The evidence itself
The Source Library
Every text the archive holds in full, in the order it was written — from the Didache to Augustine, with the pagan and imperial documents that name Christians set among them.
222 texts · 149 writings · 72 witnesses · 70 with interlinear passages
How to read the columns
A writing is a work by someone the archive holds a profile for. A witness is a source that names the figures from outside — Tacitus, Pliny, the imperial edicts, the martyr-acts, the later historians. Dates are dates of composition, traditional and marked where they are approximate; each text’s own page names the translation quoted and the manuscripts behind it.
All 222 texts, earliest first
AD 30 to c. 500| Written | Text | Author | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| c. AD 50–70 | The Didache — Teaching of the Twelve ApostlesThe earliest surviving manual of church order: the Two Ways, the forms for baptism and eucharist, the weekly fasts… | The Didachist (Author of the Didache) | Writing |
| c. AD 70–132 | The Epistle of BarnabasA fierce, allegorical reading of the Old Testament — circumcision of the heart, the scapegoat as figure of Christ… | Barnabas of Cyprus | Writing |
| c. AD 90–150 | The Shepherd of HermasThe Roman church's book of visions, mandates, and similitudes — so beloved it stands bound with the New Testament in… | Hermas of Rome | Writing |
| c. AD 93–94 | Antiquities of the JewsThe Jewish historian's twenty-book history, containing the notices of John the Baptist, James the brother of Jesus… | Flavius Josephus | Witness |
| c. AD 96 | The First Epistle of Clement to the CorinthiansRome’s letter to a Corinthian church torn by the deposition of its presbyters — the earliest datable Christian… | Clement of Rome | Writing |
| c. AD 107–110, on the… | The Seven Epistles of IgnatiusThe six church-letters and the note to Polycarp written under guard — Ephesians, Magnesians, Trallians… | Ignatius of Antioch | Writing |
| c. AD 108, written en… | The Epistle of Ignatius to the RomansThe most famous of the seven genuine letters: from the road to the arena, Ignatius begs the Roman church not to use… | Ignatius of Antioch | Writing |
| c. AD 110–130 | Expositions of the Oracles of the Lord (fragments)Five lost books on the Lord's sayings, surviving only in quotations — including the earliest statements on how Mark… | Papias of Hierapolis | Writing |
| c. AD 110–135 | The Epistle of Polycarp to the PhilippiansPolycarp’s cover-letter forwarding Ignatius’s epistles to Philippi — woven almost wholly from the apostles’ own… | Polycarp of Smyrna | Writing |
| c. AD 112, Bithynia | Pliny and Trajan on the Christians (Letters X.96–97)The earliest pagan administrative file on the church: a governor unsure what exactly to punish, and an emperor's… | Pliny the Younger | Witness |
| c. AD 115–120 | The AnnalsThe Roman historian's account of the Julio-Claudian age, with the famous notice of Nero's persecution — 'a vast… | Cornelius Tacitus | Witness |
| c. AD 124–125… | The Apology of Quadratus (fragment)The earliest Christian apology — one paragraph survives, preserved by Eusebius: some of those healed and raised by… | Quadratus of Athens | Writing |
| c. AD 124–125 | The Rescript of Hadrian to Minucius FundanusHadrian's answer to a proconsul of Asia: trials of Christians must follow due process, and false accusers are… | Emperor Hadrian | Witness |
| c. AD 125 | The Apology of AristidesA philosopher's brief for the emperor sorting mankind's worship — barbarians, Greeks, Jews, Christians — with the… | Aristides of Athens | Writing |
| c. AD 130–200 | The Epistle to DiognetusAn anonymous apology to an inquiring pagan — the loveliest description of Christian life in the world before… | The Epistle to Diognetus (anonymous) | Writing |
| Aquila c. AD 130 ·… | The Later Greek Versions: Aquila and SymmachusThe two great post-Christian Jewish translations of the Old Testament — Aquila's hyper-literal word-mirror ('a slave… | Aquila the Translator | Witness |
| c. AD 140–160 | Valentinus: the FragmentsEight or so genuine fragments — homily lines, letters, and a psalm ('Harvest') — quoted by Clement of Alexandria and… | Valentinus | Writing |
| c. AD 145–160 | The Protoevangelium of JamesThe second-century infancy gospel that supplies the names Joachim and Anne and the whole narrative of Mary's birth… | Anonymous (ascribed to James) | Witness |
| c. AD 150–170 | The Acts of Paul (with the Acts of Paul and Thecla)The second-century romance of Paul's missions — non-canonical, disciplined by the church, and immensely popular. It… | Anonymous presbyter of Asia (so… | Witness |
| c. AD 155–160 | The Dialogue with TryphoThe longest surviving second-century work: two days' debate with a learned Jew at Ephesus — the prophets, the Logos… | Justin Martyr | Writing |
| c. AD 155, addressed… | The First Apology of Justin MartyrJustin’s open petition to the emperor for justice toward Christians — and, in chapters 65–67, the earliest detailed… | Justin Martyr | Writing |
| c. AD 155–160 | The Martyrdom of PolycarpThe oldest detailed account of a martyrdom outside the New Testament: the Smyrnaean church’s circular letter… | Polycarp of Smyrna | Writing |
| c. AD 160–177 | Peri Pascha and fragmentsThe blind poet-bishop of Sardis: a rhythmic Paschal sermon on the Exodus fulfilled in Christ, an apology to Marcus… | Melito of Sardis | Writing |
| c. AD 160–170 | The Address to the GreeksJustin's brilliant, bitter pupil turns Greek rhetoric against Greek culture — chronology proving Moses older than… | Tatian the Assyrian | Writing |
