The first classics in human history -the early works of literature, philosophy, and theology-,appeared in the middle centuries of the first millenium BCE.  The canonical texts of the hebrew scriptures, the philosophical writings of Plato and Aristotle, the "Analects" of Confucius and the "Daodejing", the "Bhagavad Gita", the teachings of the Buddha... All of these works came down to us from the compressed period of history that Karl Jaspers called the Axial Age.