The later Fathers
AD 452–800
Psalms of Solomon
Eighteen psalms written in Jerusalem after Pompey’s conquest in 63 BC, praying for a righteous Messiah of David’s line; they survive in Greek and Syriac, and the Syriac version is the one translated here.
1 workTheodoret of Cyrus
Bishop of Cyrus; theologian, historian and exegete.
9 worksPaulinus of Pella
Gallic Christian poet who wrote an account of his life.
1 workLeo the Great
Bishop of Rome whose Tome shaped the Council of Chalcedon.
2 worksPaulinus of Périgueux
Poet who wrote the life of Martin of Tours in verse.
3 worksClaudianus Mamertus
Priest of Vienne in Gaul who wrote on the nature of the soul.
2 worksAnonymous of Cyzicus
Unknown cleric of Cyzicus who wrote a history of the Council of Nicaea, long wrongly attributed to Gelasius of Cyzicus.
1 workFaustus of Riez
Bishop of Riez; a leader of the semi-Pelagian party in Gaul.
5 worksVictor of Vita
Bishop who wrote the history of the Vandal persecution in Africa.
1 workGennadius of Massilia
Priest of Marseilles who continued Jerome's lives of illustrious men.
1 workActs of Peter and Paul
A legendary account of the last days of the two apostles in Rome.
1 workApocryphal Acts of the Apostles (Syriac)
Syriac apocryphal acts of the apostles, edited and translated by William Wright in 1871.
1 workLegends of Eastern saints
Legends of saints from Syriac and other Eastern sources.
1 workLiturgy of Malabar
The liturgy of the Syrian Christians of Malabar in south India, an East Syriac rite near that of Addai and Mari.
1 workPseudo-Linus
Latin accounts of the martyrdom of Peter and Paul put under the name of Linus of Rome.
1 workPseudo-Victor of Vita
Writings handed down with Victor of Vita's history.
2 worksRuricius of Limoges
Bishop of Limoges; his letters picture Gaul in the fifth century.
1 workSalvian the Presbyter
Gallic priest; wrote On the Government of God.
4 worksSyriac Miscellanies
Extracts from Syriac writings with English translations, collected by B. H. Cowper in 1861.
1 workJoshua the Stylite
Syriac chronicler of the Persian war.
2 worksPhiloxenus of Mabbug
Syriac bishop and ascetical writer.
5 worksBoethius
Roman statesman and Christian philosopher, author of the Consolation of Philosophy.
2 worksTheodosius the Archdeacon
Pilgrim who wrote a short description of the Holy Land.
1 workPseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite
A Syrian-Greek mystical writer who wrote under the name of Paul’s convert at Athens; his authorship is a pseudonym and the works date from about AD 500.
7 worksSeverus of Antioch
Patriarch of Antioch; leading Miaphysite theologian.
2 worksChronicle of Edessa
An anonymous Syriac chronicle of the city of Edessa.
1 workAmbrose the Syrian
Author of the Syriac Hypomnemata, an extract of which Cureton published.
1 workCave of Treasures
An anonymous Syriac history of the world from the creation to the crucifixion, named from the cave in which Adam’s treasures were kept; the manuscripts put it under the name of Ephrem the Syrian, but it was written later.
1 workChronicle of Arbela
A Syriac chronicle of the church of Arbela whose authenticity is disputed.
1 workCosmas Indicopleustes
Merchant-monk who wrote the Christian Topography.
1 workPseudo-Polycarp
Fragments put under Polycarp’s name, preserved by Victor of Capua.
1 workCollectio Avellana (imperial and papal letters)
A sixth-century collection of letters of popes and emperors on church disputes.
2 worksCouncil of Constantinople (AD 553)
The fifth ecumenical council.
3 worksPseudo-Zachariah of Mitylene
A Syriac chronicle that includes the church history of Zachariah Rhetor.
1 workAnonymous pilgrim of Piacenza
A pilgrim from Piacenza who described the holy places of Palestine and Egypt.
1 workJohn of Ephesus
Syriac church historian and bishop.
