Bardaisan of Edessa: A Reassessment of the Evidence and a New Interpretation 9781463216658

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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

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34 2009

Gorgias Press LLC, 180 Centennial Ave., Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2009 by Gorgias Press LLC

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ISBN 978-1-60724-074-7

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ramelli, Ilaria, 1973Bardaisan 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 181'.9--dc22 2009040577 Printed in the United States of America

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, MiddlePlatonism, 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 LateSecond-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

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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 AntiDualism ................................................................................342 35 Michael the Syrian’s Biographical Account........................350 36 Barhebraeus.............................................................................358

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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 Regionum 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 edition of the Liber Legum Regionum,2 a long investigation into the Doc-

“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 severiana: 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; “Bardesane 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 regionum, with essays, edition, translation, and commentary, Rome – Bologna 2009. 1

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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 finished (indeed, I expect I shall migrate to the other world long before 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, almost contemporary with one another, Origen and Bardaiṣan, and their traditions, I realized how profoundly their thoughts and traditions and sources concerning them were interrelated. One of the first attempts at expounding the contribution of my ongoing research 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 tardoantica 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 Gorgiana; “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 Novels?,” in Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 189 (2009) 411–450. 4 Especially in “Bardesane e la sua scuola, l’Apologia siriaca ‘di Melitone’ 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.

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and also thanks to the helpful feedback of several friends and colleagues, 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 ChristLogos I could further clarify on the occasion of the EASR conference in 2009, from which I also benefited for comments on my lecture,8 and on the question of creation in Bardaiṣan I could especially focus, offering a thorough reassessment, during the preparation 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 engagement 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 enormous and continual work for the knowledge of ancient Syriac culture and civilization is simply invaluable, and to Katie Stott of Gorgias Press, for the kindness and helpfulness in the editorial preparation of this monograph. “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 GeorgAugust University of Göttingen, Institut für Spezialstudien der Theologischen Fakultät, 11.I.2010, in the “Vortragsreihe Kosmologie – Kosmogonie – Schöpfung.” 7

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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. Methodological 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 doctrine 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 Abgarid 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 accounts: 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 purification, 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 undermines the picture of a “Gnostic” and “heretic” Bardaiṣan. Several “accusations” leveled against him (just as many, very similar, leveled 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

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or even a presbyter, as an author of refutations of Marcionism and Gnosticism, and as a confessor of the Christian faith during a persecution. 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 Patristic philosophy; the chronological and historical frame is that of the Antonine and Severan age.1 Especially the latter was a flourishing period for Christianity in the Roman empire, to which the philo-Roman Edessa was close and finally submitted.2 While MarOn 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

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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— 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 ‘miracolo 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 criptocristianesimo 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: formazione 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 persecuzione 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,” Augustinianum 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,” Athe3

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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 interests: philosophy and theology, ethnography and geography, history, including history of Christianity and “apocryphal” Christian literature—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 evinaeum 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 porfiriano,” with a preface by M. Sordi, Aevum 78 (2004) 59–67; eadem, “Il fondamento 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 postcostantiniana: 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 Cristianesimi 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. Bowmann – 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.

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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 ancient 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 century, and on its Stoic features, which were already supposed by Han

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’: osservazioni 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. Lavenant, 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 perseguitati 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 Elaboration of Mara bar Serapion,” Hugoye 9.2, (2006), §§ 1–24; I. Ramelli, Stoici Romani Minori, Milan 2008, 2555–2598. 8

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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 particular, 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 features, there is also an interesting political aspect: a protestation of loyalty toward Rome on the part of the Syrians, even after the capture of Samosata; the same attitude underlies the Liber, which mentions the Roman conquests, including that of Arabia, which brought about different laws. Bardaiṣan himself was educated together with Abgar the Great, the philo-Roman king of Edessa (178 / 179–212 according to the new chronology)14 and was a digH. J. W. Drijvers, Bardaiṣan of Edessa, Assen 1966, 67. 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 Letter of Mara Bar Serapion,” in Aramaic Studies in Judaism and Early Christianity, ed. Paul V. M. Flesher – Eric M. Meyers, Duke Judaic Studies Monograph Series, Forthcoming. All three of them have offered an English translation published in Tübingen 2009 in the SAPERE series and presented 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, London 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 storicoreligiosa,” 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 apporti storiografici,” Aevum 78 (2004) 103–108 and below. 11 12

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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 (“Antoninus” 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 composed, 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-

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 narrativi, 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. Wallraff, Berlin 2006, TU 157. Further documentation below. 16 See my “L’epitafio di Abercio: uno status quaestionis e alcune osservazioni,” 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. 15

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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 baptism and resurrection therein make clear. This is my translation: “[To the neophyte?] / and the wife … / Antigone, because Nicander / 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 expression 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 accused of denying the resurrection of the body, might have in fact accepted it, albeit as the resurrection of a fine, spiritual body, entailing 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 necessarily imply a heretical angelology, “because liturgy cites the aeons among the other categories of the heavenly court.” I also add that Origen’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 edition 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.

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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 purification 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 probable 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 inscription studied by G. Sanders the same symbolism is related to the Latin term fons.23 Both in the Abercius inscription and in the Edessan inscription, 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 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 Antichità Cristiane, I, Genoa 2006, 12–13 (a new English edition is forthcoming 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 conference 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 chrétiennes,” 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 Lessico del Nuovo Testamento, ed. F. Montagnini – G. Scarpat – O. Soffritti, VI, cols. 793–830. 21

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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 centuries, 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 baptism 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 liberated 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 supporters 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 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 synthesis 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 25

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greatly hope that my present study will contribute to the advancement 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 MiddlePlatonic 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 litteram. It was based on the exegesis of the Bible in the light of Greek philosophy, and especially Middle Platonism. Such a religious 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. Festschrift 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 medioplatonismo 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.

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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 formally 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

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 annidati 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 Second and Third Centuries,” in J. W. Drijvers – A. MacDonald, edd., Centers of Learning: Learning and Location in Pre-Modern Europe and the Near East, Leiden 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. 32

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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 debated in Stoicism and in the Academic and Middle-Platonic tradition. The solution to this question which is offered in the Liber ultimately rests upon the divine foundation of human free will.37 This 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 scientifique 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. Jahrhundert 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 PseudoClementines, 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 considered by him to be original with Bardaiṣan. A useful philosophical background 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 interpreted the Bible in the light of Greek philosophy, especially Middle Platonism. 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 35

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is close to the analogous and contemporary reflections of Clement of Alexandria and Origen. In this connection, an element that will emerge from the present 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 Origen’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 predestinationism, 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. Eusebius, 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 admired 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 Christiana Analecta 247, 269–279. Drijvers generally insisted more on the Hellenistic matrix, and most scholars on the Jewish-Christian one, whereas Segal hypothesized a double origin, both Hellenistic and Jewish.

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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 significance” 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 highlighted. 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. Edwards, Origen against Plato, Aldershot 2002, and P. Tzamalikos, Origen: Cosmology 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.

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J. W. Drijvers and other scholars,43 with reason. On her part, Ute Possekel has rightly called attention to the strongly theological aspects of his thought,44 without denying at the same time that he also used many philosophical categories. In fact, I find that the distinction between philosophy and theology is a modern idea, and in Patristic philosophy it would be methodologically incorrect to separate theology and philosophy. Possekel in her fine study is basically right to claim that Bardaiṣan considered himself first of all a Christian45 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 helping Christianity acquire a cultural and philosophical credibility between the second and the third century.

E.g., Drijvers, Bardaiṣan; idem, “Bardaiṣan of Edessa and the Hermetica,” JEOL 21 (1970) 190–210; T. Jansma, Natuur, lot en vrijheid. Bardesanes, 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 interpreted 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 espressa in siriaco si configura come cultura derivata da quella greca, sia cristiana che pagana.” 46 See Ilaria Ramelli, “Origen, Patristic Philosophy, and Christian Platonism.” 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. 43

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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 In fact, the exact vocalization is unknown, and its meaning is uncertain 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: 48

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 mentions 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

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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. Regrettably, from Ephrem’s sparse polemic it is impossible to reconstruct 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 criticized 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 arguments 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 incorporeal 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

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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 MiddlePlatonism, 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 distinguish the Stoic and the Platonic doctrines and to really understand Platonism, indicates that Bardaiṣan was in fact influenced by Middle 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 distinction between Plato’s, the Stoics’, and Aristotle’s philosophies. Albinus, in the second century, probably a little earlier than Bardaiṣan, wrote a famous Isagoge, but to him was also ascribed the Didaskalikon 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 thickness 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 device. See my Allegoria, 1, L’età classica, Milan 2004, Temi metafisici e problemi 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.

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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 supported 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 entertained 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 incorporeal 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 notions 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 realities, concepts, and names, considering all of them beings and creatures, and thus diastematic and corporeal to some extent. Of course, in dealing with Ephrem’s report it is always necessary 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. substances] 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 themselves corporeal is also attested by Sergius of Resh‘aina in a work

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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 suspect 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 diastematic, is consistent with his definition of the sun as a mortal being, since it is a creature: “But …that a man should say concerning 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 measurable, is in line with his idea of all creatures being diastematic, although 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 measurement 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 degrees 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.

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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 Didaskalikos 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, incorporeal—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 atomistic 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 Platonism, 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.

See my “Clement’s Notion of the Logos ‘All Things as One.’” On Atomism in Origen see C. Markschies, “Epikureismus bei Origenes 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. 53 54

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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 cosmogony 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 misunderstandings 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 synthesis 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 Platonism, 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),

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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 apokatastasis with him, in his own Kata\ Ei(marme/nhj based much of his reasoning 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 invented 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.

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. 56

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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 mutilation. Bardaiṣan also introduces a closely related argument, on Jews and Christians: they respect the law, of Christ and of Moses respectively, 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 allegorical exegesis, the rejection of apocalypticism, the polemics against Marcionism and Gnosticism, and much else. The fundamental 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 similarity in the thought of these two semi-contemporary Christian philosophers. For Origen too, just as Bardaiṣan, definitely rejected the worship of celestial bodies (Contra Celsum 5.11), which are only creatures, 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 Christian authors.

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that they are spiritual, are living and rational, and therefore endowed 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 independent 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 details, 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 repeatedly 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 astrology (Philocalia 23.14–28). However, knowledge of astrological doctrines does not mean that either Origen or Bardaiṣan also adhered to these doctrines. And certainly in neither of them did this knowledge produce paganism, as Ephrem says of Bardaiṣan. Origen exalts 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 hypothesizes that the celestial bodies are signs disposed by God to indicate to the angels, who take care of human beings, what to do: “I hypothesize that the celestial bodies are placed up there for the powers 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 understood by them, so that they may rejoice in knowing them, and others may be received by them as orders and may be executed.”60 Origen goes on to say that these creatures, who are angels, are en60 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.

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dowed with free will and therefore can, or cannot, follow the indications that God gives them through the stars. Indeed, in Philoc. 23 Origen also uses the argument of the no/mima barbarika/ against Fate, probably relying on Bardaiṣan himself. He could have read the Greek translation that was available to Eusebius shortly afterwards. Origen’s argument that heavenly bodies can only indicate, but not determine, will be taken up by Basil in his Homilies on Hexaëmeron 6.5–7. According to both Origen and Bardaiṣan, fate, administered by celestial bodies, is not an independent power or deity—this is why I never capitalize it when it is understood as they understood it, but only when it is understood in the way in which the Chaldeans did—but it is the expression of divine Providence. And the latter governs human cases not as a blind power, but according to God’s justice and goodness, by caring for all creatures, while, at the same time, respecting the free will of each one. For it is God who gave it to each rational creature as a gift, as both Origen and Bardaiṣan thought. Bardaiṣan’s Christian (Middle) Platonism is well suited to the Platonic inspiration of the Liber, which comes from his school and seems to faithfully express his thought.61 Even in its literary form, it is a Platonic dialogue, as Land had already remarked,62 and, as I shall show, there are also precise reminiscences of Plato’s dialogues and their narrative frames in it. That its very prologue is stylistically similar to that of Plato’s Republic was noticed by Bowersock.63 And Bardaiṣan’s allusion to his past interest for the Chaldaean doctrines reminds the reader of Socrates’ allusion to his past interest in “philosophy of nature” in Plato’s Phaedo (96A-100A), as was observed by Camplani.64 The Phaedo is precisely the dialogue that Gregory of Nyssa, a profound estimator of Origen, took as a model for his De See below the chapter devoted to the Liber. J. P. N. Land, Anecdota Syriaca, I, Leiden 1962, 30: the Liber “est enim Philippi illius [sc. Bardesanis] discipuli, qui praeceptoris nomine Platonis ad exemplum usus est.” 63 G. W. Bowersock, Hellenism in Late Antiquity, Ann Arbor 1990, 31– 32. 64 Camplani, “Rivisitando Bardesane,” 544. 61 62

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anima et resurrectione.65 This, of course, does not imply per se that the Liber is a literary product that does not faithfully report Bardaiṣan’s ideas and arguments. The allusion to Plato’s Socrates might well be due to Bardaiṣan himself. Below, in the chapter devoted to the Liber as a source for the reconstruction of Bardaiṣan’s thought, I shall point out further reminiscences of Plato’s dialogues therein, in addition to those which I have indicated here. The Platonic form of the dialogue is in line with Bardaiṣan’s philosophical orientation; the literary evocation harmonizes with Bardaiṣan’s taking up of the Platonic heritage—which in Middle Platonism also included Stoic and Aristotelian aspects—in a Christian perspective. I set out to critically analyze in this monograph the ancient (from the second–third century to the late antique and even, in a few cases, early medieval) sources and testimonies on Bardaiṣan, and especially on his thought. Insofar as possible, I shall try to distinguish what pertains to his own thought and what to his followers’, who continued to exist for whole centuries. Of course, a good deal of sources were already indicated by Nau in his preface to his Patrologia edition; others were added by Drijvers in his monograph on Bardaiṣan, and, more recently, a few Syriac sources were reconsidered especially by Alberto Camplani66 and by Ute Possekel.67 I enrich the dossier with new sources, with sources that have been largely overlooked, and with new critical contributions. The latter especially lie in the full evaluation of the fragments preserved by Porphyry, which have never been adequately deployed by Cf. I. Ramelli, Gregorio di Nissa: Sull’anima e la resurrezione, Milan 2007, with new edition, commentary, and crtical essays, reviewed by P. Tzamalikos Vigiliae Christianae 62 (2008) 515–523, by M. J. Edwards Journal of Ecclesiastical History 60 (2009) 764–765, and by M. Herrero de Háuregui ‘Ilu 13 (2008) 334–336. 66 A. Camplani, “Rivisitando Bardesane,” 524–596, analyzes some sources. 67 U. Possekel, “Bardaisan of Edessa on the Resurrection: Early Syriac Eschatology in its Religious-Historical Context,” Oriens Christianus 88 (2004) 1–28; eadem, “Bardaisan of Edessa: Philosopher or Theologian?,” Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum 10.3 (2007) 442–461; U. Possekel, “Expectations of the End in Early Syriac Christianity,” Hugoye 11.1 (2008) §§ 1–26. 65

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Bardaiṣan scholars—the study of these fragments, especially in a comparative examination with the other reliable sources, is extremely fruitful and leads to important implications, for example in respect to the role of the Timaeus in Bardaiṣan’s cosmology, but also in many others—and in the investigation and careful assessment of the relationship with Origen, his thought, and his school, a connection which so far has been missed by scholarship as well. Bardaiṣan, like Origen, studied, and probably also taught, Greek culture and philosophy in addition to theology, but all in the service of faith. I shall show how from his fragments the centrality of Christ emerges, even from the gnoseological point of view—as Christ is the Logos / Wisdom—and from the Liber as well it is clear that for him faith is necessary for knowledge. Right at the beginning, before adducing his set of arguments, he puts forward the preliminary epistemological statement that those who have no faith and no fear of God are prey to every possible doubt and cannot know anything for sure. For God is the starting point and the basis, both from the ontological point of view, as the Creator and conserver, and from the gnoseological point of view, in that God’s Logos (very Middle-Platonically!) is the seat of the Ideas of all that exists. Even though in the sources, as I mentioned, it is difficult to distinguish what must be ascribed to Bardaiṣan himself and what to the Bardaiṣanites—and this is one of the main difficulties in research into Bardaiṣan—nevertheless there exist some points of reference that are rather sure and on which it is possible to rely for a comparative critical analysis of further sources. One is certainly Bardaiṣan’s De India, or at least what is preserved of it in its fragments; another is, after all, the Liber itself. A few other fragments that are relatively reliable are found in Ephrem, in the so-called cosmological traditions, and in some other sources, and the critical comparative analysis of sources and testimonies opens up many fruitful paths. Moreover, the comparison with Origen is illuminating under many respects.

2 CRITICAL AND COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE SOURCES 1 The Very First Possible Witness: Clement The earliest reliable testimony on Bardaiṣan is, as far as I know, Sextus Julius Africanus, whom I shall discuss in a moment, but there might be already a reference to Bardaiṣan even in Clement of Alexandria’s Stromateis. Clement in Strom. 1.1.11.2 mentions a Syrian man (tij tw=n )Assuri/wn) among his Christian teachers, and says that he met him in the a)natolh/, in the East, just before meeting Pantaenus, the Christian philosopher, in Alexandria. Clement lists this teacher among those who preserved “the true tradition of the blessed teaching,” that is, of the Christian doctrine (th\n a)lhqh= th=j makari/aj didaskali/aj para/dosin) through an oral transmission from parent to child. Of course, the identity of this Christian philosopher, a Syrian, who taught in the Near East in the time of Clement’s high formation, immediately before his coming to Alexandria, is very difficult to establish, and indeed impossible to determine with certainty. However, it may have been Bardaiṣan: everything in his intellectual and biographical portrait coincides with Clement’s account, from the chronological, geographical, ethnographical, and cultural points of view. It has also been suggested that Clement’s Syrian teacher was Tatian, but I deem it unlikely, as Clement did not really appreciate him, especially for his encratism,1 whereas in Strom. 1.1.11.1–2 For Clement’s critique of extreme encratism see my “Il matrimonio cristiano in Clemente: un confronto con la legislazione romana e gli Stoici romani,” in Il matrimonio dei Cristiani: esegesi biblica e diritto romano. XXXVII Incontro di studiosi dell’Antichità cristiana, Roma, Augustinianum, 6–8 Maggio 2008, Rome 2009, Studia Ephemeridis Augustinianum 114, 351–372. 1

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his teachers, including his Syrian teacher, are presented as blessed persons, worthy of veneration. It is also notable that Clement includes his Syrian teacher among those who received the tradition from the apostles through an oral transmission, all the more in that it is known—from sources that I shall examine below—that Bardaiṣan based his ideas not only on Scripture, read in the light of philosophy, but also on a Christian esoteric tradition. Like Clement, he used some apocryphal works besides what would eventually become canonical Scripture, and some apocrypha are even said by Ephrem to have been composed at his school. I shall return to this later on. If Clement’s Syrian teacher was Bardaiṣan, Clement, immediately after attending his classes, brought to Alexandria the knowledge of Bardaiṣan’s ideas. This, albeit far from being certain, would nevertheless explain the knowledge and admiration of Bardaiṣan on the part of Origen of Alexandria and his followers, which I shall thoroughly demonstrate in the course of the present monograph. Of course, the identity of Clement’s Eastern teacher remains hypothetical, and there are other ways as well in which Origen may have learned Bardaiṣan’s ideas, also given that Bardaiṣan’s works were soon translated into Greek by his disciples (according to Eusebius HE 4.30) and that he himself knew and used Greek as well as Syriac (as attested by Epiphanius Pan. 56). Julius Africanus, too, may well have constituted a link between Origen and Bardaiṣan, who show striking convergences in their respective doctrines,2 as I am going to argue.

2 Two Early Witnesses Close to Origen and Very Appreciative of Bardaiṣan: Africanus and Didymus 2.1 Julius Africanus’ Acquaintance with both Bardaiṣan and Origen While it is uncertain—although I deem it probable—that Clement did refer to Bardaiṣan while speaking of his Syrian teacher, Sextus Julius Africanus provides, to my knowledge, the earliest reliable 2 See my “Origen, Bardaiṣan, and the Origin of Universal Salvation,” HTR 102.2 (2009) 135–168.

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testimony concerning Bardaiṣan. He was a contemporary of Bardaiṣan, a learned Christian coming from Jerusalem, who wrote a chronographic work,3 a miscellaneous work—structurally similar to Clement’s Strwmatei=j, but without Christian elements—entitled Kestoi/, a correspondence with Origen, to which I shall return soon, and a letter to Aristides on the harmonization of Jesus’ genealogies in the Gospels.4 Here, Africanus criticizes the interpretation of these genealogies by unnamed adversaries, who are accused of overlooking the literal level—a level which, contrary to ungrounded accusations, was in fact respected by Origen as well, who maintained it along with the allegorical and spiritual ones.5 Africanus was a learned man, who wrote not in koinē Greek, but in an Atticizing Greek, rhetorically refined, in the way of the Second Sophistic. His education was that of the Hellenized upper classes of the Roman Near East,6 like that of Bardaiṣan. In Kestoi 1.1.5–8 he speaks of “us” as “Romans,” thus indicating that he felt perfectly integrated within the Roman elite of the empire; indeed, he called Jerusalem with its Roman name, Aelia Capitolina.7 On which see the edition of M. Wallraff – U. Roberto – K. Pinggéra, Berlin 2007, GCS 15, and the collection of essays edited by M. Wallraff, Julius Africanus und die christliche Weltchronistik, Berlin 2006, TU 157. 4 See W. Reichardt, Die Briefe des Sextus Iulius Africanus an Aristides und Origenes (TU 34.3; Leipzig, 1909), 53.58. 5 See my “Origen and the Stoic Allegorical Tradition: Continuity and Innovation,” InvLuc 28 (2006) 195–226. 6 See J.-R. Vieillefond, Les Cestes de Julius Africanus, Florence – Paris 1970, 50–52; my “La Chiesa di Roma in età severiana: cultura classica, cultura cristiana, cultura orientale,” RSCI 54 (2000) 13–29; brief account in M. Simonetti, “Giulio Africano,” in Nuovo Dizionario Patristico e di Antichità Cristiane, dir. A. Di Berardino, II, Genoa 2007, columns 2318–19. 7 See W. Adler, “Sextus Julius Africanus and the Roman Near East in the Third Century,” JThS 55 (2004) 520–550. Africanus came from Aelia Capitolina (Kes. 5.1.50–52), and is the only Christian Greek who calls Jerusalem in this way before Eusebius (524); he calls it so because he considers it to be more Roman than Judaic. He led an embassy from EmmausNicopolis to the emperor in Rome. According to Adler, it was not the same Emmaus mentioned in the Gospel of Luke (526–527), because of its longer distance from Jerusalem. But Eusebius in his Onomasticon, 90 Klostermann, identifies these two cities. Africanus knew the Dead Sea and its 3

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Africanus knew personally both Bardaiṣan and Origen. With the latter he also exchanged letters, which probably must be dated to the last part of Origen’s lifetime, possibly in the Forties of the third century.8 Bardaiṣan had died only twenty years earlier. Origen and Africanus discuss the biblical book of Susannah therein. The latter refuses to regard it as a canonical book, in that it is not included in the Hebrew Bible. With philological skill, he observes that it contains wordplays that are possible only in Greek. Origen, on the other hand, defends the canonicity of this book: his main argument is that it is included in the Septuagint, which he privileged over the other versions and considered to be the only Scripture confirmed by apostolic authority. Indeed, his Hexapla themselves were probably aimed at establishing the superiority of the Septuagint over the other versions, as is suggested by Epiphanius and as Anthony Grafton and Megan Williams have recently stressed.9 Origen’s and Africanus’ letters were kept in the Caesarea library and are preserved only in a Catena on the Prophets, probably datable to the sixth century. They are mentioned by Eusebius HE 6.31.1, by Rufinus in his Latin (here expanded) translation, and by Jerome De vir. ill. 63, in his biography of Africanus. They all seem to have known these letters directly.10 What is particularly interesting for the present investigation, in his letter to Origen Africanus reveals that he himself attended a debate in which Origen cited the story of Susannah. He was an eyewitness. In his letter, in turn, Origen makes it known that the aforementioned debate took place with a certain Bassus. This may environment. C. P. Thiede, Jesus. Der Glaube, die Fakten, Augsburg 2003, 171–84 identifies Luke’s Emmaus with Colonia close to (Ham)moza, mentioned by Josephus Bell. Iud. 7.217 as ex- )Ammaou/j; the late Thiede co-directed the excavations of this site. 8 See edition and treatment in Origène, Philocalie, 1–20, Sur les Écritures, par M. Harl, et La Lettre à Africanus sur l’histoire de Suzanne, par N. de Lange, Paris 1983, 471ff. 9 A. Grafton and M. Williams, Christianity and the Transformation of the Book. Origen, Eusebius, and the Library of Caesarea, Cambridge, Ma.–London 2006, 86–132, with my review in Adamantius 14 (2008) 637–641. 10 Later, they are cited by Photius Bibl. cod. 34, by the Suda under “Africanus” and “Susannah,” and by Niceforus Callistus HE 5.21.

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refer to Africanus’ visit to Alexandria, or to yet another occasion on which he certainly met Origen. Indeed, not only did Africanus write letters to Origen, but he also went to Alexandria to visit Heraclas, who was Origen’s disciple for a while according to Eusebius, although Origen in a letter (ap. Eusebius HE 6.19.12–14) speaks of Heraclas not as though he were a disciple of his, but as a Christian philosopher and a respected presbyter, who was attending Ammonius Saccas’ classes in Alexandria before Origen himself began to frequent Saccas.11 Africanus attested to his own visit to Heraclas in his Chronicon (ap. Eusebius HE 6.31). Since Africanus completed his Chronicon well before Heraclas became a bishop and Origen moved from Alexandria to Caesarea, it is very likely that Africanus met Heraclas in Alexandria when the latter was teaching there together with Origen. Therefore, an encounter with Origen is not at all to be ruled out. As he himself states in his Chronicon, Africanus went to Alexandria because he was attracted by “Heraclas’ great fame” (dia\ pollh\n tou= (Hrakla= fh/mhn): as Origen attested in his aforementioned letter, Heraclas was a professional philosopher who wore philosophical garb even after becoming a presbyter; he was still dressing in that way when Origen wrote his letter, and he was still studying the “books of the Greeks” as well.12 This was also the time of Africanus’ visit to Alexandria. Whether he heard Origen discuss the story of Susannah with Bassus on that occasion or on yet another one, it seems impossible to establish. What is beyond doubt is that Africanus saw and personally knew both Origen and Bardaiṣan, that he esteemed both of them, and even corresponded with Origen. He may have worked as a trait d’union between them, or more precisely he may have helped to It is very probable that the dida/skaloj tw=n filoso/fwn maqhma/twn in Alexandria mentioned by Origen was Ammonius. See my 11

analysis in “Origen, Patristic Philosophy, and Christian Platonism: ReThinking the Christianization of Hellenism,” VigChr 63.2 (2009) 217–263. Africanus’ visit to Alexandria is mentioned by Vieillefond, Les Cestes, 18– 20, and Adler, “Sextus Julius Africanus,” 547. 12 Filo/sofon a)nalabw\n sxh=ma me/xri tou= deu=ro threi=, bibli/a te (Ellh/nwn kata\ du/namin ou) pau/etai filologw=n.

