Bardaisan

Bardaisan (11 July 154 – 222 AD; Syriac: ‫ܒܪ ܕܝܨܢ‬, Bar Dayṣān; also Bardaiṣan), known in Arabic as
ibn Dayṣān (Arabic: ‫[)ابن ديصان‬1] and in Latin as Bardesanes, was a Syriac-speaking Assyrian[2]
Christian writer and teacher with a gnostic background,[3] and founder of the Bardaisanites.

A scientist, scholar, astrologer, philosopher, hymnwriter,[4] and poet, Bardaisan was also renowned for his
knowledge of India, on which he wrote a book, now lost.[5] According to the early Christian historian
Eusebius, Bardaisan was at one time a follower of the gnostic Valentinus, but later opposed Valentinian
gnosticism and also wrote against Marcionism.[6]

Biography

Early life and education

Bardaisan (Syriac: ‫ ܒܪ ܕܝܨܢ‬bar Daiṣān "son of the Dayṣān") was a Syriac author born on 11 July 154 in
Edessa, Osroene, which, in those days, was alternately under the influence of both the Roman Empire and
the Parthian Empire. To indicate the city of his birth, his parents called him "Son of the Dayṣān", the river
on which Edessa was situated. He is sometimes also referred to as "the Babylonian" (by Porphyrius); and,
on account of his later important activity in Parthian Armenia, "the Armenian", (by Hippolytus of Rome),
while Ephrem the Syrian calls him "philosopher of the Arameans" (Syriac: ‫ܦܝܠܘܣܘܦܐ ܕܐ̈ܖ ܡܝܐ‬,
romanized: Filosofā d-Arāmāyē). Some sources refer to his high birth and wealth; according to Michael the
Syrian, Bardaisan's parents had fled Persia and Sextus Julius Africanus reports that he was of the Parthian
nobility.[2] His parents, Nuhama and Nah 'siram, must have been people of rank, for their son was educated
with the crown-prince of Osroene at the court of Abgar VIII. Africanus says that he saw Bardaisan, with
bow and arrow, mark the outline of a boy's face with his arrows on a shield which the boy held.[7]

Owing to political disturbances in Edessa, Bardaisan and his parents moved for a while to Hierapolis (now
Manbij), a strong centre of Babylonianism. Here, the boy was brought up in the house of a priest
Anuduzbar. In this school he learnt all the intricacies of Babylonian astrology, a training that permanently
influenced his mind and proved the bane of his later life. At the age of twenty-five he happened to hear the
homilies of Hystaspes, the Bishop of Edessa, received instruction, was baptized, and even admitted to the
diaconate or the priesthood. "Priesthood", however, may merely imply that he ranked as one of the college
of presbyters, because Bardaisen remained in the world and had a son called Harmonius, who according to
Sozomen's Ecclesiastical history, was "deeply versed in Grecian erudition, and was the first to subdue his
native tongue to meters and musical laws; these verses he delivered to the choirs". When Abgar IX, the
friend of his youth, ascended the throne (179), Bardaisan took his place at court. While a sincere Christian,
he was clearly no ascetic, but dressed in finery "with berylls and caftan",[7] according to Ephrem, one of
his critics.[7]

Preaching activity

Bardaisan is said to have converted prince Abgar IX to Christianity (probably after 202, i.e. after his visit
and honourable reception at Rome). Even if he did not, he had an important share in Christianizing the city.
Both king and philosopher laboured to create the first Christian state.[8] He showed great literary activity
against Valentinus (of whom Eusebius of Caesarea says Barsaisan was once a follower) and Marcion.[9]

Alternatively, Epiphanius of Salamis and Bar Hebraeus assert that he was first an orthodox Christian and
only afterwards became an adept of Valentinus,[8] even creating his own heterodox Christian dogma
(Bardaisanism) by mixing its doctrines with Babylonian astrology.[7] Bardaisan has often been described as
a gnostic who denied the resurrection of the body and the works of Ephrem the Syriac suggest that he
explained the origin of the world by a process of emanation from the supreme God whom he called the
Father of the Living.[8] As a result, his teachings would form the basis of the Manichaeism and later of the
batini sects of Shia Islam.[10] Bardaisan and his movement were subjected to critical polemics[8] that
claimed, probably falsely, that he became a Valentinian Gnostic out of disappointed ambitions in the
Christian church.[7] In particular, he was vigorously combated by St. Ephrem[7] who mentioned him in his
hymns:

