Bardaisan of Edessa: A

Reassessment of the Evidence

and a New Interpretation
 Bardaisan of Edessa: A
Reassessment of the Evidence
and a New Interpretation

Ilaria L. E. Ramelli

9
34 2009
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication

Data
Ramelli, Ilaria, 1973-
Bardaisan of Edessa : a reassessment of the
evidence and a new interpretation / by Ilaria
Ramelli.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p.
) and index.
1. Bardesanes, 154-222. I. Title.
B657.Z7R36 2009
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 For Dad

“And there will come a time when even this capacity for harm that remains in
them will be brought to an end by instruction [...] 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.”

Bardaiṣan at the end of the Liber Legum Regionum

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Table of Contents.....................................................................................v
Preface.......................................................................................................ix
1 By way of Introductory Essay: Methodological Guidelines .....1
2 Critical and Comparative Analysis of the Sources ...................29
1 The Very First Possible Witness: Clement.............................29
2 Two Early Witnesses Close to Origen and Very
Appreciative of Bardaiṣan: Africanus and Didymus.......30
2.1 Julius Africanus’ Acquaintance with both
Bardaiṣan and Origen ....................................................30
2.2 The Origenian Didymus the Blind: The Most
Appreciative Source on Bardaiṣan ...............................40
3 Hippolytus...................................................................................46
4 The Liber Legum Regionum ..........................................................54
5 Porphyry and the Utmost Importance of His Fragments
from Bardaiṣan: The Cosmic Christ, Middle-
Platonism, and a Christian Reading of the Timaeus .........91
5.1 The Fragments from Bardaiṣan’s De India in
Porphyry’s De Styge .........................................................91
5.2 Bardaiṣan’s Work in Porphyry’s De Abstinentia ..........108
6 Achilles Tatius and the Knowledge of Bardaiṣan in Late-
Second-Century Alexandria ..............................................110
7 The Acts of Thomas ....................................................................111
8 A Very Positive Witness: the Origenian Eusebius..............115
9 The Origenian Gregory of Nyssa and His Own Work
Against Fate.........................................................................122
10 Diodore of Tarsus and His Closeness to Origen’s
Eschatology and Refutation of Fate................................126
11 Bardaiṣan’s Fight Against Marcionism ...............................145
12 Jerome’s Parallel Turn: From Admirer to Criticizer of
both Origen and Bardaiṣan ...............................................148

v
vi Bardaiṣan of Edessa

13 The Dialogue of Adamantius and the Portrait of a

Bardaiṣanite .........................................................................152
14 Ephrem between Documentation and
Misunderstandings..............................................................156
15 Transition: The Transformation and Worsening of
Bardaiṣan’s Image...............................................................238
16 Epiphanius’ Information: A “Mixed Bag”.........................239
17 Two Heresiological Accounts Deriving from
Epiphanius’..........................................................................245
18 Sozomen ..................................................................................246
19 Theodoret’s Account.............................................................250
20 Interesting Clues in a Very Appreciative Armenian
Witness: Moses of Chorene ..............................................253
21 Philoxenus of Mabbug, an Anonymous, Isho‘dad, and
the Assimilation of Bardaiṣan to Valentinus or Mani...287
22 Rabbula and Theodoret ........................................................291
23 Appreciation of Bardaiṣan in a Local Source: the
Chronicon of Edessa................................................................296
24 The “Cosmological Traditions”: Importance and
Methodological Guidelines. Barh?adbshabba ‘Arbaya,
Plus Comparisons with (Ps.) Maruta and Jacob of
Edessa...................................................................................298
25 Theodore Bar Konai..............................................................312
26 Theodore Abû Qurra ............................................................322
27 Moses Bar Kepha...................................................................323
28 (Ps.) John of Dara ..................................................................331
29 Agapius and the So-Called Third Cosmological
Tradition ..............................................................................336
30 Michael the Syrian’s Cosmological Testimony..................337
31 Barhebraeus’ Cosmological Account ..................................338
32 Mu’taman ad-Dawla ..............................................................339
33 From the “Cosmological Traditions” to Other
Doxographies and the Biographical Accounts.
Mas‘udi’s Biographical Information ................................339
34 The Fihrist and Arabic Sources on Bardaiṣan’s Anti-
Dualism ................................................................................342
35 Michael the Syrian’s Biographical Account........................350
36 Barhebraeus.............................................................................358
 Table of Contents vii

3 Conclusions and Contribution to Research ............................363

Essential Bibliographical References on Bardaiṣan ........................365
Index.......................................................................................................373
PREFACE

My study on Bardaiṣan began about fifteen years ago, with the

preparation of an essay on the Liber Legum Regionum and an Italian
translation of it, and subsequent studies on Bardaiṣan, from the
historical and philosophical point of view.1 Preparation of classes
and discussion with students when I was professor of History of
the Roman Christian Near East and taught the Liber Legum Re-
gionum also helped clarify my ideas and deepen my investigation in
this area (thus, for example, a student first learnt of the existence of
the Christian theory of apokatastasis precisely from the Liber,
where I repeatedly pointed it out). Then came my commented edi-
tion of the Liber Legum Regionum,2 a long investigation into the Doc-

1 “Linee generali per una presentazione e per un commento del Liber

legum regionum, con traduzione italiana del testo siriaco e dei frammenti
greci,” RIL: Rendiconti dell’Istituto Lombardo, Accademia di Scienze e Lettere,
Classe di Lettere, 133 (1999) 311–355; “La Chiesa di Roma in età severi-
ana: cultura classica, cultura cristiana, cultura orientale,” RSCI: Rivista di
Storia della Chiesa in Italia 54 (2000) 13–29; “L’Europa e i Cristiani,” in
Studi sull’Europa antica, ed. M. Sordi, II, Alessandria 2001, 263–283; “Bard-
esane e la sua scuola tra la cultura occidentale e quella orientale: il lessico
della libertà nel Liber Legum Regionum (testo siriaco e versione greca),” in
Pensiero e istituzioni del mondo classico nelle culture del Vicino Oriente, Atti del
Seminario Nazionale di Studio, Brescia, 14–16 ottobre 1999, ed. R. B. Finazzi –
A. Valvo, Alessandria 2001, 237–255; “Bardesane e la sua scuola,
l’Apologia siriaca ‘di Melitone’ e la Doctrina Addai,” Aevum 83 (2009) 141–
168.
2 Bardesane di Edessa Contro il Fato, Kata\ Ei(marme/nhj / Liber legum re-

gionum, with essays, edition, translation, and commentary, Rome – Bolo-

gna 2009.

ix
x Bardaiṣan of Edessa

trina Addai3 which also implied intersections with Bardaiṣan,4 and a

thorough study of Origen and of the Origenian tradition, which
gave rise to several articles and books5 and has not yet been fin-
ished (indeed, I expect I shall migrate to the other world long be-
fore I could possibly finish researching in Origen’s thought and his
tradition, especially St Gregory of Nyssa!).
While I was studying both these Christian philosophers, al-
most contemporary with one another, Origen and Bardaiṣan, and
their traditions, I realized how profoundly their thoughts and tradi-
tions and sources concerning them were interrelated. One of the
first attempts at expounding the contribution of my ongoing re-
search in this field to scholarship was a lecture in Vienna at the
SBL meeting,6 from which—after much elaboration and expansion

3 Especially “Alcune osservazioni sulle origini del Cristianesimo nelle

regioni ad est dell’Eufrate,” in La diffusione dell' eredità classica nell'età tardoan-

tica e medioevale, Atti del Seminario Internazionale di Studi, Roma-Napoli 25–
27.IX.1997, ed. R. B. Finazzi – A. Valvo, Alessandria 1998, 209–225;
“Edessa e i Romani tra Augusto e i Severi: aspetti del regno di Abgar V e
di Abgar IX,” Aevum 73 (1999) 107–143; “The First Evangelization of the
Mesopotamian Regions in the Syriac Tradition,” Antiguo Oriente 3 (2005)
11–54; “La Doctrina Addai e gli Acta Maris: Note storico-letterarie sui loro
rapporti intertestuali,” AION 65 (2005) 1–31; “Possible Historical Traces
in the Doctrina Addai?,” Hugoye 9.1 (2006), §§ 1–24, a revised and expanded
edition of which is forthcoming in Piscataway in the series Analecta Gor-
giana; “Mesopotamia,” in Nuovo Dizionario Patristico e di Antichità Cristiane,
dir. A. Di Berardino, II, Genoa 2007, 3224–3239, whose English edition is
forthcoming in Cambridge; Atti di Mar Mari, critical essay, translation
from the Syriac, commentary, and bibliography, Brescia 2008, Testi del
Vicino Oriente Antico Series, reviewed by S. P. Brock, Ancient Narrative 7
(2008) [www.ancientnarrative.com]; hard copy Groningen 2009, 123–130,
and by J. Perkins, Aevum 83 (2009) 269–271; “The Narrative Continuity
between the Teaching of Addai and the Acts of Mari: Two Historical Nov-
els?,” in Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 189 (2009) 411–450.
4 Especially in “Bardesane e la sua scuola, l’Apologia siriaca ‘di Meli-

tone’ e la Doctrina Addai,” Aevum 83 (2009) 141–168.

