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.
401–500
104 works
c. 400–401
Latin
Augustine of Hippo · 354–430
An argument that a sacrament belongs to Christ and not to the minister, so a baptism performed by a traitor or a heretic is still a real baptism.
401
Latin
De Bono Coniugali
Augustine of Hippo · 354–430
Written to steady a debate that had gone too far toward disparaging marriage, naming its three goods: children, fidelity, and the sacramental bond.
c. 402
Latin
Rufinus of Aquileia · c. 344–411
A Latin translation of Eusebius with two further books carrying the story to the death of Theodosius, made as the Goths moved into Italy.
401–402
Latin
Jerome · c. 347 – 420
Two old friends who had studied together and shared a monastery tear each other apart in print over how much of Origen either of them had once believed. Jerome accuses Rufinus of doctoring his translations; Rufinus quotes Jerome's own earlier praise of Origen back at him.
c. 403
Latin
Chronicorum Libri Duo
Sulpicius Severus · c. 363 – c. 425
Sacred history from creation to the year 400, written in a deliberately plain style. It closes with the execution of Priscillian at Trier and Sulpicius's flat verdict that the affair was a disgrace, since the bishops who pressed for it were worse than the man they killed.
c. 400–404
Greek, and in Rufinus's Latin
Historia Monachorum in Aegypto
Anonymous, translated by Rufinus
Seven pilgrims travel up the Nile in the winter of 394 and write down what they saw: a monk who kept a lion out of his garden by argument, another who had not looked at a woman in fifty years, and towns where the ascetics outnumbered the citizens.
c. 404
Latin
Rufinus of Aquileia · c. 344–411
A clause-by-clause exposition of the baptismal creed of Aquileia, noting where it differs from Rome's and explaining the descent into hell.
c. 405
Latin
Prudentius · 348–c. 413
An epic in which the virtues and vices fight in single combat for possession of the soul, each duel described with Virgilian relish.
c. 388–420
Syriac
Theodore of Mopsuestia · c. 350–428
Sixteen instructions on the creed, the Lord's Prayer, baptism, and the eucharist, surviving complete only in Syriac after the Greek was destroyed.
c. 403–405
Latin
De Catechizandis Rudibus
Augustine of Hippo · 354–430
Practical advice to a deacon who found teaching beginners boring: how to tell the story from creation to the church, how long to take, and what to do when the listener looks tired.
c. 405
Latin
Cathemerinon
Prudentius · 348–c. 413
Twelve long hymns for the hours of the day and the seasons of the year, in classical metres of great technical accomplishment.
c. 400–410
Greek
Synesius of Cyrene · c. 373–c. 414
Philosophical hymns by a Neoplatonist landowner who accepted a bishopric on the condition that he need not pretend to believe everything expected of him.
c. 405; survives in fragments
Latin
De Natura
Pelagius · c. 354–c. 420
An argument that God would not command what cannot be done, so human beings must be able to keep the commandments — known chiefly from Augustine's line-by-line rebuttal.
c. 405–410
Latin
Pelagius · c. 354–c. 420
A brisk, practical commentary emphasising moral effort and the example of Christ, which circulated widely under other names after its author was condemned.
406
Latin
Jerome · c. 347 – 420
A Gallic priest had objected to vigils at martyrs' tombs, to lighting candles by daylight, to sending money to Jerusalem instead of to the local poor, and to the whole cult of relics. Jerome answers in a single night, and mostly by abuse.
404–407
Greek
John Chrysostom · c. 347 – 407
Seventeen letters written in exile to the deaconess who had supported him, and who was being prosecuted for it. He is walking under guard through Armenia in winter, ill and losing his teeth, and spends the letters consoling her — nothing is truly dreadful but sin.
c. 407
Latin
In Epistulam Ioannis ad Parthos
Augustine of Hippo · 354 – 430
Ten sermons preached in Easter week on a letter about love, to a congregation split by the Donatist schism. The seventh contains the sentence everything else in Augustine has to be read against: love, and do what you will.
c. 407
Greek
Ad eos qui scandalizati sunt
John Chrysostom · c. 347 – 407
Written in exile for those whose faith his own downfall had shaken. If a bishop can be deposed by intrigue and the church left to men who bought their sees, where is providence? Chrysostom answers that God's government is not legible from inside a single lifetime, and that scandal is a wound taken by the one who takes it.
c. 407
Latin
Jerome · c. 347 – 420
Written specifically to answer Porphyry, who had argued that Daniel was composed in the second century BC by someone describing events already past. Jerome reproduces the argument at length before rejecting it, and treats the fourth kingdom as Rome and the little horn as Antichrist.
c. 391–430
Latin
Augustine of Hippo · 354–430
Some nine hundred surviving sermons taken down by stenographers as he preached, ranging from great feasts to ordinary weekdays, and often interrupted by the congregation.
c. 408–410
Latin
Jerome · c. 347 – 420
Eighteen books on Isaiah, the largest of Jerome's commentaries, giving the Hebrew and the Septuagint side by side wherever they differ and reporting the Jewish readings he had been taught before dismissing most of them.