| c. AD 160 | The Letter to FloraThe most lucid surviving Gnostic document: a Valentinian teacher explains to a Roman Christian woman how to grade the… | Ptolemy the Valentinian | Witness |
| c. AD 165 | The Acts of Justin and CompanionsThe interrogation of Justin, Chariton, Charito, Euelpistus, Hierax, Paeon, and Liberian before the prefect Rusticus … | Official court record (Rome, c. 165) | Witness |
| c. AD 170–180 | Heracleon: Fragments of the HypomnemataThe first known commentary on any Gospel — forty-eight fragments on John, every one surviving because Origen quoted… | Heracleon | Witness |
| c. AD 170 | The Diatessaron (Gospel Harmony)The four gospels woven into one continuous narrative — for two centuries THE gospel text of the Syriac church, until… | Tatian the Assyrian | Writing |
| c. AD 170–180, on… | The Meditations (Ta eis heauton)The persecutor-philosopher's private notebooks — including the one aside where the Christians appear, dismissed for… | Emperor Marcus Aurelius | Witness |
| canon-list c. AD… | The Muratorian FragmentThe oldest surviving list of New Testament books — mutilated at its head, naming the Shepherd as too recent for the… | Anonymous (Rome) | Witness |
| c. AD 177, addressed… | A Plea for the Christians · On the ResurrectionThe most polished of the apologists answers the three standing slanders — atheism, Thyestean feasts, Oedipean unions… | Athenagoras of Athens | Writing |
| AD 177 | The Letter of the Churches of Lyon and VienneThe eyewitness encyclical of the Rhône churches recounting the persecution of 177 — the deaths of Pothinus, Sanctus… | Blandina of Lyon | Writing |
| c. AD 180 | Against Heresies (Adversus Haereses)The five books of Irenaeus against the Gnostic systems — and the church’s first great synthesis of scripture… | Irenaeus of Lyon | Writing |
| AD 180 | The Acts of the Scillitan MartyrsThe trial transcript of Speratus and eleven companions of Scillium before the proconsul Saturninus — the earliest… | Donata of Scillium | Writing |
| c. AD 180–185 | To AutolycusThree books for a cultured pagan friend — the first surviving Christian use of the word 'Trinity' (trias), and the… | Theophilus of Antioch | Writing |
| trial AD 183–185… | The Acts of Apollonius (with his Apologia)The senator-philosopher's defense of the faith delivered, says Jerome, before the senate itself — the nearest thing… | Apollonius the Martyr | Writing |
| c. AD 190 | The Demonstration of the Apostolic PreachingIrenaeus's catechism-in-brief — creation, fall, incarnation, and the prophecies fulfilled — lost for seventeen… | Irenaeus of Lyon | Writing |
| c. AD 195 | The Protrepticus (Exhortation to the Greeks)Clement's summons to the pagan world: the New Song that is the Logos, sung against the old myths — ending in the… | Clement of Alexandria | Writing |
| c. AD 196–222 | The Book of the Laws of CountriesThe oldest surviving original Syriac prose work: a dialogue on fate, free will, and the customs of the nations… | Bardaisan of Edessa | Writing |
| c. AD 197 | The Apology (Apologeticus) — closingThe first great Latin defense of the faith, addressed to the provincial governors: persecution, Tertullian argues… | Tertullian of Carthage | Writing |
| c. AD 197–230 | The OctaviusA seaside walk at Ostia becomes the most elegant apology in Latin: the pagan Caecilius and the Christian Octavius… | Minucius Felix | Writing |
| c. AD 198–203 | The Stromateis (Miscellanies)Clement’s eight books of ‘patchwork’ — philosophy as the Greeks’ schoolmaster unto Christ, the true gnostic, and a… | Epiphanes, son of Carpocrates | Writing |
| c. AD 200–220 | Against the Heresy of NoetusThe refutation of the first Modalists — Noetus of Smyrna, who 'said that Christ was the Father himself, and that the… | Hippolytus of Rome | Writing |
| c. AD 200 | On Baptism (De Baptismo)The first treatise on baptism — and, in chapter 17, the earliest external notice of the Acts of Paul and Thecla… | Tertullian of Carthage | Writing |
| c. AD 200 | The Prescription Against HereticsTertullian's legal masterstroke: the scriptures belong to the church by right of possession, and the heretics have no… | Tertullian of Carthage | Writing |
| text c. 3rd century… | The Anaphora of Addai and MariThe most ancient eucharistic prayer still in continuous use, bearing the names of the apostles of the East in its… | Liturgy of the Church of the East | Witness |
| 3rd century | The Instructions (Instructiones)Eighty acrostic poems in soldier's Latin — against the old gods, for catechumens and penitents — the first Christian… | Commodian | Writing |
| AD 203 | The Passion of Perpetua and FelicityThe prison diary of a young Carthaginian noblewoman awaiting the beasts — the earliest surviving text written by a… | Saturus | Writing |
| c. AD 205 | Against HermogenesTertullian's demolition of the Carthaginian painter-theologian who taught that God created from eternal matter — our… | Tertullian of Carthage | Writing |
| AD 212 | To ScapulaAn open letter to the proconsul actively persecuting Carthage — containing antiquity's clearest sentence on liberty… | Tertullian of Carthage | Writing |
| c. AD 213 | Against PraxeasThe treatise that gave Latin theology its Trinitarian grammar — tres personae, una substantia — against the man who… | Tertullian of Carthage | Writing |
| c. AD 215 | The Apostolic Tradition (attributed)The church-order under Hippolytus's name: ordination prayers, the catechumenate, baptismal questions, and the oldest… | Hippolytus of Rome | Writing |
| before AD 216 | The Epitaph of AberciusThe 'queen of Christian inscriptions': a bishop's own guarded verse epitaph — the pure shepherd, the queenly city… | Abercius of Hierapolis | Writing |