5 I do not list all of them here, but the most strictly relevant to the

present study will be cited in the course of this work, in the notes.
6 “Apokatastasis between the Bible and the Christian Communities of

Edessa and Alexandria,” delivered at the International Meeting of the

Society of Biblical Literature, Vienna 22–26.VII.2007.
 Preface xi

and also thanks to the helpful feedback of several friends and col-
leagues, including, at the last stage, the Journal’s reviewers—a study
subsequently arose, which was published in the Harvard Theological
Review.7 Especially the issue of Bardaiṣan’s conception of Christ-
Logos I could further clarify on the occasion of the EASR confer-
ence in 2009, from which I also benefited for comments on my
lecture,8 and on the question of creation in Bardaiṣan I could espe-
cially focus, offering a thorough reassessment, during the prepara-
tion and the discussion of a lecture at the University of Göttingen.9
I am deeply grateful to many colleagues and friends who have
read subsequent versions or parts of this work, and of my works on
Bardaiṣan and Origen, and / or who have discussed with me the
ideas that underlie this investigation over whole years and on lots
of occasions. They are too many to be mentioned here, and to
mention only some while omitting others would be unfair, but each
of them knows perfectly well how much I owe to him or her, and I
want to express my heartfelt gratitude for sharing thoughts and the
unending joy and labor of—and painstaking and devoted engage-
ment in—scholarly research.
I also wish to thank my University, the Catholic University of
the Sacred Heart in Milan, where I have been for about twenty
years now, for its support, and above all the persons who assist me
there and were as helpful as ever in the preparation of this book,
particularly in the retrieval of all the bibliographical material. Last,
but not least, I am deeply grateful to George Kiraz, whose enor-
mous and continual work for the knowledge of ancient Syriac cul-
ture and civilization is simply invaluable, and to Katie Stott of Gor-
gias Press, for the kindness and helpfulness in the editorial prepara-
tion of this monograph.

7 “Origen, Bardaiṣan, and the Origin of Universal Salvation,” Harvard

Theological Review 102,2 (2009) 135–168.
8 “Bardaiṣan as a Christian Philosopher: A Reassessment of His

Christology,” Lecture at the EASR / IAHR Conference, Messina 14–17

September 2009, forthcoming.
9 “Bardaiṣan on Creation: A Reassessment,” lecture at the Georg-

August University of Göttingen, Institut für Spezialstudien der Theolo-

gischen Fakultät, 11.I.2010, in the “Vortragsreihe Kosmologie – Kosmogonie –
Schöpfung.”
xii Bardaiṣan of Edessa

The general structure of the present study will be as follows.

1. By way of introductory essay, status quaestionis and open
problems. The School of Bardaiṣan and that of Origen. Methodo-
logical guidelines.
2. Critical analysis of the available sources, always conducted
with a comparative approach: Julius Africanus and Didymus the
Blind; Hippolytus; Porphyry and the Fragments from De India,
which I shall value very much; the Liber Legum Regionum: the doc-
trine of free will and that of apokatastasis, parallels with Origen,
relationship with the so-called Syriac apology “of Melito,” with
Bardaiṣan’s Kata Heimarmenēs, and the Contra Fatum philosophical
tradition; open issues; the Acts of Thomas; Eusebius; Gregory of
Nyssa; Diodore of Tarsus (ap. Photius); the Vita Abercii; Jerome;
the Dialogue of Adamantius; Ephrem; Epiphanius (thence Augustine
and the Praedestinatus); Sozomen, Theodoret, and Nicephorus. The
Armenian historian Movses Xorenac‘i and Bardaiṣan’s History of
“Armenia,” with new discoveries concerning the end of the Ab-
garid dynasty and the possible relationship between Bardaiṣan and
the Abgar legend; Rabbula of Edessa; the Chronicon Edessenum and
other Syriac Chronicles; Philoxenus of Mabbug; Isho‘dad of Merw;
Jacob of Edessa. Critical investigation into the cosmological ac-
counts: Barhadbshabba, Theodore Bar Konai, Theodore Abu
Qurra, Moses Bar Kepha, (Ps.) John of Dara, Agapius, Michel the
Syrian, Barhebraeus, Mu’taman, and comparisons with Ephrem
(and Ps. Maruta); the role of Christ-Logos in creation and purifica-
tion, and the Cross. Mas‘udi, the Fihrist, Shahrastani, Michael the
Syrian, Barhebraeus, and other late biographical and / or
doxographical accounts.
3. Conclusion: contribution of the present study to research.
Deep convergences with Origen; right evaluation of the fragments
from De India, and the role of Plato’s Timaeus and of Platonism and
Middle-Platonism in Bardaiṣan’s thought, in addition to Stoicism.
Critical assessment of the reliability of the sources, which under-
mines the picture of a “Gnostic” and “heretic” Bardaiṣan. Several
“accusations” leveled against him (just as many, very similar, lev-
eled against Origen) prove unfounded. Bardaiṣan’s thought
emerges as a deeply Christian thought, depending on the exegesis
of Scripture, which is read in the light of Greek philosophy (an
enterprise accomplished by Philo earlier, and in Bardaiṣan’s day by
Origen). Some ancient and good sources present him as a deacon
 Preface xiii

or even a presbyter, as an author of refutations of Marcionism and

Gnosticism, and as a confessor of the Christian faith during a per-
secution. It is telling that the most positive sources on Bardaiṣan
are authors belonging to the Origenian tradition.
4. Essential bibliographical references and Index.
Ilaria L. E. Ramelli
1 BY WAY OF INTRODUCTORY ESSAY:
METHODOLOGICAL GUIDELINES

The etymology that several ancient sources offer of Bardaiṣan’s

name, and which is likely to be correct, is Bar Daiṣan, “Son of the
Daiṣan.” Indeed, in ancient manuscripts such as that in which the
Syriac Liber Legum Regionum is preserved, his name is sometimes
written “Bar Daiṣan,” separate. The Daiṣan—Skirto/j in Greek, a
tributary of the Euphrates—was the river of Edessa, the ancient
capital city of Osrhoene. Its Syriac name was Orhai, and its modern
name is Urfa, in Turkey. Bardaiṣan was probably born in A.D. 154,
and died in A.D. 222. That his activity mainly took place in Edessa
seems to be certain, even though there is evidence that he traveled,
as I shall highlight. He was a philosopher and theologian who was
active at the crossroads of several cultures, Greco-Roman and
Syriac in particular, but also Iranian, Parthian, and Armenian, not
without connections even with India.
Bardaiṣan’s intellectual activity is set at the beginning of Pa-
tristic philosophy; the chronological and historical frame is that of
the Antonine and Severan age.1 Especially the latter was a flourish-
ing period for Christianity in the Roman empire, to which the
philo-Roman Edessa was close and finally submitted.2 While Mar-

1 On which I refer at least to D. S. Potter, The Roman Empire at Bay,

AD 180–395, London 2004; O. Hekster, Rome and Its Empire, AD 193–
284. Debates and Documents in Ancient History, Edinburgh 2008.
2 On the end of the kingdom in Edessa in the third century A.D. see

below. As for the second century, Trajan subjected Edessa to Rome in

A.D. 116, but it returned independent under Hadrian. In the Sixties of the
second century, Edessa was subjected by the Parthians, but then returned
into the sphere of influence of Rome.

1
2 Bardaiṣan of Edessa

cus Aurelius decided a heavy persecution against the Christians,

which he perhaps revoked subsequently,3 in the Severan age the
Christians enjoyed a period of tolerance in the Roman empire4—

3 See my “Montanismo e Impero Romano nel giudizio di Marco

Aurelio,” in Fazioni e congiure nel mondo antico, ed. M. Sordi, Milan 1999,
CISA 25, 81–97; eadem, “Protector Christianorum (Tert. Apol. V 4): il ‘mira-
colo della pioggia’ e la lettera di Marco Aurelio al Senato,” Aevum 76
(2002) 101–112; eadem, preface to S. Perea Yébenes, La Legión XII y el
prodigio de la lluvia en época del emperador Marco Aurelio. Epigrafía de la Legión
XII Fulminata, Madrid 2002, Monografías y estudios de Antigüedad griega
y Romana 6, 11–14; eadem, “Cristiani e vita politica: il cripto-
cristianesimo nelle classi dirigenti romane nel II secolo,” Aevum 77.1
(2003) 35–51; eadem, “Galeno e i Cristiani: una messa a punto,” InvLuc 25
(2003) 199–220; eadem, “Marco Aurelio e le sue origini ispaniche: for-
mazione filosofica e condotta morale,” in La Hispania de los Antoninos (98–
180). II° Congreso internacional de Historia Antigua. Valladolid, 10–12 de
Noviembre de 2004, ed. L. Hernández Guerra, Vallaldolid 2005, 179–202;
eadem, Marco Aurelio. Opere minori, Milan 2010.
4 M. Sordi, I Cristiani e l’Impero romano, Milan 1984, 87–103, rightly

spoke of “tolleranza di fatto”; cf. eadem, Impero Romano e Cristianesimo:

scritti scelti, Rome 2006, with my review in Augustinianum 47.2 (2007) 425–
430. For Christianity in the Severan age see M. Sordi, “I rapporti fra il
Cristianesimo e l’Impero dai Severi a Gallieno,” in ANRW 2.23.1, Berlin
– New York 1979, 340–374; E. Dal Covolo, “202 dopo Cristo: una per-
secuzione per editto?,” Salesianum 48 (1986), 363–369; idem, I Severi e il
Cristianesimo. Ricerche sull’ambiente storico-istituzionale delle origini cristiane tra il II
e il III secolo, Roma 1989; idem, “La religione a Roma tra antico e nuovo:
l’età dei Severi,” Rivista di Storia e Letteratura religiosa 30 (1994) 237–246;
idem, Chiesa società politica. Aree di “laicità” nel Cristianesimo delle origini, Roma
1994, in part. 112–124; idem, “I Severi precursori di Costantino? Per una
“messa a punto” delle ricerche sui Severi e il Cristianesimo,” Augustin-
ianum 35 (1995) 605–622; idem, “I Severi e il Cristianesimo. Dieci anni
dopo,” in Gli imperatori Severi. Storia Archeologia Religione, eds. E. Dal Covolo
– G. Rinaldi, Rome 1997, 187–196; idem, “I rapporti fra la Chiesa e
l’Impero nel secolo di Eusebio,” in Eusebio di Vercelli e il suo tempo, Rome
1997, 79–92; idem, I Severi e il Cristianesimo. Un decennio di ricerche (1986–
1996), Anuario de Historia de la Iglesia 8 (1999) 43–51; A. Wypustek, “Magic,
Montanism, Perpetua, and the Severan Persecution,” VigChr 51 (1997)
276–297; I. Ramelli, “Dal mandylion di Edessa alla Sindone. Alcune note
sulle testimonianze antiche,” ‘Ilu 4 (1999) 173–193; eadem, “I Babyloniakà
di Giamblico e la cultura plurietnica dell’Impero fra II e III secolo,” Athe-
 Methodological Guidelines 3