412
Latin
De Spiritu et Littera
Augustine of Hippo · 354–430
The first sustained answer to Pelagius: the law shows what to do but cannot supply the will to do it, which only grace poured into the heart provides.
413
Latin
Pelagius · c. 354 – c. 420
Written to a Roman heiress of fourteen who had refused a marriage for the veil. Pelagius tells her to begin by measuring the good her own nature is capable of, since God would not command what could not be done, and no one is excused by a weakness they were born with.
c. 406–420
Latin
Augustine of Hippo · 354–430
A hundred and twenty-four sermons through the fourth gospel, including the great treatment of the woman taken in adultery and the repeated call to love and do what you will.
401–415
Latin
De Genesi ad Litteram
Augustine of Hippo · 354 – 430
Fourteen years on the first three chapters of Genesis, and still unfinished at the end. God made everything at once, Augustine argues, planting causes that unfold in time. It also warns believers not to talk nonsense about the natural world in front of people who know better, since they will conclude the scriptures are nonsense too.
c. 386–430
Latin
Augustine of Hippo · 354–430
More than three hundred letters on doctrine, discipline, lawsuits, slavery, and the coercion of schismatics, including a long and difficult correspondence with Jerome.
415
Latin
Augustine of Hippo · 354–430
A line-by-line answer to Pelagius's On Nature, conceding that human nature was created good and insisting that it is now wounded and cannot heal itself.
392–418
Latin
Enarrationes in Psalmos
Augustine of Hippo · 354–430
The only complete patristic commentary on all one hundred and fifty psalms, mostly preached, reading them as the voice of the whole Christ — head and body — speaking together.
417–418
Latin
Orosius · c. 375–c. 420
A world history commissioned by Augustine to prove that the pre-Christian past was at least as full of catastrophe as the present.
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. 393–435
Greek
Isidore of Pelusium · c. 360–c. 435
Around two thousand very short letters of exegesis, moral advice, and blunt rebuke, addressed to bishops, officials, and monks alike.
c. 412–435
Syriac
Rabbula of Edessa · d. 435
Short, hard commands for the monks and the covenanters of Edessa: no monk is to own two tunics, none to enter a village without cause, clergy are not to lend at interest or take part in lawsuits, and no woman is to live in a cleric's house.
c. 410–430; authorship disputed
Latin
Attributed to Fastidius
A demanding call to moral seriousness addressed to a widow, insisting that a Christian who lives like everyone else is a Christian in name only.
c. 419–420
Greek
Palladius of Galatia · c. 363–c. 430
Portraits of the monks and nuns of Egypt and Palestine by someone who lived among them, including a good deal of frank material about failure, madness, and vanity.
419–421
Latin
De Nuptiis et Concupiscentia
Augustine of Hippo · 354 – 430
Marriage is good, its three goods are offspring, fidelity, and the bond — and yet the desire by which children are conceived is itself disordered, and carries the fault forward into every child born. Julian of Eclanum read this and accused Augustine of never having stopped being a Manichaean.
c. 421
Latin
Augustine of Hippo · 354–430
A short summary of Christian doctrine for a layman who asked for one, organised around the creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the command to love.
c. 421–422
Latin
Contra Iulianum
Augustine of Hippo · 354 – 430
Julian of Eclanum, a deposed Italian bishop and much the sharper logician, had accused Augustine of making God the author of evil and of importing Mani into the church. Augustine answers by assembling the fathers — Cyprian, Ambrose, Chrysostom, Basil — to show that original sin was taught before he was born.
c. 420–425
Latin
De Institutis Coenobiorum
John Cassian · c. 360–435
The customs of Egyptian monasteries adapted for Gaul — dress, the night office, the reception of newcomers — followed by books on each of the eight principal faults.
c. 419–430; survives in Augustine's quotations
Latin
Julian of Eclanum · c. 386 – c. 455
The most formidable of Augustine's opponents, preserved almost entirely inside the books written to destroy him. Julian argues that a God who damns infants for another's act is worse than any human judge, that desire is a natural faculty like hunger, and that Augustine has never stopped hating the body.
c. 410–430
Latin
De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii
Martianus Capella
An allegorical wedding at which each of the seven liberal arts appears as a bridesmaid and delivers a summary of her discipline.
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