| c. AD 220s | Life of Apollonius of TyanaThe sophistic biography of the Neopythagorean sage — later brandished by Hierocles as a pagan counter-Christ, and… | Philostratus | Witness |
| c. AD 220–230 | On First Principles (De Principiis / Peri Archōn)The first systematic theology in Christian history — God, creation, freedom, scripture, and the last things.… | Origen of Alexandria | Writing |
| c. AD 220–240 | The Letters of Julius AfricanusThe Christian polymath writes to Origen doubting the Susanna story's Hebrew credentials — the first surviving… | Sextus Julius Africanus | Writing |
| c. AD 222–235 | The Refutation of All HeresiesHippolytus’ ten books deriving every heresy from Greek philosophy and the mysteries — with the inside story, hostile… | Justinus the Gnostic | Writing |
| AD 238, at Caesarea | The Panegyric to OrigenA graduating student's thanksgiving to the greatest teacher of the age — the fullest surviving picture of how Origen… | Gregory Thaumaturgus | Writing |
| c. AD 246 ; Latin… | Origen, Commentary on the Epistle to the RomansThe first full commentary on Romans — and, at chapter 16, the earliest sustained prosopography of the Roman church.… | Origen of Alexandria | Writing |
| AD 246 | To Donatus (on his conversion)Cyprian's first Christian writing — a garden conversation on what baptism did to a middle-aged rhetor: the world seen… | Cyprian of Carthage | Writing |
| c. AD 248 | Against Celsus (Contra Celsum)Eight books answering, line by line, the pagan philosopher's True Word of seventy years before — preserving Celsus's… | Celsus | Writing |
| AD 249–265 | The Letters of Dionysius of Alexandria (fragments)Festal letters and pastoral dispatches from the Decian terror, the plague, and the chiliast crisis — kept alive… | Dionysius the Great | Writing |
| c. AD 250 | On the Trinity (De Trinitate)The first substantial theology written at Rome, in Latin, by the brilliant presbyter who would soon split the church… | Novatian of Rome | Writing |
| AD 250 | The Decian Libelli (certificates of sacrifice)The paperwork of the first universal persecution: Decius's edict itself is lost, but dozens of the certificates it… | Emperor Decius | Witness |
| AD 250–258 | The Epistles of CyprianEighty-odd letters from the decade of the Decian and Valerian storms — the richest surviving archive of any… | Moyses of Rome | Writing |
| AD 250, Smyrna | The Martyrdom of PioniusThe Decian persecution at Smyrna, on Polycarp's own feast-day: the presbyter Pionius, the woman Sabina, and… | Pionius of Smyrna | Writing |
| AD 251, after the… | On the Lapsed (De Lapsis)Cyprian’s address on the church’s great wound — the multitudes who sacrificed or bought certificates under Decius … | Cyprian of Carthage | Writing |
| c. AD 251 | On the Unity of the Catholic Church (De Ecclesiae Unitate)Cyprian’s appeal for unity against the twin schisms of Novatian at Rome and Felicissimus at Carthage — the founding… | Cyprian of Carthage | Writing |
| AD 259 | The Acts of Fructuosus, Augurius and EulogiusThe arrest, trial, and burning of the bishop of Tarragona with his two deacons under Valerian — the earliest document… | Official court record (Tarragona, 21… | Witness |
| c. AD 259 | The Life and Passion of CyprianThe first Christian biography — written by the deacon who shared Cyprian's exile and stood in the crowd at his… | Pontius the Deacon | Writing |
| c. AD 260–270 | A Declaration of FaithThe short creed the Wonder-worker was said to have received in a night vision from John the Evangelist at Mary's… | Gregory Thaumaturgus | Writing |
| c. AD 260–303 | The Commentary on the ApocalypseThe first Latin Bible commentary that survives — a martyr-bishop's millenarian reading of John's visions, later… | Victorinus of Pettau | Writing |
| c. AD 260–280 | The Sotas Dossier (Oxyrhynchus papyri)The little archive of letters naming bishop Sotas — recommendations for travelers, a note on receiving catechumens … | Sotas of Oxyrhynchus | Writing |
| c. AD 270 | The Paschal CanonsThe Alexandrian mathematician-bishop applies astronomy to the church's hardest calendar problem — the nineteen-year… | Anatolius of Laodicea | Writing |
| c. AD 290 | The Symposium (Banquet of the Ten Virgins)Plato's Symposium rewritten for the church: ten virgins discourse on chastity in a garden, closing with the great… | Methodius of Olympus | Writing |
| AD 295 | The Acts of MaximilianThe trial transcript of the conscript who refused the military oath — 'I cannot serve; I am a Christian' — among the… | Proconsular court record | Witness |
| c. AD 297–303 | Arnobius, Against the Pagans (Adversus Nationes)Seven books of forensic assault on paganism by Lactantius's own teacher — a convert so recent he cites scripture… | Arnobius of Sicca | Writing |
| AD 298 ; early… | The Acts of Marcellus (with the Passion of Cassian the Recorder)The centurion who cast down his vine-staff before the standards, tried before Agricolanus — and the court… | Court record with early editing | Witness |
| c. AD 300–324 — the… | The Canons of the Council of ElviraEighty-one canons from a synod of nineteen bishops and some twenty-four to twenty-six presbyters at Illiberis near… | The Council of Elvira (Illiberis) | Witness |
| 4th century | Hymns on Abraham Kidunaya and Julian SabaThe hymn-cycles on the two hermit-saints of the Edessene desert — arguably contemporary praise, transmitted under… | Ephrem the Syrian | Writing |
| c. 4th century | The Acts of Pilate (Gospel of Nicodemus)The apocryphal acta of the trial, crucifixion, and descent into hell — the text that supplies the traditional names… | Anonymous (attributed to Nicodemus) | Witness |
