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
1 work
c. 439
Greek
Socrates Scholasticus · c. 380–c. 439
A continuation of Eusebius from Constantine to 439 by a Constantinopolitan lawyer, unusually willing to quote documents and to criticise bishops.
601–700
1 work
c. 630
Greek
Chronicon Paschale
Anonymous
A world chronicle from Adam to 628, organised around the Easter cycle, with a detailed eyewitness account of the Avar siege of Constantinople.
701–800
1 work
c. 750–800
Greek
Parastaseis Syntomoi Chronikai
Anonymous
A guide to the ancient statues of Constantinople by Christians who no longer knew what most of them were. The notes are nervous throughout: one bronze is said to have killed a man who looked at it too long, several are read as prophecies, and the authors warn each other to go in groups.
801–900
1 work
c. 860–867
Greek
Photius of Constantinople · c. 815 – c. 893
Includes the two sermons preached while a Rus fleet lay off the city in 860 — an obscure nation, unreckoned, become famous, he says, and the whole city expecting to die — and the homily at the unveiling of the apse mosaic in Hagia Sophia after iconoclasm.
901–1000
2 works
c. 950–960
Greek
Gregory the Disciple
A holy man in Constantinople, and two long visions granted to his servant Theodora: her soul's passage after death through twenty aerial toll-houses where demons produce a ledger of every sin by category, and a vision of the last judgement.
c. 10th century
Greek
Attributed to Nicephorus
A slave who feigns madness, sleeps with the dogs, is beaten in the street, and sees what nobody else does. The central episode is a vision in the Blachernae church of the Mother of God spreading her veil over the congregation.
1001–1100
1 work
16 July 1054
Latin
Humbert of Silva Candida · c. 1000–1061
The document a papal legate laid on the altar of Hagia Sophia, excommunicating the patriarch and his followers in intemperate terms — its author's authority already lapsed, the pope having died.
7 of 1780 works