even though formally Christianity was still a superstitio illicita, as it

had probably been since a senatusconsultum in A.D. 35.5
Bardaiṣan, a complex intellectual figure, had numerous inter-
ests: philosophy and theology, ethnography and geography, history,
including history of Christianity and “apocryphal” Christian litera-
ture—of course I use the inverted commas because a Biblical
canon was not yet fixed in Bardaiṣan’s time—astronomy, and so
on. Bardaiṣan and his school were also characterized by a marked
bilingualism, Greek and Syrac.6 As I shall show on the basis of evi-

naeum 89 (2001) 447–458; eadem, “La Chiesa di Roma in età severiana:

cultura classica, cultura cristiana, cultura orientale,” Rivista di Storia della
Chiesa in Italia 54 (2000) 13–29; eadem, Cultura e religione etrusca nel mondo
romano. La cultura etrusca alla fine dell’indipendenza, Alessandria 2003, Studi di
Storia Greca e Romana 8, chap. 4; Eadem, Un quindicennio di studi sulla
prima diffusione dell’Annuncio cristiano e la sua prima ricezione in ambito pagano, a
Roma e nell’Impero Romano, in Ead. – E. Innocenti, Gesù a Roma, Rome
20074, 277–518.
5 It is attested both by Tertullian and by a Porphyrian fragment: see

my “Il senatoconsulto del 35 contro i Cristiani in un frammento porfiri-

ano,” with a preface by M. Sordi, Aevum 78 (2004) 59–67; eadem, “Il fon-
damento giuridico delle persecuzioni anticristiane e le sue ripercussioni
sulla società cristiana dei primi due secoli,” Laverna 15 (2004) 47–62;
eadem, “Cristianesimo e legislazione romana: tra le origini e l’età post-
costantiniana: riflessioni in margine ad una raccolta recente,” Laverna 18
(2007); eadem, Un quindicennio di studi.
6 A synthesis on the multicultural landscape around Edessa in the

second-third century is offered, e.g., by P. Bettiolo, “Scritture e Cristiane-

simi nella Siria tra II e IV secolo,” Cristianesimo nella Storia 19 (1998) 479–
481.
7 Cf. S. P. Brock, Greek and Syriac in Late Antique Syria, in A. K. Bow-

mann – G. Woolf, eds., Literacy and Power in the Ancient World, Cambridge
1994, 149–160; R. Contini, “Il Cristianesimo siriaco pre-islamico,” in
Roma, la Campania e l’Oriente cristiano antico, ed. L. Cirillo – G. Rinaldi,
Naples 2004, 397–410, in part. 399.
4 Bardaiṣan of Edessa

dence from the available sources, Bardaiṣan knew both Greek and
Syriac well, probably like other members of the upper classes in
Osrhoene;7 he mostly wrote in Syriac and, according to Eusebius,
his disciples translated his works into Greek. His choice of Syriac
as the language of his literary works is all the more interesting in
that no other anterior literary works in Syriac seem to be extant,8
apart from the apology ascribed to Melito—to which I shall return
and which includes many philosophical terms transliterated from
the Greek, like the Liber, even though the extant Syriac text may be
a translation from the Greek9—and the probably even more an-
cient Letter of Mara Bar Serapion to his son.10 On its early dating,
between the end of the first and the beginning of the second cen-
tury, and on its Stoic features, which were already supposed by Han

8 Syriac, that is, the variety of Aramaic used in Edessa and Osrhoene,
was employed only for administrative purposes, instead of Greek, in
Edessa under the Abgarids. As is observed by J. F. Healey, “The Edessan
Milieu and the Birth of Syriac,” Hugoye 10.2 (2007), §§ 1–34, part. 28–30,
the proof that Syriac was used as the administrative language under the
Abgarids is provided especially by legal texts, although these only stem
from the Forties of the third century; numismatic inscriptions are relevant
to this question as well.
9 See my “L’apologia siriaca di Melitone ad ‘Antonino Cesare’: osser-

vazioni e traduzione,” Vetera Christianorum 36 (1999) 259–286; eadem,

“Bardesane e la sua scuola, l’Apologia siriaca ‘di Melitone’ e la Doctrina
Addai,” Aevum 83 (2009) 141–168.
10 See J. Blinzler, Der Prozess Jesu, Regensburg 19603; Italian edition Il

processo di Gesù, Brescia 1966, 43–48; S. Mazzarino, L’impero Romano, II,

Bari 19915, 887; K. Mac Vey, “A Fresh Look at the Letter of Mara bar
Sarapion to His Son,” in V Symposium Syriacum, Leuven 1988, ed. R. Lave-
nant, Rome 1990, Orientalia Christiana Analecta 236, 257–272; I. Ramelli,
“Stoicismo e Cristianesimo in area siriaca nella seconda metà del I secolo
d.C.,” Sileno 25 (1999) 197–212; eadem, “Gesù tra i sapienti greci persegui-
tati ingiustamente in un antico documento filosofico pagano di lingua
siriaca,” also with translation of the letter, Rivista di Filosofia Neoscolastica 97
(2005) 545–570; C. M. Chin, “Rhetorical Practice in the Chreia Elabora-
tion of Mara bar Serapion,” Hugoye 9.2, (2006), §§ 1–24; I. Ramelli, Stoici
Romani Minori, Milan 2008, 2555–2598.
 Methodological Guidelines 5

J. W. Drijvers,11 today Teun Tieleman, Annette Merz, and David

Rensberger agree with me.12
It is no accident that the Liber is preserved in the same
sixth / seventh-century manuscript in which the aforementioned
letter of Mara and apology ascribed to Melito are also included:
these are all philosophical and moral writings from the beginnings
of Syriac literature, and have many points in common. In particu-
lar, the apology13 is an authentic short philosophical treatise in
which human free will is supported and declared to be grounded in
God, exactly as it is presented in the Liber.
In Mara’s letter, among many remarkable philosophical fea-
tures, there is also an interesting political aspect: a protestation of
loyalty toward Rome on the part of the Syrians, even after the cap-
ture of Samosata; the same attitude underlies the Liber, which men-
tions the Roman conquests, including that of Arabia, which
brought about different laws. Bardaiṣan himself was educated to-
gether with Abgar the Great, the philo-Roman king of Edessa
(178 / 179–212 according to the new chronology)14 and was a dig-

11 H. J. W. Drijvers, Bardaiṣan of Edessa, Assen 1966, 67.

12 A. Merz – T. Tieleman, “The Letter of Mara Bar Serapion: Some
Comments on its Philosophical and Historical Context,” in Festschrift
P. W. van den Horst, Leiden 2008; D. Rensberger, “Reconsidering the Let-
ter of Mara Bar Serapion,” in Aramaic Studies in Judaism and Early Christian-
ity, ed. Paul V. M. Flesher – Eric M. Meyers, Duke Judaic Studies Mono-
graph Series, Forthcoming. All three of them have offered an English
translation published in Tübingen 2009 in the SAPERE series and pre-
sented at a Symposium in Utrecht on 11–12 December 2009, which I too
attended as the invited respondent concerning David Rensberger’s edition
of the Syriac text.
13 I used the Syriac edition of W. Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, Lon-

don 1855, 41–59 of the Syriac page numbering, for my translation and
commentary in L’apologia siriaca; A. Camplani, “Rivisitando Bardesane.
Note sulle fonti siriache del Bardesanismo e sulla sua collocazione storico-
religiosa,” Cristianesimo nella Storia 19 (1998) 519–596, esp. 586 keeps silent
about the possible anteriority of the Syriac text, as it is unclear whether it
is original or it is a version from the Greek.
14 See my “Abgar Ukkama e Abgar il Grande alla luce di recenti ap-

porti storiografici,” Aevum 78 (2004) 103–108 and below.

6 Bardaiṣan of Edessa

nitary at his court. It is at Abgar’s court that Julius Africanus, a

learned philo-Roman intellectual, saw him display extraordinary
prowess with his bow (Kestoi/ 1.20).15 Bardaiṣan’s Kata\
Ei(marme/nhj, Against Fate, was dedicated to a Roman emperor (“An-
toninus” according to Eusebius Historia Ecclesiastica 4.30).
In the time of Abgar the Great and Bardaiṣan, Christianity
was present in Edessa, where a Christian church also existed; Abgar
himself might have been a Christian, as is stated in the Liber (I shall
return to this point). In this period Abercius’ epitaph was com-
posed, which is probably Christian,16 and from this period—or few
decades later, but within the third century—a Christian inscription
was produced in Edessa, which is very interesting also in relation to
Bardaiṣan.17 It was first published by D. Feissel in 1983 and in-

15 Ed. J.-R. Vieillefond, Les “Cestes” de Julius Africanus, Paris 1970, 184.
On Africanus’ visit to Edessa, cf. W. Adler, “Sextus Julius Africanus and
the Roman Near East in the Third Century,” JThS 55 (2004) 520–550:
530–539. On Julius see T. Rampoldi, “I Kestoi di Giulio Africano e
l’imperatore Severo Alessandro,” in ANRW 2.34.3, Berlin–New York
1997, 2451–2470; my Edessa e i Romani, section 5. On him as the first
Christian chronographer see O. Andrei, “L’esamerone cosmico e le
Chronographiae di Giulio Africano,” in La narrativa cristiana antica: codici narra-
tivi, strutture formali, schemi retorici, Rome 1995, SEA 50, 169–183; eadem,
“La formazione di un modulo storiografico cristiano: dall’esamerone
cosmico alle Chronographiae di Giulio Africano,” Aevum 69 (1995) 147–170;
Ramelli, La Chiesa di Roma in età severiana; M. Wallraff – U. Roberto – K.
Pinggéra, Julius Africanus, Berlin 2007, GCS 15 with the edition of his
Chronicon, and Julius Africanus und die christliche Weltchronistik, ed. M. Wall-
raff, Berlin 2006, TU 157. Further documentation below.
16 See my “L’epitafio di Abercio: uno status quaestionis e alcune osser-

vazioni,” Aevum 74 (2000) 191–206.