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spread the knowledge of Bardaiṣan and his thought in Origen’s milieu. Africanus stayed at Abgar the Great’s court in Edessa for a long while, and there he made acquaintance with Bardaiṣan, who had even received his education together with Abgar—as I shall show later on the basis of the sources—and was an important figure at his court. Africanus seems to have accompanied Septimius Severus to Edessa in A.D. 195 and to have been an instructor of Abgar’s son, Ma‘nu. This is meaningful: Abgar the Great was either a Christian himself or not at all hostile to Christianity,13 and both Bardaiṣan and Africanus, who were close to him, were undoubtedly Christians. For Africanus, this is evident even just from the greeting formula in Origen’s letter addressed to him, “my brother, beloved in God.” Africanus, in turn, by calling Abgar the Great i(ero\j a)nh/r (Chron. fr. 53.2 ap. Eusebius Chron. 214 Helm: )Afrikano_j 1Abgaron fhsi\n i9ero_n a1ndra, tou~ prw&hn 0Abga&rou o(mw&numon, basileu&ein 0Ede/sshj kata_ tou&touj tou_j xro&nouj), contributes,

along with many other sources and clues, to suggest that Abgar himself was a Christian. Indeed, in Christian authors, i(ero/j always refers specifically to something or someone belonging to God or saint or Christian: in 1Clem. 33.4 it refers to God’s hands and in 43.2 to the Holy Scripture (see also Eusebius, HE 2.17.12); in Const. Apost. 2.32.3 to God’s voice and in 2.33.2 to the Eucharist; in Clement of Alexandria, Protr. 6 (PG 8.173C), to Moses; in Origen, Comm. in Jo. 2.29.18, to the apostles, and ibidem 1.28.191, where he uses i(erwsu/nh for priesthood and associates the priestly anointment with the royal investiture, which are joined in Christ.14 Julius Africanus’ passage on Abgar the Great is roughly contemporary with Origen’s ComIt is possible that Abgar was a Christian. See my “Edessa e i Romani tra Augusto e i Severi: aspetti del regno di Abgar V e di Abgar IX,” Aevum 73 (1999) 107–143, with a systematic analysis of all the sources that corroborate this hypothesis, and “Possible Historical Traces in the Doctrina Addai?,” Hugoye 9.1 (2006), §§ 1–24; a revised and expanded version is forthcoming in Analecta Gorgiana. 13

14 Xri/sij basilei/aj e0pi\ gennhtoi=j e0sti su&mbolon, e1sq' o3te de\ kai\ i9erwsu&nhj: a}r' ou}n e0pigenhth& e0stin h( tou~ ui9ou~ tou~ qeou~ basilei/a kai\ ou) sumfuh_j au)tw|~;

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mentary on John. The very same meaning of i(ero/j as “Christian” is attested in two other Origenian authors, Eusebius (HE 10.1.2) and Palladius (Vita Chrys. 4). Again, in Theodoret, H.Rel. 2 i(ero/j refers to the clergy, to\n i(ero\n klh=ron; in Ps. Dionysius, Ep. 8.1, it refers to the Christians, tw=| i(erw=| law=;| in Eccl. Hier. 5.2.6 it refers to Baptism. Even as a substantive, it refers to exclusively Christian things: churches, monasteries, sacraments (e.g. Const. Apost. 8.9.5; Ps. Dionysius Eccl. Hier. 5.1.4). So, this makes all the more probable that Africanus meant that Abgar was a Christian. Another such source is precisely Bardaiṣan, at least as a character of the Liber Legum Regionum, in which he attests to Abgar the Great’s conversion to Christianity,15 by saying that “When King Abgar believed / became a believer,” he forbade the ritual mutilations for a pagan goddess, Atargatis. Scholars who deny that Abgar became a Christian are compelled to hypothesize an interpolation in this passage. Adler16 considered oMYh to be an interpolation, so to contend that Abgar may have been friendly with prominent Christians, but he was not one himself. However, if one removes oMYh from the Syriac sentence, the latter becomes impossible to understand, first of all because it would lack the verb: “When King Abgar (?), he ordered etc.” Moreover, Bardaiṣan’s whole argument would become unintelligible: for it is simply crucial for his argument to explain that Abgar’s reason for imposing his prohibition of that pagan practice was his conversion to Christianity: since he embraced a new law, that of Christ, the old ritual law was abolished. This argument functions within the larger context of Bardaiṣan’s refutation of astrological determinism, and more precisely, in the last part of his discourse, against the influence of celestial bodies upon climatic zones. In order to argue against this influence, he adduces the Jewish and the Christian laws as the main proofs. For both these laws are equally observed in all climatic areas, by Jews and Christians respectively, in addition to being observed by people who were born under whatever horoscope. Now, Abgar offers an excellent example of how laws and consequent behaviors do not depend on climates, but rather on religions; in his case, exactly the 15 16

See my discussion in Bardesane Kata Heimarmenēs. Adler, “Sextus Julius Africanus,” 532–533.

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Christian religion, which he attributes to Abgar the Great. Abgar’s example, with the prohibition of pagan mutilations due to his adhesion to Christianity, is found between the paragraph concerning the Jews and their law and that of the Christians and Christ’s law: it is significant that the paragraph on Christian law is introduced by a “for, indeed,” which refers back just to Abgar’s example, which immediately precedes. If one eliminates Abgar’s conversion to Christianity as the reason for his new law, the whole example loses its sense in its context, which entirely focuses on religious laws, Jewish and Christian. In this way, it should be inserted in the preceding section, devoted to changes of laws in general, all the more so in that one example therein was Arabia. The sentence “when King Abgar believed” is therefore very likely to be authentic and cannot be athetized from the Syriac without a serious damage in both the immediate sense and the broader argument. One could rather object that Abgar’s conversion was to the Jewish faith and not to the Christian. This too, however, is unlikely, because the speaker, Bardaiṣan, was a Christian, and he was addressing Christian interlocutors and hearers, as his argument on faith at the beginning of the Liber makes clear (Bardaiṣan says that he will address his speech to his disciples, who are Christian, rather than to Avida, who does not want to believe, so that Avida, too, who will hear them anyway, will be able to profit from them). Moreover, in the immediate context of the sentence on Abgar’s conversion, Bardaiṣan speaks of the Jews in the third person, “they,” whereas he speaks of the Christians in the first, “we.” For both him and his public, “to become a believer,” or “to believe,” cannot but mean “to become a Christian.” Eusebius’ Greek translation of this section of the Liber in his Praeparatio Evangelica eliminates the clause “when King Abgar became a Christian,” and directly renders, “King Abgar ordered, etc.” Eusebius, who changed the Syriac text in many places,17 very probably changed it also here, for two possible reasons. First of all, to avoid celebrating Abgar the Great as a close precursor of Constantine, Eusebius’ hero, who changed the laws of his State when he converted to Christianity. By celebrating Abgar the Great as a 17

See analysis in my “Il lessico della libertà.”

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Christian sovereign, Eusebius would have risked obfuscating Constantine’s glory. The discourse was different with Abgar the Black, for he was far away in the past, in the apostolic age: Eusebius felt the need to leave in the darkness any other close rival of Constantine, such as, not Abgar the Black, who lived in the first century A.D., but Abgar the Great, a contemporary of Bardaiṣan, the last eminent sovereign of a State that was incorporated in the Roman Empire shortly after; indeed, it was precisely Abgar the Great who became a vassal king of Rome after Septimius Severus’ campaign. Eusebius may have felt uneasy with admitting that Abgar was an immediate precursor of Constantine as a Christian sovereign who introduced new laws in his State on account of his conversion. The second reason might lie in what follows: in HE 1.13.1–22 Eusebius indeed reports the legend of Abgar the Black’s conversion;18 so, for him the Abgarid dynasty in Osrhoene had been Christian since the first century, and writing that Abgar the Great at a certain point converted to Christianity could seem to contradict the legend of Abgar the Black, which he drew from “the Edessan archives” and was then elaborated in the Doctrina Addai. In Kestoi 1.20 (184–185 Vieillefond), Africanus tells that in Edessa he once saw Bardaiṣan engage in a proof of extraordinary ability in launching arrows. This activity was typical of the Parthians, and Africanus calls Bardaiṣan Pa/rqoj; archers from Osrhoene were indeed famous.19 Africanus, from his own account, 18 See my Bardesane Kata Heimarmenēs, appendix, section 2, and critical discussion in my “Bardesane e la sua scuola, l’Apologia siriaca “di Melitone” e la Doctrina Addai,” Aevum 83 (2009), 141–168. 19 This is attested by Herodianus (Ab Excessu Divi Marci 6.7.8, under the reign of Alexander Severus): o( de\ 0Ale/candroj Maurousi/ouj te

plei/stouj kai\ tocotw~n a)riqmo_n polu_n e0pago&menoj a)po_ th~j a)natolh~j e1k te th~j 0Osrohnw~n xw&raj, kai\ ei1 tinej Parquai/wn au)to&moloi h2 xrh&masin a)napeisqe/ntej h)kolouqh&kesan au)tw|~ bohqh&sontej, e0ch&rtue dh_ Germanoi=j a)ntita&cwn. ma&lista ga_r toiou~toj strato_j o)xlhro_j e0kei/noij gi/netai, tw~n te Maurousi/wn po&rrwqen a)kontizo&ntwn kai\ ta_j e0pidroma_j ta&j te a)naxwrh&seij kou&fwj poioume/nwn, tw~n te tocotw~n e0j gumna_j ta_j kefala_j au)tw~n kai\ sw&mata e0pimh&kh r(a|~sta kai\ po&rrwqen kata_ skopou~ toceuo&ntwn ... e0pe/qeo&n te pro_j th_n susta&dhn ma&xhn a)ntitupei=j, kai\ i0so&rropoi polla&kij 9Rwmai/oij e0gi/nonto. Edessan

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seems to have personally instructed Abgar’s son, Ma‘nu, in this art. He narrates two astonishing proofs of prowess of Ma‘nu and Bardaiṣan respectively, which he attended:20 “I too saw him at King Abgar’s court: the latter’s son, Ma‘nu, often trained under my direction. He was such a capable archer that once, while we were hunting…” and here Africanus describes Ma‘nu’s act of prowess: when a huge bear appeared, he shot two arrows to the beast’s eyes and thus saved all the participants. As for the proof of Bardaiṣan’s ability, Africanus begins: “Bardaiṣan was an extraordinarily expert archer, more than anyone else: I saw this man shoot arrows like a painter.” After the description of how, by shooting arrows onto a shield, Bardaiṣan could even portray a person, Africanus adds: “He showed his extraordinary craft to us spectators … we were struck at that sight … This is the episode that left me amazed.” This stay of Africanus in Edessa and his acquaintance with Bardaiṣan took place under the reign of Septimius Severus. Both of them belonged to the upper class and were rich and very visible, involved in public life and close to rulers, not only the king of Osrhoene, but also the Roman emperor. Africanus was responsible for the project of the Pantheon Library for Severus Alexander: “I designed [h)rxitektw/nhsa] the beautiful library in the Pantheon near the baths of Alexander” (Kestoi 5.1.55). Alexander was the son of Julia Mamaea, who invited Origen to Antioch to expound his doctrines, according to Eusebius HE 6.21.3. His Kestoi themselves were dedicated to Alexander according to Syncellus (439.18–20), with their host of advice of all sorts for warfare, about arms, inarchers even served a Roman emperor, Septimius Severus, when Abgar the Great handed him his own children in fidem and gave him very many archers to fight for him (ibidem 3.9.2): o( de\ Sebh~roj tw~n e0n 0Armeni/a| proxwrou&ntwn kata_ gnw&mhn e0pi\ th_n 0Atrhnw~n h)pei/geto. prose/fuge de\ au)tw|~ kai\ o( 0Osrohnw~n basileu_j Au1garoj, tou&j te pai=daj o(mhreu&ein e0j a)sfa&leian pi/stewj e0ce/dwke, toco&taj te plei/stouj summa&xouj h1gagen. 20 Ei]don kai\ au)to\j e)n )Abga/rou tou= basile/wj Ma/nnou tou= paido\j au)tou= polla/kij peira/santoj e)mou= u(fhghsame/nou. Toco/thj ou3tw deino\j h]n, w3ste qh/raj pote\ h(mi=n ou1shj a)mfi\ meshmbri/an ... h]n de\ a1ra sofo\j toco/thj Bardhsa/nhj ei1per tij e3teroj, oi]da/ t’ a1nqrwpon toceu/santa oi{a zwgra/fon ... e)ndeiknu/menoj th\n te/xnhn h(mi=n qeatai=j … e)qauma/zomen de\ o(rw=ntej ... tou=to me\n ou]n e1xw qauma/saj.

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cluding biological and chemical methods, horse medicine, antidotes, botany, hypnotics, aphrodisiacs, weights and measures, and even textual criticism, of which Africanus was no less fond than Origen was. Another interesting aspect is that, like Origen and like Bardaiṣan, Africanus too was a Christian philosopher influenced by Middle Platonism. A new fragment of his manifests a special interest for the reading of the Genesis account of creation in the light of Plato’s Timaeus.21 Precisely this same reading, as I shall argue, was privileged by Bardaiṣan. Africanus and Bardaiṣan, therefore, shared this influence, which was also shared by Origen, who devoted an extensive exegesis to the creation account in his lost Commentary on Genesis, and other passages scattered throughout his enormous and partially fragmentary work. And the influence of Middle Platonism upon Origen is certainly strong, and his own confrontation with Plato’s Timaeus is sure. Moreover, Africanus’ interest in philology and ancient biblical manuscripts is a further trait of deep convergence between him and Origen. Now, it is telling that Africanus—who was a Christian, knew Bardaiṣan very well, was a contemporary of his, and was deeply interested in Scripture, its manuscripts, translations, and exegesis— does not at all say that Bardaiṣan was a heretic, nor does he include the faintest allusion to a presumed heresy of Bardaiṣan, but speaks of him only with deep admiration. This, together with the testimonies coming from the Origenian tradition, which I shall investigate, is quite relevant to a series of later sources that will ascribe him a strange heresy of which no source can detail the contents. On the other hand, many ancient sources, mostly stemming from the Origenian tradition, attest to his criticism of the heresies of his day,

21 See the analysis of Africanus’ Hexaëmeron fragment, recently identified, in G. Staab, “Chronographie als Philosophie. Die Urwahrheit der mosaischen Ueberlieferung nach dem Begründungsmodell des Mittelplatonismus bei Julius Africanus (Edition and Kommentierung von Africanus Chron. fr. 1),” in Julius Africanus und die christliche Weltchronistik, chap. 4, where the deviations from the biblical text are explained with influence of, and responses to, the Timaeus.

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Gnosticism22 (especially in its Valentinian form) and Marcionism23—the very same that were fought by Origen. Africanus thus seems to constitute an important cultural link between Origen and Bardaiṣan, and, together with many other elements, which I shall point out, indicates that there probably were contacts between these two Christian philosophers—who shared very important doctrines such as that of apokatastasis and the polemic against determinism, Gnosticism, and Marcionism24—and their schools.

2.2 The Origenian Didymus the Blind: The Most Appreciative Source on Bardaiṣan In addition to being admired by a friend of Origen’s, and to being perhaps the teacher of Clement of Alexandria, Origen’s “predecessor,” Bardaiṣan was deeply appreciated also by Didymus the Blind of Alexandria, a convinced follower and admirer of Origen who even supported the doctrine of apokatastasis in its most radical form, including the restoration of the devil.25 Even though he lived in the fourth century and was appointed head of the Didaskaleion by 22 I keep this category, even though I am well aware that in ancient Gnosticism there were many currents and different ideas. See at least K. L. King, What is Gnosticism?, Cambridge (Ma.)–London 2003, also with my review in Invigilata Lucernis 25 (2003) 331–334. A particular example is offered by Ismo Dunderberg, who, in Beyond Gnosticism. Myth, Lifestyle, and Society in the School of Valentinus, New York 2008, claims that scholars should consider Valentinianism, not as a representative of “Gnosticism,” but as an early Christian group altogether. See also some methodological statements in A Companion to Second-Century Christian ‘Heretics’ (eds. Antti Marjanen and Petri Luomanen, Leiden: Brill, 2008), on Basilides, the Sethians, the Valentinians, Marcion, Tatian, Bardaiṣan, the Montanists, Cerinthus, the Ebionites, the Nazarenes, Jewish-Christianity of the socalled Pseudo-Clementines, and the Elchasaites. 23 On Marcionism in Syria see H. J. W. Drijvers, “Marcionism in Syria: Principles, Problems, Polemics,” Second Century 6 (1987 / 88) 153– 172; D. Bundy, “Marcion and the Marcionites in Early Syriac Apologetics,” Le Muséon 101 (1988) 21–32. 24 See my argument in “Origen, Bardaiṣan, and the Origin of Universal Salvation,” HTR 102.2 (2009) 135–168. 25 See my Apocatastasi, forthcoming, section on Didymus.

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the bishop of Alexandria, St. Athanasius—which in itself is a further proof of the latter’s esteem for Origen26—I treat his testimony already here, not for a chronological reason, but for a methodological one: because he offers what is probably the most positive and appreciative account on Bardaiṣan available. In this connection it is significant that he was an extremely faithful follower of Origen. Moreover, he was an Alexandrian, and seems to have had a good knowledge of Bardaiṣan, and in his time it is only authors close to Origen, such as he and Eusebius, to reveal familiarity with him and his work, whereas other Greek authors like Hippolytus in Rome, though earlier, seem to know little more than his name—and even this in an imprecise form. Didymus is an extremely momentous source on Bardaiṣan, even though this source has been completely overlooked by the scholars who have investigated ancient and Medieval testimonies concerning Bardaiṣan, such as Nau, Drijvers, Camplani, and others. Indeed, in a passage of his Commentary on the Psalms, Didymus praises Bardaiṣan, saying that he converted from Valentinian Gnosticism to Christian orthodoxy, and even became a presbyter, just like Origen, who is celebrated by Pamphilus, his apologist, as one who grew old within the catholic [sc. universal] church: qui magister ecclesiae fuit, qui in ecclesia catholica senuit.27 This is Didymus’ testimony on Bardaiṣan: “Bardaiṣan lived in the past times, in the day of the Roman emperor Antoninus. At first he belonged to the Valentinian school, but he detached himself from it, passed over to the Church, and became a presbyter.”28 See I. Ramelli, “The Trinitarian Theology of Gregory of Nyssa in his In Illud: Tunc et ipse Filius: His Polemic against ‘Arian’ Subordinationism and the Apokatastasis,” International Congress on Gregory of Nyssa, Tübingen Sept. 2008, forthcoming. 27 A. Gesché – M. Gronewald, Didymos der Blinde. Psalmenkommentar (Tura-Papyrus), Teil III (Bonn: Habelt, 1969) 182–184 = 181 ll. 8–9 of the papyrus; S. Brock, “Didymus the Blind on Bardaisan,” JTS 22 (1971) 530– 531. 26

28

Dih=gen de\ o( Barthsa/nhj e)n toi=j e1mprosqen xro/noij e)n tai=j h(me/raij )Antwni/nou tou= basile/wj (Rwmai/wn. Ou{toj de\ kat’ a)rxh\n th=j sxolh=j h]n Ou)alenti/nou, mete/sth ei)j th\n e)kklhsi/an, ge/gonen presbu/teroj.

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Didymus’ account resembles that of another Origenian source, Eusebius HE 4.30, which I shall soon take into consideration. Both sources underline Bardaiṣan’s passage from Valentinian Gnosticism to the catholic Church. Differently from Eusebius, however, Didymus adds the detail of Bardaiṣan’s presbyterate. This ordained status of Bardaiṣan inside the Church is attested to by a later source as well, Theodore bar Konai’s Liber scholiorum, which I shall examine. But Theodore reflects the later tradition according to which Bardaiṣan did not pass from Valentinianism to the Church, but, on the contrary, from the “orthodox” Church to a form of Gnosticism. Among the appreciative sources on Bardaiṣan, all of which, most remarkably, belong to the Origenian tradition, Didymus is the most appreciative of all—and he was also the closest follower of Origen among those. And he certainly agreed with both Origen and Bardaiṣan on the final apokatastasis.29 Notably, Didymus, like Orgen, also agreed with Bardaiṣan on the refutation of Fate.30 In his Commentary on Genesis 74–75,31 he devotes a whole argument to the refutation of Ei(marme/nh on the grounds of the different laws and customs of the various peoples. Thereby he takes over the very same argument of Philo, Bardaiṣan, and Origen against astral determinism. Didymus was very well acquainted with the three of them, with Bardaiṣan probably through Eusebius’ translation of his Against Fate in his own Praeparatio Evangelica. Here is Didymus’ relevant passage: “It is Moses himself who states that the heavenly decoration is called ‘cosmos’ [i.e. order and beauty], with these precise words: ‘May it not happen that, looking upward at the sky and seeing the sun, the moon, and the stars, the For the presence of this eschatological doctrine in Bardaiṣan as well see references below. 30 In the course of this book I shall always write “Fate” (uppercase) when it denotes the divinization of this concept, typical of astrologers and widespread in “paganism.” I shall write “fate” (lowercase), on the contrary, when it indicates the notion of fate as conceived by Bardaiṣan and some other Christian authors, as an ordinament established by God, depending on God, and incapable of controlling human free will. 31 Edd. L. Doutreleau – P. Nautin, Didyme l’Aveugle. Sur la Genèse, I–II, Paris 1976; 1978, SChr 233; 244. 29

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whole decoration [kosmos] of the sky, you let yourself be deceived and bow before them in worship. For it is rather thanks to their order and disposition, due to God who disposed them in this way, that they show their beauty. Some move along their circular paths, others are together with them, and yet others move on a straight path, others on an oblique path. The ‘heavenly army’ is called so because it is disposed in order, according to what is said: ‘Whose hands have created the whole army of heaven.’ In respect to this, those thinkers who do not know things well have deceived themselves, by introducing the Fate and postulating that everything happens according to necessity, and positing that the heavenly bodies determine the life of human beings and whatever happens, whereas they were put there as a sign, and not in order to determine anything … They were created on the fourth day: ‘Let them be signs, to indicate the times, the months, and the years.’ As a consequence, human life is not determined by the stars. Indeed, those who die in war or in general catastrophes do not have all the same horoscope, that is, the same astral configuration at birth. And the theory of Fate is all the more subverted by the laws. For all the Jews, eight days after their birth, are circumcised, and undergo the iron proof already in their most tender age, and yet it would be impossible to say that all of them are born in the same hour, whereas Jews are born in almost every spot of the earth and every day … The different customs and norms that obtain among the various peoples demonstrate that Fate does not exist. Now, if these norms and customs are not influenced by Fate, a fortiori neither will each one’s voluntary decisions be influenced by Fate. For, if Fate necessarily determines what happens, whereas voluntary choice concerns the possible objects of our self-determination, Fate will have no jurisdiction on these. Virtue and vice respectively benefit or damage those who have them, and each one of the agents is either blamed on account of his own bad deeds or praised when he acts well. On the contrary, the things that take place by necessity … nobody praises or blames a person who does something out of necessity. On the other hand, if laws depended on Fate and if even those who disobey them did so because of Fate, the latter would evidently subvert and destroy them. As a consequence, stars indicate things, but do not determine

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any of them. They indicate liturgical ministries to be performed on particular days, episodes of pestilence, or whatever else seems good to God, who rules Providence.”32 3Oti kai\ h( t[ou~ ou)rano]u~ poiki[l]i/a ko&smoj proshgo&reutai, au)to_j Mwsh~j au)[tai=j le/]cesi/n fhsin: Mh_ a)nable/yaj ei0j to_n ou)rano_n 32

kai\ i0[dw_n to_n] h3lion kai\ th_n selh&nhn kai\ tou_j a)ste/raj, pa&nta t?[o_n ko&s]mon tou~ ou)ranou~, planhqei\j proskunh&sh|j au)toi=j, oi3[tinej dia_] t?h~j qe/sewj, h{j para_ Qeou~ e0te/qhsan, to_ ka&lloj e0pi?[dei/knu]ntai , tw~nde me\n ta&sde ta_j perikuklh&seij kinoum?[e/nw]n?, tou&sde de\ meta_ tw~nde ei]nai, kai\ tou&sde me\n e0?p?' [eu)]q?ei/aj poiei=sqai th_n ki/nhsin, tou&sde de\ e0gkars?i?w / ?j?. Stratia_ gou~n ou)ranou~ dia_ t[o_] tetagme/non ei1rhtai kat?a_? t?o_? ei0rhme/non: Ou{ ai9 xei=rej e1ktisan pa~san th_n strati?a_?n? tou~? ou)ranou~. Peri\ h4n oi9 mh_ kalw~j e0pisth&santej a)pesfa&?lh[s]an Ei9marme/nhn ei0shghsa&menoi kai\ pa&nta kat' a)n?a?g & k[h]n tiqe/menoi, poihtikou_j tou~ bi/ou tw~n a)nqrw&pwn kai\ tw~n a1l?l?w[? n] sumbaino&ntwn tou_j a)ste/?raj ei]nai o(ri/zontej, oi4 e?i0j [to_] shmei=on, ei0 ou)k ei0j to_ poiei=n, te/qeintai kaqa_ kai\ ot... [pe]ri\ tw~n e0n th|~ teta&rth| h(me/ra? gegenhme/nwn dihg?o?u[?& m]e?noi to_

