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
4 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. 231–248
Greek
Origen of Alexandria · c. 185–c. 253
An immense line-by-line exposition, begun to answer a Valentinian commentary on the same gospel, spending a whole book on the opening words alone.
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.
301–400
3 works
c. 320; survives in fragments
Greek
Arius · c. 256–336
A popular verse exposition, apparently written to be sung, arguing that the Son is the first and greatest of creatures, made before time but not eternal.
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. 375–380; survives in fragments
Greek
Apollinaris of Laodicea · c. 310 – c. 390
A friend of Athanasius who pressed the unity of Christ until something had to give: the Word took a human body and a human animal soul, but stood himself in the place of the human mind, because two complete beings cannot become one and two wills would be two persons.
401–500
10 works
c. 425–429
Greek
Cyril of Alexandria · c. 376–444
A vast doctrinal commentary reading the fourth gospel as a sustained demonstration of the Word made flesh, with heavy emphasis on the eucharist as the flesh that gives life.
429
Greek
Proclus of Constantinople · d. 446
Preached in the Great Church with Nestorius sitting in the congregation, and deliberately: a cascade of titles for Mary as Theotokos, the loom on which the robe of union was woven, the bridge from God to men. Nestorius rose and answered it from the same pulpit.
430
Greek
Cyril of Alexandria · c. 376–444
Twelve propositions appended to a letter to Nestorius, each condemning a way of dividing Christ, and demanding subscription.
c. 438
Greek
Cyril of Alexandria · c. 376–444
A late dialogue restating the case that the one who was born, suffered, and died is the eternal Word himself and not a man joined to him.
447
Greek
Theodoret of Cyrus · c. 393–c. 460
Three dialogues against the view that Christ's humanity was absorbed into his divinity, arguing that the Word remained unchangeable and impassible while genuinely human.
449
Latin
Leo the Great · c. 400–461
A letter to the bishop of Constantinople setting out in plain Latin that Christ is one person in whom two natures each act according to their own character.
440–461
Latin
Leo the Great · c. 400–461
Ninety-six short sermons for the feasts and fasts of the Roman year, in a compressed and balanced Latin built for oral delivery.
c. 450
Syriac
Nestorius · c. 386–c. 451
A long self-defence written in exile under a pseudonym, arguing that the author had never taught what he was condemned for and welcoming Leo's Tome as his own position.
451
Greek
The Council of Chalcedon
One Christ in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation — four negatives marking the boundaries beyond which speech about Christ goes wrong.
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
10 works
508; survives in fragments
Syriac
Polycarp, for Philoxenus of Mabbug
A new Syriac New Testament commissioned because the Peshitta was judged too loose to settle Christological arguments, and because it lacked five books. It included 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and Revelation for the first time in Syriac.
c. 512–513
Latin
Contra Eutychen et Nestorium
Boethius · c. 477–524
A short treatise applying strict logical definitions to the christological question, and defining a person as an individual substance of a rational nature.
512–538
Syriac
Severus of Antioch · c. 465–538
The correspondence and preaching of the greatest Miaphysite theologian, surviving almost entirely in Syriac translation after the Greek was destroyed.
519–520
Latin
John Maxentius
A delegation of monks from the Danube frontier arrives in Rome insisting that the church must say one of the Trinity suffered in the flesh, and refuses to leave until it does. Rome resists; Constantinople eventually agrees.
c. 535–536
Greek
Ho Monogenes
Attributed to Justinian I · c. 482 – 565
A short hymn, sung at every Byzantine liturgy since, compressing the whole Chalcedonian settlement into one sentence: the immortal Word became flesh of the Theotokos, was crucified, and trampled down death by death, being one of the Holy Trinity.
c. 543
Greek
Leontius of Byzantium · c. 485–c. 543
A technical defence of Chalcedon arguing that Christ's humanity has no independent person of its own but subsists within the person of the Word.
c. 535–545
Greek
Leontius of Jerusalem
An argument that the humanity of Christ is real and complete but has no independent subsistence of its own — it exists in the person of the Word rather than in a person of its own.
c. 552; survives in Syriac
Greek, surviving in Syriac
Diaitetes
John Philoponus · c. 490 – c. 570
An attempt to settle Chalcedon by defining the terms philosophically: nature means a particular thing, not a general kind, so two natures would mean two individuals. Pressed to its conclusion by his opponents, the same logic made the Trinity three particulars.