| 4th–7th c., Egypt … | The History of Joseph the CarpenterThe fullest ancient life of Joseph, framed as Christ telling the apostles on Mount Olivet the death of his… | Anonymous (Egyptian) | Apparatus |
| late 4th century | The Lives of Pachomius (Bohairic & Greek)The community's own memory of its founder — the angel's tablet, the building of Tabennesi, and Theodore the beloved… | Pachomian tradition (first generation of… | Witness |
| core wording 4th–6th… | The Roman Canon (the martyrs of the Nobis quoque)The eucharistic prayer of the Roman church, whose two saint-lists fossilize the city's earliest devotion — seven… | Latin liturgical tradition | Witness |
| sayings 4th century… | The Sayings of the Desert Fathers (Apophthegmata Patrum)The desert's living voice, one saying at a time — Antony on love beyond fear, Arsenius on flight, silence, and… | Anthony the Great | Writing |
| c. AD 303 | Against HieroclesEusebius's reply to the persecutor-pamphleteer Sossianus Hierocles, who had set Apollonius of Tyana above Christ — a… | Eusebius of Caesarea | Writing |
| AD 303 | The Acts of Felix of ThibiucaThe bishop who refused to surrender the Scriptures on the first edict's demand — 'It is better that I be burned than… | Near-contemporary acta | Witness |
| c. AD 303–311 | The Divine InstitutesSeven books written while the Great Persecution burned — classical Latin's first full system of Christian thought… | Lactantius | Writing |
| The seizure 19 May… | The Gesta apud Zenophilum, with the Acts of Munatius FelixTwo Roman documents welded into one. The first is the municipal record of 19 May 303, when Munatius Felix, perpetual… | Municipal and court records of Cirta… | Witness |
| 5 December AD 304… | The Acts of CrispinaThe authentic protocol of a Numidian noblewoman before the proconsul Anullinus — terse questions, unshakable answers… | Proconsular court record | Witness |
| c. AD 304+ | The Passion of Irenaeus of SirmiumAmong the earliest and most sober of the Danubian martyr-acts: the young bishop's interrogations before Probus, his… | Anonymous (court-record based) | Witness |
| c. AD 305–306 | The Letter of Phileas · The Acts of PhileasA lawyer-bishop's eyewitness letter from prison describing the tortures of the Alexandrian martyrs — quoted by… | Phileas of Thmuis | Writing |
| c. AD 306 | The Canonical Epistle (On Penance)The martyr-bishop's fourteen canons on how to receive back those who fell in the Great Persecution — graded penance… | Peter of Alexandria | Writing |
| AD 308–310, written… | The Defence of Origen (Apology for Origen)Five books composed in chains, with a sixth added by Eusebius after the martyrdom — the scholar's case that Origen… | Pamphilus of Caesarea | Writing |
| 30 April AD 311… | The Edict of Toleration of GaleriusThe dying persecutor's capitulation: the author of the Great Persecution concedes its failure, grants Christians the… | Emperor Galerius | Witness |
| c. AD 313–325 | The Ecclesiastical HistoryThe first history of the church — Eusebius’ ten books tracing the succession of bishops, the writers, the heretics… | King Abgar V of Edessa | Writing |
| AD 313 | The Edict of Milan (the Milan settlement)The letter from Milan that ended the age of persecution: free exercise of religion for Christians 'and for all,' with… | Emperor Licinius | Witness |
| AD 313–337 | The Letters and Oration of ConstantineThe first Christian emperor in his own words: the letter begging Alexander and Arius to stop quarreling 'over small… | Constantine the Great | Witness |
| c. AD 314–315 | On the Deaths of the Persecutors (De Mortibus Persecutorum)History as verdict: every persecuting emperor dies badly, from Nero to Maximinus Daza — and along the way the book… | Lactantius | Writing |
| AD 314 | The Acts and Subscriptions of the Council of ArlesThe canons and signature list of Constantine's council on the Donatist appeal — the roll that gives the earliest… | Conciliar record | Witness |
| 1 August AD 314 | The Acts and Synodal Letter of the Council of Arles (314)The first council of the whole Western church, called by Constantine after the Donatists refused to accept the Roman… | The Council of Arles; preserved in the… | Witness |
| c. AD 318–328 | On the Incarnation of the Word (De Incarnatione)The young Athanasius’ classic account of why God became man — that the Word took a body to restore the divine image… | Athanasius of Alexandria | Writing |
| c. AD 318–320 | The Letter of Arius to Eusebius of NicomediaThe heresiarch's own voice at the controversy's start — naming his condemners ('except Philogonius, Hellanicus and… | Arius | Writing |
| c. AD 319–324 | The Epistles on the Arian HeresyThe encyclicals that opened the Arian controversy: Alexander's deposition of Arius and his circular to all bishops … | Alexander of Alexandria | Writing |
| c. AD 320s | Eustathius, On the Witch of Endor, against OrigenThe Nicene confessor's exegetical duel: against Origen's reading of 1 Samuel 28, Eustathius argues the 'ghost of… | Eustathius of Antioch | Writing |
| AD 325 | The Creed of Nicaea (325)The confession drawn up at Nicaea to exclude Arianism, introducing the decisive word homoousios — ‘of one substance… | Alexander of Alexandria | Writing |
| AD 325 | The Subscription Lists of the Council of NicaeaThe signature rolls of the first ecumenical council — the contemporary documentary record that attests bishops… | The 318 Fathers (conciliar record) | Witness |
| c. AD 329–330 | Juvencus, The Four Books of the Gospels (Evangeliorum Libri IV)A Spanish presbyter of noble family sets the Gospel in 3,200 hexameters, announcing that while Homer's and Virgil's… | Juvencus | Writing |
| c. AD 330–348 | The Acts of the Disputation with ManesThe church's founding dossier against Manichaeism — a staged debate between bishop Archelaus and Mani himself, source… | Archelaus of Carrhae | Writing |