17 Documentation in my “Un’iscrizione cristiana edessena del III sec.

d.C.: contestualizzazione storica e tematiche,” ‘Ilu 8 (2003) 119–126. On

epigraphical evidence from Edessa see H. J. W. Drijvers, Old Syriac
(Edessean) Inscriptions, Leiden 1972; H. J. W. Drijvers – J. F. Healey, The Old
Syriac Inscriptions of Edessa and Osrhoene, Leiden 1999.
 Methodological Guidelines 7

cluded by Llewelyn in his survey in 1998.18 This too is an epitaph,

in six hexameters, and it too is Christian, as the references to bap-
tism and resurrection therein make clear. This is my translation:
“[To the neophyte?] / and the wife … / Antigone, because Ni-
cander / the end of life has received, / destroyed among detestable
illnesses, / he has handed his soul to the ethereal aeons, / but his
body to the earth, / until the day will come, / announced with
good news [eu)a/ggelon], of the resurrection [a)na/stasij]— / he
who is pure, as with desire he also obtained the divine bath
[loutro/n].”
From the anthropological point of view, there is a distinction
between the soul, which goes to the ethereal ai)w=nej—this expres-
sion has no parallel in Christian contemporary inscriptions19—and
the body that, when it dies, is rendered to the earth, but waits for
its resurrection. Bardaiṣan’s position was probably not dissimilar, as
I shall argue. This anthropological dualism does not exclude the
resurrection, which this inscription proclaims using the Christian
technical term a)na/stasij rather than others such as a)nabi/wsij.20
I shall argue that Bardaiṣan, even though he, like Origen, was ac-
cused of denying the resurrection of the body, might have in fact
accepted it, albeit as the resurrection of a fine, spiritual body, entail-
ing a transformation of the present, heavy, and corruptible body
into a glorious body.

18 D. Feissel, Recueil des inscriptions chrétiennes de Macédoine, Paris 1983,

pp. 25–27. A Review of the Greek Inscriptions and Papyri Published in 1984–
1985, ed. S. R. Llewelyn, New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity, VIII,
Macquarie Univ. N.S.W. Australia – Grand Rapids, Michigan –
Cambridge, UK 1998, 176–179.
19 As it is remarked by Feissel, Recueil, 27, this mention does not nec-

essarily imply a heretical angelology, “because liturgy cites the aeons

among the other categories of the heavenly court.” I also add that Ori-
gen’s use of ai)w/n in the sense of aevum, saeculum is also based on the Bible.
20 See my I romanzi antichi e il Cristianesimo: contesto e contatti, Madrid

2001, Graeco-Romanae Religionis Electa Collectio 6, passim, revised edi-

tion of my 1999 PhD dissertation, also with reviews by M. Sordi, Aevum
76 (2002) 221–222; S. Perea Yébenes, Gerión 20 (2002) 763–764; R.
Lavalle, Stylos 11 (2002) 193–194; A. Hilhorst, Ancient Narrative 3 (2003)
182–184; J. A. Artés Hernández, Myrtia 19 (2004) 233–238.
8 Bardaiṣan of Edessa

The term a(gno/j (line 11) refers to Nicander, who was made
pure and saint after his baptism; this also recalls the idea of the pu-
rification of the world thanks to Christ according to Bardaiṣan,
which I shall point out. The same adjective appears in Abercius’
epitaph, which is likely to be contemporary with Bardaiṣan.21 At
line 3 Abercius introduces itself as ou)n/ om’ )Abe/rkioj w)\n maqhth\j
poime/noj a(gnou=; the pure teacher and pastor is Christ. Moreover,
at line 15 a “pure / saint virgin” (parqe/noj a(gnh/) appears, a prob-
able symbol of the Church or of Mary: she fishes a big, pure
(kaqaro/j) fish from a source, and the fish will be served with
bread and wine. The Eucharistic terminology is probably associated
with that of baptism (lines 12–16). In a Christian inscription from
Macedonia as well, baptism is symbolized by a source ([Xristo\j]
o(\j po/ren a)fqa/rtoio phgh=j bi/on ou)raniw/nwn),22 and in the in-
scription studied by G. Sanders the same symbolism is related to
the Latin term fons.23
Both in the Abercius inscription and in the Edessan inscrip-
tion, the notion of pureness, expressed by a(gno/j, is closely related
to the baptismal theme, which in the Edessan inscription appears
in the last line: qei=on loutro/n (line 12). Loutro/n24 is used in the

21 I support the Christian interpretation of the inscription in my

L’epitafio di Abercio, 191–205, this in agreement with most contemporary
scholars; M. Guarducci, “Abercio,” in Nuovo Dizionario Patristico e di An-
tichità Cristiane, I, Genoa 2006, 12–13 (a new English edition is forthcom-
ing in Cambridge) agrees with me and cites my study. Now I also refer to
M. Mitchell’s study of the Abercius inscription presented at the confer-
ence Ablution, Initiation, and Baptism in Early Judaism, Graeco-Roman Religion,
and Early Christianity, Lesbos, University of Agder’s Metochi Study Center,
3–10 September 2009, forthcoming in Berlin in the proceedings of the
conference.
22 Feissel, Recueil, § 265.
23 G. Sanders, “L’idée du salut dans les inscriptions latines chré-

tiennes,” in La soteriologia dei culti orientali nell'Impero Romano, edd. U. Bianchi

– M. J. Vermaseren, Leiden 1982, 365–371.
24 Cf. A. Oepke, s.v. loutro/n, in G. Kittel – G. Friedrich, Grande Les-

sico del Nuovo Testamento, ed. F. Montagnini – G. Scarpat – O. Soffritti, VI,

cols. 793–830.
 Methodological Guidelines 9

New Testament (Eph 5:26; Tit 3:5), and then in Patristic literature,
only to indicate Christian baptism. It is a technical term which in
Latin is regularly rendered with lavacrum. Justin always uses loutro/n
to designate the Christian baptism, for example in his first Apology
(61 and 66.1). Justin, the teacher of the Syrian Tatian, who was
highly influential over Syriac culture in the second and third centu-
ries, insists on the conception of baptism as bath for the remission
of sins, an idea that clearly underlies also the Edessan inscription.
The liveliness of the reflection on baptism in the Syriac Christian
culture is attested by the Odes of Solomon, which were discovered in
1905 in a Syriac manuscript, but were originally written in Greek
toward the end of the second century; however, they were soon
translated into Syriac and copied in Syriac, and they also comment
on the baptismal liturgy of a Syrian Jewish-Christian community.25
As Drijvers in his Bardaiṣan monograph showed, these Odes have
often been ascribed by scholars to Bardaiṣan himself, even though
there can be no certainty on this score. Notably, in Ode 8.16 bap-
tism is connected with a sfragi/j, just as in the Abercius epitaph
(line 9).26 What is even more interesting in the Odes of Solomon in
relation to Bardaiṣan is that in Ode 16 Christ is said to have liber-
ated all prisoners from hell during his descensus ad inferos; he gave
them his science and his prayer, and sowed his fruits into their
hearts, as a result of which they not only “had life,” but also “were
saved.” This is in line with the Christian doctrine of apokatastasis
of which, as I shall point out, Bardaiṣan was one of the first sup-
porters together with Origen.
Bardaiṣan’s intellectual figure and work have been studied a
great deal,27 even though much still remains to be done, and I

25 J. H. Charlesworth, The Odes of Solomon, Oxford 1978; A. Hamman,

Les Odes de Salomon, Paris 1981.
26 See Ramelli, “L’Epitafio di Abercio,” 200.
27 In addition to the studies cited in the bibliographical references and

in the course of this book, see the first part of the important monograph
of H. J. W. Drijvers, Bardaiṣan of Edessa, Assen 1966, and the recent syn-
thesis of A. Camplani, “Bardesane di Edessa,” in Nuovo Dizionario Patristico
e di Antichità Cristiane, I, ed. A. Di Berardino, Genoa 2006, 699–705.
28 R. Guenther, “Bardesanes und die griechischen Philosophie,” Acta
10 Bardaiṣan of Edessa

greatly hope that my present study will contribute to the advance-

ment of scholarship, for example from the point of view of the
numerous and deep convergences I point out between Bardaiṣan
and Origen, or concerning the adequate evaluation of Bardaiṣan’s
fragments preserved by Porphyry, or of Platonic and Middle-
Platonic elements in Bardaiṣan’s thought, along with the Stoic
ones28—on the other hand, it must be considered that there was
reciprocal influence between Stoicism and Middle Platonism, and
that both systems are reflected in Jewish and Christian authors
such as Philo, Clement, and Origen.
I also hope to have contributed something towards the critical
evaluation of the reliability of the sources and their sections and
derivations, of their systematic comparative analysis, and much
else. Above all, I hope to have shown that Bardaiṣan’s thought was
fundamentally Christian, and even somehow ‘orthodox’ ante lit-
teram. It was based on the exegesis of the Bible in the light of
Greek philosophy, and especially Middle Platonism. Such a reli-
gious and philosophical enterprise was undertaken by Philo one
and a half centuries before Bardaiṣan, and in his day, and shortly
after, by Origen.29 Bardaiṣan’s Christian philosophy is, together
with Clement’s and Origen’s, one of the first syntheses between the
Greek philosophical tradition and Christianity.30

Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae” 25 (1978) 15–20; F. Rundgren,

“Stoica Semitica,” in Studien zur Geschichte und Kultur des vorderen Oriens. Fest-
schrift für B. Spuler, Leiden 1981, 355–361.
29 See I. Ramelli, “Philosophical Allegoresis of Scripture in Philo and

Its Legacy in Gregory of Nyssa,” Studia Philonica Annual 20 (2008) 55–99.