And if he thinks he has said the last thing

This view has come under criticism as these sources likely quote later Barsaisanites, whereas Eusebius and
Porphyry are known to quote directly from authentic fragments of Bardaisan's work.[12] Sozomen
specifically reports that Bardaisan taught about palingenesis (παλιγγενεσίας), that is the rebirth of physical
bodies, and in his authentic fragments (which includes a treatise on the resurrection) Bardaisan affirms the
resurrection of the body but believed it to be a transformation from a corruptible body into an incorruptible
body, which is what he meant by "spiritual bodies" elsewhere.[12] While some Bardaisanites after the rise
of Manichaeism considered the creation of bodies to be necessarily evil, Bardaisan himself only considered
bodies to be sinful if they were mortal and that 'the body of resurrection and the body humans had prior to
the fall is a body created from pure matter without any mixture with darkness'.[12] Bardaisan himself was
not dualistic but monistic, in that he considered God to exist and evil not to, 'and those who are in evil are
in weakness and not in force'.[12]

Nevertheless, criticism about Bardaisan's belief in seven ουσιαι or 'itye (substances) that pre-existed
Creation, from which God fashioned everything, was more accurate and may have put Bardaisan beyond
the bounds of mainstream orthodoxy.[13] "Bardaisan refers only to the elements as 'itye, not to plants or
animals", though he also uses the term to refer to the seven planets.[14] Even so, Bardaisan clearly
described these celestial beings as created beings subordinate to God.[15]

Encounter with religious men from India

Porphyry states that on one occasion at Edessa, Bardaisan interviewed an Indian deputation of holy men
(Ancient Greek: Σαρμαναίοι "śramaṇas") who had been sent to the Roman emperor Elagabalus or another
Severan emperor, and questioned them as to the nature of Indian religion. The encounter is described in
Porphyry De abstin., iv, 17[16] and Stobaeus (Eccles., iii, 56, 141):

For the polity of the Indians being distributed into many parts, there is one tribe among them of
men divinely wise, whom the Greeks are accustomed to call Gymnosophists. But of these
there are two sects, one of which the Bramins preside over, the Samanaeans the other.[17] The
race of the Bramins, however, receive divine wisdom of this kind by succession, in the same
 manner as the priesthood. But the Samanaeans are elected, and consist of those who wish to
possess divine knowledge. And the particulars respecting them are the following, as the
Babylonian Bardaisan narrates, who lived in the times of our fathers, and was familiar with
those Indians who, together with Damadamis, were sent to Caesar. All the Bramins originate
from one stock; for all of them are derived from one father and one mother. But the
Samanaeans are not the offspring of one family, being, as we have said, collected from every
nation of Indians.

— Porphyry De abstin., iv,

Exile and death

Eventually, after 353 years of existence, the Osrhoenic kingdom came to an end by the Romans under
Caracalla. Taking advantage of the anti-Christian faction in Edessa, the Romans captured Abgar IX and
sent him in chains to Rome. Though he was urged by a friend of Caracalla to apostatize, Bardaisan stood
firm, saying that he feared not death, as he would in any event have to undergo it, even though he should
now submit to the emperor. At the age of sixty-three he was forced to take refuge in the fortress of Ani in
Armenia and tried to preach there, but with little success. He also composed a history of the Armenian
kings.[8] He died at the age of sixty-eight, either at Ani or at Edessa. According to Michael the Syrian,
Bardaisan had besides Harmonius two other sons, called Abgarun and Hasdu.[7]

Bardaisanite school

The followers of Bardaisan (the Bardaisanites) continued his teachings in a sect of the 2nd century deemed
heretical by later Christians. Bardaisan's son, Harmonius, is considered to have strayed farther from the path
of orthodoxy. Educated at Athens, he added to the Babylonian astrology of his father Greek ideas
concerning the soul, the birth and destruction of bodies and a sort of metempsychosis.[7]