| c. AD 330–345 | The Letters of AntonySeven letters to the monasteries, attested by Jerome — 'letters of apostolic sense and speech' — urging… | Anthony the Great | Writing |
| c. AD 330–345 | The Rule of Pachomius (Praecepta)The first written rule of communal monastic life — prayer, meals, work, and the weekly order of the houses … | Pachomius the Great | Writing |
| c. AD 336–338 | Against Marcellus · Ecclesiastical TheologyEusebius's last theological works, commissioned to refute Marcellus of Ancyra — the anti-Arian who, his critics held… | Marcellus of Ancyra | Writing |
| compiled AD 336–354 | The Chronography of 354 (Depositio Martyrum & Episcoporum)The illustrated Roman almanac whose church lists — the burial calendars of the martyrs and bishops of Rome — are the… | Furius Dionysius Filocalus | Witness |
| AD 337–345, in Persia | The Demonstrations (Tahwyatha)Twenty-three alphabetic discourses from inside the Persian empire — faith, fasting, prayer, the Sons of the Covenant… | Aphrahat the Persian Sage | Writing |
| c. AD 337–339 | The Life of ConstantineThe court bishop's memorial of the first Christian emperor — the vision of the cross before the Milvian Bridge, the… | Eusebius of Caesarea | Writing |
| c. AD 340–359 | Eusebius of Emesa, HomiliesNearly thirty homilies of the Antiochene school's polished court-preacher, lost in Greek and recovered from an old… | Eusebius of Emesa | Writing |
| c. AD 340–355 | Fortunatianus, Commentary on the GospelsJerome asked to borrow it and later sniffed at its 'rustic speech'; then it vanished for a millennium and a half… | Fortunatianus of Aquileia | Writing |
| c. AD 349 | The Apology Against the AriansAthanasius's documentary self-defence — the acquittals of Rome and Sardica, Julius's great letter to the Easterns… | Athanasius of Alexandria | Writing |
| c. AD 350–356 | On the Decrees of the Council of Nicaea (De Decretis)Why the fathers wrote homoousios: Athanasius's insider account of how the Arians dodged every scriptural phrase until… | Dionysius of Rome | Writing |
| c. AD 350–360 | Potamius of Lisbon, Tractates and LettersA small, strange, vivid corpus: the baroque meditations On Lazarus and On the Martyrdom of Isaiah, and the doctrinal… | Potamius of Lisbon | Writing |
| c. AD 350, in the… | The Catechetical LecturesA Lent's worth of instruction delivered yards from the tomb of Christ — creed, sacraments, and the Mystagogic… | Cyril of Jerusalem | Writing |
| c. AD 350 | The Euchologion (Prayer-book) of SerapionThirty bishop's prayers from the Egyptian delta — eucharist, baptism, ordinations, burial — the oldest surviving… | Serapion of Thmuis | Writing |
| c. AD 350–383 | The Gothic Bible of UlfilasUlfilas invented an alphabet and translated the scriptures for his people — omitting, says Philostorgius, the books… | Ulfilas (Wulfila) | Writing |
| c. AD 350–373 | The Hymns of Ephrem · The Prayer of St EphremThe Harp of the Spirit: madrashe on the Nativity, the Faith, and Nisibis besieged — with the short penitential prayer… | Ephrem the Syrian | Writing |
| AD 354–363 | Eusebius of Vercelli, the LettersThree letters of the confessor who would not sign at Milan in 355: to Constantius before the storm, and from… | Eusebius of Vercelli | Writing |
| c. AD 355–361 | Lucifer of Cagliari, the PamphletsFive treatises of magnificent invective — On Not Meeting with Heretics, On Apostate Kings, That One Must Die for the… | Lucifer of Cagliari | Writing |
| AD 356–360, largely… | On the Trinity (De Trinitate)Twelve books from 'the Athanasius of the West' — Latin theology's first full engagement with the Arian crisis… | Hilary of Poitiers | Writing |
| AD 357–358 | Phoebadius of Agen, Against the AriansA country bishop reads the Sirmium manifesto of 357 and writes the West's first point-by-point refusal — before… | Phoebadius of Agen | Writing |
| c. AD 357 | The Apology to ConstantiusThe exile's formal self-defence to the emperor who hunted him — courteous, forensic, and edged — answering charge by… | Athanasius of Alexandria | Writing |
| AD 357–358, written… | The History of the AriansAthanasius’ fiercest polemic — the persecution of the Nicene bishops told from inside his third exile: the falls of… | Athanasius of Alexandria | Writing |
| AD 357–379 | The Letters of BasilThree hundred and sixty-eight letters — famine relief, canon law, friendship with Gregory, the aching break with… | Eustathius of Sebaste | Writing |
| c. AD 357–359, from… | The Letters to Serapion on the Holy SpiritWritten in hiding to the bishop of Thmuis: the first full defence of the Spirit's divinity, against those who had… | Athanasius of Alexandria | Writing |
| c. AD 357 | The Life of Antony (Vita Antonii)The book that invented monastic biography — Antony's call, his wars with demons, his emergence 'as from a shrine… | Anthony the Great | Writing |
| AD 358–359 | On the Synods (De Synodis)Hilary's dossier of the Eastern creeds for his Gallic colleagues — transmitting, under its own heading, 'the… | Ursacius of Singidunum | Writing |
| c. AD 359–363 | Against Arius (Adversus Arium)Rome's most celebrated professor, converted in old age to the city's astonishment, turns Neoplatonic metaphysics into… | Marius Victorinus | Writing |
| AD 359–361 | On the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia (De Synodis)The creed-making frenzy of 359 dissected — and the fullest surviving quotations of Arius's Thalia, the versified… | Lucian of Antioch | Writing |
| AD 359–390 | The Letters of Gregory of NazianzusThe first Greek to publish his own letter-collection — including the two letters to Cledonius whose axiom against… | Gregory of Nazianzus | Writing |
