
Seven sermons on the rich man and Lazarus, arguing that not sharing surplus wealth is a form of theft from the poor.
c. 388–390
Latin
On the Morals of the Catholic Church
De Moribus Ecclesiae Catholicae
Augustine of Hippo · 354 – 430
Written soon after his baptism against the Manichaeans he had spent nine years among. It defines the four cardinal virtues as four forms of one love — temperance is love keeping itself whole, courage is love bearing everything — and then contrasts the ascetics he saw in Rome and Milan with the conduct of the Manichaean elect.
c. 386–389
Greek
Homilies on Genesis
John Chrysostom · c. 347 – 407
Sixty-seven sermons working through Genesis at Antioch, reading it as history rather than allegory and returning constantly to the idea of condescension — that scripture speaks of God walking in the garden the way an adult speaks to a child, stooping to be understood.
c. 386–390
Latin
The Hexaemeron
Ambrose of Milan · c. 339 – 397
Nine sermons on the six days, preached in Holy Week and following Basil closely while filling the natural history with Ambrose's own enthusiasms — the habits of bees, the cunning of the crab that drops a pebble into the oyster's shell, the pelican, and the phoenix as a figure of the resurrection.
389
Latin
On the Teacher
De Magistro
Augustine of Hippo · 354–430
A conversation with his teenage son Adeodatus about how words mean anything at all, concluding that no human being teaches another and that Christ teaches within.
Western · DialogueFull text
c. 390
Greek
On Not Three Gods
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.
c. 390
Greek
The Praktikos
Evagrius Ponticus · 345–399
A hundred short chapters analysing the eight thoughts that assail a monk — gluttony, lust, avarice, sadness, anger, listlessness, vainglory, pride — and the discipline that answers each.
Egyptian Monastic · AphorismsRead elsewhere
c. 390
Latin
On True Religion
De Vera Religione
Augustine of Hippo · 354 – 430
Addressed to the patron who had led him into Manichaeism. Philosophy and religion should never have been separated, Augustine argues; evil is not a thing but a defect in a good thing; and the mind that judges between better and worse is already reaching for a standard above itself.
c. 390–400
Greek
On the Nature of Man
Nemesius of Emesa
A Christian synthesis of Greek medicine and philosophy on body and soul, sensation, imagination, memory, and the will, drawing on Galen throughout.
Antiochene · AnthropologyRead elsewhere
c. 390
Greek
The Life of Moses
Gregory of Nyssa · c. 335–c. 395
Moses read twice — once as history, once as the soul's ascent — climbing from the burning bush into the dark cloud where God is known precisely as unknowable.
c. 390
Greek
Homilies on Matthew
John Chrysostom · c. 347–407
Ninety sermons working through the whole gospel, insisting on the plain sense of the text and turning relentlessly to the poor at the church door.
c. 380–400
Greek
The Apocalypse of Paul
Visio Pauli
Anonymous
An account of what Paul saw when he was caught up to the third heaven and said he could not tell. An angel takes him to watch souls met at death by their own deeds, then through the city of Christ and out to the punishments — each fitted to its sin, and clergy among the worst off. At the end the damned are granted a day's respite every Sunday, because Paul and Michael ask for it.
379–397
Latin
The Letters
Ambrose of Milan · c. 339–397
Correspondence including the letters in which a bishop refuses an emperor communion until he does public penance for a massacre.
Western · LettersFull text
c. 388–390
Latin
On the Duties of the Clergy
De Officiis Ministrorum
Ambrose of Milan · c. 339–397
Cicero's treatise on duty rewritten for Christian ministers, replacing the four cardinal virtues with a version answerable to scripture and to the poor.
Western · EthicsFull text
c. 390–391
Latin
On the Mysteries
De Mysteriis
Ambrose of Milan · c. 339–397
Instruction given to the newly baptised in Easter week on what happened to them at the font and the altar, explained only after the fact.
Western · CatechesisFull text
c. 391–393
Latin
Hebrew Questions on Genesis
Quaestiones Hebraicae in Genesim
Jerome · c. 347 – 420
Not a commentary but a list of places where the Greek and Latin Bibles have gone wrong and the Hebrew says something else, with the rabbinic explanations Jerome had picked up from his Jewish teachers at Bethlehem — including that the ark's window was a precious stone, and what Adam's rib actually says.
c. 390–392
Latin
The Life of Hilarion
Jerome · c. 347 – 420
The life of the man who brought monasticism from Egypt to Palestine: sixty-five years of fasting reckoned meal by meal, demons in the form of naked women and howling wolves, a cured chariot horse, and a flight from his own fame that took him across the whole eastern Mediterranean.
c. 390–391
Latin
On the Sacraments
De Sacramentis
Ambrose of Milan · c. 339 – 397
Six addresses to the newly baptised at Milan, apparently taken down by a shorthand writer as Ambrose spoke — repetitive, colloquial, and much less polished than his written work. It quotes the eucharistic prayer he actually used, word for word.
c. 391–392
Latin
On the Profit of Believing
De Utilitate Credendi
Augustine of Hippo · 354 – 430
To a friend still with the Manichaeans, who had promised reason and delivered a story. Augustine answers that everyone believes far more than they can verify — that these are your parents, that this city exists — and that belief on trustworthy authority is not the opposite of knowledge but the road to it.
393
Latin
Against Jovinian
Jerome · c. 347–420
A violent reply to a monk who argued that marriage and virginity are equally meritorious — so violent that Jerome's friends tried to withdraw it from circulation.
Western · PolemicFull text