1Estwsan ei0j shmei=a kairou_j kai\ mh~naj kai\ e0ni[au]tou_j a)pedei/camen, paratiqe/menoi w(j ou) kathna&?g?[ka]stai e0k tw~n a)ste/rwn o( bi/oj o( a)nqrw&pinoj. [Ou)] ga_r oi9 e0n pole/mw| kai\ toi=j kaqolikoi=j sumptw&masi?n? a)pallatto&menoi tou~ bi/ou u(po_ e3na sxhmatismo&[n e]i0sin. 1Eti de\ ma~llon o( th~j Ei9marme/nhj a)[nat]r?e/petai lo&goj e0k tw~n no&[m]wn:pa&ntej 0Io[udai=oi] o)gdo&h| h(me/ra| e1xontej [a)]po_ gene/sewj p[erite/m]nontai kai\ pei=ran sidh&rou e0c e1ti sparga&nwn d[e/xont]ai, kai\ ou) dh&pou tij ei0pei=n e1xoi w(j a3ma pa&ntej [u(po_ m]i/an w3ran a)poti/ktontai, pantaxo&se sxedo_n e0p[? i\ gh~j] k?ai\ kaq' h(me/ran 0Ioudai/wn gennwme/nwn: a)lla_ [kai/ tina]j? Ai0qio&pwn ta_j ko&gxaj tw~n gona&twn a3ma gene/s?q[ai periairei=]sqai/ fasin, kai\ ou)d' ou{toi a3ma th_n ge/nesin e1x[ousin]: kai\ a(pacaplw~j ta_ dia&fora e1qh kai\ no&mima ka[ta_ ta_ e1q]nh a)nairei= th_n ei9marme/nhn. Ei0 de\ tou~to kaq' ei9m[arme/]n?hn ou) xwrei=, pollw|~ ple/on ou)de\ ta_ proairetika&. Ei0 ga_?r? h( me\n ei9marme/nh e0c a)na&gkhj e0pa&gei ta_ sumbai/non?t?a, h( de\ proai/resij peri\ ta_ e0ndexo&mena e1xei, ou)k e1[s]tai peri\ tau~ta Ei9marme/nh. 0Areth_ ga_r kai\ kaki/a to_n e1xon[ta] h(? m?e\?n? w)fe/lhsen, h( de\ e1blayen, e3kastoj de\ tw~n drw&nt[w]n h|2 k?o?la&zetai e0k tw~n e0pithdeuma&twn tw~n fau&lwn, h2 [e0p]ain?ei=tai katorqw~n: ta_ de\ e0c a)na&gkhj sumbai/nonta ******* ai: to_n e0c a)na&gkhj ti e0nergou~nta ou)dei\j ou1t' a)p[ode/]x?e?t?ai, ou1te me/mfetai. 1Allwj te, ei0 oi9 no&moi e0c Ei9marm?[e/]n?h?j? kai\ oi9 tou&toij mh_ peiqo&menoi e0c Ei9marme/nhj, e9au[th&n], w(?j? e1oiken, a)nairei= kai\ a)natre/pei. Shmantikoi\ ou}n ei0s?i[? n o]i9? a)?s?t?e/rej, ou) poihtikoi/,

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Didymus evidently takes up Bardaiṣan’s main refutation of the determinism of the kli/mata, i.e. the argument concerning the Jews, which functions both against the general theory of Fate as based on the horoscope—in that all the Jews follow the same law, even though they are born in every day of the year—and against the secondary argument of Fate as based on the various climatic zones, in that the Jews, albeit following the same law, are born in all the regions of the earth. Didymus perfectly agrees with Bardaiṣan in subtracting the sphere of human proai/resij from the influence of Fate and in submitting the astral indications to God’s Providence. The latter point clearly derives from Origen, whose attack upon Fate is preserved by Eusebius (PE 6.11.69–70 = Philoc. 23.16) significantly soon after his excerpt from Bardaiṣan’s Kata\ Ei(marme/nhj. In particular, Didymus’ reiterated statement that the heavenly bodies indicate things, but do not determine them, is taken up from Origen ad verbum: “Let us consider also another problem, namely, how celestial bodies cannot produce things, but, in case, can only indicate them … it is impossible to say that they have in themselves the cause of the production of things; rather, they only indicate things.”33 And it is from Origen that Didymus draws his parallel concerning the Ethiopians; the very Greek wording is identical in both these authors.34 Didymus was obviously inspired by Origen, but he is very likely to have known and used also Bardaiṣan’s arguments, probably through Eusebius. The biographical information that Didymus provides concerning Bardaiṣan, moreover, proves that he knew

shmai/nontej h2 e0f[h]meri/aj h2 loimika_ katasth&mata h2 e3tero&n ti o4 tw|~ pronooume/nw| dokei=. Kai\ tau~ta me\n peri\ tou&tou. 33 1Idwmen kai\ deu&teron e0pixei/rhma, pw~j ou) du&nantai oi9 a)ste/rej ei]nai poihtikoi\ a)ll', ei0 a1ra, shmantikoi/ ... mh_ le/gein perie/xein to_ poiou~n ai1tion, a)lla_ shmai/nein mo&non. 34 These are Origen’s words: kai\ pa&lin tw~nde/ tinwn tw~n e0n Ai0qi/oyi toi=sde ta_j ko&gxaj tw~n gona&twn periairei=sqai. Compare Didymus’ words: a)lla_ [kai/ tina]j? Ai0qio&pwn ta_j ko&gxaj tw~n gona&twn a3ma gene/s?q[ai periairei=]sqai/ fasin, kai\ ou)d' ou{toi a3ma th_n ge/nesin e1x[ousin].

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Bardaiṣan’s historical figure as well, very probably from an Alexandrian source connected to the school of Origen.

3 Hippolytus Let me now turn to an early source (third century) that, differently from Africanus and Didymus the Blind, cannot certainly be listed among the estimators of Origen and displays quite a negative representation of Bardaiṣan. Although this source is in no way trustworthy, as I shall argue, it is nevertheless necessary to analyze it now, because of the remarkable influence it had upon later sources. I am speaking of Hippolytus, an enigmatic character which two historical figures seem to underlie, with the consequent problem of the attribution of works handed down under his name to Hippolytus the Oriental or Hippolytus the Roman.35 Hippolytus briefly mentions Bardaiṣan in his Philosophoumena or 1Elegxoj, probably composed by Hippolytus of Rome after A.D. 222, thus soon after the death of Bardaiṣan: in 7.3136 the author calls him “the Armenian” (to\n )Arme/nion). I shall discuss this description later, while dealing with an Armenian source on Bardaiṣan, Moses of Chorene, who also ascribes him a “history of Armenia.” For now, suffice it to say that indeed Edessa, in Osrhoene, is associated by ancient authors with Mesopotamia, Parthia, or Armenia, which was ruled for a long time by a Parthian dynasty. The last is the case with the above-quoted Moses, who in his own History of Armenia 2.66 mentions Bardaiṣan as the evangelizer of Armenia. Moreover, he mentions an exile of Bardaiṣan in Armenia,37 or perhaps only a long trip, as I shall argue while discussing the most recent research on the history of Edessa in the first half See M. Simonetti, “Ippolito,” in Nuovo Dizionario Patristico e di Antichità Cristiane, dir. A. Di Berardino, II, Genova 2007, coll. 2584–99, who attributes the 1Elegxoj, transmitted under Origen’s name, to Hippolytus of Rome, the adversary of Zephyrinus and Callistus, and therefore often referred to as the “anti-pope Hippolytus.” 36 M. Marcovich, Hippolytus. Refutatio omnium haeresium, Patristische Texte und Studien 25, Berlin 1986, 53–41. 37 Cf. H. J. W. Drijvers, Bardaiṣan of Edessa, Assen 1966; 207–208; J. W. Sedlar, India and the Greek World, Totowa 1981, 173–174. 35

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of the third century. It is also possible that Bardaiṣan came to Edessa from the East, as is suggested by some late biographical sources and, more reliably, by Africanus, who designates Bardaiṣan as a “Parthian,” as I have shown. In order to assess the value of Hippolytus’ testimony on Bardaiṣan, it is necessary to consider that his Philosophoumena are a refutation of all heresies on the basis of the assumption that these betray Christ and Scripture, under the influence of Greek philosophy, astrology, and pagan mysteries (Greek philosophy’s presumed responsibility in the rise of heresies will soon become a locus communis in heresiological literature; in the present study, too, I shall point it out in Ephrem and in other sources). In Rome, indeed, where Hippolytus was writing, the worst danger in his day was represented by Gnosticism, and in particular by Valentinus, to whom Hippolytus probably assimilates Bardaiṣan. Hippolytus, in fact, names a certain “Ardesianes,” together with Axionicus, as an Eastern member of the school of Valentinus. First of all, Ardesianes might have been another person, different from Bardaiṣan, and Einar Thomassen now confirms this suspicion of mine.38 Hippolytus’ text is transmitted by a single Greek manuscript, late (XIV century), and bristling with mistakes into the bargain (Parisinus supp. gr. 464). Furthermore, even if he claims that this Ardesianes was a Valentinian, the only “heretic” doctrine that Hippolytus ascribes to him is the idea that Jesus Christ’s body is spiritual. Moreover, this remark is not even a part of the citation of Axionicus and Ardesianes, which in itself contains no trace of Gnosticism, but it is rather inferred by Hippolytus in the light of Valentinus’ doctrine, in a sort of circular reasoning. I shall demonstrate that all of Hippolytus’ information in this passage is untrustworthy. Now, this demonstration will prove all the more important in that it is from Hippolytus that the subsequent sources on Bardaiṣan’s alleged Valentinianism depend, so that, if it is proved that Hippolytus’ indication is unreliable, all other sources claiming the same as Hippolytus did clearly lose their weight. Indeed, HipE. Thomassen, The Spiritual Seed: The Church of the Valentinians, Leiden 2006, 503, keeps the form “Ardesianes” precisely for this reason. 38

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polytus is the first to link Bardaiṣan to Valentinianism, a connection that is neither grounded in what he himself reports of the doctrine of this “Ardesianes,” nor confirmed by any other independent source. Indeed, later Greek heresiologists would simply repeat Hippolytus’ information, without being able to indicate precise “Valentinian” doctrines of Bardaiṣan. On the contrary, Eusebius and many other sources rather attest to his polemics against Gnostics and Marcionites. Not even Ephrem speaks of Bardaiṣan’s adherence to Valentinianism; he names Valentinus only in his Hymn 22 Against Heresies, without drawing any connection between him and Bardaiṣan. Moreover, it is impossible to find Valentinian doctrines in the Liber Legum Regionum39 and in other fragments, such as those coming from the cosmological tradition, or those, certainly authentic, preserved by Porphyry. What is more, not even Bardaiṣan’s doctrine, such as Hippolytus himself preserves it, shows traces of Valentinianism: “Those belonging to the Eastern branch [sc. of Valentinianism], among whom Axionicus and Ardesianes, maintain that the Savior’s body was spiritual, in that ‘The Holy Spirit, that is, Wisdom,40 and the power of the Most High, that is, the creative capacity, came to Mary, that what was given to her by the Holy Spirit might be fashioned” (Philos. 6.35).41 The doctrine of Christ’s birth from Mary and from the Holy Spirit has nothing heretical in itself and the words that Hippolytus reports are nothing else than a paraphrase of the

39 Aside from a single phrase that can be explained away with an alternative translation, or as an interpolation, as I argue in my edition Bardesane Kata Heimarmenēs, 142–145 and 152–153, especially notes 59, 61, 79, and 80. 40 In Hippolytus’ immediately preceding sentence (pneu~ma a3gion e0peleu&setai e0pi\ se/—pneu~ma d' e1stin h( Sofi/a) it is absolutely clear that “Wisdom” refers to the Spirit and not to Mary. 41 Oi9 d' au} a)po_ th~j a)natolh~j le/gousin, w{n e0stin 0Acio&nikoj kai\ )Ardhsia&nhj, o3ti pneumatiko_n h}n to_ sw~ma tou~ Swth~roj: Pneu~ma ga_r a3gion h}lqen e0pi\ th_n Mari/an—toute/stin h( Sofi/a—kai\ h( du&namij tou~ u(yi/stou—toute/stin h( dhmiourgikh_ te/xnh—i3na diaplasqh|~ to_ u(po_ tou~ Pneu&matoj th|~ Mari/a| doqe/n.

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words addressed by the angel to Mary according to Luke.42 Moreover, as is clear from both the Liber Legum Regionum and the cosmological traditions which I shall analyze, Bardaiṣan called ChristLogos both Power and Wisdom—two of the main e)pi/noiai of Christ according to Justin and Origen—and conceived of it as the agent of creation, subsequently incarnated through a conception and a birth in order to purify the world, as I shall show. Hippolytus betrays his scarce or inexistent knowledge of what he presents as the Eastern branch of Valentinianism, in offering extremely poor information about it and ascribing to its main representatives, Axionicus and “Ardesianes,” a flatly contradictory doctrine, which reveals that his documentation on their thought was inexistent.43 Indeed, at first Hippolytus states that, according to Axionicus and Ardesianes, the Savior’s body, i.e. the one that Jesus Christ took up at his incarnation, was spiritual (pneumatiko/n), and therefore he seems to attribute to Ardesianes a docetic Christology, but soon after he claims that, according to the same thinkers, this body, which was given to Mary by the Holy Spirit, was “molded” (diaplasqh|=). But according to the Valentinian conception, what is spiritual cannot possibly be molded, for only what is hylic or psychic can. This is clear, for instance, from Clement’s Excerpta ex Theodoto 2.1.44 According to Thomassen, Hippolytus, while speaking here of docetic Christology, is simply reporting a doctrine of Western Valentinianism, the only one he knew well. Indeed, Thomassen considers the doctrine of the docetism of Christ’s body to be peculiar to Western Valentinianism.45 Hippolytus, in sum, was aware that there was an Eastern branch of Valentinianism, but he knew almost nothing about it. 42

soi.

Pneu~ma a3gion e0peleu&setai e0pi/ se kai\ du&namij u(yi/stou e0piskia&sei

See Thomassen, Spiritual Seed, 43–45. Plasqe/ntoj … tou= yuxikou= sw/matoj. See J.-D. Kaestli, Valentinisme italien et valentinisme oriental. Leur divergences à propos de la nature du corps de Jésus, in B. Layton, ed., The Rediscovery of Gnosticism, 1. The School of Valentinus, Leiden 1980, 391–403. 45 See Clement’s Excerpta ex Theodoto 59.4, a work that reflects trends in Western Gnosticism. On this both Thomassen and Kalvesmaki agree. See Kalvesmaki, Italian versus Eastern Valentinianism?, esp. 81. 43 44

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This is also indicated by his depiction of Axionicus as the leader of a movement, whereas he was entirely isolated.46 Indeed, differently from Heracleon and Ptolemaeus, who are the leaders cited by Hippolytus for Western Valentinianism and are very well known from other sources as well, including Origen, Axionicus, on the other hand, is cited by nobody but Tertullian, Adversus Valentinianos 4.3. Here, Tertullian states that only Axionicus, in Antioch, stuck to Valentinus’ original doctrines in his day, while all other Valentinians had detached themselves from them. Therefore, the only other source on Axionicus presents him as an exception and an isolate thinker. Another possible explanation of the apparent contradiction between a pneumatiko/n body and its being “fashioned” or “molded” may lie in Bardaiṣan’s conviction—which I shall demonstrate later in this monograph—that not even the human spiritual body is completely immaterial. For Bardaiṣan, as I shall argue and as I have briefly anticipated in the methodological guidelines, seems to share Origen’s idea that only the divinity, in that it is uncreated, can subsist in a completely immaterial way, whereas all creatures— that is, all other beings apart from God—are material, although there are different degrees of purity and refinement among them. Indeed, in this respect Bardaiṣan’s position is very close to Origen’s, who similarly polemicized against the Gnostics:47 the sw=ma pneumatiko/n is neither a shadow nor a totally immaterial entity, as only the Trinity is immaterial, but it is an extremely fine and light body, material but purest. This is the body of resurrection and the body that human beings had prior to the fall, a body created from pure matter without any mixture with darkness, and hence not heavy and not liable to passions. In this case, the inconsistency between the idea of a “spiritual body” (sw=ma pneumatiko/n) and its “being fashioned / molded” See Kalvesmaki, Italian versus Eastern Valentinianism?, 85–86. See my “La coerenza della soteriologia origeniana: dalla polemica contro il determinismo gnostico all’universale restaurazione escatologica,” in Pagani e cristiani alla ricerca della salvezza. Atti del XXXIV Incontro di Studiosi dell’Antichità Cristiana, Roma, Istituto Patristico Augustinianum, 5–7 maggio 2005, Rome: Augustinianum, 2006, SEA 96, 661–688. 46 47

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(diaplasqh=|) in Hippolytus’ text would be eliminated, and Hippolytus might actually be relating Bardaiṣan’s thought, but in this case Bardaiṣan’s conception couldn’t possibly be considered to be Gnostic, and his Christology could not be regarded as docetic. Therefore, Hippolytus would be wrong in listing Bardaiṣan among the Gnostics. Perhaps he did so simply because he wanted to provide two names for Eastern Valentinianism that could work as a counterpart of the two offered by him for Western Valentinianism, that is, Ptolemaeus and Heracleon. Thus, he cited Axionicus, who was no leader of a school, and Ardesianes, who, on this hypothesis, was not even a Gnostic (and who might also be a different person from our Bardaiṣan). In either way, Hippolytus’ piece of information about Bardaiṣan’s Gnosticism proves completely unreliable. For, either his information must be read according to Gnostic categories (the spiritual body is strictly immaterial), and then it is contradictory, and we ought to conclude that Hippolytus knew very little about Eastern Valentinianism—not to speak of the possibility that Ardesianes was another person, distinct from Bardaiṣan—or Hippolytus does report Bardaiṣan’s true thought, but this was not at all Gnostic, but rather close to Origen’s conception, as in this case the spirituality of the body mentioned by him would not exclude its materiality. Anyway, in both cases the attribution of a Gnostic docetic Christology to Bardaiṣan would turn out to be unjustified. Indeed, both Didymus, as I have shown, and Eusebius attest that Bardaiṣan, after an initial interest in Gnosticism, adhered to the Church and was an ordained minister in it (a priest, according to Didymus, or a deacon), and above all polemicized against Gnostics and Marcionites. This is confirmed by a passage of Hippolytus’ own Philosophumena, which mentions a controversy between a Marcionite and Bardaiṣan: if the latter is the same character as that mentioned in the passage that I have been discussing so far, his Gnosticism turns out to be even more improbable. In Philosophumena 7.31, indeed, Hippolytus reports that Bardaiṣan was in conflict with Marcionites, and names one of them, a certain Prepon, an Assyrian. Therefore,

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we may infer that his background was the Syriac language and culture.48 He wrote works against Bardaiṣan “the Armenian,” an epithet that is not found in the other passage concerning “Ardesianes.” This is the passage: “Therefore, it has been demonstrated by us that the first and most execrable heresy, that of Marcion, derives from Empedocles, in that it is structured around a good and an evil principle … In our day, a Syriac Marcionite, Prepon, has taken up something new and extraordinary: he has composed written discourses on his own heresy against Bardaiṣan the Armenian.”49 Therefore, Bardaiṣan was the object of attacks by Marcionites, and in turn, as I shall point out on the basis of Eusebius and other sources, he polemicized against Marcionites and wrote against this “heresy” stemming from Marcion. The latter was active some decades before Bardaiṣan and was criticized by Polycarp of Smyrna, who met him personally. Polycarp’s information regarding Marcion is probably to be identified with that provided by the presbyter cited by Irenaeus, AH 4.27–32, a passage largely lost in Greek, but preserved in an Armenian version; it displays precise correspondences with other teachings that are ascribable to Polycarp with certainty.50 It is also meaningful that there were already Valentinians in Edessa in the day of Bardaiṣan, but they were neither Bardaiṣan 48 In the manuscript tradition, moreover, asurioj might even be a corruption of Su/rioj, besides )Assu/rioj. 49

9H me\n ou}n prw&th kai\ kaqariwta&th Marki/wnoj ai3resij, e0c a)gaqou~ kai\ kakou~ th_n su&stasin e1xousa, 0Empedokle/ouj h(mi=n ei]nai pefane/rwtai: … e0n toi=j kaq' h(ma~j xro&noij nu~n kaino&tero&n ti e0pexei/rhse Markiwnisth&j tij Pre/pwn, 0Asu&rioj, pro_j Bardhsia&nhn to_n 0Arme/nion e0ggra&fwj poih&sasqai lo&gouj peri\ th~j ai9re/sewj.

Irenaeus in his Letter to Florinus claims that he can remember very well many of Polycarp’s precise words; thus, he seems to be an excellent source. The thesis that in Irenaeus’ Adversus Haereses Book 4 the presbyter is Polycarp is by Charles E. Hill, From the Lost Teaching of Polycarp. Identifying Irenaeus’ Apostolic Presbyter and the Author of Ad Diognetum, Tübingen 2006, esp. part 1; idem, “Polycarp contra Marcion: Irenaeus’ Presbyterial Source in AH 4.27–32,” in Studia Patristica XL, ed. F. Young, M. Edwards, P. Parvis, Leuven 2006, 399–412. 50

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himself nor his followers, but a completely different group, the socalled Quqites, named after Quq, their founder.51 It is true that Ephrem mentions Quq along with Bardaiṣan four times, but this means nothing, given that he does not produce any doctrine that associates them. Indeed, Ephrem mentions Bardaiṣan also in connection with Mani, who lived later than Bardaiṣan, from A.D. 216 to 277 (or 274), taught well after his death, from the Forties of the third century (whereas Bardaiṣan had died in A.D. 222), and supported a radical dualistic system which is not only absent from Bardaiṣan’s thought (as it results from the Liber, from the Porphyrian fragments, from the cosmological traditions, and from the other reliable sources), but also clearly rejected by him. Indeed, Bardaiṣan is paradoxically assimilated by various sources to the Marcionites, the Valentinians, and the Manicheans, but in fact—as is attested by Eusebius, Hippolytus himself in his second passage, Didymus, Jerome, and other sources, which I shall examine—he belonged to the church and he criticized the Marcionites and the Gnostics, like Origen in his polemic against predestinationism in defense of the rational creatures’ free will. Moreover, unlike the Manichaeans, he was certainly no dualist, and he lived before, not after, Mani and the spread of Manichaeism; it is rather attested that Mani wrote against Bardaiṣan. He did so in his “book of books” (that is, his most important book, probably the Book of Mysteries) according to the Arab author Mas‘udi.52 The same piece of information, also accepted by Drijvers,53 is reported by anNadîm, who in his Fihrist cites the contents of this work of Mani’s. The first chapter of it treated precisely of the Bardaiṣanites, the twelfth was devoted to their doctrines on the body and the soul, and the thirteenth criticized their views concerning the vital soul. Another important testimony comes from Al-Bîrûnî († 1048), who personally owned a copy of Mani’s Book of Mysteries and seems to be a reliable source. What results from this testimony is that Mani’s 51

129.

H. J. W. Drijvers, “Quq and the Quqites,” Numen 14 (1967) 104–

52 Muḥtaṣar al-a‘jâ’ib, from ms. Arab. n° 901 Paris (ancien fonds) = 1470 (de Slane). 53 Drijvers, Bardaiṣan, 202–203.

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criticism of Bardaiṣan revolved precisely around the fact that the latter, in Mani’s view, was not dualist enough: “He [sc. Mani] says: the followers of Bardaiṣan believe that the elevation and the purification of the vital soul take place in the dead body, and prove to ignore that the body is hostile to the soul and prevents its elevation and purification; it is a prison and a torment for the soul. If the form of this body were reality, its creator would not allow its progressive decay and the appearance of corruption in it, nor would he compel it to propagate through seed in a womb.”54 This is also very meaningful in relation to Bardaiṣan’s alleged disdain for the body and denial of its resurrection, which I shall discuss later on. According to Mani, Bardaiṣan did not postulate an opposition between the body and the soul, and he thought that the form of the present body is a reality, and not mere appearance. Thus, why was Bardaiṣan assimilated to both Valentinians and Manichaeans? The first association is due to the heresiologist Hippolytus, as I have demonstrated, in a period and in a cultural context in which Valentinianism represented the main threat for the formation of Christian “orthodoxy.” The latter association, that with Mani, was established by Eastern sources, from Ephrem onward, in a cultural and religious context in which the most dangerous heresy was Manichaeanism, which was projected back also onto Bardaiṣan, as I shall show. But this move had no historical ground.

4 The Liber Legum Regionum A crucial and early source on Bardaiṣan, albeit highly controversial in its interpretation, is the so-called Liber Legum Regionum, in Syriac.55 Its date of composition should be probably placed around Alberuni’s India, ed. E. Sachau, London 1887, 27.12ff. The standard editions are those by Nau and Drijvers: Bardesanes, Liber Legum Regionum, cuius textum Syriacum vocalium signis instruxit, Latine vertit F. Nau, adnotationibus locupletavit Th. Nöldeke, Patrologia Syriaca 1.2 (1907) and The Book of the Laws of Countries. Dialogue on Fate of Bardaiṣan of Edessa, by H. J. W Drijvers, Assen 1965. I have taken both of them into consideration while preparing my recent edition, in which I have endeavored to offer some further improvements: Bardesane di Edessa 54 55

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A.D. 220 or soon after, as it seems to have been published in its present form by a disciple of Bardaiṣan, who is the main character of this Platonic dialogue. But the arguments that Bardaiṣan presents in this dialogue perfectly correspond to those found in Eusebius’ Greek excerpts from Bardaiṣan’s Peri\ Ei(marme/nhj (which Bardaiṣan probably wrote in Syriac but was soon translated into Greek by his school; at any rate, Bardaiṣan himself knew both Syriac and Greek). Kata\ Ei(marme/nhj, Against Fate, is the Greek title attested by Epiphanius and Theodoret, who both seem to have been acquainted with this work, as well as Eusebius was (see below). The latter, who clearly refers to the same work and also quoted large excerpts from it in his Praeparatio Evangelica, gives a slightly different, and less characterized, title: Peri\\ Ei(marme/nhj, On Fate. The identity in the philosophical content, and even in wording, between Eusebius’ excerpts from Bardaiṣan’s work on Fate and the Liber suggests that the Liber was composed on the basis of Bardaiṣan’s arguments in his work, and that it really reflects Bardaiṣan’s thought. Indeed, the content of the Liber and its dialogical form fully correspond to the dialogue against Fate that was known to the Greek sources. And these sources’ reliability is high in that they had a direct access to the dialogue. The Liber has been handed on in Syriac in a single manuscript, in which a title precedes it, in Syriac as well, but it seems that this title was added by a later hand. Indeed, Nau in his edition56 remarked that the titles that appear in this manuscript of the sixthseventh century are all due to a subsequent hand. The Syriac title was translated into Latin as Liber Legum Regionum, “Book of the Laws of Countries,” which does not reflect the entirety of the dialogue contents. The Liber, just as Bardaiṣan’s work on Fate, entirely focuses on the defense of human free will against determinism, in the form of both the astrologers’ fatalistic determinism and Gnostic predestinationism. Indeed, the Liber may originally have been entitled Against Fate just as Bardaiṣan’s work, simply as a development of it. The later title, Liber Legum Regionum, properly refers only Kata\ Ei(marme/nhj, Bologna 2009 (all textual choices are explained in the editorial notes and in the commentary). 56 In Patrologia Syriaca 1.2.535.