| c. AD 360–392 | Gregory of Elvira, On the Orthodox Faith (with the Tractatus Origenis)A corpus that survived by wearing other men's names: De fide orthodoxa travelled under Ambrose and Phoebadius; the… | Gregory of Elvira | Writing |
| c. AD 360–370 | On the Holy SpiritThe blind master of Alexandria's catechetical school on the Spirit's full divinity — translated by Jerome partly to… | Didymus the Blind | Writing |
| Apology c. AD 361… | Eunomius, the Apology (with the Confession of 383)The rare heresiarch whose book survived his condemnation: the first Apology (which provoked Basil's Against… | Eunomius of Cyzicus | Writing |
| AD 362–363 | Against the Galileans · The Letters of JulianThe last pagan emperor's case against the church — surviving only in Cyril of Alexandria's refutation — with the… | Emperor Julian the Apostate | Witness |
| AD 362–383 | The Orations of Gregory of NazianzusForty-five orations — the funeral masterpieces for his brother Caesarius, his sister Gorgonia, and his father; the… | Gregory of Nazianzus | Writing |
| c. AD 363–378 | Titus of Bostra, Against the ManichaeansThe era's fullest anti-Manichaean case: evil is not a substance but a choice. Books I–II and part of III survive in… | Titus of Bostra | Writing |
| AD 364–365 | Against AuxentiusHilary's pamphlet on his failed attempt to unseat Auxentius, the Homoian bishop of Milan — the contemporary… | Hilary of Poitiers | Writing |
| c. AD 364 | Against EunomiusBasil's first major work: the demolition of Eunomius's claim that God's very essence — 'unbegottenness' — can be… | Basil the Great | Writing |
| AD 366–384 | The Epigrams of DamasusSome sixty verse inscriptions, about thirty-five of them naming martyrs, which Damasus set over the graves of the… | Damasus I of Rome | Witness |
| c. AD 367–385 | Against the Donatists (De Schismate Donatistarum)The first full anti-Donatist history and theology — the schism's documents assembled, the church defined by communion… | Optatus of Milevis | Writing |
| Easter letter, AD 367 | Festal Letter 39 (the canon of the New Testament)The first list in history to name exactly the twenty-seven books of the New Testament — 'in these alone is the… | Athanasius of Alexandria | Writing |
| c. AD 368–378 | The Homilies of BasilThe preacher of Caesarea at full force — on the famine, to the rich, and on the barn-builder of Luke 12: 'the bread… | Basil the Great | Writing |
| AD 370–419 | The Letters of JeromeThe most vivid correspondence of Christian antiquity — the dream-tribunal where Christ calls him a Ciceronian, the… | Jerome of Stridon | Writing |
| AD 372, within months… | The Passion of St Sabbas the GothA letter from the Gothic church beyond the Danube describing the arrest and drowning of Sabbas on 12 April 372, sent… | The church of Gothia, in a letter to the… | Witness |
| AD 374–377 | The Panarion (Medicine-chest against heresies)Eighty heresies catalogued, dosed, and refuted — clumsy, invaluable, and the sole preserver of documents like… | Epiphanius of Salamis | Writing |
| AD 375 | On the Holy Spirit (De Spiritu Sancto)Basil’s defence of the full divinity of the Holy Spirit — occasioned by a quarrel over a doxology — arguing that the… | Basil the Great | Writing |
| c. AD 375–390 | Pacian of Barcelona, Letters and TreatisesThe gentlest polemicist of the century, and one immortal sentence: 'Christian is my name, Catholic my surname.'… | Pacian of Barcelona | Writing |
| c. AD 375–385 | Priscillian, the Würzburg TractatesEleven tractates by the first Christian executed for heresy — utterly lost for fourteen centuries while only his… | Priscillian of Ávila | Writing |
| c. AD 375–380 | The Apostolic ConstitutionsThe great late-4th-century church-order compilation. Book VII.46 preserves the church's oldest connected register of… | Anonymous compiler (pseudonymously… | Witness |
| c. AD 375–377 | The Life of Paul the First HermitJerome's desert debut: the hermit older than Antony, the raven's doubled loaf, and the two lions who dig the grave … | Jerome of Stridon | Writing |
| AD 377 | Concerning Virgins (De Virginibus)Three books to his sister Marcellina, opening with Agnes — twelve years old, 'a new kind of martyrdom' — the West's… | Ambrose of Milan | Writing |
| c. AD 379–383 | Panegyrics on the MartyrsGregory's festival orations on Theodore the Recruit and the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste — preached at the shrines… | Gregory of Nyssa | Writing |
| AD 379–397 | The Letters · The Sermon Against AuxentiusThe bishop who made emperors wait: the basilica crisis of 386 — 'the emperor is within the church, not above it' … | Ambrose of Milan | Writing |
| c. AD 380 | On the Soul and the ResurrectionA Christian Phaedo set at Macrina's deathbed: the dying sister leads her bishop-brother through grief to the… | Macrina the Younger | Writing |
| c. AD 380–390 | Philastrius of Brescia, The Book of Diverse HeresiesOne hundred fifty-six heresies — twenty-eight before Christ — catalogued with more zeal than discrimination: it is a… | Philastrius of Brescia | Writing |
| compiled c. AD 380 at… | The Chronicle (Chronicon)Jerome's Latin recasting of Eusebius's world chronicle, extended to his own day — the terse year-entries that carry… | Jerome of Stridon | Writing |
| 27 February AD 380 | The Edict of Thessalonica (Cunctos populos)The constitution that made Nicene Christianity the religion of the Roman state — all peoples to hold the faith 'which… | Emperor Gratian | Witness |
| c. AD 380 | The Iambics to SeleucusA bishop's advice-poem to a young kinsman — ending in a canon-list of the scriptures that pauses honestly over the… | Amphilochius of Iconium | Writing |