1 workGregory of Tours
Bishop of Tours in Gaul and the chief historian of the early Franks; his History of the Franks, in ten books, runs from Adam to his own day and is full of the lives of saints and bishops.
1 workLicinian of Cartagena
Bishop of Cartagena in Spain, correspondent of Gregory the Great.
1 workContendings of the Apostles
A large Ethiopic collection of the preachings, miracles and martyrdoms of the apostles, made from Greek, Syriac, Coptic and Arabic legends. It is legendary and is not scripture; it is kept with the pseudonymous writings.
2 worksLife of Shenouda
A Syriac version of the life of the Coptic abbot Shenouda of Atripe.
1 workOrthodox Church service books
The prayers, hymns and rites of the Orthodox Church of the East, as printed in the Greek and Church Slavonic service books and here in Isabel Hapgood’s English version.
2 worksReligious Discussion at the Court of the Sassanids
A Christian-Zoroastrian debate.
1 workAntiochus Strategos
Monk of Mar Saba who described the Persian capture of Jerusalem in AD 614.
1 workChronicon Paschale
An anonymous Byzantine chronicle of the world from Adam, built round the calendar of Easter.
2 worksAnanias of Shirak
Armenian mathematician and writer on the calendar and the church year.
3 worksCoptic texts (anonymous)
Anonymous lives, homilies and apocryphal writings that survive in Coptic, the language of Egyptian Christians, many of them put under the names of famous Fathers and some translated from Greek.
7 worksCouncil of Constantinople (AD 681)
The sixth ecumenical council.
2 worksJohn bar Penkaye
Syriac monk who wrote a history of the world.
1 workApocalypse of Samuel of Kalamoun
A Coptic apocalypse put under the name of Samuel, abbot of Qalamun.
1 workJohn of Nikiu
Egyptian bishop whose chronicle survives in Ethiopic.
1 workQuinisext Council (AD 692)
The Council in Trullo, with its canons.
1 workAdomnán of Iona
Abbot of Iona; his De locis sanctis records a pilgrim's account of the Holy Land.
1 workCoptic Apocalypse of Daniel
A Coptic apocalypse put under the name of Daniel.
1 workEast Syriac monastic histories
Lives and histories of the monks of the Church of the East, written in Syriac, some as prose and some as long metrical poems, about the founders and heroes of the mountain monasteries of northern Mesopotamia.
3 worksIsaac of Nineveh
Syriac monk and bishop; the Mystic Treatises.
1 workJacob of Edessa
Syriac bishop, scholar and translator.
2 worksPaulician Church of Armenia
The Paulicians were a movement of Armenian Christians, active from the seventh century, who rejected the cult of the Virgin, the cross and the Church’s hierarchy and held an adoptionist view of Christ. Their manual, the Key of Truth, was copied in 1782 and survives in a single manuscript.
1 workTimothy I of Baghdad
Patriarch of the Church of the East, who debated the Caliph al-Mahdi.
1 workCouncil of Nicaea (AD 787)
The seventh ecumenical council.
5 worksSyriac and Arabic apocrypha (anonymous)
Anonymous apocryphal and devotional writings that survive only in Syriac, Arabic or Garshuni (Arabic written in Syriac letters) manuscripts, edited and translated for the Woodbrooke Studies.
5 worksKebra Nagast
The ‘Glory of the Kings’, the national epic of Ethiopia, which tells how the Queen of Sheba visited Solomon and how their son Menyelek brought the Ark of the Covenant to Ethiopia; it was put into its present form in the early fourteenth century.
1 workManuel II Palaiologos
Byzantine emperor who recorded his dialogues with a learned Muslim.
1 workNeale and Littledale (Commentary on the Psalms)
John Mason Neale and Richard Littledale, Anglican priests and scholars, put together a verse-by-verse commentary on the whole Psalter from the Fathers and medieval writers and from the hymns of the Roman, Ambrosian, Gallican, Greek, Coptic, Armenian and Syrian rites. Neale did the first volume and part of the second before his death in 1866, and Littledale finished the work.
8 works