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to one section of the whole dialogue, that in which Bardaiṣan adduces the various laws and customs of different peoples—on which he often proves to be well informed57—against the deterministic theory according to which the horoscope at one’s birth determines one’s destiny and even one’s behavior and choices. In doing so, Bardaiṣan used the Platonic argument of the socalled no/mima barbarika/, which was first employed, as it seems, by Carneades and then used by Middle-Platonic philosophers, among whom also Jewish authors such as Philo and Christian ones such as Origen,58 who shows surprising points of contact with Bardaiṣan, and by later authors who knew Origen’s works very well, such as Didymus the Blind and Gregory of Nyssa, plus Diodore of Tarsus, who drew material from Bardaiṣan for his own work on Fate, as I shall demonstrate below. To this anti-fatalistic lore Bardaiṣan added a new, important argument, in order to refute not only the horoscope doctrine, but also that of the climatic zones, each of which was considered by the astrologers to be governed by one heavenly body. This was a counter-argument found out by astrologers to refute the no/mima barbarika/ objection. Bardaiṣan’s reply to this counter-argument is that laws and customs in one same state or people can change, and, on the other side, Christians and Jews keep their laws wherever they are in the world. Bardaiṣan’s double reply will be taken over by other Christian authors, among whom Diodore of Tarsus in his own Kata\ Ei(marme/nhj, and it seems to be attested for the first time precisely in Bardaiṣan. The complete or prevalent correspondence between Bardaiṣan’s Kata\ Ei(marme/nhj and the Liber Legum Regionum is suggested not only by the identity in contents between Eusebius’ ex57 Examples in my Linee generali; for the good sources of his fragments from De India, see my Gli Apostoli in India, Milan 2001; F. Winter, Bardesanes von Edessa über Indien, Thaur bei Innsbruck 1999; my review of Porfirio, Sullo Stige, ed. Cristiano Castelletti, preface by T. Dorandi, Milan, Bompiani, 2006: Aevum 82 (2008) 248–253. 58 On Origen between Middle- and Neoplatonism see my “Origen, Patristic Philosophy, and Christian Platonism: Re-Thinking the Christianization of Hellenism,” Vigiliae Christianae 63 (2009) 217–263.

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cerpts from Bardaiṣan’s Kata\ Ei(marme/nhj and the Liber, but also by the full and precise verbal correspondence between Eusebius’ excerpts and two long sections of the Liber.59 Eusebius’ excerpts from Bardaiṣan’s Kata\ Ei(marme/nhj are, exactly like the Liber, presented in the form of a dialogue, between Bardaiṣan and his disciple Philip. Eusebius himself, in his introduction to his long quotation, states that these are dialogues that took place between Bardaiṣan and his disciples. The Liber, thus, seems to fully or partially correspond to Bardaiṣan’s Kata\ Ei(marme/nhj. If this work was not written by Bardaiṣan in the precise form in which we have it now, it seems to have been composed by a disciple of Bardaiṣan’s, probably Philip, who is named in the Liber and narrates the whole dialogue, also reporting its setting, in a Platonic style. According to Drijvers, Philip composed the dialogue that has reached us in the form of the Liber toward the end of Bardaiṣan’s life, or perhaps shortly after his death, on the basis of a compilation of Bardaiṣan’s work or conversations.60 Eusebius in Historia Ecclesiastica 4.30, which I shall analyze below, attests that Bardaiṣan’s dialogue on Fate was dedicated to emperor Antoninus. According to him (ibidem 4.30.2) and to Jerome (De Viris Illustribus 33: Marcus Antoninus), it was Marcus Aurelius. This would fit very well with the philosophical interests of this emperor, especially oriented toward Stoicism, but with some doses of Middle Platonism as well. Indeed, under the reign of Marcus Aurelius Bardaiṣan was surely already able to develop and produce his arguments against Fate. Eusebius and Jerome may have provided the correct interpretation, all the more so in that, as I shall show below in analyzing their testimony, Eusebius’ and Epiphanius’ mention of a diwgmo/j, i.e., a persecution, in reference to this emperor indicates that he was Marcus Aurelius, rather than other possible candidates—namely, Caracalla, Elagabalus, and Severus Alexander—who did not persecute the Christians. An “Antoninus Verus” is also repeatedly mentioned by Greek and Syriac sources in connection with Bardaiṣan, as I shall show, but his identification is 59

See texts and comparative analysis in my Bardesane Kata\

Ei(marme/nhj. 60

Drijvers, Bardaiṣan, 74.

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not easy; probably he is Elagabalus, or another Severan emperor, but it is not at all certain whether he also was the “Antoninus” to whom Bardaiṣan addressed his work against Fate. The historian Moses of Chorene, whose testimony I shall examine later, speaks of an Antoninus to whom Bardaiṣan dedicated a work—that is, surely his work against Fate—and of an Antoninus under whom he flourished as a historian. Only the latter is identified with “the last Antoninus,” i.e., Severus Alexander, under whom Bardaiṣan also died in A.D. 222. Indeed, Bardaiṣan composed a history toward the end of his life. But nothing is specified about the identity of the “Antoninus” to whom he dedicated his work: this might be Marcus Aurelius as well. Moses says nothing about the identity or distinction of these two Antonini. He simply says: “Bardaiṣan of Edessa flourished as a historian in the time of the last Antoninus […] He was a strong and powerful man in his words: he even dared to address a writing of his to Antoninus” (Patmut‘iwn Hayoc‘ 2.66).61 Likewise, Porphyry in De Styge says that Bardaiṣan wrote a work on India—fragments from which I shall analyze below— under an Antoninus whom he describes as “coming from Emesa.” 61 On Moses’ testimony on Bardaiṣan see G. Traina, “Materiali per un commento a Movsēs Xorenac‘i, Patmut‘iwn Hayoc‘, II,” Le Muséon 111 (1998) 95–138, in part. 99–100. 62 B. Pouderon, Athénagore d’Athènes, philosophe chrétien, Paris 1989; Id., D’Athènes à Alexandrie: études sur Athénagore et les origines de la philosophie chrétienne, Louvain – Paris 1997, BCNH études 4, with further bibliography on 377–415; Les apologistes chrétiens et la culture grecque, dir. Id. – J. Doré, Paris 1998, bibliography on 479–490; edition Id., Athénagore: Supplique au sujet des chrétiens; Sur la résurrection des morts, Paris 1992 (SCh, 379). Other works by Pouderon on Athenagoras: “L’authenticité du Traité sur la Résurrection attribué à l’apologiste Athénagore,” VigChr 40 (1986) 226–244; “Public et adversaires du Traité sur la résurrection d’Athénagore d’Athènes,” VetChr 24 (1987) 315–336; “Athénagore et Tertullien sur la résurrection,” Revue des études augustininennes 35 (1989) 209–230; “‘La chair et le sang’: encore sur l’authenticité du traité d’Athénagore,” VigChr 44 (1990) 1–5; “Les citations scripturaires dans l’oeuvre d’Athénagore,” VetChr 31 (1994) 111– 153; “Le De resurrectione d’Athénagore face à la gnose valentinienne,” RechAug 28 (1995) 145–83; Apologistes grecs du second siècle, ed. & tr. B. Pouderon, Paris 2005.

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This undoubtedly is Elagabalus, but we don’t know whether this was also the emperor to whom Bardaiṣan addressed his work on Fate. This is not stated by Porphyry, so that the identification of the latter with Marcus Aurelius remains open. Elagabalus reigned from A.D. 218 to 222 while he was very young. A fascinating coincidence might be that Elagabalus’ own name was Varius Avitus before his ascent to the throne, and in the Liber Bardaiṣan’s young interlocutor is Avida, in Syriac )dYw(, which may well be a transposition of Avitus’ name into Syriac (Epiphanius transliterates it as )Abeida/, a rendering that goes back directly to the Syriac rather than to a Latin Avitus or a Greek transposition of it such as )Abei=toj, )Abi/toj, and the like). Avida is described as a non-believer, who is progressively persuaded by Bardaiṣan’s arguments to admit the existence and the unicity of God and human free will, against fatalistic determinism and against Gnostic and Marcionite theodicies. Of course Avida’s identity is by no means certain, but what is relevant to the present investigation is that Porphyry, who attests that Bardaiṣan wrote his historical work under Elagabalus, does not say that Bardaiṣan also dedicated his work against Fate to Antoninus Elagabalus. Thus, one cannot be sure that the Antoninus who is mentioned by Eusebius and Jerome and other sources as the dedicatee of that work is also Elagabalus (or Alexander, mentioned by Moses). Indeed, Elagabalus, Alexander, and Caracalla did not persecute the Christians; on the contrary, according to the Historia Augusta, at Life of Elagabalus 3.4, Elagabalus was favorably disposed toward Christianity and, in his syncretism, wanted to place the symbols of Christianity and Judaism, too, in his temple of the Sun on Mt. Palatinus. The diwgmo/j mentioned by Eusebius cannot refer to Elagabalus. Nor can it refer to Caracalla’s conquest of Edessa—as suggested by Drijvers—which did not entail a religious persecution, whereas Epiphanius in Panarion 56 specifies that the persecution in which Bardaiṣan was involved was a religious persecution decided by the Roman emperor against the Christians. Eusebius in Historia Ecclesiastica 4.30, after informing that Bardaiṣan wrote a dialogue on Fate pro\j )Antwni=non, which probably means “dedicated to Antoninus” rather than “against Antoninus” (which, however, remains a possible meaning), adds that he also wrote other works during the persecution that was taking place at that time (o( to/te diwgmo/j). Now, the most useful kind of

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work that a Christian could write during a persecution was an apology. During Marcus Aurelius’ persecution, at least four apologies were composed by Christian authors: by Apollinaris, Miltiades, Melito, whose apology is fragmentarily preserved by Eusebius, and Athenagoras, the only one of these whose apology is entirely preserved, and who was a Christian philosopher, like Bardaiṣan.62 The apology preserved in Syriac and ascribed to Melito is dedicated to “Antoninus Caesar” and is all revolving around a philosophical and theological demonstration that reveals amazing affinities with Bardaiṣan’s thought. Notably, this “apology” is transmitted in one single manuscript, the very same that has also handed down the Liber. The author is uncertain, as Melito’s name was added in the manuscript in the title and in the explicit by a later hand. The addressee, on the contrary, “Antoninus Caesar,” does not appear only in the title, which was added later in the manuscript by a scribe or a librarian, but also in the work itself, in particular in the final peroration: “But if you, o Antoninus Caesar, learn these things yourself, and if your children also learn them together with you, you will leave them a perpetual and incorruptible heritage.” To be sure, this may certainly be an apology, or discourse, of Melito to Marcus Aurelius, earlier than that which is preserved by Eusebius in Greek excerpts,63 but it may be of another author as well, and even a philosophical apology addressed by a young Bardaiṣan to Marcus Aurelius. For, this work is replete with very close parallels with Bardaiṣan’s ideas, both those expressed in the Liber—and based on his work against Fate—and those which are attested in his most reliable fragments. I have offered a detailed demonstration of the striking parallels between this apology ascribed to Melito and Bardaiṣan’s argument On Fate, also expounded in the Liber, elsewhere.64 For the present research, suffice it to say that parallels in thought and expression are so close as to even involve the very same questions and answers as are found in the Liber: in the apology they are ascribed to Marcus Aurelius and the apologist respec63 See my “L’Apologia siriaca di Melitone,” with documentation and translation of the Syriac text. 64 In my “Bardesane e la sua scuola, l’Apologia siriaca “di Melitone” e la Doctrina Addai,” Aevum 83 (2009) 141–168.

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tively, and in the Liber they are respectively attributed to Avida and Bardaiṣan. Such close similarities can by no means be accidental and certainly call for an explanation. The narrative frame of the dialogue which has survived in the form of the Syriac Liber Legum Regionum—which clearly presents itself as a Platonic dialogue in which Bardaiṣan plays the same role as Socrates does in Plato’s dialogues—portrays Bardaiṣan while he began to discuss with some younger friends, probably his disciples, not at school, but, just like Socrates in Plato, at a common friend’s. The latter’s name is Semitic: Shamashgram. Bardaiṣan happened to pass there and joined the ongoing conversation.65 This detail, too, strongly reminds a reader of the beginning of some Platonic dialogues, such as the Cratilus, in which Socrates is invited by his friends to join the conversation and is informed of its topic and development; The Lovers, whose authenticity is dubious, but which was handed on in the tetralogies of the Platonic dialogues: here Socrates asks some youths what they are speaking about and joins their conversation. In Plato’s Protagoras, too, when Socrates arrives, Protagoras is already engaging in a discussion; in his Gorgias, Gorgias is at Callicles’, a friend of Socrates’, when he arrives with Socrates himself, who begins to discuss with the sophist. Indeed, the echo of Plato’s Socratic dialogues is strong in this dialogue of Bardaiṣan. Even though Shamashgram was named after Shamash, the Sun, which was worshipped as a god by pagans in Edessa,66 it seems that both he and the other disciples of Bardaiṣan were Christians, like Bardaiṣan himself, apart from perhaps Avida, who seems 65 This is the very beginning of this work: “Some days ago we went to visit our brother Shamashgram. And Bardaiṣan came on and found us there. And after hugging him and seeing that he was doing well, he asked us: ‘What were you conversing about? For I heard your voice from outside, while I was arriving.’ For, whenever he found us discussing anything before his arrival, he used to ask us: ‘What were you speaking about?’ so to be able to discuss that topic with us.” 66 On pagan cults in ancient Edessa, especially that of the sun, see H. J. W. Drijvers, Cults and Beliefs at Edessa, Leiden 1980; T. Green, The City of the Moon God. Religious Traditions of Harran, Leiden 1992; J. Tubach, Im Schatten des Sonnengottes, Wiesbaden 1986, esp. 63–125.

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to have been a pagan (or maybe a Gnostic or a Marcionite). Avida asks Bardaiṣan the first questions, which focus on theodicy, and which offer the starting point for Bardaiṣan’s argument. “Avida, who is here, was saying to us that, if God is one—as you assert— and created the human beings, and wants you to do what is prescribed to you, why didn’t he create us humans incapable of sinning, but able to always do what is good? For, in this way, God’s will would be fulfilled.” Avida thereby attests that Bardaiṣan and his disciples professed the unicity of God. This was not only a sign of their refusal of traditional pagan polytheism—which had already been left aside by philosophical “henotheism”67—but also a sign of opposition to Gnostic and Marcionite68 views, which supposed a division inside the divine world. Marcionism distinguished the God of the Old Testament and that of the New, the Father of Jesus. It is not an accident that the most ancient and reliable sources available on Bardaiṣan testify to his polemic against Marcionism, which was shared by Origen. In his reply to Avida, Bardaiṣan declares that Avida lacks faith, and this is why he cannot acquire knowledge either. Hence, Bardaiṣan will expound the answer to Avida’s question to his disciples, who have faith. This is Avida’s objection concerning faith: “But I greatly wish to listen and to be persuaded, as I have never heard this [question] from anyone else, but I said it to these brothers here on my own initiative. And they did not want to convince me, but they said: ‘Believe with strong faith, and you will be able to know all.’ And yet, I, for one, cannot believe unless I am persuaded.” Bardaiṣan’s reaction is reported as follows: “Avida is not the only one who refuses to believe, but many others, too, since there is no faith in them, cannot be persuaded either, but they al67 On which see my “Monoteismo,” in Nuovo Dizionario Patristico e di Antichità Cristiane, dir. A. Di Berardino, 2, Genoa 2007, 3350–3358. 68 H. J. W. Drijvers, “Bardaisan’s Doctrine of Free Will, the PseudoClementines, and Marcionism in Syria,” in Liberté chrétienne et libre arbitre, ed. G. Bedouelle – O. Fatio, Fribourg 1994, 13–30, rightly remarked that Bardaiṣan’s insistence on the fact that God the Creator is one and is good is an anti-Marcionite trait.

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ways destroy and build up, and are completely deprived of any knowledge of truth. However, since Avida does not want to believe, I shall speak to you, who are believers, about the problem that he is investigating, and he too will hear something more.” And this is what Bardaiṣan begins to say right away: “Many are the people who have no faith and have not received wisdom from the knowledge of truth. And this is why they are not competent either to speak or to teach, and are not easily disposed to listen. For they do not possess the fundament of faith on which to build, and have no confidence on which to hope. And since they have strong doubts also concerning God, they do not either have in themselves that fear of God which would liberate them from all fears. For, whoever has no fear of God in himself or herself is liable to all fears. Indeed, not even that—whatever it is—in which they do not believe is certain for them that it is right not to believe it, but they are instable in their thoughts, nor can they attain certainty.”69 The importance of Christian faith for Bardaiṣan is thereby clear.70 Faith also has a gnoseological import, directly based on the Gospel, in which Christ is described as a)lh/qeia, “the Truth.” Bardaiṣan’s programmatic declaration already corresponds to the “credo ut intelligam” formula, and is understood in the light of Bardaiṣan’s Christian conviction that the Truth is Christ, who is therefore the first teacher of truth. I shall soon analyze a fragment in which Bardaiṣan describes Christ’s mission in the following 69 Bardaiṣan takes on the same objection that was addressed by dogmatic philosophers to skeptic thinkers, especially Academics and Skeptics: the absence of all gnoseological foundation, professed by them, and the extention of doubt to everything, did not allow them to keep any certainty; therefore, they could not even be certain to be right when they rejected any gnoseological point of reference. For extreme skepticism resolves into auto-destruction. Here Bardaiṣan refers this argument to those who have no faith, in that they are likewise deprived of any gnoseological foundation, since they have renounced truth, which Bardaiṣan identifies with God, and more specifically with Christ-Logos, who makes the transcendent God known. 70 See also P.-H. Poirier, “Foi et persuasion dans le Livre des lois des pays à propos de l’épistemologie bardesanienne,” Le Muséon 116 (2003) 329–342.

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terms: Christ “taught the truth and ascended.” At the beginning of the Liber, then, Bardaiṣan declares that without faith it is impossible to attain the truth. But Bardaiṣan does not underestimate the value of persuasion either. Faith renders rational persuasion possible, but rational persuasion remains the only human way of educating and discussing. It was privileged already by Plato, who strongly preferred peiqw/ and lo/goj, rational persuasion, over a)na/gkh and bi/a, constriction and violence. It is no accident that Plato thought that the worst human category was that of tyrants, those who compel other people instead of persuading them with rational—not deceitful— arguments.71 Bardaiṣan’s school was a school mainly for Christians, just as that of Origen, who expounded Scripture and had his pupils study classical culture and Greek philosophy, for them to acquire a critical frame of mind, but banished all atheistic philosophy, which he clearly considered to be incompatible with Christianity.72 Bardaiṣan’s disciples—among whom the Liber mentions Philip, the probable redactor of this work, who also speaks in first person, and Bar Yamma, the former having a Greek name, the latter a Syriac name—Bardaiṣan himself, and his doctrines were surely Christian. This emerges both from the Liber and from Bardaiṣan’s fragments. Since the beginning, the problem is that of theodicy and of human rectitude, which were crucial for Origen as well.73 Avida’s question (“If God is one, as you maintain, and has created the human beings, and wants you to do what is prescribed to you, why did God not create us humans in such a way that we could not sin?”) does not take human free will into account, which was indeed suppressed by Bardaiṣan’s adversaries, both Gnostics and See my Il basileus come nomos empsychos tra diritto naturale e diritto divino: spunti platonici del concetto e sviluppi di età imperiale e tardoantica, preface by G. Reale, Naples, Bibliopolis 2006, Memorie dell’Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici 34. 72 See my “Origen, Patristic Philosophy, and Christian Platonism: ReThinking the Christianization of Hellenism,” Vigiliae Christianae 63 (2009) 217–263. 73 See my “La coerenza.” 71

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Marcionites. Valentinianism, in particular, destroyed human free will with its theory of the predestination of three classes of human beings. In Bardaiṣan’s day, this theory was strongly fought by Clement of Alexandria and Origen as well. It is a widespread opinion among scholars today that the Liber was composed in the environment of Bardaiṣan’s school rather than by Bardaiṣan himself. This is indeed probable, even though, of course, it does not mean that the Liber alters Bardaiṣan’s thought. Already Duval74 supposed that the Liber “rend exactement sa pensée et ses paroles,” meaning Bardaiṣan’s. Han J. W. Drijvers75 also deemed the Liber a faithful reproduction of Bardaiṣan’s thought, composed by Philip on the basis of his teacher’s doctrines. Levi della Vida76 considered Bardaiṣan’s philosophy and his school, which produced the Liber, to be one of the first attempts at elaborating a synthesis of Greek philosophy and Christianity, all the more so in the Near East.77 This perspective seems to have been fundamentally accepted by several scholars, such as Han J. W. Drijvers, Teixidor, Camplani, and in part Possekel. However, differently from Drijvers, Levi della Vida regarded the Liber as a correction—in the direction of “orthodoxy”—of a former work of Bardaiṣan. This correction, according to Levi Della Vida, was made by his school, or better, a part of his disciples, after his death. Indeed, among the Bardaiṣanites Levi drew a distinction between a “left” and a “right wing.” The “left wing” of the Bardaiṣanites later adhered to Manichaeism, whereas the “right wing” came closer to “orthodoxy.” The Liber is an expression of the latter according to Levi, who believed78 that the Liber was com74

116.

R. Duval, Histoire politique, religieuse et littéraire d’Édesse, Paris 1892,

Bardaiṣan, in part. 67 e passim. G. Levi della Vida, “Bardesane e il Dialogo delle leggi dei paesi,” Rivista trimestrale di Studi Filosofici e Religiosi 1 (1920) 399–430; Id., “Appunti bardesanici. 2. Fonti arabe sul Bardesanismo,” Rivista di Studi Orientali 8 (1920) fasc. IV; Id. Il Dialogo delle leggi dei paesi, Rome 1921, in part. 74. 77 G. Levi della Vida, Il dialogo delle leggi dei paesi, Rome 1921, Scrittori cristiani antichi 3, 15. 78 Levi, Il Dialogo, 11. 75 76

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posed one or two generations after Bardaiṣan by this “right wing,” that which accepted the Christian dogmas but retained a part of Bardaiṣan’s dualism and astrological doctrines—these characterized Bardaiṣan’s thought according to Levi—but extenuating them so that they might not contrast too sharply with the dogma of divine unity and omnipotence proclaimed by the Church (“pur accettando i dogmi cristiani, tendeva a conservare una parte almeno degli elementi dualistici ed astrologici propri della dottrina di Bardesane, modificandoli ed attenuandoli in modo da non contrastare troppo crudamente con il dogma dell’unità e dell’onnipotenza divina proclamato dalla Chiesa”). Levi’s thesis was espoused by Jansma,79 who also hypothesized that the Bardaiṣanites split up into a moderate wing, whose expression is to be found in the Liber, and another more influenced by Gnosticism, attested by Efrem in Hymni contra Haereses 55. The Liber was composed long after Bardaiṣan’s death, and it does not reflect Bardaiṣan’s true thought, but it eliminates the most extreme and heretical positions of Bardaiṣan, in a polemic against Manichaeism and the Paluṭians, who in the meantime had become, respectively, the enemies and the representatives of orthodoxy in Edessa. Drijvers’ thesis was criticized by Ehlers Aland as well.80 She does not believe that the Liber reflects Bardaiṣan’s true thought, in that she regards his thought as Gnostic, whereas the Liber is manifestly not a Gnostic work. Eusebius, however, cites long and crucial excerpts from Bardaiṣan’s work against Fate, which coincide with the corresponding sections of the Liber, and he considers them to be Bardaiṣan’s own thought. Moreover, that the Liber does not contain Gnostic ideas may be explained simply by the fact that Bardaiṣan himself was no Gnostic. Indeed, I shall soon argue that the legend of Bardaiṣan’s Gnosticism essentially derives from the T. Jansma, Natuur, lot en vrijheid. Bardesanes, de filosof der Aramäer en zijn images, Wageningen 1969, Cahiers bij het Nederlander Theolog. Tijdschrift 6, in part. 131–134. 80 B. Ehlers, “Bardesanes von Edessa, ein syrischer Gnostiker. Bemerkungen aus Anlass des Buches von H. J. Drijvers, Bardaisan of Edessa,” Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 81 (1970) 334–351, in part. 338–339. 79

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heresiological passage from Hippolytus concerning a certain “Ardesianes,” which, as I have already demonstrated in my treatment of Hippolytus as a source, is unfounded and intrinsically contradictory. Since it is on this source that the others which relate Bardaiṣan to Gnosticism depend, the demonstration of its unreliability is crucial. This, of course, does not exclude that Bardaiṣan’s followers, or some of them, adhered to Gnosticism and Manichaeism. Recent scholarship seems to generally share Drijvers’ view that the Liber is useful to reconstruct Bardaiṣan’s thought. Bianchi, for example,81 deemed the Liber an expression of Bardaiṣan’s ideas and frequently used it as a source of Bardaiṣan’s philosophical doctrine. Dihle also finds it possible to reconstruct Bardaiṣan’s philosophical reflection from the Liber and other testimonies such as Ephrem’s Prose Refutations and Hymni contra Haereses.82 Possekel defines the Liber “the only contiguous text from Bardaisan’s community that has come down to us, compiled by a disciple in the early third century,” and rightly values it.83 Camplani84 distances himself both from Drijvers’ “optimistic” position and from Jansma’s skeptical one. In his opinion, it is impossible to establish to what extent the Liber reflects Bardaiṣan’s true thought; this could be determined only by means of a systematical comparison with texts that are ascribable to Bardaiṣan with certainty: “nothing could be more difficult,” he comments (“nulla di più difficile”).85 But I think that it is not so difficult as to be impossible, as I shall demonstrate. For at least Porphyry offers two long fragments from Bardaiṣan’s De India which mostly are textual quotations and 81 U. Bianchi, Bardesane gnostico. Le fonti del dualismo di Bardesane, in Umanità e storia. Scritti in onore di Adelchi Attisani, II, Naples 1971, 627–641 = Id., Selected Essays on Gnosticism, Dualism and Mysteriosophy, Leiden 1978, 336–350. 82 Ed. E. Beck, Louvain 1957, CSCO Syri, 76–77. Cf. Dihle, Zur Schicksalslehre, 123–135. 83 U. Possekel, “Expectations of the End in Early Syriac Christianity,” Hugoye 11.1 (2008), §§ 1–26, at § 2. Also in other works of hers she rightly uses the Liber as an important source. 84 Rivisitando Bardesane, 543–544; 551; 592–593. 85 Ibidem 544.