A certain Marinus, a follower of Bardaisan and a dualist, who is addressed in the "Dialogue of
Adamantius", held the doctrine of a twofold primeval being; for the devil, according to him is not created
by God. He was also a Docetist, as he denied Christ's birth of a woman. Bardaisan's form of gnosticism
influenced Manichaeism.[7]

Ephrem the Syrian's zealous efforts to suppress this powerful heresy were not entirely successful. Rabbula,
Bishop of Edessa in 431–432, found it flourishing everywhere. Its existence in the seventh century is
attested by Jacob of Edessa; in the eighth by George, Bishop of the Arabs; in the tenth by the historian al-
Masudi; and even in the twelfth by al-Shahrastani. Bardaisanism seems to have merged first into
Valentinianism and then into common Manichaeism.[7]

Doctrine
Various opinions have been formed as to the real doctrine of Bardesanes. As early as Hippolytus
(Philosoph., VI, 50) his doctrine was described as a variety of Valentinianism, the most popular form of
Gnosticism. Adolf Hilgenfeld in 1864 defended this view, based mainly on extracts from St. Ephrem, who
devoted his life to combating Bardaisanism in Edessa.[7] However, it has been argued that the strong and
fervent expressions of St. Ephrem against the Bardaisanites of his day are not a fair criterion of the doctrine
of their master. The extraordinary veneration of his own countrymen, the very reserved and half-respectful
allusion to him in the early Fathers, and above all the "Book of the Laws of the Countries" suggest a milder
view of Bardaisan's aberrations.[7]
Like the Early Christians, Bardaisan believed in an Almighty God, Creator of heaven and earth, whose will
is absolute, and to whom all things are subject. God endowed man with freedom of will to work out his
salvation and allowed the world to be a mixture of good and evil, light and darkness. All things, even those
we now consider inanimate, have a measure of liberty. In all of them the light has to overcome the
darkness.[7]

Al-Shahrastani states: "The followers of Daisan believe in two elements, light and darkness. The light
causes the good, deliberately and with free will; the darkness causes the evil, but by force of nature and
necessity. They believe that light is a living thing, possessing knowledge, might, perception and
understanding; and from it movement and life take their source; but that darkness is dead, ignorant, feeble,
rigid and soulless, without activity and discrimination; and they hold that the evil within them is the
outcome of their nature and is done without their co-operation".[18]

He apparently denied the resurrection of the body, although he believed Christ's body was endowed with
incorruptibility as with a special gift. Bardaisan postulated that after six thousand years this Earth would
have an end, and a world without evil would take its place.[7]

Bardaisan also thought the sun, moon and planets were living beings, to whom, under God, the
government of this world was largely entrusted; and though man was free, he was strongly influenced for
good or for evil by the constellations. According to St. Ephrem, Sun and Moon were considered male and
female principles, and the ideas of heaven amongst the Bardaisanites were not without an admixture of
sensuality (or "obscenities"). Led by the fact that "spirit" is feminine in Syriac, Bardaisan might have held
unorthodox views on the Trinity.[7]

Bardaisan's cosmology and commentary on it only survives in much later sources, but can be outlined as
follows. The world began with the four pure and uncreated elements of light, wind, fire, water, respectively
located in East, West, South, North (and are each able to move throughout their own, individual regions).
Above the plane on which these four pure elements rest is the Lord, and below is the darkness. At one time
and by chance, the four pure elements exceeded their boundaries and began to mix. Taking up the
opportune chance, darkness also mixed with them. Distressed, the elements appeal to God to separate the
darkness from them, but God is only partially successful in this procedure. The Lord uses the mix to create
the world, but the remaining darkness in the mix acts as the cause of evil in the world since then and until
today. The world is allotted a period of 6,000 years to exist. Purifications through conception and birth take
place, but at the end of the allotted period for the Earth, a definitive purification will take place that will
expunge darkness from the world.[19]

Patristics scholar Ilaria Ramelli has argued that Bardaisan may have been one of the first Christian
supporters of apokatastasis (universal restoration),[20] citing especially the following passage in Bardaisan's
Book of the Laws of Countries as evidence for his belief in this doctrine:

There will come a time when even this capacity for harm that remains in [mankind] will be
brought to an end by the instruction that will obtain in a different arrangement of things. And,
once that new world will be constituted, all evil movements will cease, all rebellions will come
to an end, and the fools will be persuaded, and the lacks will be filled, and there will be safety
and peace, as a gift of the Lord of all natures.[21]

Writings
Bardaisan apparently was a voluminous author. Though nearly all his works have perished, we find notices
of the following:[7]
 Dialogues against Marcion and Valentinus.[22]
Dialogue "Against Fate" addressed to an Antoninus. Whether this Antoninus is merely a
friend of Bardaisan or a Roman emperor and, in the latter case, which of the Antonines is
meant, is a matter of controversy. It is also uncertain whether this dialogue is identical with
"The Book of the Laws of the Countries", of which later on.[23]
A "Book of Psalms", 150 in number, in imitation of David's Psalter.[24] These psalms became
famous in the history of Edessa; their words and melodies lived for generations on the lips of
the people. Only when St. Ephrem composed hymns in the same pentasyllabic metre and
had them sung to the same tunes as the psalms of Bardaisan, did the latter gradually lose
favour. A few of Bardaisan's hymns probably survive in the Gnostic Acts of Thomas; the
Hymn of the Pearl (or "Hymn on the Soul"); the "Espousals of Wisdom"; the consecratory
prayer at Baptism and at Holy Communion. Of these only the "Hymn of the Pearl" is
generally acknowledged to be by Bardesanes, the authorship of the others is doubtful.[7]
Astrologico-theological treatises, in which his peculiar tenets were expounded. They are
referred to by St. Ephrem, and amongst them was a treatise on light and darkness. A
fragment of an astronomical work by Bardaisan was preserved by George, Bishop of the
Arab tribes, and republished by Nau.[25]
A "History of Armenia". Moses of Chorene[26] states that Bardaisan, "having taken refuge in
the fortress of Ani, read there the temple records in which also the deeds of kings were
chronicled; to these he added the events of his own time. He wrote all in Syriac, but his book
was afterwards translated into Greek". Though the correctness of this statement is not quite
above suspicion, it probably has a foundation in fact.[7]
"An Account of India". Bardaisan obtained his information from the Indian śramaṇas
(wandering ascetic) ambassadors to the Roman Emperor Elagabalus. A few extracts are
preserved by Porphyry and Stobaeus.[27]
"Book of the Laws of the Countries". This famous dialogue, the oldest remnant not only of
Bardaisanite learning, but even of Syriac literature, if we except the version of Holy Writ, is
not by Bardaisan himself, but by a certain Philip, his disciple.[7] The main speaker, however,
in the dialogue is Bardaisan, and we have no reason to doubt that what is put in his mouth
correctly represents his teaching. Excerpts of this work are extant in Greek in Eusebius[28]
and in Caesarius;[29] in Latin in the "Recognitions" of Pseudo-Clement[30] A complete Syriac
text was first published from a sixth- or seventh-century manuscript in the British Museum by
William Cureton, in his Spicilegium Syriacum (London, 1855), and by Nau. It is disputed
whether the original was in Syriac or in Greek; Nau is decided in favour of the former.
Against a questioning disciple called Abida, Bardaisan seeks to show that man's actions are
not entirely necessitated by Fate, as the outcome of stellar combinations. From the fact that
the same laws, customs and manners often prevail amongst all persons living in a certain
district, or through locally scattered living under the same traditions, Bardaisan endeavours
to show that the position of the stars at the birth of individuals can have but little to do with
their subsequent conduct, hence the title "Book of the Laws of the Countries".[7]