| c. AD 380–383 | The Life of MacrinaGregory’s memoir of his sister — teacher of the family, founder of the Annisa community — with the deathbed prayer… | Macrina the Younger | Writing |
| 3 September AD 381 | The Gesta of the Council of AquileiaVerbatim stenographic minutes of a fourth-century council — the only set that survives. Thirty-two Western bishops… | Palladius of Ratiaria | Witness |
| c. AD 381–384 | The Pilgrimage of Egeria (Itinerarium)The earliest substantial Christian travel diary: the liturgy of Jerusalem observed week by week, and en route the… | Egeria the pilgrim | Witness |
| AD 383–420 | The Prefaces to the Vulgate and CommentariesThe working prefaces of the Bible's greatest translator — to Damasus on revising the Gospels, and to Isaiah with the… | Jerome of Stridon | Writing |
| c. AD 384 | The Libellus Precum (Petition to the Emperors)The petition of two rigorist priests against persecution by the establishment church — incidentally the earliest… | Faustinus & Marcellinus | Witness |
| AD 385 | The Letter to Himerius (the first decretal)The earliest surviving papal decretal: Rome answers fifteen questions from Tarragona — baptism at Easter, clerical… | Siricius of Rome | Writing |
| c. AD 386–390 | On the Priesthood (De Sacerdotio)Six books in dialogue form — the young deacon's apologia for dodging ordination by a ruse, turned into antiquity's… | John Chrysostom | Writing |
| AD 386–404, Antioch… | The Homilies on the ScripturesThe Golden Mouth verse by verse — ninety homilies on Matthew, the great Romans series with its astonished praise of… | John Chrysostom | Writing |
| c. AD 386 | The Hymns of AmbroseSongs written to hold a besieged congregation together — Veni redemptor gentium, Aeterne rerum conditor — the metre… | Ambrose of Milan | Writing |
| AD 386–430 | The Letters of AugustineNearly three hundred letters — to Jerome across a testy decade, to the Donatists across a broken church, to Roman… | Augustine of Hippo | Writing |
| c. AD 390 | Res GestaeThe last great classical historian — a pagan professional soldier whose surviving books (353–378) give contemporary… | Ammianus Marcellinus | Witness |
| c. AD 390 | The Life of HilarionThe founder of Palestinian monasticism, from Gaza to Cyprus — Jerome's fullest, most historical desert Life, built on… | Jerome of Stridon | Writing |
| c. AD 390–391 | The Life of Malchus the Captive MonkJerome's short masterpiece of monastic storytelling — the monk captured by Saracens, his chaste 'marriage' in… | Jerome of Stridon | Writing |
| c. AD 390 | The Life of MosesMoses's story read twice — history, then mystery — ending in the doctrine of perpetual progress: perfection is never… | Gregory of Nyssa | Writing |
| c. AD 390, the Cells | The PraktikosOne hundred chapters on the monk's inner war — the eight evil thoughts (the ancestors of the seven deadly sins) and… | Evagrius Ponticus | Writing |
| c. AD 391 | On the Duties of the Clergy (De Officiis)Cicero's De Officiis rewritten for the presbyterate — with the church's plate melted for captives, and Lawrence's… | Ambrose of Milan | Writing |
| AD 391–430, taken… | The SermonsPreaching as conversation: hundreds of sermons caught live by notarii — on the feasts of the martyrs (Vincent… | Augustine of Hippo | Writing |
| AD 392–420 | Expositions on the Psalms (Enarrationes in Psalmos)The whole psalter preached through — Christ and church as one voice, the two cities in every verse, and the martyrs… | Augustine of Hippo | Writing |
| AD 392–393, at… | On Illustrious Men (De Viris Illustribus)Jerome’s catalogue of 135 Christian writers from Peter to himself — the first literary history of the church, and the… | Jerome of Stridon | Writing |
| AD 393 | Against JovinianusJerome at his most unguarded: the two books against the monk who taught that baptized virgins, widows, and wives… | Jerome of Stridon | Writing |
| 25 February AD 395 | On the Death of TheodosiusThe funeral oration for the emperor who did public penance — 'I have loved a man who esteemed a reprover more than a… | Ambrose of Milan | Writing |
| c. AD 396 | Exposition of Psalm 118Ambrose's twenty-two sermons on the great psalm of the Law — in the twentieth of which falls the earliest narrative… | Ambrose of Milan | Writing |
| c. AD 396, published… | The Life of St MartinThe West's founding hagiography: the soldier who cut his cloak in two at Amiens and dreamed of Christ wearing the… | Sulpicius Severus | Writing |
| c. AD 397–400 | The ConfessionsThe first interior autobiography: the pear tree, Monica's tears, the garden in Milan, the vision at Ostia — all… | Augustine of Hippo | Writing |
| c. AD 397–400 | The Letters of Sulpicius SeverusThe sequel to the Life: Martin's fire-tried cell, and the third letter with his death at Candes — the refusal to be… | Sulpicius Severus | Writing |
| AD 400–405 | Against the Letters of Petilian · On BaptismThe anti-Donatist dossier: the validity of sacraments does not hang on the minister's purity — and the charges… | Augustine of Hippo | Writing |
| c. AD 400 | Homilies of Asterius of AmaseaThe festival sermons of the bishop of Amasea — on Phocas the gardener-martyr of Sinope, and the celebrated… | Asterius of Amasea | Witness |
| c. AD 400s | Sermons (Tractatus)The twenty-one surviving tractates of Gaudentius — the last preached on the anniversary of his predecessor… | Gaudentius of Brescia | Witness |
| c. AD 400–405 | The Crowns of Martyrdom (Peristephanon)Fourteen hymns crowning the martyrs — Lawrence, Vincent, Agnes, Fructuosus, the Calagurritani — Rome's poetry… | Prudentius | Witness |