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which I shall analyze soon. So far they have been too much overlooked by scholars, but I shall use them a great deal during the present investigation, both for the rich fruit they bear in a comparative examination with the other available fragments and the Liber, in the theological, cosmological, anthropological, and ethical fields, and for the valuable methodological hint that they provide. Indeed, Porphyry’s testimony reveals the importance of Plato’s Timaeus— interpreted through Middle-Platonic categories—in Bardaiṣan’s thought. Moreover, some other fragments from Bardaiṣan seem to be quoted ad verbum, as I shall show. We are not completely deprived of authentic fragments to compare with the Liber. I shall also demonstrate that a methodical comparison between the Liber and the most reliable fragments (Porphyry’s and some others) points to the substantial trustworthiness of the Liber for the reconstruction of Bardaiṣan’s thought. Besides, a notable argument in favor of the Liber’s faithfulness in reflecting Bardaiṣan’s ideas is the following: if the Liber really were a mitigation of the “heretical” doctrines of Bardaiṣan aimed at presenting him as an orthodox Christian, fate would have been utterly eliminated from it, whereas therein it is kept, even though it is subject to God and strongly limited. It is thus more probable that the Liber faithfully reflects Bardaiṣan’s opinions. In his recent introduction to the second edition of Han J. W. Drijvers’ edition and translation of the Liber,86 Jan Willem Drijvers defines it as the primary text for our knowledge of Bardaiṣan’s thought, no written work of whom is preserved. The last part of this statement should be taken with a proviso, given that we do have at least the aforementioned literal quotation from Porphyry, plus some other fragments whose reliability is high enough, especially from the so-called cosmological traditions and from Ephrem.87 However, the first part of J. W. Drijver’s statement is absolutely correct: the Liber is really the most important text—also because it is the most extensive—that is available to us in order to 86 H. J. W. Drijvers, The Book of the Laws of Countries. Dialogue on Fate of Bardaisan of Edessa, new introduction by J. W. Drijvers, Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 20062. 87 See below for a close analysis of all these fragments.

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reconstruct Bardaiṣan’s thought. And it is with this text, and at least with the Porphyrian fragments, that it is necessary to compare all other sources in order to critically evaluate them. The Syriac text of the Liber, when it was discovered in its single manuscript, was soon recognized by scholars as including passages that were already known either in Greek (from Eusebius Praeparatio Evangelica 6.10.1–48) or in Latin, thanks to the Ps. Clementine Recognitiones (9.17.19–29), which have reached us in a Latin version of Rufinus.88 The author of the so-called Grundschrift from which the later Recognitiones derived very probably knew the Liber, either in Greek or even in Syriac (he seems to have been from Coelesyria). Some scholars, such as Ewald,89 Land,90 and Hilgenfeld,91 supposed that the original edition of the Liber was in Greek and then it was translated into Syriac. The priority of the Syriac over the Greek, however, which was supported by Merx, Nau, Nöldeke, Levi della Vida, Schaeder, Schall, Drijvers and others, is today generally accepted by scholars.92 Indeed, the main ar88 A comparative analysis of these Greek and Latin texts with the Syriac of the Liber is found in my Bardesane Katà Heimarménes. Cf. B. Rehm, “Bardesanes in den Pseudoclementinen,” Philologus 93 (1938) 218–247; F. S. Jones, “The Pseudo-Clementines. A History of Research,” Second Century 2 (1982) 1–33.63–96; A. Schneider and L. Cirillo, Les Reconnaissances du pseudo-Clément. Traduction, introduction et notes, Turnhout 1999. 89 Göttingische Gelehrte Anzeiger 1856, 649–666. 90 D. Land, Anecdota Syriaca, I, Lyon 1862, 53. 91 D. Hilgenfeld, Bardesanes, der letzte gnostiker, Leipzig 1864, 74. 92 Nau, PS I, 2, 530; H. H. Schaeder, “Bardesanes von Edessa in der Überlieferung der griechischen und der syrischen Kirche,” Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 51 (1952) 21–74, in part. 33–34; A. Schall, Studien über griechischen Fremdwörter im Syrischen, Darmstadt 1960, 72–73; Drijvers, Bardaiṣan, 66 and passim, thinks that the original is the Syriac text preserved by the manuscript, and that its Greek translation was known to Eusebius and to the author of the Ps.-Clementine corpus, as is confirmed by J. RiusCamps, “Las Pseudoclementinas. Bases filológicas para una nueva interpretación,” RCatT 1 (1976) 79–158. On textual criticism for the Syriac, in addition to some studies I have listed in the final bibliographical references, such as Camplani, Note bardesanitiche, see: F. Schulthess, “Zum Buche der Gesetze der Länder,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 64 (1910) 91–94; idem, “Noch einmal zum Buche der Gesetze

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gument adduced by the supporters of the priority of the Greek is very weak; they adduced that in the Liber there are several Greek works transliterated into Syriac, such as )SKw+S) from stoixei=a, “elements,” or sYSwP from fu/sij, “nature.” But these transliterations of philosophical terms from Greek are typical in Syriac,93 and they do not require that the original text was Greek; Bardaiṣan’s and his school’s Greek culture abundantly explains their presence in the Liber. Moreover, as I shall show, Eusebius attests that Bardaiṣan wrote in Syriac and that his disciples translated his works into Greek. What is more, only in Syriac is it possible to distinguish the word sYSwP from the word )NYK, respectively meaning Nature as a general force and the specific nature of a species or an individual. This distinction is very important in the conceptual framework of the Liber, and these were very probably the words originally employed by Bardaiṣan. In Greek, on the contrary, there is only the term fu/sij, and indeed in Eusebius’ excerpts it is used to translate both Syriac words. In the introduction to his edition, in Patrologia Syriaca 1.2.531– 533, Nau, after a synoptic comparison between the Syriac text, Eusebius’ Greek excerpts, and the Latin passages of the Recognitiones, maintained that Eusebius took his excerpts from a Greek version of the Syriac original, and that the Recognitiones translated Eusebius’ Greek into Latin. It seems to me very important to notice that Eusebius directly ascribes his excerpts to Bardaiṣan’s work. Moreover, Eusebius (or his collaborators) seems to have known Syriac as well, as is attested by the Greek translation of some Syriac documents found in the Edessan archives that he reports (see below).94 He der Länder,” ibidem 745–750; Th. Nöldeke, “Zum Buche der Gesetze der Länder,” ibidem 555–560; G. Levi della Vida, “Appunti bardesanici. 1. Sul “Libro delle Leggi dei Paesi,” Rivista di Studî Orientali 8 (1920) instalment 5. 93 S. Brock, Studies in Syriac Christianity: History, Literature and Theology, Aldershot 1992, chap. 10: “Towards a History of Syriac Translation Technique” (from a 1983 article); idem, From Ephrem to Romanos: Interactions between Syriac and Greek in Late Antiquity, Aldershot 1999, chap. 1: “Greek and Syriac in Late Antique Syria” (from a 1994 article); chap. 15: “Greek Words in Syriac: Some General Features” (from a 1996 article). 94 Cf. il mio “Possible Historical Traces in the Doctrina Addai?,” Hugoye. Journal of Syriac Studies 9,1 (2006), §§ 1–24; printed Piscataway, NJ

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may have had even the Syriac text of Bardaiṣan at his disposal, and he may have translated some parts, or have had them translated by his collaborators in the episcopal library at Caesarea. Of course he picked out the parts that were most relevant to his discourse on free will in his Praeparatio Evangelica. Notably, Eusebius was an admirer of Origen, to whom he devoted most of Book 6 in his Historia Ecclesiastica, portraying him as a hero. Bardaiṣan and Origen, who were almost contemporaries, shared many aspects of their thought, such as the defense of human free will against determinism, both Gnostic and astrological, an eschatological perspective characterized by the doctrine of apokatastasis, the polemic against Marcionism, and even the allegorical exegesis of Scripture.95 It cannot be accidental that it is precisely Eusebius, who so admired Origen, to have preserved the Greek excerpts from Bardaiṣan, and especially those parts concerning human free will that reveal the closeness between Origen and Bardaiṣan. Moreover, it is remarkable that Eusebius cited excerpts from Origen and from Bardaiṣan next to one another in support of his defense of human free will in his Praeparatio Evangelica. This close association seems to reflect Eusebius’ awareness of the strong affinities that linked these two Christian philosophers. Both Origen and Bardaiṣan fought astrological determinism. Bardaiṣan in particular had excellent reasons to oppose it, in that the worship of heavenly bodies was especially flourishing in Edessa. This is very well attested, for example, by the Doctrina Addai (24 Philipps). This work was composed toward the end of the fourth or the beginning of the fifth century, but it is based on ancient sources and its setting is in the first century. It seems to have been shaped precisely in the Severan age, in the time of Bardaiṣan and Origen. As I have argued elsewhere96 (see also below), it is not even to be ruled out that a first redaction of the legend of Abgar 2006 [2009], 51–127; forthcoming in an updated and expanded edition in Analecta Gorgiana. Eadem, Atti di Mari, Brescia 2008, introductory essay. 95 Cf. I. Ramelli, Apocatastasi, Milan forthcoming; eadem, “Origen, Bardaiṣan, and the Origin.” 96 In my “Bardesane e la sua scuola, l’Apologia siriaca ‘di Melitone’ e la Doctrina Addai,” Aevum 83 (2009) 141–168.

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Ukkama and Addai was provided by Bardaiṣan himself in his historical work. Now, in the later Doctrina Addai, the apostle Addai says to the people of Edessa: “I see this region covered with paganism, which is contrary to God. Which are those idols, Nebo [Mercury] and Bel [Jupiter], which you worship? Likewise you worship the daughter of Nical, just as your neighbors worship Tarata, and the inhabitants of Mabbug the Eagle and the Arabs the Sun and the Moon.” Again, in Doctrina 43 Philipps, Addai recommends to his disciples: “Beware of the pagans, who worship the Sun and the Moon, Bel and Nebo, and of the others who call these heavenly bodies ‘deities,’” and likewise ibidem 35 Phillips: “Avoid the lots and horoscopes of which the deceitful Chaldeans are proud, the heavenly bodies and the Zodiacal constellations, in which stupid people believe.” Indeed, again in the fourth century Eusebius, bishop of Emesa, was insulted and regarded with suspicion in that he was an expert in astronomy, as is attested by Socrates (Historia Ecclesiastica 2.9). Gabriel, too, who was the bishop of Nisibis in the sixth century, was expelled in that he was an expert in the movements of the celestial bodies and of the Zodiacal signs.97 The Syriac text of the Liber, whose priority vis-à-vis the Greek seems today to be certain,98 was first edited in 1855 by William Cureton99 together with the above-mentioned Syriac apology ascribed to Melito and Ambrose’s Hypomnemata—all these documents were included in the same seventh-century Syriac manuscript—then by Nau in the Patrologia Syriaca and by Han J. W. Drijvers;100 recently 97 This is attested by Un nuovo testo siriaco sulla storia degli ultimi Sassanidi, ed. I. Guidi, Lugduni Batavorum 1891, p. 10 line 11. 98 H. H. Schaeder, “Bardesanes von Edessa in der Überlieferung der griechischen und der syrischen Kirche,” Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 51 (1952) 21–74, in part. 58–59 = in idem, Studien zur orientalistischen Religionsgeschichte, Darmstadt 1968. For text criticism on the Syriac: Schulthess, “Zum Buche” and “Noch einmal”; Nöldeke, “Zum Buche”; Levi della Vida, Appunti bardesanici, and Camplani, “Rivisitando Bardesane,” 586. 99 W. Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, London 1855, 41–59 of pages with Syriac numbering. 100 Bardesanes, Liber Legum Regionum, cuius textum Syriacum vocalium signis instruxit, Latine vertit F. Nau, adnotationibus locupletavit Th.

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an edition by me has also appeared, hopefully with a few further improvements.101 All these editions are necessarily based on the only manuscript that has transmitted the Liber; it comes from the library of a Syriac monastery in the Nitrian desert. It was acquired by the British Museum, where it was catalogued as Add. 14658, and it was described by Wright.102 The Liber is therein at folii 129a-141a. This also indicates that in the sixth and seventh centuries Bardaiṣan’s arguments were still read and copied. Indeed, as I shall point out later, Jacob of Edessa in the seventh century attests that in his day there were still followers of Bardaiṣan who defended human free will against astral determinism, which is exactly the position that is supported in the Liber by the character Bardaiṣan. In the light of the affinities between Origen and Bardaiṣan I call attention to in this study, and in the light of the special esteem in which Bardaiṣan was held in the Origenian sources, it seems to me hardly accidental that Bardaiṣan’s dialogue was copied and read in a century and in an environment in which Origen’s influence was particularly strong, even though it was mostly mediated, especially through the Evagrian tradition.103 The first translation of the Liber was in English, included in Cureton’s edition. Other translations followed, even though they were based on Cureton’s unsatisfactory edition and did not provide any facing new edition: that of Merx into German,104 that of Langlois into French,105 and that of Levi della Vida into Italian.106 On Nöldeke, Patrologia Syriaca, I.2, Paris 1907, columns 490–658; The Book of the Laws of Countries. Dialogue on Fate of Bardaiṣan of Edessa, by H. J. W Drijvers, Assen 1965. 101 Ramelli, Bardesane Kata\ Ei(marme/nhj. 102 W. Wright, Catalogue of the Syriac Manuscripts, London 1872, 1154– 1160. 103 See my “Note per un’indagine della mistica siro-orientale dell’VIII secolo: Giovanni di Dalyatha e la tradizione origeniana,” ‘Ilu 12 (2007) 147–179. 104 D. Merx, Bardesanes von Edessa, Halle 1863, 25–56. 105 D. Langlois, in Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, Paris 1872, Vb, 73–94. 106 G. Levi della Vida, Bardesane: Il dialogo delle leggi dei paesi, Roma 1921, Scrittori cristiani antichi 3.

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the contrary, Nau offered a new, better edition, at first in a volume with an introduction, a French translation, and notes,107 then in the Patrologia Syriaca, with an introduction and a Latin translation; he also added the vocalization and punctuation, and some improvements in the transcription.108 In the Liber, apart from a possible, tiny interpolation, there is no trace of “heretical” doctrines, such as those of which Bardaiṣan was repeatedly accused, but on very weak grounds, as I argue in the present study. For Manichaeism is later than Bardaiṣan’s lifetime, and a polemic of Mani is attested against Bardaiṣan. And Marcionism and Gnosticism were rather criticized by Bardaiṣan—just as they were by Origen—as I shall show on the basis of a critical analysis of the sources, such as Hippolytus (Philosophumena 7.31), Eusebius (Historia Ecclesiastica 4.30), Jerome (De Viris Illustribus 33), Epiphanius (Panarion 56), the Vita Abercii, Moses of Chorene (Patmut‘iwn Hayoc‘ 2.66) and other sources, which are actually confirmed by the Liber. Moreover, the fact that the most ancient and reliable sources, from Africanus onward, do not present Bardaiṣan as a heretic makes the cliché of “Bardaiṣan the heretic” rather suspect, all the more in that these hostile sources are unable to substantiate their claim with precise heretical themes of Bardaiṣan’s thought. Furthermore, it is notable that no attestations are found anywhere that Bardaiṣan ever polemicized against “the orthodox,” but only against heretics, especially Gnostics and Marcionites. As for the aforementioned possible interpolation, this is how I would read Liber 553 Nau: “But, according to God’s goodness, we have been given commandments without difficulty, such that each one who has a soul in him- or herself can perform them and take delight in this; for there is no one who does not rejoice after doing the good or who does not take delight in his or her heart, if he or she has avoided doing evil, apart from those who have not turned to this good and are called ‘darnel.’ For, would not the judge who accused a human being of something that he or she is unable to do be unjust?” It is not by chance that Bardaiṣan insists so much on the goodness of that God who has given the commandments, since 107 108

F. Nau, Bardesane l’astrologue: le Livre des lois des pays, Paris 1899. Nau explains them on p. 529 of his edition in the Patrologia Syriaca.

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he is polemicizing with Marcionites and Gnostics, who supported a distinction between the good God of the New Testament and the just God of the Old. According to them, the God of the Old Testament, Creator and legislator—who gave the Law to Moses, but also the first commandment to Adam and Eve—was an inferior and nasty deity. His evilness is revealed both in the creation of the material world and in the choice of imposing a law that Bardaiṣan’s adversaries regarded as impossible to respect and surely provoking a transgression. This is why Bardaiṣan here repeats that God is good and, given that in his view God is also One, the consequence is that the God of the Old Testament, creator and legislator, is also good and has given good laws, which go together with those of the New Testament. God, being good, has given good laws and has also created good creatures. Therefore, Bardaiṣan thinks that all humans are fundamentally oriented toward the Good and against evil. But God is also just: the unity of goodness and justice in one God is a crucial point in Bardaiṣan’s anti-Marcionite and antiGnostic polemic, just as it is in Origen. Now, the reference to the darnel is a quotation from the New Testament, Matt 13:24-30.36-43, which first of all contradicts the assumption that Bardaiṣan was no Christian and did not refer to the Bible (also contradicted by his reading of Genesis in the light of Plato’s Timaeus). It is difficult to determine whether Bardaiṣan founded himself on Tatian’s Diatessaron or on the Vetus Syra, the first layers of which probably date to the end of the second century (see S. Brock, The Bible in the Syriac Tradition, Piscataway, NJ 2007, 31-34). In the gospel, darnel is interpreted by Jesus to his disciples as a symbol of those who have chosen and done evil in their life and thus will be punished in the last Judgment, not at all of those who “were not created for the Good.” The manuscript reading, “those who were not created for this good,” would be tantamount to saying that a class of human beings, or of other rational creatures, was excluded form the Good, i.e., from God, straight from the creation, but this would reintroduce predestinationism and would deny human free will, which the whole dialogue strongly affirms. What Bardaiṣan argues in the whole Liber, and particularly the creation of each human as endowed with a free intellect and in the image of God, flatly contradicts Valentinian predestination, which was strongly fought by Origen as well. The latter, especially in Book 3 of his Peri\ )Arxw=n, started from this anti-Valentinian

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polemic to elaborate a theodicy that culminates in the apokatastasis (demonstration in my “La coerenza della soteriologia origeniana”). Origen and Bardaiṣan agree on both human free will and apokatastasis. The present bit, if it suggested predestinationism, would be absurd and completely at odds with the rest of the dialogue. It may be an interpolation. Indeed, the notion that God created some human beings for evil and not for the Good is absolutely inconsistent with the whole of Bardaiṣan’s argument in this dialogue and, even more specifically, wth his explicit declaration that “if one does not do what is good or evil voluntarily, one’s justification or condemnation would lie in the arbitrary wish of the One by whom this person was created.” This hypothesis is utterly rejected both by Bardaiṣan and by Origen. Moreover, Bardaiṣan in the Liber also refutes the following assertion: “If the human being had not been naturally created to sin, it would not sin,” which exactly corresponds to the interpolated bit (meaning: “There are some who sin by nature,” “because they were created with a sinning nature”). To be sure, only wYrB+), “(they) were created,” may be interpolated, all the more so in that there is already the verb )wh: if this be the case, the bit could be rendered, “apart from those who have not turned to this good,” or “apart from those who do not turn to this good” (after the negative particle )L, )wh is often found in a present sense), or “apart from those who are not for this good,” that is, who have not decided for it. These are not creatures who were created by God for evil instead of the Good, but rather creatures who do not turn to the Good voluntarily. This understanding is consistent with Bardaiṣan’s argument and with the Gospel passage to which it refers. Differently from some scholars such as Beck, Kruse, Widengren—who placed Bardaiṣan against the backdrop of an IranicParthian Gnosis in which also Greek and Semitic elements were integrated—and others,109 some other scholars, such as Camplani 109 T. Jansma, “La notice de Barh?adbešabba ‘Arbaïa sur l’hérésie des Daisanites,” in Mémorial Mgr Gabriel Khoury-Sarkis, Leuven 1969, 91–106; B. Ehlers Aland, “Bardesanes von Edessa. Ein syrische Gnostiker”; U. Bianchi, “Bardesane gnostico. Le fonti del dualismo di Bardesane,” in Umanità e storia. Scritti in onore di Adelchi Attisani, II, Napoli 1971, 627–641

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and most recently Kalvesmaki,110 do not consider Bardaiṣan to have been a Gnostic. Neither do I deem him a Gnostic. I have already argued that the story of Bardaiṣan’s adherence to Valentinianism is due to the short, confused, and unreliable account of Hippolytus of Rome, in a passage that is different from the other, much more trustworthy account, which attests the polemic between Bardaiṣan and the Marcionite Prepon. The Syriac title Book of the Laws of Countries, which, as I have mentioned, was added by a later hand in the manuscript, fits only the second part of the dialogue, which manifests Bardaiṣan’s interest in the customs of the various peoples of his time. This interest is in line with other works of Bardaiṣan attested by Moses of Chorene, a history of Armenia, to which I shall return later, and a work on India which both Porphyry and Jerome (Adversus Iovinianum 2.14) knew111 and which I shall analyze soon. Apart from the extraordinary importance of the extant fragments from this = Eiusd. Selected Essays on Gnosticism, Dualism and Mysteriosophy, Leiden 1978, 336–350; E. Beck, “Bardaisan und seine Schule bei Ephräm,” Le Muséon 91 (1978) 271–333; G. Widengren, “Bardesanes von Edessa und der syrisch-mesopotamische Gnostizismus. Ein Beitrag zur Vorgeschichte des Manichäismus,” in The Many and the One. Essays on Religion in the GraecoRoman World presented to H. L. Jansen on his 80th Birthday, Trondheim 1985, 153–181; see already Mesopotamian Elements in Manichaeism. Studies in Manichaean, Mandaean, and Syrian-Gnostic Religion, Uppsala – Leipzig 1946, 44 and passim; Iranisch-semitische Kulturbegegnung in parthischer Zeit, Köln – Opladen 1960, part. 40; H. Kruse, “Die ‘mythologischen Irrtümer’ BarDaisans,” Oriens Christianus 71 (1987), 24–52. 110 Camplani, Rivisitando Bardesane, 526–542, J. Kalvesmaki, “Italian versus Eastern Valentinianism?,” VigChr 62.1 (2008) 79–89, especially 86. 111 See Nau’s edition, 493ff.; Schaeder, Bardesanes, 31f.; Camplani, “Rivisitando Bardesane,” 522. 112 See I. Ramelli, Gli Apostoli in India nella Patristica e nella letteratura sanscrita, in collaboration with C. Dognini, Milan 2001; eadem, “La missione di Panteno in India: alcune osservazioni,” in La diffusione dell’eredità classica nell’età tardoantica e medievale. Filologia, Storia, Dottrina, Atti del Seminario Nazionale di Studio, Napoli – Sorrento 29–31 ottobre 1998, ed. C. Baffioni, Alessandria 2000, 95–106; eadem, “Note sulle origini del Cristianesimo in India,” Studi Classici e Orientali 47.2 (2000) [2003] 363–378.

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work for the study of Bardaiṣan’s thought, the information that he offered on the Indian people therein are good and were retrieved shortly after the Indian mission of Pantaenus, the teacher of Clement of Alexandria and the founder of the so-called catechetical school in Alexandria, where shortly after Origen too lived and worked. Bardaiṣan drew his information, mainly concerning the Buddhist monks, from the members of an Indian mission who visited emperor Elagabalus (I shall return to this). It is interesting that, according to the Syrian tradition, the evangelization of India had started precisely from Edessa. In Edessa, Thomas, the evangelizer of India according to the tradition, was especially venerated, and his relics were translated from India to Edessa in A.D. 232,112 shortly after Bardaiṣan’s death. Bardaiṣan’s figure and the Liber are fully embedded in the historical context of the Severan age, which granted Christians a tolerance de facto and during which Christian intellectuals flourished and were in contact with the imperial court; Origen, who preached before Julia Mamaea and wrote letters to Philip the Arab and his wife, is a good example. Indeed, in the Liber, in addition to theodicy, discussions on fate and free will, and ethnography, some political theory is also involved. According to Zecchini,113 Bardaiṣan in the Liber theorizes the relativity of human laws as opposed to the immutability of the divine law in a conception that is similar to that of Caracalla, whom Zecchini regards as the probable dedicatee of the Liber, and who promulgated the Constitutio Antoniniana. The idea is that the laws are created and must be re113 G. Zecchini, Il pensiero politico romano, Rome 1997, 115–120; Id. “La Constitutio Antoniniana e l’universalismo politico di Roma,” in L’ecumenismo politico nella coscienza dell’Occidente. Bergamo, 18–21 settembre 1995, a c. di L. Aigner Foresti – A. Barzanò – C. Bearzot – L. Prandi – G. Zecchini, Roma 1998, 349–358, in part. 352–353. 114 See Zecchini, Il pensiero politico romano, 115–119. 115 In addition to Teixidor, Bardesane, see F. Millar, The Roman Near East 31 BC–AD 337, Cambridge – London 1993, 492–493 and 519; idem, “Il ruolo delle lingue semitiche nel Vicino Oriente tardo-romano (V–VI secolo),” Mediterraneo antico 1 (1998) 71–94, and Camplani, Rivisitando Bardesane, 585–595.