See also
Gnosticism
History of Gnosticism
List of Gnostic sects

References
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 ogle.com/books?id=Va6oSxzojzoC&q=9004097910). BRILL. ISBN 9004097910.
2. Prods Oktor Skjaervo. Bardesanes. Encyclopædia Iranica. Volume III. Fasc. 7-8. ISBN 0-
7100-9121-4.
3. After Bardaisan Studies on Continuity and Change in Syriac Christianity in Honour of
Professor Han. J.W. Drijvers (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta) (https://web.archive.org/web/
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6. Historia Ecclesiasticus, 4.30.
7. Arendzen 1913.
8. McLean 1911.
9. Ramelli 2009.
10. Patricia Crone (28 June 2012). The Nativist Prophets of Early Islamic Iran: Rural Revolt and
Local Zoroastrianism (https://books.google.com/books?id=LderHOzgLPUC&pg=PA546).
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11. St. Ephraim of Syria, Translated by A. S. Duncan Jones, 1904
12. Ramelli 2015.
13. Klijn 1962.
14. Possekel 1999.
15. Possekel 2019.
16. Porphyry "On abstinence from animal food" Book IV, Paragraphs 17&18. (http://thriceholy.ne
t/Texts/Porphyry2.html)
17. [1] (https://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/did/did2222.0002.611/--samanean?rgn=main;view=fulltext)
Jaucourt, Louis, chevalier de. "Samanean." The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert
Collaborative Translation Project. Translated by E.M. Langille. Ann Arbor: Michigan
Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 2012.
http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0002.611 (accessed 30 April 2018). Originally
published as "Samanéen," Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et
des métiers, 14:590–592 (Paris, 1765).
18. Arendzen 1913 cites Haarbrucker tr. (Halle, 1850), I, 293.
19. H.J.W. Drivers, Bardaisan of Edessa, Gorgias Press 2014, 122-123.
20. Ramelli, The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis, 112-113.
21. Bardaisan, Book of the Laws of Countries, 608-611 Nau; as translated by Ilaria Ramelli in
The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis, 112-113.
22. Arendzen 1913 cites Theodoretus, Haer. fab., I, xxii; Eusebius of Caesarea, Church History,
IV, xxx, 3.
23. Arendzen 1913 cites Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, IV, xxx, 2; Epiphanius, Haer., LVI, I;
Theodoretus, Haer. fab., I, xxii.
24. Arendzen 1913 cites St. Ephrem, Serm. Adv. Haer., liii.
25. in "Bardesane l'astrologue" etc. (Paris, 1899) (see Arendzen 1913).
26. Arendzen 1913 cites History of G. A., II, 66.
27. Arendzen 1913 cites Langlois in Karl Wilhelm Ludwig Müller, Fragmenta Historicorum
Graecorum, V (https://archive.org/details/fragmentahistor00langgoog), lxviii sqq.
28. Arendzen 1913 citesPraeparatio Evangelica, VI, x, 6 sqq.
29. Arendzen 1913 cites Quaestiones, xlvii, 48.
30. Arendzen 1913 cites IX, 19sqq.

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2020.
Klijn, Albertus Frederik Johannes (1962). The Acts of Thomas. Vol. 5. Brill Archive.
McLean, Norman (1911). "Bardaiṣān" (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%
A6dia_Britannica/Bardai%E1%B9%A3%C4%81n). In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia
Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 395–396.
Mitchell, Charles W., ed. (1912). S. Ephraim's Prose Refutations of Mani, Marcion, and
Bardaisan (https://books.google.com/books?id=HkJIAQAAIAAJ). Vol. 1. London: Text and
Translation Society.
Mitchell, Charles W.; Bevan, Anthony A.; Burkitt, Francis C., eds. (1921). S. Ephraim's Prose
Refutations of Mani, Marcion, and Bardaisan (https://books.google.com/books?id=B2VIAQA
AIAAJ). Vol. 2. London: Text and Translation Society.
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Interpretation, Piscataway, Gorgias Press, 2009
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10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000002030). Grove
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31826%2Fhug-2019-210105). Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 21 (1): 81–126.
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External links
An hymn against Bar Daisan (https://web.archive.org/web/20120728130743/http://homepag
es.which.net/~gk.sherman/baaaa.htm)
Chambers, Ephraim, ed. (1728). "Bardesanites". Cyclopædia, or an Universal Dictionary
of Arts and Sciences (1st ed.). James and John Knapton, et al.
One of the chapters of Mani's lost Book of Secrets concerned Bar Daisan, according to the
list of its contents given by the tenth-century Islamic writer Ibn al-Nadim in his Encyclopedia
(https://web.archive.org/web/20051018172257/http://www.ritmanlibrary.nl/c/p/h/bel_14.html).

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