| c. AD 400 | The History of the Monks of Egypt (Historia Monachorum in Aegypto)The travel narrative of seven monks who toured the Thebaid — eyewitness sketches of Apollo of Hermopolis with his… | Anonymous (a Jerusalem party of 394) | Witness |
| 5th century | The History of the ArmeniansThe national epic of Armenia's conversion: Gregory in the pit of Khor Virap, king Tiridates's affliction and healing… | Agathangelos | Witness |
| 5th century | The Passion of Vincent of SaragossaThe passio of the deacon Vincent under Dacian — gridiron, dungeon, and the sea — already preached from by Augustine… | Anonymous | Witness |
| AD 402–403 | The Church History of RufinusEusebius carried into Latin and continued to 395 — the West's textbook of church history for a millennium, and the… | Rufinus of Aquileia | Witness |
| c. AD 403 | The Sacred History (Chronicle)World history from creation to his own day in classical Latin — the key contemporary account of the Priscillianist… | Sulpicius Severus | Witness |
| c. AD 408 | Palladius, Dialogue on the Life of John ChrysostomThe defense brief for the deposed archbishop, by the same Palladius who wrote the Lausiac History: the Oak synod's… | Palladius of Helenopolis | Witness |
| synods AD 410–775… | The Synodicon OrientaleThe collected synods of the Persian church — beginning with Isaac's synod of 410 that ratified the primacy of… | Synods of the Church of the East… | Witness |
| c. AD 419–420 | The Lausiac HistoryPalladius’ eyewitness memoir of the Egyptian desert — Nitria, Kellia, Scetis — written for the chamberlain Lausus… | Palladius of Galatia | Witness |
| c. AD 422 | The Life of AmbroseThe memoir of Ambrose by his own notary — including the finding of the martyrs' relics, and the translation of… | Paulinus of Milan | Witness |
| c. AD 425 | Ecclesiastical History (Epitome)The 'church history from the other side' — an Arian's narrative preserved only in epitome, honoring as martyr the… | Philostorgius | Witness |
| AD 428–429 | Augustine, On Heresies (De Haeresibus)The old bishop's last reference work: an 88-entry catalogue of heresies from Simon Magus to the Pelagians, distilling… | Augustine of Hippo | Writing |
| c. AD 431–450 … | The Martyrologium HieronymianumThe oldest general calendar of the martyrs — for almost every day of the year, a terse notice of place and names.… | The Hieronymian compilers | Witness |
| c. AD 432–437 | Possidius, Life of Augustine (with the Indiculum)The sober memoir of the man rather than the mind: Augustine's daily table, his handling of the Donatist conferences… | Possidius of Calama | Witness |
| c. AD 439 | Ecclesiastical HistoryThe sober lay historian of the Constantinian and Arian centuries — the primary narrative source for dozens of… | Socrates Scholasticus | Witness |
| c. AD 440–450 | The Passion of the Martyrs of AgaunumEucherius's account of Maurice and the Theban Legion, written ~150 years after the traditional event — the earliest… | Eucherius of Lyon | Witness |
| c. AD 440 | The Religious History (Historia Religiosa)Thirty lives of the Syrian ascetics Theodoret knew from childhood — James of Nisibis at the head, stylites and… | Theodoret of Cyrus | Witness |
| c. AD 443 | Ecclesiastical HistoryThe advocate-historian who retold the century from Constantine to his own day with a monk's sympathies — the fullest… | Sozomen | Witness |
| c. AD 449 | The Ecclesiastical History of TheodoretThe Antiochene continuation of Eusebius, from Nicaea to 428 — the fullest documentary file on the Arian wars from the… | Theodoret of Cyrus | Witness |
| c. AD 452–453 | Theodoret, Compendium of Heretical FablesThe last great ancient heresiology: five books from Simon Magus down to Nestorius and Eutyches, closed by a book of… | Theodoret of Cyrus | Witness |
| c. AD 470 | The Epic Histories (Buzandaran Patmut'iwnk')The great Armenian history of the Arsacid kingdom and the house of Gregory the Illuminator — the earliest narrative… | P'awstos Buzand (attributed) | Witness |
| c. AD 480–495 | Gennadius, On Illustrious Men (the Continuation)Ninety-odd further entries, from 'James the Wise' (in fact Aphrahat, the Persian Sage, filed under the wrong name — a… | Gennadius of Marseilles | Witness |
| c. AD 480–500 | The Passion of Saint CeciliaThe legendary Roman passio of Cecilia, Valerian, and Tiburtius — written some 250 years after the traditional… | Anonymous (Roman legendary) | Witness |
| c. 6th–7th century | The Acts of Mār Mārī the ApostleThe legendary Acts of the apostle of Babylonia — disciple of Addai, founder of the church of Kokhe — written some… | Anonymous (Church of the East) | Witness |
| compiled c. AD 530 | The Liber Pontificalis (Book of the Popes)The sixth-century compilation of papal lives built on the fourth-century lists — late but indispensable, preserving… | Anonymous Roman compilers | Witness |
| AD 593 | The DialoguesGregory's four books of the saints of Italy — Benedict's life at their center — and, in Book III, the flood-miracle… | Gregory the Great | Witness |
| c. AD 594 | The Histories (History of the Franks)Gregory's ten books from Creation to his own day — the earliest record of the seven missionary bishops of Gaul and of… | Gregory of Tours | Witness |
| 9th century | The Bibliotheca (Myriobiblon)The learned patriarch's descriptions of books read — many now lost — including the church history of Gelasius of… | Photius of Constantinople | Witness |
| c. AD 814–842 | The Life of Nicholas of MyraThe oldest complete biography of the bishop of Myra — the three purses of gold through the poor man's window, the… | Michael the Archimandrite | Witness |
The figures who wrote them → · What was happening when → · Glossary and method →