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spected, but above them one must place the relationship with God, who is the source of the imperial power according to Caracalla.114 Indeed, Bardaiṣan’s intellectual figure is being delineated ever better and ever more precisely as complex and rich in interests; he stands between Greek philosophy, early Christianity, and Syriac culture in a crucial time for the formation of Christianity such as the Severan age.115 His defense of human free will, which is reflected in the Liber but also in other fragments, as I shall show, and which takes up the Academic argument of the no/mima barbarika/, but also develops further arguments against astral “climatic” determinism on the basis of the Jewish and Christian laws, enjoys the heritage of the Greek philosophical tradition and is one of the first examples of Patristic philosophy. I offered elsewhere, about ten years ago,116 a detailed comparative study of the lexicon of freedom and free will in both Eusebius’ Greek excerpts from Bardaiṣan’s work on Fate and the Syriac Liber. I argued that both in the Syriac and in the Greek the philosophical heritage is transparent, both from the Stoic and from the Platonic tradition, in addition to offering a detailed analysis of the similarities and differences—both striking—between the Greek and the Syriac. Bardaiṣan’s conception of fate in the Liber is as follows: fate can only dominate over the body and over the vital, inferior soul, and even in this case it cannot go against Nature, which for example establishes that a person must grow old and die, must eat, cannot reproduce before or after a certain age, and the like. Fate, which for Bardaiṣan is simply an expression of God’s will and depends on God, has no power at all over the upper soul, i.e. the rational and intellectual soul, which is the seat of human free will. Now, this theory of Bardaiṣan is very different from that of the Gnostics, especially the Valentinians, as preserved by Clement of Alexandria’s Excerpta ex Theodoto 2.68–78. The Valentinians thought that Fate, through the celestial bodies and their configura“Bardesane 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, eds. R. B. Finazzi – A. Valvo, Alessandria 2001, 237–255. 116

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tions in the horoscopes, had a complete dominance on the life of all human beings at all levels, body, soul, and intellect. The only exception was the category of the ‘pneumatics,’ who were thought to be predestined to escape the power of Fate and to be saved. This doctrine is very different from that of Bardaiṣan. Therefore, this seems to mark one big difference between Bardaiṣan and “Gnosticism;” I shall show that there are others. The defense of human free will is a theme that in Patristic philosophy, almost at the same time as Bardaiṣan, was undertaken by Clement—who repeatedly argued for human free will, often taking over Plato’s formula qeo\j a)nai/tioj from the myth of Er in Plato’s Republic—and Origen. They both shared with Bardaiṣan the polemic against predestinationism and determinism, especially against their Gnostic and Marcionite forms, in addition to sharing the doctrine of apokatastasis with him.117 For a detailed discussion of Clement’s, Justin’s, and the Stoics’ views concerning human free will and fate I refer to my book on the Liber Legum Regionum.118 What is relevant to the present investigation is that Justin’s, Clement’s, and Origen’s defenses of human free will find a close correspondence in Bardaiṣan’s contemporary theory, and at least Clement and Origen supported free will in polemic against Gnosticism, just as Bardaiṣan did. Origen develops his polemics in many passages and especially in Book 3 of his De Principiis, which is devoted to free will and the philosophical and theological problems connected to it, an issue that was hotly debated in the philosophy of his time.119 In the very 117

Essay.

See my Gregorio di Nissa: Sull’anima e la resurrezione, first Integrative

Ilaria Ramelli, Bardesane Katà Heimarménes, Bologna 2009. See Ilaria Ramelli, “La coerenza della soteriologia origeniana: dalla polemica contro il determinismo gnostico all'universale restaurazione escatologica,” in Pagani e cristiani alla ricerca della salvezza. Atti del XXXIV Incontro di Studiosi dell'Antichità Cristiana, Rome 5–7.V.2005, Rome 2006, SEA 96, 661–688, and G. Boys-Stones, “Middle Platonism on Fate and Human Autonomy,” in Greek and Roman Philosophy 100 BC–200 AD, eds. R. Sorabji and R. W. Sharples, London 2007, 431–447. Also: A. Le Boulluec, “La place de la polémique antignostique dans le Peri Archôn,” in Origeniana, Bari 1975, 47–61; A. Dihle, “Die Vorstellung philosophischer 118 119

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preface to Book One of De Principiis, 5, he argues against astral determinism that the Church maintains as a dogma that every rational creature is endowed with free will and is not subject to necessity. In several commentaries on Old Testament books (such as Hom. in Iud. 3.3; Hom. in Jesu Nave 7.4) and in Philocalia 23, largely based on his lost Commentary on Genesis, Origen carries on his critique. Against both Gnostic and astrological determinism, he insists that God is not responsible for the different conditions of the rational creatures (logikoi/), that the Godhead is no “respecter of persons” (Rom 9:14; Orig. Princ. 1.7.4), and that there is no unrighteousness with God: present sufferings must be explained either as pedagogical strategies applied by God, or as a result of one’s demerits in an existence previous to the present, or as a choice of some generous souls who are willing to suffer in this life in order to assist the process of salvation (Princ. 2.9.7).120 I have even demonstrated that Origen’s fundamental doctrine of apokatastasis arose precisely from this polemic.121 Clement, too, like Bardaiṣan in the Liber, insisted on the association of goodness and justice in God, against Gnostic and Marcionite positions. Soon after, Origen also developed this same polemic and argued that in God, who is one, goodness and justice are inseparable and even tend to coincide. According to both Bardaiṣan and Origen, the triumph of God’s justice and goodness Lehren vom Schicksals und Freiheit in der Frühchristlichen Theologie,” JAC 30 (1987) 14–28; H. Crouzel, “Theological Construction and Research: Origen on Freewill,” in Scripture, Tradition and Reason, ed. B. Drewery and R. Bauckham, Edinburgh 1988, 239–65; E. Norelli, “Marcione e gli gnostici sul libero arbitrio e la polemica di Origene,” in Il cuore indurito del Faraone, Origene e il problema del libero arbitrio, ed. L. Perrone; Genoa 1992, 1–30; J. Rius Camps, “Orígenes frente al desafío de los gnósticos,” in Origeniana V, Leuven 1992, 57–78; H. S. Benjamins, Eingeordnete Freiheit. Freiheit und Vorsehung bei Origenes, Leiden 1994. 120 See Clark, The Origenist Controversy, 195–96. 121 See my “La coerenza della soteriologia origeniana: dalla polemica contro il determinismo gnostico all'universale restaurazione escatologica,” in Pagani e cristiani alla ricerca della salvezza. Atti del XXXIV Incontro di Studiosi dell'Antichità Cristiana, Roma, Istituto Patristico Augustinianum, 5–7 maggio 2005, Rome 2006, Studia Ephemeridis Augustinianum 96, 661–688.

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alike will take place in the eschatological scenery, with the Judgment and the apokatastasis. Indeed, Bardaiṣan supported the doctrine of apokatastasis— that is, of the eventual restoration of all creatures in God and of universal salvation—as well as Origen did. I first argued this important point, which seems to have escaped scholars so far,122 in a recent study.123 Therefore, I shall treat this point only concisely here. Bardaiṣan both describes the apokatastasis at the end of the Liber and, as I shall show later, also alludes to it in a fragment preserved in the so-called cosmological traditions, which fully confirms the Liber. Let me now briefly consider his presentation of this doctrine in the Liber. Here, after refuting astrological determinism and arguing that God is both good and just and has endowed each rational creature with free will, Bardaiṣan expounds the doctrine of apokatastasis. It is notable that both he and Origen linked their defense of free will and their polemic against the separation of justice from goodness in God to the apokatastasis. Indeed, they both grounded the apokatastasis in the theory of free will. This is what Bardaiṣan says at the end of the Liber (Patrologia Syriaca 2.608–611), in my translation (italics mine): “Just as human free will is not governed by the necessity of the Seven [planets], and, if it is governed, it is able to stand against its governors, so this visible human being, too, is unable to easily get rid of its Principalities’ government, since he is a slave and a subject—for, if we could do all, we would be all; if we couldn’t decide anything, we would be the instruments of others. But whenever God likes, everything can be, with no obstacle at all. Indeed, there is nothing that can impede that 122 One of the very few who spent some words on the final eschatological section of the Liber is Ute Possekel, “Expectations of the End in Early Syriac Christianity,” Hugoye 11.1 (2008), §§ 1–26, who in § 12 speaks of “the eschatological aeon in the conclusion of the Book of the Laws of the Countries,” although without remarking that what is expressed here is the doctrine of apokatastasis (of course, the focus of her paper is not on this, but on the right observation that Bardaiṣan and other early Syriac works were far from an apocalyptic perspective: see below). 123 “Origen, Bardaiṣan, and the Origin of Universal Salvation,” Harvard Theological Review 102,2 (2009) 135–168.

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great and holy will. For, even those who are convinced to resist God, do not resist by their force, but they are in evil and error, and this can be only for a short time, because God is kind and gentle, and allows all natures to remain in the state in which they are, and to govern themselves by their own will, but at the same time they are conditioned by the things that are done and the plans that have been conceived [sc. by God]124 in order to help them. For this order and this government that have been given [sc. by God], and the association of one with another, damps the natures’ force, so that they cannot be either completely harmful or completely harmed, as they were harmful and harmed before the creation of the world. And there will come a time when even this capacity for harm that remains in them 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.” Bardaiṣan is saying here that God’s Providence leads all beings to salvation, as these are the plans conceived by God to help all creatures; that evil will totally disappear, since it is a state in which no being can remain forever; that the wicked will be purified and instructed, and will thus voluntarily give up any rebellion, and that there will be a glorious peace in the end. This is the apokatastasis. Bardaiṣan argues that each rational creature is free, but God’s Providence does not allow this freedom to bring the creature itself to perdition: till the end of time, the divinity allows all creatures to govern themselves by their free will, but in the end, according to its own plans conceived in order to help them, it will destroy all evil, since this is ontologically negative. This is why to remain in evil is tantamount to remaining in weakness and error, which cannot endure forever. For evil is not a force, but a weakness, a lack: specifically, a lack of Good, that is, God. The definition of evil is only negative, both for Bardaiṣan and for Origen. This shows very well all their distance from Manichaean (and partially Gnostic) dualism, in which evil is not 124 Bardaiṣan often uses theological passives, just as the Bible and Origen do.

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“non-being,” but is an active force, equal and opposite to the Good. But the assimilation of Bardaiṣan to the Manichaeans, which is found in several hostile sources, is ungrounded. In Bardaiṣan’s view, just as in Origen’s, evil cannot be equal and opposite to God as an active force, because it is ontologically insubstantial. This is also why it is doomed to utterly disappear in the apokatastasis.125 Therefore, according to Bardaiṣan, all creatures, once purified and liberated from evil, through rational persuasion and teaching, and not through violence, will adhere to the Good voluntarily. All the notions illustrated so far are shared by Bardaiṣan and Origen. And further parallels can still be discovered. For instance, the eventual apokatastasis is described by Bardaiṣan as complete peace, which corresponds to Origen’s notion of it, expressed, for instance, in his Commentary on John 10.39: “When peace will be perfect, after the years of the oikonomia,”126 and in his Homilies on Luke 36: God “has not yet established peace … there is still war due to the existence of evil, but there will definitely be an absolute peace.” Another point that is identical in both Bardaiṣan and Origen in this respect is the idea of apokatastasis as a free gift of God. In the above-quoted passage Bardaiṣan defines it as “a gift of the Lord of all natures,” that is, of all beings. Likewise, Origen, quoting St Paul, in his Commentary on the Letter to the Romans (Catenae) 22.11, said that “eternal life is a free gift of God; for it does not come from us, but it is God who offers us this present.”127 Another remarkable similarity between Bardaiṣan’s and Origen’s concept of the apokatastasis is that both of them thought that Providence does not force the rational creatures’ free will, but it acts in harmony with it and, nevertheless, it does not fail to achieve its objective, which is universal salvation. Origen states: “Provi125 For these two elements in Origen see my “Christian Soteriology and Christian Platonism. Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, and the Biblical and Philosophical Basis of the Doctrine of Apokatastasis,” VigChr 61.3 (2007) 313–356. 126 Greek: o3tan h( ei)rh/nh teleiwqh=| meta\ e1th th=j oi)konomi/aj. 127 Xa/risma tou= Qeou= zwh\ ai)wn / ioj: ou) ga\r e)c h(mw=n: Qeou= to\ dw=ron. Documentation in Ramelli, “Origen’s Exegesis of Jeremiah” for

Origen, and eadem, Bardesane Kata Heimarmenēs for Bardaiṣan.

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dence is applied (by God) to all, in accord with each one’s free will” (Contra Celsum 5.21), and Bardaiṣan describes divine Providence as follows: “things that are done and plans that have been conceived (by God) in order to help the creatures.” Both authors use a theological passive and express the very same idea: God’s Providence respects human free will, but at the same time it infallibly leads all rational creatures to salvation.128 Moreover, both Origen and Bardaiṣan maintained that evil, which has no ontological consistence, will eventually disappear. This is the main metaphysical pillar of the doctrine of apokatastasis, and, especially thanks to Origen’s influence, it will be adopted by all the supporters of this doctrine, especially Gregory of Nyssa and Evagrius.129 Even the language, in Bardaiṣan’s above-quoted passage, is exactly the same as in Origen: “movement” there indicates an act of will. The same is the case in Origen; I could adduce many examples, such as De Principiis 3.3.5: “Free will is always moved to good or evil by the soul’s movements; our rational faculty, that is, our mind or soul, never can be without any movement, either good or evil. These movements constitute the rationale for desert.”130 Finally, both Origen and Bardaiṣan made the apokatastasis depend upon Christ. Bardaiṣan, who considered Jesus Christ to be generated by God and by the Virgin—I shall show this when I analyze Ephrem’s and Philoxenus of Mabbug’s testimonies—thought that not only did Christ-Logos intervene in the creation (as attested by Moses Bar Kepha), but he also plays a core role in redemption and salvation, and that his cross had a universal salvific effect. Indeed, in a fragment from his De India, which I shall examine soon, a statue located in a place where all sins are tested represents the whole universe with all its inhabitants, including the angels, in For this notion in Origen see Ramelli, “La coerenza.” Documentation in Ramelli, Apocatastasi and, for Gregory of Nyssa, eadem, Gregorio di Nissa, integrative essay II. 130 “Motibus suis [sc. animae] … libertas arbitrii vel ad bona semper vel ad mala movetur, nec umquam rationabilis sensus, is est mens vel anima, sine motu aliquo esse vel bono vel malo potest, quos motus causas praestare meritorum.” 128 129

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the shape of a human being, standing with its arms outstretched in the symbol of the Cross. This cross represents Christ’s crucifixion in its cosmic value,131 and is also related to Christ-Logos through the Logos’ activity in creation, given that, with a reminiscence of Plato’s Timaeus, it was given by the Father to the Son as a model for the creation of this world. Christ-Logos plays an essential role both in creation and in soteriology, which, in Bardaiṣan as well as in Origen, culminates in the apokatastasis. In both these authors, the apokatastasis, far from being a pagan doctrine, as Origen’s adversaries depicted it, is firmly grounded in Christology.132 It is significant, to my mind, that Eusebius’ excerpt from Bardaiṣan, which is very close to the text of the Liber, ceases exactly at the point in which Bardaiṣan in the Liber begins his exposition of the apokatastasis. Eusebius clearly had before his eyes a complete text, probably in Greek, but he chose to cut his excerpt precisely here, evidently in order to exclude the exposition of this doctrine of apokatastasis, which he knew very well from Origen. This move of Eusebius seems to me to have been dictated by circumspection, and indeed it perfectly corresponds to his tendency to avoid the discussion of eschatological issues. This tendency is very well explained by the fact that Eusebius himself probably adhered to this doctrine,133 but for opportunity he preferred to leave aside this topic whenever possible. A remarkable point concerns the expression “different arrangement of things” with which Bardaiṣan describes the apokatastasis in the final passage of the Liber which I have reported. Possekel134 very interestingly observes that the Syriac )GzwM indicates both a “mixture” (a “combination,” an “arrangement,” On the cosmic Christ and cross: Werner Thiede, Wer ist der kosmische Christus?, Göttingen 2001; Ramelli, Gregorio di Nissa Sull’Anima, 783– 86. 132 For the Christological foundation of the apokatastasis in Origen see my Gregorio di Nissa, first Integrative Essay. 133 I have demonstrated this in “In Illud: Tunc et Ipse Filius… (1Cor 15,27–28): Gregory of Nyssa’s Exegesis, Some Derivations from Origen, and Early Patristic Interpretations Related to Origen’s,” in 2007 Oxford Patristic Conference, forthcoming in Studia Patristica. 134 “Expectations of the End,” n. 34. 131

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indeed) and a planetary conjunction, and argues that Bardaiṣan plays on both of these meanings, announcing that she will show this in detail in her forthcoming monograph, which unfortunately has not yet appeared while I am writing. Now, this point seems to me all the more remarkable in that a convinced Origenian, Evagrius, who was one of the strongest supporters of the doctrine of apokatastasis,135 has the very same conceptual play in reference to the apokatastasis. In his Kefa/laia Gnwstika/, in the Syriac version which Guillaumont considered to be non expurgated (S2, as opposed to S1), 3.60, Evagrius states: “The morning star is the symbol of the saints, whereas the evening star is the symbol of those who are in Sheol. But the restoration of the orbit of all is the holy Trinity.”136 I think that in the Greek original, now lost, the very term a)pokata/stasij, “return,” “restoration,” must have been employed by Evagrius in this passage. This is evident from the allegorical reference to the return of the stars to their original position, which was precisely called a)pokata/stasij. For this was precisely an astronomical terminus technicus, which here is applied to the restoration of all, both the saints and those who will be in Sheol. Also, the Syriac term for “sign” most probably reflects—with another astronomical wordplay—the Greek shmei=on, which was often used in reference to stars, heavenly bodies, and constellations: thus, the “sign of the East” and the “sign of the West” are the morning and the evening star, at the same time representing the saints and the prisoners in Sheol respectively. The French translation by Guillaumont,137 the English versions based on the French, by L. Dysinger,138 and by Fr. Theophanes,139 and the modern retroversion

See the chapter that I devoted to him in my Apocatastasi. Translation from the Syriac mine. 137 Les six centuries des Kephalaia Gnostica d’Evagre le Pontique, édition critique par Antoine Guillaumont, Paris 1958, Patrologia Orientalis 28.1, 123: “le signe de l’orient est le symbole des saints, le signe de l’occident les âmes qui sont dans le Schéol, mais l’accomplissement du retour de la course de tout est la Trinité sainte.” 138 “The ‘sign of the East’ is the symbol of the saints, and the ‘sign of the West’ of the souls which are in Sheol. But the achievement of the return from ‘the race’ by all is the Blessed Trinity.” 135 136

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into Greek,140 all miss this fundamental reference to the astrological lexicon, and thus also the reference to the apokatastasis, which is apparent here. The reference is first of all to the astronomical sense, but it immediately acquires also the eschatological meaning. The “course,” which I translate as “orbit” and in Greek must have been dro/moj, is usually understood as a reference to 2 Tim 4:7, but it is the course of the stars; the distance between the morning and the evening stars, East and West, is overcome by the return of all stars to their original position, in the apokatastasis, which brings all to their original state, in conformity with God’s original plan. The apokatastasis was expressly related to the Trinity already by Origen, as the perfect unity of all in the unity of God, after the reign of Christ and the handing over of all by him to the Father, when God will be “all in all” (1 Cor 15:28). It is also interesting to notice that both Bardaiṣan and Origen inserted their doctrine of apokatastasis in the framework of the socalled ethical intellectualism. Bardaiṣan, although he was a strenuous asserter of human free will, does not seem to have been influenced by the introduction of voluntarism into ethics. This seems to be due to Roman Stoicism, and in particular to Seneca, although it is a debated question among scholars. First of all, Bardaiṣan conceives human free will as a gift of God to the human being, again in agreement with Origen. Even if ethical intellectualism was eventually embraced by Christianity, Patristic philosophers, who mostly were Platonists, often adhered to ethical intellectualism. So did Clement (at least partially), Bardaiṣan, Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, and others. In general, those Fathers who supported the apokatastasis also embraced ethical intellectualism. This view, according to Socrates’ and Plato’s teaching, had will depend on knowl“The sign of the east is the symbol of the saints, and the sign of the west, the souls which are in Sheol. But the accomplishment of the return of the ‘course’ of all is the Holy Trinity.” The translation is provided by Fr. Theophanes (Constantine) in an appendix of his book, The Evagrian Ascetical System, Mount Athos 2006. It is, admittedly, a translation from Guillaumont’s French, not from the Syriac. 139

140 Su/mbolon th=j h(me/raj a)natolh=j e)sti to\ tw=n a(gi/wn su/mbolon, tw=n de\ dusmw=n ai( e)n a3|dou yuxai/: telei/wsij de\ tou= tou= panto\j dro/mou e)stin h( a(gi/a Tria/j. It was not telei/wsij, but a)pokata/stasij.

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edge, and, thus, on the intellect. Indeed, in Bardaiṣan’s thought will is always closely connected to the intellect and depends on it. Indeed, very significantly, it is not will proper, but the intellect, which Bardaiṣan in the Liber defines as “free.” God gave us, he says, “an intellect child of freedom,” that is, free, or, as we would say, endowed with free will.141 Free will, according to Bardaiṣan, is not a faculty that is different from, and independent on, the intellect, so to be also able to contrast it. The seat of human free will is the intellect itself, and its exercise depends on intellection. This is why Bardaiṣan states that whoever opposes God and chooses evil “stays in evil and error.” He thereby assimilates error to evil, like the ‘orthodox’ Stoics, who, following Socrates (as well as Plato did), considered the choice of evil to depend upon a wrong judgment. Evil is chosen because of an error, out of ignorance, for a lack of knowledge. This is why Bardaiṣan, just like Origen, thought that the apokatastasis will be made possible by instruction, as is clear in the above-quoted passage. This instruction will take place in the other world, surely thanks to Christ-Logos, and this will pave the way for the destruction of evil up to its very roots. This is because for Bardaiṣan, too, the choice of the Good descends from a limpid, non obfuscated intellect. Evil—which has no ontological consistency, but only exists in that a will, wrongly directed by an obfuscated intellect, chooses it—will eventually disappear, because nobody will choose it any more. For all intellects will have been purified then, and no one will make wrong choices any longer. Much of all this rests upon ethical intellectualism. When all have achieved a limpid knowledge of the Truth, which is God, having learned in the 141 This is the relevant passage in the Liber; Bardaiṣan is speaking: God’s commandments “are easy for those who want to follow them: for they offer a good directive for an intellect that is a child of freedom … The Good is proper to the human being, and this is why a person rejoices in doing a good deed. Evil, on the contrary, is a work of the enemy, and this is why, when a human being is troubled and is not healthy in his or her nature, he or she commits those evil deeds. For you must know this, my child: it is easy to praise and bless one’s friends, but it is difficult not to blame and insult hated people. Nevertheless, it is not impossible. And whenever one does something good, his or her intellect is happy and his or her conscience is tranquil.”

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other world, if necessary, what they had not learned in this, all will certainly choose the Good, that is, God, voluntarily, and will freely and happily adhere to it in a)ga/ph. This will also coincide with the eventual eviction of evil. In this connection, it is finally worth remarking that a further similarity between Origen’s and Bardaiṣan’s thought obtains on the eschatological plane: they both were far from apocalypticism. That apocalypticism was extraneous to Bardaiṣan has been rightly observed by Possekel, who has also convincingly explained, to my mind, the reason why it was so.142 Images of a final cosmic battle might suggest a dualistic spirit, which Bardaiṣan strove to avoid because of his anti-Marcionism and his opposition to the notion of two Gods, one good and one evil. Moreover, whereas apocalyptic literature often arose in communities who felt marginalized by the social or religious majority, Bardaiṣan belonged to the court of Edessa. So, his social setting itself facilitated his distance from apocalypticism. What strikes me at this point is that, once again, Bardaiṣan’s aversion to apocalypticism was shared by Origen, who also was strongly anti-Marcionite and anti-Gnostic, and far from millenarianism and apocalypticism as well. His very interpretation of the Apocalypse of John, of course entirely allegorical, demonstrates this.143 U. Possekel, “Expectations of the End,” esp. §§ 14–15. See argument in my “Origen’s Interpretation of Violence in the Apocalypse: Destruction of Evil and Purification of Sinners,” forthcoming in the Proceedings of the Symposium on Violence in the Apocalypse of John, held at Leuven Catholic University, 7–8 September 2009. Although many Origenian and anti-millenarian authors and traditions had difficulties in accepting the canonicity of the Apocalypse of John for a long time, Origen himself commented on it and did not find it at odds with his own eschatological views, provided that it was interpreted allegorically. Dionysius of Alexandria, a disciple of Origen’s, after stating that some ascribed this book to Cerinthus, did not reject it altogether, but ascribed it to another John, different from the author of the Gospel and Letters, and, lamenting its obscurity and solecisms, claimed that Revelation must be interpreted allegorically (ap. Eus. HE 7.24.3–25.26), just as Origen had done. Another author who was influenced by Origen, Methodius, interpreted the Apocalypse allegorically, like Origen himself. Eusebius, an admirer of Origen as well, hesitantly lists this book among the spurious writ142 143

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5 Porphyry and the Utmost Importance of His Fragments from Bardaiṣan: The Cosmic Christ, Middle-Platonism, and a Christian Reading of the

Timaeus

5.1 The Fragments from Bardaiṣan’s De India in Porphyry’s De Styge The Neoplatonist Porphyry of Tyre (223–305) is, in my view, one of the most important and reliable sources on Bardaiṣan, in that he preserves two certainly authentic fragments, which is something extremely rare among all pieces of evidence available concerning Bardaiṣan. Moreover, these fragments are crucial to the reconstruction of Bardaiṣan’s ethical, cosmological, Christological, and metaphysical conceptions, and I shall systematically use them both by themselves and in a constant comparison with the other sources. ings of the New Testament. Eusebius had an aversion to millenarianism: this is also why he considered Papias, the initiator of such a literal interpretation of the Apocalypse, to have been a man of “extremely small intelligence” (HE 3.39). Another who appreciated Origen’s thought, Cyril of Jerusalem, did not deem this book canonical (Catech. 4.36). In fact, its canonicity was considered doubtful for many centuries, especially (although not only) in areas where Origen’s influence was strong, such as Cappadocia or Syria, in my opinion not so much for a supposed difficulty, which Origen did not have, in squaring its contents with the doctrine of apokatastasis, as for the millenarian speculations it had brought about due to an excessively literal exegesis. The Cappadocians did not regard the Apocalypse as canonical: Gregory of Nyssa puts it among “the apocryphal writings,” Gregory of Nazianzus does not include it in his canon (Carm. Dogm. 12; PG 37.474), and Amphilochius of Iconium in his NT canon at the end of his Iambs to Seleucus declares that the Apocalypse of John is accepted by some, but rejected by most people. But also in the Antiochene school, John Chrysostom, in his extensive writings, never cites this book; similarly, Theodoret in his biblical list (PG 84.1276) does not include it, and he never cites it in his own works, apart from an allusion deriving from Athanasius. It is significant that the first known and extant Greek commentary on Revelation was written only in the sixth century, by Oecumenius, who cites the Cappadocians and Eusebius as auctoritates, is influenced by Origen, and defends the authenticity of Revelation, which he reads allegorically and mystically, against all its chiliastic interpretations.