30 A. Camplani, “Rivisitando Bardesane,” 595, rightly wrote: “ritengo

[…] che tutto il sistema, che certamente risente fortemente del medio-
platonismo e dello stoicismo, esprima in linguaggio e in schemi filosofici
greci una visione del mondo incomprensibile fuori dal Cristianesimo” (italics
mine). For a general presentation of Bardaiṣan’s philosophical thought see
J. Teixidor, Bardesane d’Édesse: la première philosophie syriaque, Paris 1992, 65–
114; idem, “Bardesane de Syrie,” in Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques, II,
ed. R. Goulet, Paris 1994, 54–63; Camplani, “Rivisitando Bardesane,”
551–585. I hope to further contribute to scholarship on this score with
the present investigation and in the future.
31 Teixidor, Bardesane, passim, in part. 141–144.
 Methodological Guidelines 11

According to Teixidor, the church in Edessa31 before bishop

Qune (who was active in the age of Constantine and, according to
the Chronicon Edessenum, “founded the church of Edessa”32) was
heretical because of Bardaiṣan’s influence. However, Bardaiṣan was
not the bishop of this city—even though some late sources present
him in this way, as I shall show33—but a Christian philosopher and
theologian with a school of his own, a school which did not for-
mally pertain to an ecclesiastical institution: a parallel case was that
of Clement’s and Origen’s school, which at the beginning did not
formally depend on the bishop of Alexandria.34 Christoph

32 But see my Edessa e i Romani, sections 5–7, in which I argue for the
existence of a church in Edessa already around A.D. 200.
33 Camplani, “Rivisitando Bardesane,” 588 wrote, with reason:

“nell’Edessa del tempo di Bardesane e dei suoi discepoli la Grande Chiesa

non ha affatto assunto lo statuto di gruppo cristiano maggioritario …
Rabbula, ancora nel V secolo, converte seguaci di Bardesane ancora anni-
dati nell’élite cittadina, ambiente nel quale il bardesanismo doveva avere
esercitato una notevole forza di attrazione nei secoli precedenti.”
34 R. van der Broek, “The Christian School at Alexandria in the Sec-

ond and Third Centuries,” in J. W. Drijvers – A. MacDonald, edd., Centers

of Learning: Learning and Location in Pre-Modern Europe and the Near East, Lei-
den 1995, 39–47; C. Scholten, “Die alexandrinische Katechetenschule,”
Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum 38 (1995) 16–37; A. van den Hoek,
“The ‘Cathechetical School’ of Early Christian Alexandria and Its Philonic
Heritage,” Harvard Theological Review 90 (1997) 59–87; A. Le Boulluec,
“Aux origines, encore, de l’école d’Alexandrie,” Adamantius 5 (1999) 8–36;
M. Rizzi, “Il didaskalos nella tradizione alessandrina,” in G. Firpo – G.
Zecchini (eds.), Magister. Aspetti culturali e istituzionali, Alessandria 1999,
177–198; idem, “Scuola di Alessandria,” in Origene. Dizionario, ed. A.
Monaci Castagno, Rome 2000, 437–440; E. Prinzivalli, “La metamorfosi
della scuola alessandrina da Eracla a Didimo,” in Origeniana VIII, ed. L.
Perrone, Leuven 2003, 911–937.
12 Bardaiṣan of Edessa

Markschies recently described it as a private university in Origen’s

day, in which theology occupied the uppermost scientific level.35
In Bardaiṣan the theorization of human free will, and several
other doctrines, owe much to Greek philosophy, and especially to
Middle Platonism, as I shall show, and to Stoicism.36 In particular,
the relationship between human free will and fate was hotly de-
bated in Stoicism and in the Academic and Middle-Platonic tradi-
tion. The solution to this question which is offered in the Liber ul-
timately rests upon the divine foundation of human free will.37 This

35 C. Markschies, “Vorwort,” in Origenes und sein Erbe. Gesammelte

Studien, Berlin – New York 2007, vii.
36 On the presence of Greek philosophical culture in Syriac culture I

only cite a recent contribution, in addition to those which I cite elsewhere

in this work and in the bibliography: G. Troupeau, “Le rôle des Syriaques
dans la transmission et l’exploitation du patrimoine philosophique et sci-
entifique grec,” Arabica 38 (1991) 1–10. The following studies in particular
are relevant to Bardaiṣan: H. J. W. Drijvers, “Bardaiṣan of Edessa and the
Hermetica. The Aramaic Philosopher and the Philosophy of His Time,”
in idem, East of Antioch, London 1984, study number 11; idem, “Bardaiṣan
von Edessa als Repräsentant des syrischen Synkretismus im 2. Jahrhun-
dert n. Chr.,” ibidem number 12; Id., “Mani und Bardaiṣan. Beitrag zur
Vorgeschichte des Manichäismus,” ibidem number 13.
37 H. J. W. Drijvers, “Bardaisan’s Doctrine of Freewill, the Pseudo-

Clementines, and Marcionism in Syria,” in G. Bedouelle – O. Fatio (edd.),

Liberté chrétienne et libre arbitre, Fribourg 1994, 13–30, contextualizes in
Syriac Christianity the doctrine of free will supported in the Liber and con-
sidered by him to be original with Bardaiṣan. A useful philosophical back-
ground is provided by A. Dihle, “Philosophische Lehren von Schicksal
und Freiheit,” Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum 30 (1987) 14–28.
Bardaiṣan’s thought, on the other hand, as is highlighted also by
Camplani, “Rivisitando Bardesane,” 553–595 and passim, is also influenced
by the Old Testament, for example in some points of his cosmogony and
anthropogony. See also my demonstration below that Bardaiṣan inter-
preted the Bible in the light of Greek philosophy, especially Middle Pla-
tonism. In this connection, it may be helpful to refer to the debate on the
Jewish-Christian or Hellenistic-Christian (Antiochean) roots of Edessan
Christianity. See, e.g., H. J. W. Drijvers, “Syrian Christianity and Judaism,”
in J. Lieu – J. North – T. Rajak (eds.), The Jews among Pagans and Christians
in the Roman Empire, London-New York 1992, 124–146; S. Mimouni, “Le
 Methodological Guidelines 13

is close to the analogous and contemporary reflections of Clement

of Alexandria and Origen.
In this connection, an element that will emerge from the pre-
sent research is highly significant. The most favorable sources on
Bardaiṣan, and generally also the best informed, are all constituted
by Origenians. I shall analyze them one by one; for now suffice it
to mention, for instance, Didymus the Blind, who attests that
Bardaiṣan was a presbyter and that he remained in the ‘orthodox’
church until his death, and authors who esteemed Origen, from his
contemporary Julius Africanus to Eusebius to the early Jerome.
None of them, moreover, depicts Bardaiṣan as a heretic.
This element, together with many convergences between Ori-
gen’s and Bardaiṣan’s thought—the defense of human free will, the
doctrine of apokatastasis, divine Providence, the allegorical exegesis
of Scripture, the rejection of Marcionism and Gnostic predestina-
tionism, the doctrine of Christ’s epinoiai, the so-called theology of
the image, the refusal of apocalypticism, and much else—which I
shall point out, also makes me suspect that there may have been a
relationship between Origen, Bardaiṣan, and their schools. Euse-
bius, who knew them both very well, in his Praeparatio Evangelica,
while arguing in defense of human free will, notably cites Bardaiṣan
and Origen together: the former in 6.10 and the latter immediately
afterwards, in 6.11, a passage which will also be excerpted by the
authors of the Philocalia. Eusebius strongly connects these two
Christian philosophers in a respect of their thought that makes
them particularly close to one another, and that Eusebius, who ad-
mired both of them, shared.
Bardaiṣan’s and Origen’s schools, respectively in Edessa and
in Alexandria (and then in Caesarea), are among the first and most
important centers of development of Patristic philosophy, together
with others such as that of Justin in Rome and that of Athenagoras
in Athens. Both Origen and Bardaiṣan were Christian philosophers,

judéo-christianisme syriaque: mythe littéraire ou réalité historique?,” in VI

Symposium Syriacum 1992, ed. R. Lavenant, Rome 1994, Orientalia Christi-
ana Analecta 247, 269–279. Drijvers generally insisted more on the Helle-
nistic matrix, and most scholars on the Jewish-Christian one, whereas
Segal hypothesized a double origin, both Hellenistic and Jewish.
14 Bardaiṣan of Edessa

very well steeped in Greek philosophy, especially Platonism and

Stoicism, but not uncritically.38 John Healey recently argued that
against the backdrop of the early Edessan environment of Syrian
Christianity “Bardaiṣan forms a prominent peak of Hellenism” and
that a group of supporters and followers shared his interests, but
that “it is not clear that he is the tip of an iceberg of any great sig-
nificance” in Osrhoene.39 Indeed, even though at that time
Edessa’s rulers were at home in Rome,40 a closer parallel for
Bardaiṣan and his school seems to me to be offered by Origen and
his own school in Alexandria, and subsequently in Caesarea.41
Bardaiṣan was portrayed as a philosopher by Ephrem, who
called him “the Aramaic philosopher,”42 and much later by Han

