Welcome! This interactive timeline maps Christian authors and their writings across two thousand years of history — from the precursors and the early church to the modern era. Use it to explore who wrote what, when they lived, how they connect, and where you can read or buy their works.

No account or sign-in is needed. Everything below works right in your browser.

A quick tour of the screen

The timeline has three parts, top to bottom:

1. The controls bar — a Search box, a Filters menu, and your reading List. That's it: the bar stays uncluttered, and everything else is tucked into Filters or floats on the timeline itself.
2. The timeline itself — a scrollable canvas with two rows (lanes): Authors on top and Works below, plotted left-to-right by year. A small colour key runs along the bottom. The view controls (zoom, Wide, Full screen) float in the top corner of the canvas, like the buttons on a map.
3. The cards area — when you click something, a detail card for it appears here, in the Authors or Works column.

Dates run left (earliest) to right (latest). Years before Christ are shown as BCE.

Moving around the timeline

The zoom and view buttons sit in the corner of the timeline canvas:

• Zoom in / out: use the + and − buttons, or scroll your mouse wheel over the timeline (it zooms in on wherever your cursor is).
• Pan: click and drag the timeline in any direction — left/right to travel through time, up/down to see more authors or works in a crowded period.
• Reset: the ↺ button returns to the default zoom and position.

On a touchscreen, drag with your finger to pan.

Making it bigger

Two buttons in the canvas corner give the timeline more room. When either is on, its button lights up:

• ↔ Wide — expands the timeline and cards to the full width of your browser window (it breaks out of the page's reading column). Click again to return to the normal width.
• ⛶ Full — goes full screen: the page text, header, and footer disappear and the timeline fills your whole display, growing both wider and taller. Press Esc to come back.

Full screen is the best way to explore a crowded period — there's far more room for overlapping authors and works.

Finding someone (search & filters)

• Search: type a name or title into the Search box. The timeline jumps to the first match and highlights what fits. Search also looks through alternate spellings and Latin/English title variants, so "Augustine" and "Augustinus" both work.
• Filters: click Filters ▾ to open a small panel. A number badge on the button tells you how many filters are currently active. Inside you'll find:
  • Show — Both / Authors / Works: choose what appears. Pick Authors to focus on people, Works for only writings, or Both (the default).
  • Collection: narrow to a curated grouping — for example Scripture or Mystical Witness — when collections are available.
  • Availability: narrow the works by what you can do with them — Any availability · Works with editions · Works with paid editions · Works with free editions · Works with audio editions · or Works free to read here (our hosted in-brand reader).
• Active-filter chips: whenever a filter is on, a little removable chip appears just under the controls bar (for example Collection: Scripture). Click a chip's ✕ to switch that filter off, or Clear all to reset them at once — so you can always see, and undo, exactly what's narrowing the view.

Availability applies to works only; authors always remain eligible, and the Authors lane narrows to just the people who have a matching work.

Reading the colours

The colour key at the bottom of the timeline explains the bar styles. A solid bar generally means "there's more to explore here"; an outlined bar means "on record, but nothing to open yet."

An author's bar spans their lifetime (birth to death). For living authors, the bar runs to the present day and ends with a dashed, open edge — a visual cue that their story is still being written. Soft background bands mark the major eras behind the bars, to help you place a period at a glance.

(Hover over any bar to see a quick tooltip — an author's name and dates, or a work's title, author, and year.)

Exploring an author or a work

Click any bar to select it. Selected bars are highlighted, and a detail card appears in the cards area below:

• Click an author → their card appears under Authors, and all their works appear under Works too, so you can see everything they wrote at a glance. Click the same author again to remove them and their works together.
• Click a work → its card appears under Works, along with its author.

Some works — Bibles, council canons, anonymous texts — have no single author on record. These show a plain byline (for example a translation committee or "Anonymous") in place of a linked author.

Each column has its own Clear button at the top: Clear under Authors removes only the author cards, and Clear under Works removes only the work cards — so you can tidy one side without losing the other.

Switching between Both / Authors / Works or changing the collection keeps your selected cards intact — they aren't cleared as you browse.

What's on a work's card

Each work card shows its details and how you can get it, using small badges:

• 📖 Read here — read it free, in our own in-brand reader, right on the site. The reader lets you set the text size, typeface, and page theme, and — where a work has more than one translation — switch between them.
• Free — free to read in English on exchanged.store.
• Buy — purchase it on exchanged.store.
• Free ↗ — read it free on another trusted site (opens in a new tab).
• Buy ↗ — buy it from another seller (opens in a new tab).
• 🎧 Audio — an audiobook edition is available.
• 📜 Original — an original-language or scholarly edition (not an English reading copy); the work page shows its language.

So Free and Read here always mean English reading you can start right away; an original-language copy appears as Original with a language tag on the work page.

If a work shows "No versions yet available," it's in our catalog but we don't have a reading or purchase link for it yet.

Spotted a mistake? Each card has a Report an issue button — use it to flag a wrong date, a broken link, or a bad attribution. It helps us keep the catalog accurate.

Your reading list

Use the 📚 List button to keep a personal shortlist as you browse (the number next to it is your current count). Open the list to:

• Copy — copy the list as text.
• CSV — download it as a spreadsheet file.
• Share link — get a link that reopens the timeline with your list.
• Clear — empty the list.

Your reading list stays with you in this browser as you explore. A Collection page can also offer an "Add this reading list" button that drops the whole grouping onto your list in one click.

Sharing what you've found

The timeline keeps track of where you are — your position, zoom, and what you've selected. Use Share link in the reading-list menu to capture a view and send it to someone; opening that link brings them back to the same spot. The web address also updates as you filter, so you can simply copy your browser's address bar while a collection or availability filter is on to share that exact filtered view.

Tips

• Crowded area? Zoom in — bars that overlap at a distance separate as you get closer, and you can drag up/down to see more rows. For a dense century, try ⛶ Full screen for the most room.
• Looking for free reading? Open Filters, set Availability to Works free to read here, and watch for the 📖 Read here and Free badges on the cards.
• Want a theme or period? Open Filters and pick a Collection.
• Lost? Hit ↺ to reset the view, or use the ✕ on a filter chip (or Clear all) to drop your filters and start fresh.
• Pop-ups: "Free ↗" and "Buy ↗" links open in new tabs. If a tab doesn't open, allow pop-ups for this site.

Happy exploring.