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While still young, either in Tyre or in Caesarea, Porphyry knew Origen, who attended Ammonius Saccas’ school in Alexandria just as Plotinus, Porphyry’s teacher, did; I even deem it probable that the Platonist Origen mentioned by Porphyry and other later Neoplatonists was the same as the Christian Origen.144 Just as he offers interesting information concerning Origen’s philosophical education, Porphyry also provides valuable information concerning Bardaiṣan. He calls him “a Babylonian man,” a)nh\r Babulw/nioj, perhaps in reference to his competence in astronomy and astrology, or simply because Bardaiṣan came from Mesopotamia. The latter seems to be more likely, all the more in that in the first of the two fragments preserved in his De Styge—which I shall closely analyze in a short while—Porphyry describes Bardaiṣan as “coming from Mesopotamia” (o( e)k th=j Mesopotami/aj). What is more, he preserves two authentic fragments from a work by Bardaiṣan himself, not from a work or the thought of his disciples, and moreover he quotes these fragments verbatim. The extraordinary value of these two pieces is easy to see, in that there exist only extremely few texts—indeed, almost none—that are ascribable to Bardaiṣan himself with certainty. These two fragments, which are thus among the most reliable sources extant on our philosopher, are particularly important also for their usefulness in a systematic comparison with the other testimonia, which I shall constantly draw, and for the methodological guidelines that they provide and that I shall follow, regarding the momentousness of Plato’s Timaeus for Bardaiṣan’s cosmological conception. Drawing such comparisons and following these methodological guidelines will bring interesting results and insights in the present research. Porphyry’s interest in Origen parallels his interest in Bardaiṣan, both of which are well understandable: Bardaiṣan too, like Origen, proves deeply interested in Platonism (and Stoicism), especially in Middle-Platonism, which in turn shows deep Stoic Full-scale argument in my “Origen, Patristic Philosophy, and Christian Platonism: Re-Thinking the Christianization of Hellenism,” VigChr 63,2 (2009) 1–43. Christoph Markschies, Origenes und sein Erbe, Berlin–New York 2007, 3, also deems it probable that these two were the same person. 144

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influences. Moreover, the second fragment preserved by Porphyry indicates a Christian reinterpretation of Plato’s Timaeus.145 A chronological remark is also noteworthy: Porphyry wrote his De Styge, in which the two fragments are preserved, only a very few decades after the composition of his direct source, i.e., Bardaiṣan’s De India, which took place under Elagabalus (218–222), shortly before A.D. 222 or in that very year. The chronological gap between Bardaiṣan’s own work and Porphyry’s excerpts is inferior to that of any other source preserving fragments from Bardaiṣan, including Ephrem himself. Furthermore, Porphyrhy’s fragments come from a work of Bardaiṣan’s maturity, belonging to the very last years of his earthly life. In his De Styge,146 Porphyry testifies that Bardaiṣan received first-hand information on India from Indian ambassadors in the days of “the Antoninus from Emesa,” that is, Elagabalus. Drawing on this information, he composed his work On India, clearly between A.D. 218 and 222, and Porphyry is citing from it: “Some Indians who, during the reign of the Antoninus of Emesa, in Syria, came to discuss with Bardaiṣan, who was from Mesopotamia, told—as Bardaiṣan himself wrote—that there is a lake which is still now called ‘place of proof’ among the Indians. If an Indian is accused of any guilt and denies, he is led to this place. And some Brahmans test him as follows:…147 If one is guilty, after a few paces he is submerged up to his head. The Brahmans, then, pull him out of the water and hand him alive to those who had brought him there, asking them to instruct him without condemning him to death.”148 145 Porphyry is likely to have known Syriac. However, it is unnecessary to suppose that he read Bardaiṣan’s work in Syriac, in that Bardaiṣan may have written it in Greek, a language he knew very well (as Epiphanius attests), or else, if he composed it in Syriac, his disciples shortly afterwards translated it into Greek, like many other works of his (as Eusebius attests). 146 Stob. Anth. [Ecl. Phys.] 1.3.56; 1.66.24–70.13 Wachsmuth = Porph. fr. 376 Smith = 7 Castelletti. 147 The ordeal is described, which consists in a descent into the lake: the innocent can cross it easily, whereas the guilty are submerged. 148 )Indoi\ oi( e)pi\ th=j basilei/aj th=j )Antwni/nou tou= e)c )Emi/swn e)n th=| Suri/a| Bardisa/nh| tw=| e)k th=j Mesopotami/aj ei)j lo/gouj a)fiko/menoi

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Bardaiṣan highlights the Brahmans’ pedagogical attitude: they prefer instruction to punishment and especially abhor capital punishment. This position is underscored by Bardaiṣan both in this and in the second fragment, as this trait is particularly dear to him. For, indeed, this is also a conviction that is typical of his own ethics, just as it is typical of Origen’s ethics, and it certainly goes back to Plato’s preference for rational persuasion (peiqw/) and, if necessary, educative punishment rather than coercion and violence (a)na/gkh, bi/a).149 Notably, in the section devoted to the Brahmans in the Liber Legum Regionum, Bardaiṣan likewise remarks first of all that they have given themselves a law that forbids killing anyone and eating any animal, and he praises them for this rejection of violence.150 Furthermore, in the final section of the book, in which he depicts the eventual apokatastasis,151 Bardaiṣan affirms that this will be prepared by “the instruction that will take place in the other world,” thanks to which “the fools will be persuaded,” not forced into submission or destroyed. Another fragment from the same work On India by Bardaiṣan is reported by Porphyry soon after. It revolves around a second e)chgh/santoj, w(j o( Bardisa/nhj a)ne/grayen, ei]nai/ tina li/mnhn e1ti kai\ nu=n par’ )Indoi=j dokimasthri/on legome/nhn, ei)j h3n, a1n tij tw=n )Indw=n ai)ti/an e1xwn tino\j a(marti/aj a)rnh=tai, ei)sa/getai. Tw=n de\ Braxma/nwn tine\j dokima/zousi au)to\n tou=ton to\n tro/pon ... a(martw\n de\ o)li/gon proba\j bapti/zetai me/xri kefalh=j. Oi( de\ Braxma=nej a)naspw=ntej au)to\n e)k tou= u(/datoj paradido/asi toi=j e)na/gousi zw=nta kai\ a)ciou=si paideuqh=nai xwri\j qanatikh=j katadi/khj.

See my Il basileus come nomos empsychos. Col. 584 Nau, under the title (subsequently added by a second hand) Law of the Brahmans who are in India: “Again, among the Indians, the Brahmans, who are many thousands and myriads, have as a law that of not killing any being, absolutely, nor worshipping idols, nor committing adultery, nor eating meat, nor drinking wine: and nothing of all this happens among them. And these people have been governing themselves with this law, which they created for themselves, for thousands of years.” See edition, translation, and commentary in my Bardesane Kata Heimarmenēs. That Bardaiṣan highly approves of the laws or customs of the Brahmans is clearly indicated by his following comment: “And malefic stars have not compelled the Brahmans to do evil and abominable things.” 151 See above, the chapter on the Liber. 149 150

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kind of ordeal, and it is even more important for the most valuable information it offers concerning Bardaiṣan’s thought, especially in the field of cosmology and Christology. Moreover, it is here that Porphyry expressly declares that he has quoted Bardaiṣan verbatim: “Bardaiṣan says that this rarely happens, as nobody dares to deny his own sin, because of the refutation provided by the water ordeal. Therefore, the Indians have this water as a test of voluntary sins. Of involuntary and voluntary sins together, and of the rectitude of one’s whole life, there is another test, on which Bardaiṣan writes what follows. For I am quoting his words literally: ‘[The Indians who met Bardaiṣan] also told that there is a large natural cave in a very high mountain, approximately in the middle of the earth. In that cave there is a statue, standing; they say that its height is about ten or twelve cubits. It has its arms spread out, in the symbol of the cross.’”152 The detail of the arms spread in the symbol of the cross is notable. Indeed, tu/poj bears the meaning of both “symbol” and “mystery”153 and, as I shall show, Bardaiṣan used this very same expression, “the mystery / symbol of the cross,” in his cosmology, as is attested by Syriac sources which I shall analyze. The joint attestation of this expression, “the symbol / mystery of the cross,” both in the Syriac cosmological tradition and in the Greek fragment preserved by Porphyry seems to me to guarantee the authenticity of this very phrase and its attribution to Bardaiṣan himself. This element of the cross is very likely to be due to Bardaiṣan himself as a Christian, rather than to the Indian ambassadors. For Gi/gnesqai de\ tou=to spani/wj tw=| mhde/na tolma=n a)rnei=sqai to\ a(ma/rthma dia\ to\n e)k tou= u3datoj gigno/menon e1legxon. (Ekousi/wn toi/nun a(marthma/twn dokimasth/rion )Indou\j tou=t )e1xein to\ u3dwr: a)kousi/wn de\ o(mou= kai\ e(kousi/wn kai\ o3lwj o)rqou= bi//ou e3teron ei]nai, peri\ ou[ o( Bardisa/nhj ta/de gra/fei: qh/sw ga\r ta\ e)kei/nou kata\ le/cin: e1legon de\ kai\ sph/laion ei]nai au)to/maton, me/ga, e)n o1rei u(yhlota/tw| sxedo\n kata\ me/son th=j gh=j, e)n w[| sphlai/w| e)sti\n a)ndria/j, o4n ei)ka/zousi phxw=n de/ka h2 dw/deka, e(stw\j o)rqo/j, e1xwn ta\j xei=raj h(plwme/naj e)n tu/pw| staurou=.

See, for instance, my “Mystérion negli Stromateis di Clemente Alessandrino: aspetti di continuità con la tradizione allegorica greca,” in Il volto del mistero. Mistero e religione nella cultura religiosa tardoantica, ed. A. M. Mazzanti, Castel Bolognese 2006, 83–120. 153

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he saw in this statue Christ-Logos as the cosmic Christ crucified and reconciling the whole cosmos, since this statue, as he adds immediately after, represents the universe in its totality, with all that exists in it. It is no accident that a series of valuable testimonies concerning Bardaiṣan’s doctrine of creation attest that, according to him, Christ-Logos was the agent of creation and used precisely the cross in it, in the disposition of the elements and the ordination of the world “according to the Mystery of the Cross” (as is testified by the so-called first cosmological tradition, on which see below). This seems to me to be an important, and so far overlooked, convergence: Bardaiṣan’s fragment on the cosmic Christ in the symbol of the cross perfectly confirms this Christian aspect in Bardaiṣan’s cosmology, in which Christ-Logos is presented as the agent of the creation, exactly as in the Prologue of the Gospel of John, and there he operates already with the Mystery of the Cross. Moreover, a trace of this very same conception of Bardaiṣan’s, namely that of the cosmic Christ in the form of the cross, seems to me to be present in the Liber Legum Regionum, where Bardaiṣan begins to speak of the “laws of the countries” and states that he will “begin with the East, which is the head of the whole world.” This statement, and the East-to-West order in which Bardaiṣan proceeds during his exposition,154 represents the world as a huge body: its head is oriented eastward, its feet westward, and its arms, spread for the sake of symmetry, respectively northward and southward. This, of course, might simply be an anthropomorphic metaphor applied to a geographic context, but in the very light of the striking parallels found in the fragment from De India and in the cosmological traditions I suspect that it is much more than a metaphor or a catachresis, all the more so in that the analysis of the whole second fragment from De India, of a testimony of Ephrem on Bardaiṣan, and of the cosmological traditions themselves will lead me to trace a close correspondence between the cosmic Adam and the cosmic Christ, the human being and the world, and micro- and See my “La concezione dell’Europa nell’Antico Testamento: alcune note,” in Studi sull’Europa Antica, I, ed. M. Sordi, Alessandria 2000, 9–32; eadem, “L’Europa e i Cristiani,” in Studi sull’Europa antica, ed. M. Sordi, II, Alessandria 2001, 263–283. 154

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macrocosmos in Bardaiṣan’s thought. In this perspective, the body that Christ-Logos took up is both the human body and the world. The occurrence of this conception of the cosmic Christ in the Liber, in one fragment from Bardaiṣan’s De India, and in the cosmological traditions seems to me to confirm that this is an authentic doctrine of Bardaiṣan, and it appears to be a Christian doctrine. Furthermore, it is certain, I think, that the element of the cross in this fragment from De India is authentic, for the following reason. As is well known, Porphyry was deeply hostile to Christianity and even wrote an extremely influential work against it,155 and in a famous fragment on Origen preserved by Eusebius he praises this Christian philosopher for his learning and intellectual insight, but deplores his adhesion to Christianity.156 Now, if Porphyry has left the reference to the cross in the fragment he quotes from Bardaiṣan, there can be no doubt that this reference was indeed found in Bardaiṣan’s De India, as Porphyry would never have added it himself. For both the continuation of the De India fragment and the cosmological traditions confirm that the cross of which Bardaiṣan is speaking here is surely the Cross of Christ, here understood in its cosmological value (creation of the cosmos and cosmic reconciliation). This cosmological value of Christ’s Cross was already present in Justin,157 shortly before Bardaiṣan, and after him in an author who probably knew his work, as I shall demonstrate in a while, and surely knew Origen very well: Gregory of Nyssa. He was concerned with explaining the reason why Jesus died precisely on a cross rather than in some other way. In Contra Eunomium GNO 155 See e.g. I. Ramelli, “Il senatoconsulto del 35 contro i Cristiani in un frammento porfiriano,” with preface by M. Sordi, Aevum 78 (2004) 59– 67. 156 See my “Origen and the Stoic Allegorical Tradition: Continuity and Innovation,” Invigilata Lucernis 28 (2006) 195–226; idem, “Origen, Patristic Philosophy, and Christian Platonism: Re-Thinking the Christianization of Hellenism,” VigChr 63.3 (2009) 217–263. 157 See my “San Giustino Martire: il multiforme uso di musth/rion e il lessico dell’esegesi tipologica delle Scritture,” in Il volto del mistero. Mistero e religione nella cultura religiosa tardoantica, ed. A. M. Mazzanti, Castel Bolognese 2006, 35–66.

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2.120.25–29 he is refuting Eunomius, according to whom the cross was a sign of weakness. Gregory is inspired by Paul, who proclaimed that the Cross of Christ is rather God’s du/namij and glory (1Cor 1:18; Gal 6:14), and he draws his argument from Eph 3:18: thus, he observes that the four dimensions of the Cross, indicated by its four arms, make it clear that “all heavenly and infernal realities and all the extremes of all that exists are governed and kept together by the One who in the symbol of the cross manifested this great and ineffable power” (GNO 2.121–122). Similarly, in De tridui spatio, Gregory returns to the cosmic symbolism of Christ’s Cross, from which he deduces the universality of its salvific effect, a concept on which Origen had insisted.158 Gregory asks again the question why Christ’s sacrifice took place precisely through the cross (GNO 9.1.298–299) and he answers again that Paul “saw that this figure / symbol of the cross, divided into four arms spreading out from the central intersection, means the power and the providence, which pervades everything, of the One who appeared upon it. This is why Paul describes each branch with a specific name: he calls “depth” the one located under the center of the cross, “height” the one located upon it, “width” and “length” those which spread out on the one side and the other, starting from the intersection. It seems to me that with these words the discourse makes it clear that there exists absolutely no being who is not under the supervision of the divine nature, above the heavens, under the earth, and up to the extreme horizons of all that exists” (ibid. 300–301). This is why Gregory in Oratio catechetica 32 can say that Christ, while spreading his arms on the cross, embraced and unified all, attracting all to himself (with a reminiscence of John 12:32): Christ’s Cross is therefore the a)nakefalai/wsij of the whole cosmos.

158 See my “The Universal and Eternal Validity of Jesus’s HighPriestly Sacrifice. The Epistle to the Hebrews in Support of Origen’s Theory of Apokatastasis,” in A Cloud of Witnesses: The Theology of Hebrews in Its Ancient Contexts, eds R. J. Bauckham, D. R. Driver, T. A. Hart, and N. MacDonald; London 2008, Library of New Testament Studies 387, 210– 221.

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Thus, it is clear that both for Gregory, a follower of Origen, and for Bardaiṣan, Christ’s Cross represents a mystery of cosmic unity, the unity of the whole world and of the world with God. This value is diametrically opposed to that of the Cross in Gnosticism. Indeed, in Valentinian Gnosticism, as is attested in Clement of Alexandria, Excerpta ex Theodoto, 2.42,159 the Cross was interpreted as a symbol, not of union, but of separation, between this and the divine world: “The Cross on the Mountain of the Pleroma is a sign: for it separates the unbelievers from the believers just as that one separates the world from the divine Pleroma.”160 In this radical interpretive difference, Bardaiṣan sides with Gregory’s, not with the Gnostics’ hermeneutics. This is all the more meaningful in the light of the accusations of Gnosticism repeatedly leveled against Bardaiṣan by heresiologists, none of whom substantiates his claim with precise doctrinal contents. The continuation of Porphyry’s fragment from Bardaiṣan’s De India describes the statue of the cosmic Crucified as androgynous and representing the whole cosmos carved on it: sun, moon, angels, and all creatures, those which Bardaiṣan called the “beings” or “entities,” including in his view those which preexisted the present world: on the statue, all the beings are represented (“all natures,” to use Bardaiṣan’s expression in the closing sentence of the Liber Legum Regionum): “The right part of its face is masculine, the left feminine. Likewise, the right arm, too, and the right foot, and the whole right side are masculine, whereas the left are feminine. Therefore, at this sight one was struck by this mixture, and wondered how it was possible to see such a difference of the two vertical halves in one and the same body in an indivisible way. They say that on this statue the sun is carved on the right breast, all around, and the moon on the left one, and along the two arms *** a great deal of angels are artistically carved and all the realities that are 159 On Clement as a source on Valentinian exegesis in these Excerpta see J. L. Kovacs, “Clement of Alexandria and Valentinian Exegesis in the Excerpts from Theodotus,” in Studia Patristica XLI, eds. F. Young, M. Edwards, P. Parvis, Leuven 2006, 187–200. 160 9O Stauro_j tou~ e0n Plhrw&mati 3Orou shmei=o&n e0stin: xwri/zei ga_r tou_j a)pi/stouj tw~n pistw~n w(j e0kei=noj to_n ko&smon tou~ Plhrw&matoj.

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found in the cosmos, that is, the sky, the mountains, the sea, the rivers, the ocean, the plants, and in sum all that exists.”161 Therefore, the statue in its androgyny represents the totality of the microcosmos, and in the representation of the cosmos that covers all of its surface it symbolizes the totality of the macrocosmos. Thus, it is the image of the whole humanity and the whole world, and this because, for the Christian Bardaiṣan, it is Christ, the cosmic Christ. Notably, in India both cosmological statues and “vertical” androgynous statues with a feminine left side and a masculine right side, like the one described here by Bardaiṣan, have been indeed found, but in two different and separate typologies. For, the cosmological statues found are not androgynous, and the androgynous have no representations of the cosmos carved on them. The androgynous type represents Ardhanārīśvara, an avatar of Śiva’s, with his Śakti Pārvatī, subsuming all that exists;162 the cosmological kind, instead, represents Buddha Vairocana. What is more, none of the statues found so far, either of the androgynous or of the cosmological kind, has the position of a crucified person. It seems that it was Bardaiṣan who operated a synthesis of the cosmic and the androgynous statues, and, above all, who added the element of the cross, plus further details which I shall analyze, such as the aliveness of this statue and the impossibility of determining its material. All of these details will prove quite telling. The close connection between micro- and macrocosmos probably reveals an influence from Plato’s Timaeus, all the more so 161

Kai\ to\ me\n decio\n th=j o1yewj au)tou= e)stin a)ndriko/n, to\ d’eu)w/numon qhluko/n. (Omoi/wj de\ kai\ o( braxi/wn o( decio\j kai\ o( decio\j pou=j kai\ o3lon to\ me/roj a)rseniko\n kai\ to\ eu)w/numon qhluko/n, w(j i)do/nta tina\ e)kplagh=nai th\n su/gkrasin, pw=j a)diaire/twj e1stin i)dei=n th\n a)nomoio/thta th\nde tw=n du/o pleurw=n e)n e(ni\ sw/mati. )En tou/tw| tw=| a)ndria/nti le/gousi geglu/fqai peri\ to\n mazo\n to\n decio\n h3lion kai\ peri\ to\n a)ristero\n selh/nhn kai\ kata\ tw=n du/o braxio/nwn *** te/xnh| geglu/fqai a)gge/lwn a)riqmo\n kai\ o3sa e)sti\n e)n tw=| ko/smw|, toute/stin ou)rano\n kai\ o1rh kai\ qa/lassan kai\ potamou\j kai\ w)keano\n kai\ futa\ kai\ a(plw=j o3sa e1sti. 162 See Porfirio, Sullo Stige, ed. C. Castelletti, pref. T. Dorandi, Milan 2006, also with photographs of these statues, and my review in Aevum 82 (2008) 248–253.

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in that it is the very fragment from De India that I am examining to indicate that this dialogue of Plato worked as a major source of inspiration for Bardaiṣan. Indeed, in Plato’s dialogue a very close relationship is drawn between the cosmic soul (h( yuxh\ tou== ko/smou) and the human immortal soul, as both of them are created by the Demiurge, called qeo/j by Plato, with the same elements and criteria and the same mixture: the first mixture, with which the human intellectual soul is created, is identical to that with which the cosmic soul is created; the second mixture is also described as identical, but less pure. Porphyry too, who reports Bardaiṣan’s fragment, was especially interested in this issue, just as his teacher Plotinus was, who applied this relationship between micro- and macrocosmos to the intellect: in each human being the intellect is in direct correspondence with the universal Intellect, which is the second of Plotinus’ hypostases and is produced by the One, the first hypostasis; moreover, its activity is analogous to the human intellectual activity.163 Indeed, in the continuation of the fragment that I am analyzing, the human-cosmic statue is topped by a divine figure, which is the symbol of the intellect / spirit, the divine part in each human being, whose function is the same as that of God’s Logos in relation to the world: it governs it and reigns over it. Indeed, immediately afterward, Bardaiṣan adds a detail from which it is evident that he interpreted this statue in the light of Plato’s Timaeus: “They say that it was God to give this statue to his Son, when he was founding the cosmos, that he might have a model to contemplate.”164 Thus, this statue represents the whole cosmos, it is its paradigm and model, and it is in the shape of a cross, to show that the cosmos was created under the sign of the Cross—which is a symbol and a mystery for Bardaiṣan—through Christ-Logos. The latter is at the same time both the producer of the cosmos and, in that it is the Logos, the very seat of the ideal model and, hence, the model itself: the cosmic Christ and ChristLogos the Creator. 163

chap. 4.

See recently E. K. Emilsson, Plotinus on Intellect, Oxford 2007,

164 Tou=ton to\n a)ndria/nta fasi\ dedwke/nai to\n Qeo\n tw=| Ui(w=|, o(phni/ka to\n ko/smon e1ktizen, i3na qeato\n e1xh| para/deigma.