38 Recently even divergencies in respect to Platonism have been high-

lighted. However, more than between Origen and Platonism, these are
more general divergences between Christian and pagan thought, so that,
instead of denying that Origen was a Platonist, I would say that he was a
Christian Platonist. See especially the excellent contributions by M. J. Ed-
wards, Origen against Plato, Aldershot 2002, and P. Tzamalikos, Origen: Cos-
mology and Ontology of Time, Leiden-Boston 2006, with my review in Rivista
di Filosofia Neoscolastica 99 (2007) 177–181, and idem, Origen: Philosophy of
History and Eschatology, Leiden-Boston, 2007, with my review in Rivista di
Filosofia Neoscolastica 100.2–3 (2008) 453–458. Their insistence on the
Christian features of Origen’s thought is entirely right; only, I find that
this does not entail that he was not a Platonist because he was a Christian.
See my Gregorio di Nissa Sull’Anima e la Resurrezione, Milan 2007, second
Integrative Essay; eadem, “Origen, Patristic Philosophy, and Christian
Platonism: Re-Thinking the Christianization of Hellenism,” VigChr 63
(2009) 217–263.
39 Healey, “The Edessan Milieu,” quotations from § 32.
40 Steven K. Ross, Roman Edessa. Politics and Culture in the Eastern Fringe

of the Roman Empire, London 2001; Ilaria Ramelli, “Abgar Ukkama e Abgar
il Grande alla luce di recenti apporti storiografici,” Aevum 78 (2004) 103–
108.
41 When Origen moved to Caesarea, however, Bardaiṣan had already

died, but his school was still alive and well: his followers continued to
exist for centuries.
42 In Prose Refutations 2.225.25–26; 2.7.48–8.1; edition with English

translation by C. W. Mitchell – A. A. Bevan – F. C. Burkitt, S. Ephraim’s

Prose Refutations of Mani, Marcion, and Bardaisan, I–II, London 1912–1921.
 Methodological Guidelines 15

J. W. Drijvers and other scholars,43 with reason. On her part, Ute

Possekel has rightly called attention to the strongly theological as-
pects of his thought,44 without denying at the same time that he
also used many philosophical categories. In fact, I find that the dis-
tinction between philosophy and theology is a modern idea, and in
Patristic philosophy it would be methodologically incorrect to sepa-
rate theology and philosophy. Possekel in her fine study is basically
right to claim that Bardaiṣan considered himself first of all a Chris-
tian45 who tried to render his faith acceptable from an intellectual
point of view. I think that this is also true of Origen, a Christian
philosopher46 who played an essential role in making Christianity
acceptable even to the most intellectually demanding, such as many
Gnostics.47 Both Origen and Bardaiṣan played a core role in help-
ing Christianity acquire a cultural and philosophical credibility be-
tween the second and the third century.

43 E.g., Drijvers, Bardaiṣan; idem, “Bardaiṣan of Edessa and the Her-

metica,” JEOL 21 (1970) 190–210; T. Jansma, Natuur, lot en vrijheid. Barde-
sanes, de filosoof der Arameërs en zijn images, Wageningen 1969; A. Dihle,
“Liberté et destin dans l’Antiquité tardive,” RThPh 121 (1989) 129–147; J.
Teixidor, Bardesane d’Édesse: la première philosophie syriaque, Paris 1992; J. F.
Healey, “The Edessan Milieu and the Birth of Syriac,” Hugoye 10.2 (2007)
§§ 1–34, who describes Bardaiṣan’s writings as “philosophical works in
Syriac” (§ 31).
44 Ute Possekel, “Bardaiṣan of Edessa: Philosopher or Theologian?,”

ZAC 10.3 (2007) 442–461.

45 Even those who do not share the position of Kruse, who inter-

preted in a Christian, and specifically orthodox, sense many elements of

Bardaiṣan’s doctrine, tend to admit the presence of Christian elements in
his thought. Camplani, “Rivisitando Bardesane,” 586–587 regards
Bardaiṣan’s school in Edessa as “un centro cristiano di discussione e di
ricerca, in concorrenza con le scuole filosofiche pagane … la cultura es-
pressa in siriaco si configura come cultura derivata da quella greca, sia
cristiana che pagana.”
46 See Ilaria Ramelli, “Origen, Patristic Philosophy, and Christian Pla-

tonism.”
47 See, most recently, Tloka, Griechische Christen, ch. 2, with my review

in Adamantius 14 (2008) 641–645; Christoph Markschies, Origenes und sein

Erbe, Berlin 2007, also with a review of mine forthcoming in Adamantius.
16 Bardaiṣan of Edessa

It is a pity that a philosophical work of Bardaiṣan is lost and it

is only possible to gather something of it from Ephrem, who read
it directly and criticized it. It was a book “against the Platonists”
entitled swNMdd, perhaps to be rendered Of Domnus.48 One of

48 In fact, the exact vocalization is unknown, and its meaning is un-

certain as well. It may be a name belonging to a person. Eusebius in HE
7.14.1 attests a Domnos who was the bishop of Caesarea in Palestine at
the time of the pupils of Origen (th~j d' e0pi\ Palaisti/nhj Kaisarei/aj,
Qeokti/stou metalla&cantoj, diade/xetai th_n e0piskoph_n Do&mnoj). Ibidem
7.30.18 Domnos is attested as the bishop of Antioch in the second half of
the third century (Do&mnoj, w(j ei1rhtai, th_n leitourgi/an th~j kata_
0Antio&xeian e0kklhsi/aj diede/cato). A Domnus is attested as the father of a
sophist who lived under Constantine (Callinicus, Test. 3a.281.T1 Jacoby:
0Iouliano&j: Do&mnou, a)po_ Kaisarei/aj Kappadoki/aj, sofisth&j,
su&gxronoj Kallini/kou tou~ sofistou~: gegonw_j e0pi\ Kwnstanti/nou tou~
basile/wj). John Chrysostom sent a letter to a bishop named Domnus
(KZ. Do&mnw| e0pisko&pw|, PG 52.626.52) and Socrates HE 1.13.122 lists a
Domnos as bishop of Trapezunte (Do&mnoj Trapezou~ntoj) and in HE
1.13.15 another Domnos of Aspendos (Do&mnoj 0Aspe/ndou), and in
1.13.195 yet another Domnos of Pannonia (Pannoni/aj Do&mnoj). Dom-
nos is also attested as the name of a Syrian bishop of Antioch around the
middle of the fifth century (Evagrius Scholasticus HE 17.25 Do&mnoj o(
meta_ 0Iwa&nnhn 0Antioxei/aj pro&edroj). The Chronicon Paschale 678.2 men-
tions the condemnation of Domnus, bishop of Antiochia, in the Council
of Chalcedon (h( e0n Xalkhdo&ni a(gi/a su&nodoj Do&mnon to_n 0Antioxei/aj
geno&menon e0pi/skopon meta_ qa&naton katedi/kasen), and the same is done
by Justinian in Ep. contra tria capitula 67: ou) mo&non 1Ibaj kai\ Qeodw&rhtoj
dia_ to_ a)nteipei=n toi=j dw&deka kefalai/oij tou~ e0n a(gi/oij Kuri/llou
e0ceblh&qhsan th~j e0piskoph~j, a)lla_ kai\ Do&mnoj o( 0Antioxei/aj
a)rxiepi/skopoj. The name is also attested in Test. XL Mart. 3.1.5 and
3.4.6, as that of a bishop. Eusebius in HE 6.12.1 also mentions a work To
(or Against) Domnus by Serapion of Alexandria (Tou~ me\n ou}n Serapi/wnoj
… ei0j h(ma~j de\ mo&na kath~lqen ta_ Pro_j Do&mnon, e0kpeptwko&ta tina_
para_ to_n tou~ diwgmou~ kairo_n a)po_ th~j ei0j Xristo_n pi/stewj e0pi\ th_n
0Ioudai"kh_n e0qeloqrh|skei/an). Libanius mentions a Domnos, a contemporary
of his, in several epistles (50.1.2; 53.1.1; 336.3.1; 1108.1–2).
In the time of Bardaiṣan, the feminine form of the name Domnus
appears in the name of Julia Domna, of the imperial family, the wife of
Septimius Severus and the mother of Caracalla and Geta. She was a Syrian
lady from Emesa and fond of philosophy. She accompanied Severus in his
campaign in the East in the Nineties of the second century, the time of
 Methodological Guidelines 17

Ephrem’s Prose Refutations is precisely devoted to criticizing it:

Against Bardaiṣan’s Domnus. Here, Ephrem opposed Bardaiṣan’s
doctrines on incorporeal things, space, and sense perception. Re-
grettably, from Ephrem’s sparse polemic it is impossible to recon-
struct Bardaiṣan’s book in the same way as Celsus’ )Alhqh\j Lo/goj
has been reconstructed from Origen’s refutation. One of the main
points that emerge from Ephrem’s treatise is that Bardaiṣan criti-
cized the distinction, typical of the Platonists, between sw/mata
and a)sw/mata, i.e., bodies and incorporeal entities, at least among
the creatures. Bardaiṣan, whose wording is sometimes reproduced
by Ephrem, cited the Greek terminology.
Ephrem, in Prose Refutations 2.6.41–7.12, contests Bardaiṣan’s
attribution of this division to “the Platonists” and observes that
this distinction is found in Albinus’ work )M$wG )L l(, On
the Incorporeal, and that it is supported by the Stoics, upon whose
theories Albinus drew (29.43–30.1): “But you know that it is said in
the book Of Domnus that ‘the Platonists say that there are sw&mata
and also a0sw&mata,’ that is to say, corporeal and incorporeal things.
But these inquiries do not belong to the Platonists, even if they are
written in the writings of the Platonists; but they are the inquiries
of the Stoics, which Albinus introduced into his book which is
called On the Incorporeal, according to the custom followed by sages
and philosophers who in their writings set forth first the inquiries
of their own party and then exert themselves to refute by their ar-
guments the inquiries of men who are opposed to their school of
thought.”49

