Skip to content

The Library

Forty Centuries of Christian Writing

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.

601–700

The Seventh Century

1 work

c. 630; attribution debated

Greek

The Life of Mary of Egypt

Attributed to Sophronius of Jerusalem · c. 560 – 638

A monk crossing the Jordan finds a naked, sun-blackened woman who levitates at prayer and knows scripture she has never read. She tells him she spent seventeen years in Alexandria taking men for pleasure rather than money, was turned back by an invisible force at the church door in Jerusalem, and has been in the desert forty-seven years.

Byzantine · BiographyLukeJohnPsalmsMatthewRead elsewhere

701–800

The Eighth Century

1 work

c. 700–740

Greek

The Great Canon

Andrew of Crete · c. 650–740

Two hundred and fifty stanzas of penitence, running through the whole Bible and applying every figure in it to the singer's own soul.

Byzantine · HymnsGenesisExodusPsalmsRead elsewhere