553
Greek
The Second Council of Constantinople
Fourteen anathemas condemning the Three Chapters and clarifying Chalcedon in Cyrilline terms, with Origenism condemned in the same period.
c. 560–599
Greek
Anastasius I of Antioch · d. 599
Homilies and short treatises by a patriarch deposed by one emperor for resisting Justinian's late Christology and restored by another at Gregory the Great's request, including a sermon on the transfiguration and a defence of the impassibility of the Word.
601–700
7 works
c. 605–615
Syriac
Babai the Great · c. 551–628
A systematic christology of two natures and two hypostases in one person of union, worked out for a church living under Persian rule with no emperor to appeal to.
recited c. 610–632; standard text c. 650
Arabic
Recited by Muhammad; collected under Uthman · Muhammad, c. 570 – 632
The scripture of Islam, and unavoidably a book about Christians. Jesus is born of a virgin, works miracles, is the Messiah and a word from God, and is not the son of God; Mary has a sura to herself and is named more often than in the New Testament; the Trinity is rejected, and the crucifixion is denied with the words it only appeared so to them.
633–634
Greek
Sergius I of Constantinople · d. 638
A patriarch's attempt to reunite an empire split by Chalcedon: stop arguing about one energy or two, he rules, and simply confess one will in Christ. The letter to Rome presents this as a settled peace and asks for agreement.
634
Greek
Sophronius of Jerusalem · c. 560–638
A newly elected patriarch's statement of faith, insisting against the imperial compromise that Christ has two natural activities, not one.
645
Greek
Maximus the Confessor · c. 580–662
The transcript of a public debate at Carthage in which Maximus argues that a will belongs to a nature rather than a person, so Christ must have two.
680–681
Greek
The Third Council of Constantinople
The sixth ecumenical council declares two natural wills and two natural operations in Christ, the human will always freely following the divine.
c. 686
Greek
Hodegos
Anastasius of Sinai · c. 630–c. 700
A practical manual for arguing with Miaphysites, including definitions of the technical terms, advice on debating tactics, and warnings about opponents' tricks.
701–800
3 works
754; survives in refutation
Greek
The Council of Hieria
The iconoclast council's ruling that any image of Christ either divides his natures or confuses them, and that the only permitted image is the eucharist.
785
Latin
Beatus of Liébana and Etherius of Osma
A furious reply to the archbishop of Toledo, who had taught that Christ in his humanity is God's son by adoption rather than by nature.
c. 796–799
Latin
Contra Felicem
Paulinus II of Aquileia · c. 730 – 802
Three books answering the bishop of Urgell's Adoptionism, arguing that adoption implies a person adopted, and that if the man Jesus is adopted then there are two sons and the incarnation is a partnership rather than a union.
801–900
1 work
c. 856–870
Syriac
Nonnus of Nisibis · 9th century
A defence of Christian doctrine written in Armenia against both Muslim objections and rival Christian christologies, by a scholar imprisoned in Baghdad.
1501–1600
1 work
1583
Spanish
De los Nombres de Cristo
Luis de León · 1527–1591
Three friars by a river discuss the names scripture gives Christ — shepherd, mountain, father of the age to come — in prose of great deliberate beauty.
1601–1700
1 work
1623
French
Pierre de Bérulle · 1575–1629
A christocentric spirituality of adoration and self-abasement before the incarnate Word, with the human person defined by its capacity to be possessed by God.
40 of 1780 works