Abgar the Great, and accompanied Caracalla on his campaign against the
Parthians in A.D. 217, when Bardaiṣan was still alive.
49 I use Mitchell’s translation here, with some modifications. Ephrem

goes on to say: “But in the writings of the Stoics and the Platonists this
took place, for the Platonists say that there are sw&mata and a0sw&mata,
and the Stoics too (say) the same thing. But they do not agree in opinion
as they agree in terms. For the Platonists say that corporeal and incorpo-
real things exist in nature and substance, whereas the Stoics say that all
that exists in nature and substance is corporeal (lit. is a body), but that
which does not exist in nature, though it is perceived by the mind, they
call incorporeal. But the Philosopher of the Syrians (i.e. Bardaiṣan) made
himself a laughing-stock among Syrians and Greeks, not only in that he
18 Bardaiṣan of Edessa

But Bardaiṣan probably referred precisely to authors such as

Albinus in speaking of “Platonists;” that is, Bardaiṣan did not refer
to the early Academy or to the Skeptic Academy, but to Middle-
Platonism, i.e., the form of Platonism that was the closest to him
and with which he was best acquainted. And Middle Platonism had
absorbed a good deal from Stoicism. Indeed, Ephrem’s polemic,
with his accusations against Bardaiṣan of being unable to distin-
guish the Stoic and the Platonic doctrines and to really understand
Platonism, indicates that Bardaiṣan was in fact influenced by Mid-
dle Platonism. In Middle Platonism, indeed, Platonic and Stoic
doctrines had merged. It is telling, for instance, that according to
Albinus, a Middle Platonist of Syriac origins, there was no distinc-
tion between Plato’s, the Stoics’, and Aristotle’s philosophies. Albi-
nus, in the second century, probably a little earlier than Bardaiṣan,
wrote a famous Isagoge, but to him was also ascribed the Di-
daskalikon which is nowadays ascribed to Alcinoous.50 Nothing is
known of his work On the Incorporeal, which is evidently lost.
I suspect that a deep parallel between Bardaiṣan and Origen
emerges here. Just like Bardaiṣan denies the existence of perfectly
incorporeal creatures, so also did Origen, according to whom only
and exclusively the Trinity, in that it is uncreated, can subsist in a
totally incorporeal state (Peri\ )Arxw=n 1.6.4; 2.2.2); all creatures, on
the other hand, are corporeal, albeit in different degrees of thick-
ness or fineness. This implies important consequences in his

[p. 8.] was unable to state, but also in that he did not really know the
teaching of Plato; and in (his) simplicity he hastened to calumniate Plato
by (ascribing to him) the inquiries of others, though Plato had a great
struggle against these (very) inquiries, which Bardaisan thinks belong to
Plato. But these inquiries (were conducted) according to the way in which
the Stoics invented names for things, and because they (were expressed)
as in parables … [l. 24] [as I have said above, Bardaisan accepts (as literal
fact) the parables of the Stoics.]” The allusion to parables and metaphors
in Stoic philosophy may well refer to Stoic allegory as a philosophical de-
vice. See my Allegoria, 1, L’età classica, Milan 2004, Temi metafisici e prob-
lemi del pensiero antico Series.
50 Cf. A. Gioè, Filosofi medioplatonici del II secolo d.C. Testimonianze e

frammenti: Gaio, Albino, Nicostrato, Lucio, Tauro, Severo, Arpocrazione, Naples

2003.
 Methodological Guidelines 19

thought, e.g. in his anthropology, in the so-called “pre-existence of

souls” (a very imprecise expression) and in his conception of the
resurrection. Since Bardaiṣan in his Domnus seems to have sup-
ported a similar view, it is probable that analogous consequences
can be drawn concerning his anthropology and his eschatology.
And indeed I shall argue that this is probably the case. I shall also
show that accusations that were repeatedly leveled against him—
often because of an undue association of him with Gnosticism—
such as the denial of the resurrection or a docetic Christology, are
probably unfounded. Bardaiṣan, I think, is likely to have enter-
tained views that were closer to those of Origen than to those of
the Gnostics, or even of the Manichaeans, who existed only after
him.
Bardaiṣan really seems to have thought that nothing is incor-
poreal apart from God, not even entities such as a line or a sound,
as Ephrem attests in Prose Refutations 1.20.45–21.2: “And Bardaiṣan
said, however, that even a line is measured by the body
[)M$wG]—whichever it is—in which it is found.” Likewise, in
Prose Refutations 2.29.43–30.1: “(Bardaiṣan) said concerning the no-
tions that they are audible, and the Stoics [)QYw*+S] erred in
saying that they are perceived by the mind.” Bardaiṣan would thus
seem to have not instituted an ontological difference between reali-
ties, concepts, and names, considering all of them beings and crea-
tures, and thus diastematic and corporeal to some extent.
Of course, in dealing with Ephrem’s report it is always neces-
sary to remember that this is a polemic and hostile source. Here is
his conclusion: “And thus Bardaiṣan played in a deceptive way also
with names, and hypothesized that the natures [oYhNYK, sc. sub-
stances] of things are the same as their names” (Prose Refutations
2.48.48–49). Now, it is consistent with Bardaiṣan’s view that even
lines are corporeal in that they are diastematic, as opposed to the
absolute incorporeality of God alone. Ephrem in his refutations
tries to draw a distinction between a material and an intelligible
line. But it is coherent with Bardaiṣan’s general idea that even
sounds are corporeal in that they are audible.
That Bardaiṣan considered the qualities of the bodies as them-
selves corporeal is also attested by Sergius of Resh‘aina in a work
20 Bardaiṣan of Edessa

on Aristotle’s Categories discovered by Furlani.51 Notably, Origen

too considered qualities to be corporeal, as he maintained that
there can be no matter without qualities, and that both matter and
its qualities were created by God (Peri\ )Arxw=n 2.1.4; 4.4.7).52
If Ephrem is faithful in reporting Bardaiṣan’s thought, I sus-
pect that what emerges from the fragments from his De Domno is
that Bardaiṣan, like Origen, intended to transfer the “corporeal vs.
incorporeal” distinction to the plane of the “creatures vs. Creator”
distinction. All creatures are corporeal, all that exists is corporeal
apart from God the Creator.
Bardaiṣan’s position, that all creatures are corporeal and di-
astematic, is consistent with his definition of the sun as a mortal
being, since it is a creature: “But …that a man should say concern-
ing the sun that it is mortal … it is on account of the appearance
which he sees in the sun that he says this concerning it; for it is
born in the East and … in the South … and extends as far as the
West … and called the sun mortal, and hastens to blame (it); for he who
blames is himself blameworthy.” Now, this is perfectly coherent
with Bardaiṣan’s anti-astrological polemic as well. Like Origen, he
insisted that celestial bodies are not at all divine, but are creatures.
Also Bardaiṣan’s assertion that space, as diastematic, is meas-
urable, is in line with his idea of all creatures being diastematic, al-
though Ephrem criticizes this: “But that thou may know that the
Bardaiṣanites have not even heard that philosophers have … seeing
that this length and breadth is placed by Bardaiṣan in that meas-
urement of Space, when he says that ‘Space also has been measured
that it holds so much a definite quantity.’ For if he supposes that
space is measurable it is necessary that length and breadth also
should belong (?) to space, a statement which I have contradicted
above.” For Ephrem, space, like time and number, is incorporeal,
whereas Bardaiṣan probably considered all creatures, i.e. all existing
beings apart from God, as corporeal—of course in different de-
grees of fineness—and diastematic.

51 Cf. G. Furlani, “Sullo Stoicismo di Bardesane di Edessa,” Archiv

Orientální 9 (1937) 347–352.

52 See Ch. Köckert, Christliche Kosmolgie und kaiserzeitliche Philosophie,

Tübingen 2009, 254–255.

 Methodological Guidelines 21

Now, what happens with Plato’s Ideas, which Bardaiṣan took

up, as results from his De India (as I shall demonstrate)? Ideas do
no more constitute a noetic world, characterized by a metaphysical
absoluteness: they become God’s ideas, with a passage to the divine
sphere that was typical of Middle Platonism (Alcinoous in Di-
daskalikos 9 describes the Ideas as noh/seij Qeou= ai)wni/ou). It is
God who guarantees their ontological status. Ideas belong to God,
and, more precisely, to God’s Logos, which subsumes them in a
transcending unity;53 they are the paradigms of creatures, incorpo-
real—in that they are in God, differently from human thoughts and
concepts—but not endowed with an autonomous existence.
Among creatures, that is, in all that exists outside God, there is
nothing incorporeal; our very ideas are abstractions and are our
processes of thought, very different from God’s Ideas, which have
ontological consistency; our ideas can be considered audible words
(perhaps behind Bardaiṣan’s conception there was also the Platonic
and Stoic notion of lo/goj proforiko/j and lo/goj e)ndia/qetoj).
For the description of creatures, which are all corporeal, even at-
omistic concepts can be used, as they were indeed used by both
Bardaiṣan and Origen; I shall show this as well.54
Many aspects of the Platonic tradition, including Middle Pla-
tonism, certainly influenced both Bardaiṣan and Origen,55 among
which one of the most remarkable was the tenet of the ontological
non-subsistence of evil. In Bardaiṣan, this concept is clear not only
from the final section of the Liber, in which its final eviction in the
apokatastasis is foreseen, but also in the so-called cosmological
traditions that I shall analyze.

53 See my “Clement’s Notion of the Logos ‘All Things as One.’”

54 On Atomism in Origen see C. Markschies, “Epikureismus bei Ori-
genes und in der origenistischen Tradition,” in Origenes und sein Erbe, 127–
154.
55 Surely, from atomism he critically chose what was compatible with

Christianity. For example, he excluded the doctrine of metensomatosis,

which Plato himself had presented in merely mythical form. See my
Gregorio di Nissa: Sull’anima e la resurrezione, second Integrative Essay, and
the above-cited studies by Edwards and Tzamalikos.
22 Bardaiṣan of Edessa

Further Platonic influence on Bardaiṣan is also represented by

the inspiration he drew from Plato’s Timaeus, as is evident from the
second fragment from his De India and as is indicated also by other
sources, from Ephrem to the so-called cosmological traditions, as I
shall point out. I shall argue that Bardaiṣan read the Biblical cos-
mogony in the light of the Timaeus, interpreted through the lenses
of Middle-Platonic categories. Bardaiṣan’s reflection on the origin
of the world and of the human being is grounded in both Scripture
and Platonism.
There is a doctrine of Bardaiṣan, influenced by Platonism and
Stoicism, that deserves particular attention both for the misunder-
standings to which it was liable—and into which indeed it fell—
and for the striking parallel with Origen that it provides, as I shall
show in the present study. It is the complex doctrine of the
)YtY*), “the beings,” which are eternal, or better anterior to the
creation of this world, but at the same time subordinated to God
and endowed with a certain freedom, which, however, after the
creation of this world, in the present arrangement of things, is
much less than the rational creatures’ free will. I shall point out the
conspicuous similarities of this conception with Origen’s notion of
the no/ej and of the original lo/goi of all beings. In the complex
cosmological traditions, and given the absorption of Stoic ideas in
Middle Platonism, it is difficult to evaluate how much of Platonic
and / or Stoic thought there is and how much of Christian in the
aforementioned conception. I think there is much of Christian
Middle Platonism in Bardaiṣan’s reading of the Hexaëmeron in the
light of the Timaeus and of Middle-Platonic notions. Such a synthe-
sis was also performed—on a bigger scale—by Origen.
Moreover, Bardaiṣan’s demonstration in the Liber, as I shall
show when I analyze this source, is based on a kind of argument,
that of the so-called “customs of barbarian nations” (no/mima
barbarika/), which goes back to a scholar of Plato’s Academy,
Carneades, and was later used by authors influenced by Middle Pla-
tonism, such as Philo and Origen, and by authors who were very
well acquainted with Origen, such as Didymus the Blind, who also
knew Bardaiṣan’s treatment, Ambrose in his Hexaëmeron, Caesarius,
Gregory of Nyssa in his Kata\ Ei(marme/nhj (A.D. 379–384/7),
 Methodological Guidelines 23

which has the same title as Bardaiṣan’s work (Gregory also knew
Philo,56 and Bardaiṣan as well, of whom he must have read at least
Eusebius’ excerpts in Praeparatio Evangelica), and Procopius of Gaza.
I shall argue that Diodore of Tarsus, too, who knew Origen’s
thought and even seems to have shared the doctrine of apokatasta-
sis with him, in his own Kata\ Ei(marme/nhj based much of his rea-
soning on Bardaiṣan’s homonymous work.
That the same argument against Fate is found, almost at the
same time, in Bardaiṣan and Origen, as I shall show in detail, adds a
further close parallel between these two Christian philosophers,
who seem to both know Philo and to have much in common that
has been overlooked by scholars so far, but that can provide a
mighty key for a better understanding of Bardaiṣan.
That Origen knew Philo very well, directly and extensively,
and that Clement also did so, is not in doubt. That Bardaiṣan did so
as well, it is not quite certain, but it is at least probable. In 1892 P.
Wendland, while treating of Philo’s De Providentia, called attention
to the strong similarities between this work and the Liber, especially
in the use of the no/mima barbarika/ argument.57 The passages that
struck Wendland correspond, in their argument, to the excerpts
that Eusebius inserted in his Praeparatio Evangelica. Bardaiṣan used
the same argument as Philo had done in order to refute the power
of Fate exercised through the celestial bodies (even if, as I shall
show in a moment, he also added a new argument, perhaps in-
vented by him): if the customs of a whole people are the same, they
cannot be determined for each person by the horoscope of each
one, that is, by the position of the stars at his or her birth. F. Boll58
also studied the parallels between Philo’s De Providentia and
Bardaiṣan’s argument in the Liber.

56 See my “Philosophical Allegoresis of Scripture in Philo.” Gregory’s

Contra Fatum is edited in Gregorii Nysseni Opera, III / 2.
57 P. Wendland, Philos Schrift über die Vorsehung. Ein Beitrag zur

Geschichte der nacharistotelischen Philosophie, Berlin 1892, in part. 27–33.

58 Studien über Claudius Ptolemäus. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der griechischen

Philosophie und Astrologie, Leipzig 1894, Jahrbücher für classische Philologie

Suppl. 21, 49–244.
24 Bardaiṣan of Edessa

Notably, it is only in Christian authors, and for the first time

exactly in Bardaiṣan, that a second argument of the supporters of
Fate is refuted, that is, the argument based on the division of the
earth in several climatic zones, each of which was governed by a
specific celestial body. The Christian counter-argument, which may
have been excogitated by Bardaiṣan himself,59 is that the laws of the
inhabitants of a certain region can be changed, for example by a
sovereign, and thus cannot depend on the stars. The example that
Bardaiṣan adduces in the Liber is that of Abgar the Great, who,
after his conversion to Christianity, forbade a pagan ritual mutila-
tion. Bardaiṣan also introduces a closely related argument, on Jews
and Christians: they respect the law, of Christ and of Moses respec-
tively, wherever they are in the world. The argument that the Jews
follow the Mosaic law in every latitude of the world will also be
found in Diodore of Tarsus and Didymus the Blind, who, as I shall
argue, very probably knew Bardaiṣan’s argument.
In connection with the Christianized conception of Fate as it
is found in Bardaiṣan in the Liber, there is another fundamental
parallel between Origen’s and Bardaiṣan’s thought, in addition to
many others shared traits and doctrines which I shall point out,
such as the ethical intellectualism, the ontological non-subsistence
of evil, human free-will, the apokatastasis, the preference for alle-
gorical exegesis, the rejection of apocalypticism, the polemics
against Marcionism and Gnosticism, and much else. The funda-
mental parallel I have mentioned lies in the fact that both Bardaiṣan
and Origen conceived fate as the expression of God’s Providence
and administered by the celestial bodies. This is another deep simi-
larity in the thought of these two semi-contemporary Christian phi-
losophers.
For Origen too, just as Bardaiṣan, definitely rejected the wor-
ship of celestial bodies (Contra Celsum 5.11), which are only crea-
tures, even though he, like Bardaiṣan and like most ancients,
thought that these were governed by spiritual powers (ibidem 8.31;
Homilies on Joshua 23.7; Homilies on Jeremiah 10.6). These powers, in

59 Indeed, it does not seem to be attested in any author before

Bardaiṣan. And, after him, it seems to have been taken over only by Chris-
tian authors.
 Methodological Guidelines 25

that they are spiritual, are living and rational, and therefore en-
dowed with a certain degree of freedom (Contra Celsum 5.12; De
oratione 7: “even the sun has a will of its own”); however, they are
not in the least the expression of a Fate understood as an inde-
pendent force, but they are instruments of God’s Providence which
orders them what to do (Peri\ )Arxw=n 1.7.3). This is, in all its de-
tails, the very same conception that Bardaiṣan also held and is well
expressed in the Liber Legum Regionum. Both for Bardaiṣan and for
Origen, celestial bodies are creatures (Peri\ )Arxw=n 1.7.2; 3.6.4), and
submitted to God.
Notwithstanding this, Origen too, like Bardaiṣan, was repeat-
edly accused because of his astronomical competence and his
knowledge of astrological doctrines, including the knowledge of
some interpretations of Hipparchus or of the vocabulary of astrol-
ogy (Philocalia 23.14–28). However, knowledge of astrological doc-
trines does not mean that either Origen or Bardaiṣan also adhered to
these doctrines. And certainly in neither of them did this knowl-
edge produce paganism, as Ephrem says of Bardaiṣan. Origen ex-
alts the beauty and order of the movements of the celestial bodies,
but in order to extol God’s Providence (Contra Celsum 8.52; Peri\
)Arxw=n 4.1.7; Philocalia 23.6). Origen in Philocalia 23.20–21 hypothe-
sizes that the celestial bodies are signs disposed by God to indicate
to the angels, who take care of human beings, what to do: “I hy-
pothesize that the celestial bodies are placed up there for the pow-
ers who administer the human cases, that they may know some
things and do some others. For it is possible that the angels and the
divine powers can read well this heavenly scripture, and that some
things of these read by the angels and ministers of God are under-
stood by them, so that they may rejoice in knowing them, and oth-
ers may be received by them as orders and may be executed.”60
Origen goes on to say that these creatures, who are angels, are en-

60 Stoxa&zomai tai=j ta_ a)nqrw&pina oi0konomou&saij duna&mesin

e0kkei=sqai ta_ shmei=a, i3na tina_ me\n ginw&skwsi mo&non, tina_ de\ e0nergw~si ...
e0nde/xetai dh_ ta_ ou)ra&nia gra&mmata, a4 a1ggeloi kai\ duna&meij qei=ai
a)naginw&skein kalw~j du&nantai, perie/xein tina_ me\n a)nagnwsqhso&mena
u(po_ tw~n a)gge/lwn kai\ leitourgw~n tou~ qeou~, i3na eu)frai/nwntai
ginw&skontej: tina_ de\ w(sperei\ e0ntola_j lamba&nontej poiw~si.