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It is clear that the Timaeus detail of God and his Son was taken over and assimilated by the Christian Bardaiṣan, from whose viewpoint the Son of God is the Logos who, according to the Prologue of John, was active in the creation, as is confirmed by the Syriac cosmological traditions that I shall analyze. Bardaiṣan seems to have interpreted the Timaeus in the light of both Middle-Platonism and Christianity. Christ is here well portrayed as Son of God and agent of the creation itself. As an equivalent of the good God of Plato’s Timaeus, the Demiurge, in Bardaiṣan’s fragment we find God, God’s Child who acts as a Demiurge and is identifiable with Christ-Logos, as is confirmed by the cosmological traditions I shall analyze, and the ideal paradigm of the cosmos, which is again identifiable with Christ-Logos, since the Logos is the seat of the Ideas in Middle-Platonism and is the transcending unity of all that exists, “all in One,” as is also declared by a Christian Middle Platonist such as Clement of Alexandria concerning Christ-LogosWisdom.165 Consequently, the ideal paradigm of the cosmos created by Christ-Logos is Christ, the cosmic Christ. This is why Bardaiṣan’s mysterious statue with the cosmos carved upon it spreads its arms in the shape of a cross, and is a living human being, but incorruptible. Christ-Logos, in his role of Wisdom, is the seat of the Ideas and the agent of creation for Origen as well. This is another point of close convergence between Origen and Bardaiṣan. In his Commentary on John 1.19,114–115 Origen observes: “A house or a ship are built according to architectonic models, so that one can say that the principle of the house or of the ship consists in the paradigms and logoi that are found in the craftsman. In the same way, I think, all the things were made according to the logoi of the future realities that God had already manifested beforehand in Wisdom. It is necessary to maintain that God founded [kti/saj], so to say, a living Wisdom, and handed it the task of transmitting the structure [pla/sij] and the forms [ei1dh], See my “Clement’s Notion Of The Logos ‘All Things As One.’ Its Alexandrian Background in Philo and its Developments in Origen and Nyssen,” in Alexandrian Personae: Scholarly Culture and Religious Traditions in Ancient Alexandria (1st ct. BCE–4ct. CE), eds. Z. Plese – R. Hirsch-Luipold, Tübingen 2010. 165

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and, to my mind, also the substances [ou)si/ai], from the archetypes contained in it to beings and matter.” The living Wisdom of God is the Logos, who contains all the archetypal logoi that are the paradigms of all creation. The mysterious statue’s incorruptibility is declared by Bardaiṣan in the immediate continuation of the Porphyrian fragment. He says that he tried to discover which was the material of the statue, but that he couldn’t find it out, since nobody knew. But he also learnt that the statue bled and sweat, and at the same time it was incorruptible: “I asked166—Bardaiṣan says—of which material it is made: Sandales assured that nobody knows of which material that statue is, and the others, too, confirmed his statement. Indeed, it is neither of gold, nor or silver, nor of bronze, nor of stone or any other material, but it is rather similar to extremely robust wood, absolutely incorruptible. However, it is no wood. They added that a king wanted to remove one hair of those found around its neck, and that blood gushed out. That king was so scared that he could hardly recover, thanks to the Brahmans’ prayers. They say that over its head [sc. of the statue] there is the image of a deity, sitting on a sort of throne. They also say that, during the hottest periods, this whole statue sweats, and that the Brahmans fan it; thus, it stops sweating. Should they not fan it, it would produce so much sweat as to soak the ground around it.”167 166 Bardaiṣan asked the Indian ambassadors, one of which was Sandales, whereas “the others” are the other ambassadors. Castelletti, Porfirio. Sullo Stige, 129 translates “ho fatto una ricerca;” in this case, however, the context makes it clear that Bardaiṣan drew his information not from written sources or other scholarly sources, but from his Indian interlocutors. 167 )Ech/tasa de/, fhsi/, poi/aj e)sti\n u3lhj, kai\ diebebaiou=to o( Sanda/lhj, e)martu/roun de\ au)tw=| kai\ oi( a1lloi, mhde/na ei)de/nai poi/aj u3lhj e)sti\n o( a)ndria\j e)kei=noj. Ou1te ga\r xru/seo/j e)stin ou1te a)rgu/reoj ou1te xa/lkeoj, ou1te li/qinoj ou1te a1llhj u3lhj, a)lla\ ma=llon paraplh/sio/j e)stin cu&lw| sthrrota/tw| kai\ a)shptota/tw|: mh\ ei]nai de\ cu/lon. Proseti/qhsan de\ le/gontej o3ti tw=n basile/wn tij h)qe/lhsen a)fele/sqai tri/xa e)k tw=n peri\ to\n tra/xhlon au)tou= kai\ ai{ma r(eu=sai kai\ fobhqh=nai to\n basile/a e)kei=non, w(j mo/lij eu)came/nwn tw=n Braxma/nwn a)nakth/sasqai e(auto/n. )Epi\ de\ th=| kefalh=| tou/tou le/gousi qeou= a1galma ei]nai w(j e)pi\ qro/nou tino\j kaqh/menon. Le/gousi de\ kai\ e)n toi=j kau/masin i(drou=n o3lon to\n a)dria/nta tou=ton, kai\ r(ipi/zesqai u(po\ tw=n Braxma/nwn

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The matter (u3lh) of which the statue is composed is at the same time that of the human being and of the cosmos, which Plato in his Timaeus, and the Stoics as well, considered to be a living being in its wholeness. The u3lh of this statue is said to be unknown, but if the statue itself bleeds and sweats, it is clearly alive and human. The cosmic Christ is the cosmos itself, which was created by Christ-Logos and in which Christ remains as omnipresent Logos— as is confirmed by a fragment of Bardaiṣan preserved by Ephrem—and the cross that forms the shape of the statue is explained by the fact that the Logos created the cosmos according to the Mystery of the Cross, as the “first cosmological tradition” testifies (which I shall analyze in due course). But at the same time the statue of the cosmic Christ also represents the whole of humanity, which Christ has taken up as his body. This is why this statue is alive and human, and bleeds and sweats. Thus, it represents the cosmos and the human being, macro- and microcosmos. The relation between macro- and microcosmos was facilitated by the Platonic tradition in which the human soul, individual, has a cosmic counterpart in the cosmic soul. This, of course, as I have mentioned, goes back to the Timaeus and has a long history up to Plotinus and later Neoplatonism.168 The same is the case with the Logos especially in Middle Platonism, close to Bardaiṣan: the cosmic Logos, the Logos of God, the seat of the Ideas, has an individual counterpart in the individual logos, the rational faculty present in each rational being.169 Now, Christ’s body, which is conceived as both the cosmos and humanity, is not only a mortal body, but also the glorious and incorruptible body of the resurrection, in which—as Origen and then Nyssa especially stressed—the whole of humanity also rose kai\ pau/esqai tou\j i(drw=taj: kai\ ei) mh\ r(ipi/zoien, polu\n fe/rein i(drw=ta, w(j bre/xesqai th\n peri\ au)to\n gh=n. 168 See, among the most recent contributions, J.-F. Pradeau (ed.), Études Platoniciennes IV. Les puissances de l’âme selon Platon, Paris, 2007. 169 For the development of this conception from Philo to Clement to Origen in the time of Bardaiṣan see my “Clement’s Notion of the Logos”; my “Bardaisan as a Christian Philosopher: A Reassessment of His Christology” in EASR / IAHR Congress, Messina, 14–17 September 2009.

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and will definitely rise in Christ; the mysterious matter of the body of the cosmic Christ is said to be similar to incorruptible and imperishable wood, although it is not wood. For it is the glorious and incorruptible human body as it was before the fall and will be again after the resurrection, again according to a conception that is well developed in Origen and then in his follower Gregory of Nyssa,170 and that Bardaiṣan too seems to share. Bardaiṣan’s complex symbolism revolving around this statue seems—as I have shown—to have a basis in historical accounts concerning Indian statues, but he certainly reworked his data and interpreted them in the light of Plato’s Timaeus, Middle-Platonism, and early Christian reflections on Christ-Logos, the cosmic Christ, creation, and resurrection. Indeed, Middle-Platonic thought on creation was an exegesis of Plato’s Timaeus.171 If the statue is the ideal model used by Christ-Logos in the creation of the world, which took place according to the Mystery of the Cross, and if this very model is identifiable with Christ-Logos in that it is the cosmic Christ, because in Middle Platonism the Ideas are God’s Ideas or thoughts and are in the divine Logos, Christ-Logos is both the producer or demiurge of the cosmos and its ideal model. Hence, Christ is the synthesis of the two active principles that, according to the Timaeus, intervened in the creation of the world: the Demiurge, called good God, and the ideal paradigm that the Demiurge followed in the creation. It is most remarkable that the concept of Christ-Logos as both the demiurge and the ideal model of the cosmos is present not only in Bardaiṣan but also in Origen. Indeed, Origen describes Christ-Logos-Wisdom as both the demiurge, the causa efficiens of the world (to\ u(f' ou{, to\ poiou=n, Comm. in Jo. 1.19.110) and the paradigmatic model of the world (to\ kaq' o3, to\ ei]doj, Comm. in Jo. 1.19.104–105). The identity of Origen’s and Bardaiṣan’s conceptions is manifest and striking.

See my Gregorio di Nissa, Introductory Essay and second Integrative Essay. 171 See Ch. Köckert, Christliche Kosmologie und kaiserzeitliche Philosophie, Tübingen 2009, 7–215, especially 175–215 on Porphyry. 170

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Bardaiṣan has this imagery of decorations representing, as Ideas, the existing beings on the surface of the body of ChristLogos; likewise, for Origen the logoi or Ideas of creatures were at the beginning as decorations on the body of Christ-Logos-Sophia (Comm. in Io. 19.22.147, of course with a reminiscence of Eph 3:10172); they were on the body of Christ-Wisdom as creator of this cosmos, and constituted his polupoi/kilon nohto\n ka/lloj, “intelligible Beauty with many decorations” (ibidem 1.9.55). The imagery of the body of Christ-Logos covered with decorations that represent all existing beings is strikingly identical in Origen and in Bardaiṣan, and what is especially remarkable is that—to my knowledge—it is not insisted upon in other authors prior to, or contemporary with, them. Clement did cite Eph 3:10 in Strom. 1.3.27.1, but joining it to Hebr 1:1, and referring it to the variety of God’s Wisdom (in art, science, faith, and prophecy), not to the logoi of creation on the body of Christ-Logos. Origen might even have read Bardaiṣan’s treatise, written in A.D. 220–222 and interesting to him because of the reading of the Timaeus and the Christianization of Middle Platonism that emerge from it. If it was known to Porphyry and perhaps in Plotinus’ school, it is possible that Origen read it in the same Greek translation (or text) that was available to Porphyry as well. Of course they might also depend on a common source, unknown to us. On the basis of what I have observed so far it is possible to go one hermeneutical step forward, and to determine that the divine image over the head of the statue represents the intellect, both human and cosmic. It is divine just as it is in Plato’s Timaeus, where the intellectual souls created by the Demiurge are called by him “gods” (even though they are, of course, inferior deities, in that they are produced by the Demiurge). Both in the human being and in the cosmos, the intellect is located in the royal seat, given its ruling function (h(gemoniko/n was an essentially Stoic term which was adopted also by Middle Platonists and Christians). The human intellect corresponds to the cosmic intellect, ruling and divine, and Bardaiṣan could easily identify it with Christ-Logos. Thus, Christ’s 172 See also P. Tzamalikos, Origen: Cosmology and Ontology of Time, Leiden 2006, 53–54.

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body is both humanity and the cosmos, and it is crucified; the intellect of this body is the Logos. For Bardaiṣan, this was the Logos of the philosophers (Stoics and Middle Platonists), but also the Logos of the Christian tradition beginning with John: Christ-Logos. At the end of the fragment, Bardaiṣan focuses again on the cosmos carved on the statue, including beings that are unknown in the Indian regions, as the object of the investigation of the Brahmans, the Indian “philosophers” who rejected any form of violence and killing: “Bardaiṣan says that those who were together with Sandales told that the Brahmans gather in a fixed day. Some of them live there always, whereas others come from other regions and congregate there in the summer and during the fall, when the season’s fruit is abundant, in order both to observe the statue and to meet one another, and also to test themselves and see whether they are able to enter through that door.173 They say that in that place investigations and discussions go on concerning the carving upon that body. For it is impossible to easily embrace with one’s mind the whole carving, as the decorations are many and not all of the animals and plants are found in every land.”174 In addition to describing the mysterious statue, Bardaiṣan also describes the ordeal of the cave in which the statue itself is found: it is located “approximately at the center of the earth,” a perfectly appropriate place for a living statue that symbolizes the cosmos. The ordeal and the treatment of the culpable are remarkably similar to those mentioned in the first fragment. The innocent easily pass through a door and find a pure spring behind it; the guilty cannot pass, but they are not punished: “Those who, compelled by the ordeal, confess before the others whether they have committed any 173 174

That is, the one of the ordeal.

)Ekei= fhsin ei)rhke/nai tou\j peri\ to\n Sanda/lhn suna/gesqai tou\j Braxma/naj h(me/ra| me/n tini tetagme/nh|: a)lla\ ei]nai me/n tinaj e)kei= e1xontaj th\n diatribh/n, tou\j de\ a)llaxo/qen sunie/nai qe/rouj w3ra| kai\ peri\ to\n fqino/pwron pleonazou/shj th=j o(pw/raj e)pi/ te th\n qe/an tou= a)ndria/ntoj kai\ e)pi\ toi=j a(llh/loij summi=cai kai\ ei)j to\ pei=ran e(autw=n labei=n, ei) du/nantai ei)selqei=n dia\ th=j ei(rhme/nhj qu/raj. Gi/gnesqai de\ e(kei= zhth/seij le/gousi peri\ th=j e)n tw=| sw/mati e)kei/nw| glufh=j. Ou)de\ ga\r e1sti r(adi/wj pa/sh| th=| a)natupw/sei e(pisth=sai, dia/ te to\ polla\ ei]nai kai\ dia\ to\ mh\ pa/nta ta\ zw=|a kai\ futa\ e)n pa/sh| xw/ra| u(pa/rxein.

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sin, supplicate the others to pray for them, and fast for a while, as long as it is enough” for the purification of their sin.175 It is notable that in the account of both ordeals regulated by the Brahmans Bardaiṣan highlights their repudiation of violence and compulsion and their preference for a public confession, education, purification, prayer, and fasting. Clearly, this was also his own ideal, and the emphasis on education, purification, and rational persuasion, instead of punishment and the use of force, is also typical of Origen. As I mentioned, this ideal is also found in Bardaiṣan’s description of the process that will lead to the eventual apokatastasis at the end of the Liber: “the fools will be persuaded,” not forced to obedience, but convinced through an instruction. Likewise, this very notion of the instruction and illumination as a necessary premise to the apokatastasis characterizes Origen’s conception of the final restoration.176 I have thus pointed out that Bardaiṣan’s fragments from De India reveal some important conceptions, which I have explained, both on the ethical plane and on the cosmological and Christological plane. Moreover, they offer a valuable hermeneutical key in that they indicate that the Timaeus was a major source of inspiration for Bardaiṣan; this key can be applied to other fragments, and I will do so especially with those coming from Ephrem and the so-called cosmological traditions. The Porphyrian fragments also need to be systematically compared with all other available sources on Bardaiṣan, and I shall follow this methodological guideline throughout the present investigation.

5.2 Bardaiṣan’s Work in Porphyry’s De Abstinentia In addition to directly providing two fundamental fragments from Bardaiṣan’s De India, Porphyry relies on this work also in his De Abstinentia. The philosopher from Tyre evidently knew the De India very well and had direct access to its full text. In De Abst. 4.17.1–2, after presenting the two Indian “philosophical schools” of the 175 Oi3tinej

biazo/menoi u(po\ tou= dokimasthri/ou e)comologou=ntai e)pi\ tw=n e(te/rwn ei1 ti h3marton, de/hsin poiou=ntai i3na oi( loipoi\ eu1cwntai peri\ au)tw=n, kai\ nhsteu/ousi xro/non tina\ i(kano/n. 176

See my Gregorio di Nissa, second Integrative Essay.

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Brahmans and the Samanaeans,177 he announces that he will speak of them on the basis of the information provided by Bardaiṣan: “What concerns them is as follows, as Bardaiṣan has written, who lived in the days of our fathers and met the Indians who were sent along with Dandamis to the emperor.”178 The emperor is very probably the same who is mentioned in Porphyry’s De Styge, that is, Elagabalus. For the same Indian mission seems to be mentioned both in De abstinentia and in De Styge, and Dandamis, who led this mission, seems to be attested also in South-Arabian inscriptions.179 He is likely to be identifiable with the Sandales cited in the fragments from De Styge, all the more so in that in Stobaeus the spelling of his name is very uncertain.180 Bardaiṣan may have met him and his companions in Edessa, although our sources say nothing about the location of their encounter. As Bardaiṣan moved away from Edessa at least for some time in his late maturity, as I shall show later, they may have met elsewhere, but probably on the way of the Indian ambassadors to Elagabalus.

177 On which see F. Winter, Bardesanes von Edessa über Indien, Thaur bei Innsbruck 1999, 101–142. Ibid. 28–32 on the Indian mission whose members met Bardaiṣan. 178

)/Exei de\ ta\ kat ) au)tou\j tou=ton to\n tro/pon, w(j Bardhsa/nhj a)nh\r Babulw/nioj, e)pi\ tw=n pate/rwn h(mw=n gegonw/j, kai\ e)ntuxw\n toi=j peri\ Da/ndamin pepemme/noij )Indoi=j pro\j to\n Kai/sara a)ne/grayen.

See J. Ryckmans, “Les rois de Hadramawt mentionnés à ‘Uqla,” BiOr 21 (1964) 277–282: 282. On Indian embassies to Rome see O. de Beauvoir Priaulx, “On the Indian Embassies to Rome from the Reign of Claudius to the Death of Justinian,” JRAS 19 (1862) 274–298, and my Gli Apostoli in India. 180 In De abstinentia, 4.17.2, Da/ndamin is a conjecture by Hercher, whereas the manuscript reads Dama/damin. Hercher was probably influenced by the figure of the Brahman Dandamis who met Alexander the Great according to Plutarch Alex. 8.5; 15.3–4 and who is called Mandanis by Strabo 15.1.64. In the second fragment from De Styge Sandales is cited twice; the second occurrence has: tou\j peri\ to\n Sanda/lhn. In the first occurrence, Wachsmuth, the editor of Stobaeus 1.3.56, conjectured Da/ndalij instead of Sanda/lhj, and Meineke Sanda/nhj. 179

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6 Achilles Tatius and the Knowledge of Bardaiṣan in Late-Second-Century Alexandria While in the third century Porphyry read Bardaiṣan’s work On India and quoted from it, Achilles Tatius,181 who probably wrote his novel Leucippe and Clitophon somewhat earlier than Porphyry, describes two tests by ordeal (8.12.9 and 8.6.12–14) that are very similar to those recounted by Bardaiṣan in his De India. Indeed, I believe—like Drijvers, Camplani, and others—that Achilles cited, not Porphyry, but directly Bardaiṣan’s De India.182 As in the case of Porphyry, it is unnecessary to postulate that Achilles could read Syriac, as Bardaiṣan knew Greek, too, according to Epiphanius Pan. 56, and his Syriac works were translated into Greek by his disciples, as is attested by Eusebius (HE 4.30). So, his De India too was soon available in Greek, and Porphyry himself probably used the Greek version of this work. Now, Achilles, according to the Suda, to the manuscripts of his work, and to the etymology of his name Ta/tioj—probably related to the Egyptian deity Tat—was from Alexandria, like Origen and his admirer Didymus, who knew Bardaiṣan well and is among the most favorable ancient sources concerning him, as I have already demonstrated. This may further suggest a relationship between Origen and Bardaiṣan and their respective schools, all the more so in the light of the remarkable fact that not only Didymus, 181 See my review of Porfirio, Sullo Stige, ed. C. Castelletti, pref. T. Dorandi, Milan 2006, in Aevum 82 (2008) 248–253. 182 Drijvers, Bardaisan, 175, admits of both possibilities, like J. Kroll, Gott und Hölle, Leipzig – Berlin 1932, 348 n. 3; Camplani, “Rivisitando Bardesane,” 522 n. 6; F. Boll, “Zum griechischen Roman,” Philologus 66 (1907), 1–15, and Winter, Bardesanes, 88–96. Castelletti himself, Sullo Stige, 274, inclines to think that Achilles depends on Bardaiṣan or on a common source, in that he supposes a dating to the early third century for the novel, as is suggested by the papyri (see my I romanzi antichi e il Cristianesimo, Madrid 2001, chap. 4). Since the information provided by Bardaiṣan does not depend on a common source, but on the oral testimony of the Indian ambassadors under the reign of Elagabalus, a high date for the novel, in the first half of the third century, makes it more probable that Achilles’ source was Bardaiṣan and excludes that it was Porphyry, who wrote later, but it also excludes a written source before Bardaiṣan.

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but all the Origenian sources, including Eusebius, and only such sources, are also those which are favorable to Bardaiṣan.183 Moreover, they are the best documented sources on him, along with Porphyry, who was no Christian, of course, but admired Origen as well.184

7 The Acts of Thomas In the third century, we do not know whether earlier or later than Porphyry drew his materials from Bardaiṣan, the Syriac Acts of Thomas, probably stemming from Edessa and soon translated into Greek, include an unequivocal quotation from the Liber Legum Regionum, and in particular from a crucial point in Bardaiṣan’s argument for human free will.185 These Acts, which betray a tendency toward encratism,186 but are not heretic, narrate the apostle Thomas’ mission for the evangelization of India, which started from Edessa,187 where Thomas’ relics were also translated from India in the first half of the third century. According to the Passio Thomae, this happened in A.D. 232, thus just ten years after Bardaiṣan’s death, when the Abgarids were still in Edessa.188 183 See my “Origen, Bardaiṣan, and the Origin of Universal Salvation,” HTR 102.2 (2009) 135–168. 184 On Porphyry’s admiration for Origen, even in a polemical framework, see my “Origen, Patristic Philosophy.” 185 See my “Bardesane e la sua scuola” and H. J. W. Drijvers, “The Acts of Thomas. Introduction,” in: W. Schneemelcher (ed.), New Testament Apocrypha, revised ed. of the collection initiated by E. Hennecke, English transl. by R. McL. Wilson, II, Louisville 1992, 336. 186 This tendency was common in Syriac Christianity (see also S. Brock, Syriac Perspectives on Late Antiquity, Aldershot 1984, chap. I: Early Syrian Asceticism (1973)). This is why these Acts were used by Encratites and Manicheans, as is attested by Epiphanius Pan. 2.47.1; 1.61.1ff. and Augustine De sermone Domini in monte 1.20.65. 187 See A. F. J. Klijn, The Acts of Thomas, Leiden 1962, and my chapter devoted to them in Gli Apostoli in India. 188 This is what emerges from the most recent historical investigations, which have considerably changed the picture of the end of the Abgarid dynasty in Edessa. See my “Edessa e i Romani tra Augusto e i Severi: aspetti del regno di Abgar V e di Abgar IX,” Aevum 73 (1999) 107–

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Acts of Thomas 83 is the passage that cites a crucial point in Bardaiṣan’s argument against the opponents of Christianity in the Liber Legum Regionum. At the beginning of this dialogue, Bardaiṣan, who is discussing with Avida, defined by him an unbeliever, is defending human free will and individual responsibility as the heart of the moral law given by God to the human being. Avida objects: “These things, which you have said, are very good, but, you see, the commandments imposed upon the human beings are heavy and they are unable to respect them.” Bardaiṣan replies that God’s commandments are not difficult for humans to perform, but are appropriate to the human nature. And here comes the section that was taken up by the redactor of the Acts of Thomas: “This response is typical of the person who does not wish to do the good, and more specifically of the person who obeys and submits to his or her enemy. For the human beings are required to do nothing but what they can do. Indeed, the commandments placed before us, apt for our free will, and just, are two: one, that we detach ourselves from everything that is evil and that we would detest if it were done to us; the other, that we do what is good and we love and wish that it were done to us in the same way. Therefore, who is the man who is unable to avoid stealing, or lying, or committing adultery or fornication, or hating or deceiving? For, you know, all these things depend on human intellect: they do not lie in the strength of the body, but in the soul’s will.189 For, even if one is poor, ill, and aged, and disabled in his or her limbs, surely one can abstain from all these things, and, just as he or she is able to avoid all this, likewise he or she is able to love, to bless, to tell the truth, and to pray for the good of everyone he or she knows. And if one is in good health, and possesses means, one can also give something of what one has, and help with his bodily strength those who are ill or disabled: this too he can do. Therefore, what is that he cannot do, as the unbelievers mutter, I do not quite know. Indeed, I personally think that it is in these commandments, 143; eadem, “Abgar Ukkama e Abgar il Grande alla luce di recenti apporti storiografici,” Aevum 78 (2004) 103–108. 189 See again Bardaiṣan’s aforementioned ethical intellectualism, which has the will depend on the intellect and which even tends to identify these two faculties, like here.

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more than in any other thing, that the human being has power, because they are easy and there is nothing that can impede them. For we are not required to carry heavy loads of stones, or of wood, or of anything else, all things that only those who are robust in their bodies can do, or to build up fortresses and found cities, which only kings can do, or to govern a ship, which only expert mariners can govern, or to measure the land and divide it, which only agrimensors can do, or any other of the skills that only few have, and the others lack. But, according to God’s goodness, we were given commandments that entail no difficulty, so that anybody who has a soul in him- or herself can observe them and rejoice in this, as there is no one who does not rejoice after doing the good … would not a judge be unfair if he reproached a man for something that he cannot do?” Thomas’ words in Act 9 of the Acts of Thomas, chapters 83–84, are a manifest echo of Bardaiṣan’s discourse. Thomas is in India, before the spouse of a rich and powerful general, a relation of King Mazdai, and he says to her servants, who are carrying her in a chaise: “Even if God created you as human beings, humans make you carry heavy loads, as though you were beasts. Those who are superior to you for birth think in their heart that you are not human beings as they are, but they ignore that in front of God all human beings are equal, be they free or slaves. God’s judgment is just, and in it all the souls of the earth will be judged, with no exception, be they slaves or free, rich or poor:190 those who own much will gain no advantage from this, and those who own nothing will suffer no disadvantage in the judgment. For we have not been requested to do things that we are unable to do, or to take heavy burdens, or to build up edifices, which carpenters can do with special skill, or to practice the craft of carving hard stones, as carvers can do according to their strength, but we have been ordered to do something that we are able to do. That is, to avoid It is noteworthy that these are those things that Bardaiṣan in the Liber describes as independent of human free will and rather depending on God through the administration of his Christianized “fate.” For early Christian emphasis on God’s Judgment, which will make no difference between upper and lower classes, see now Judith Perkins, Roman Imperial Identities in the Early Christian Era, London and New York 2009, with my review in RBL April 2009: http://www.bookreviews.org/BookDetail. asp?TitleId=6938. 190

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fornication, which is the chief of all evils, murder … theft … intemperance …. cupidity … vainglory and calumny … every evil and shameful deed.”191 The redactor of the Syriac Acts of Thomas in the form in which we have them, who is likely to have worked in Edessa during the third century, knew the Liber Legum Regionum very well and clearly appreciated Bardaiṣan’s arguments therein, rather than regarding them as heretical. Indeed, he esteemed him so much as to ascribe Bardaiṣan’s words on the Christian moral law to his sainted apostle Thomas, highly celebrated in his work. Of course, this does not automatically entail that the Acts of Thomas were composed by disciples of Bardaiṣan,192 even though it is worth noticing that in the fourth century Ephrem, in his commentary on Paul’s letters, states that Bardaiṣan’s disciples in Edessa wrote apocryphal Acts.193 And Ephrem was from Edessa, so that his attestation is worthy of attention, also thanks to his chronological and geographical closeness to the disciples of Bardaiṣan.194 InDiscussion in Klijn, Acts of Thomas, 39ff. That this work originated from the School of Bardaiṣan was hypothesized by O. Bardenhewer, Geschichte der altkirchlichen Literatur, I, Freiburg 1902, 445; IV, Freiburg 1924, 325, especially for the hymns included in it, like that of the Pearl. These, however, seem to be anterior and independent. See Drijvers, Bardaiṣan, passim for the debate on the possible Bardaiṣanite origin of these hymns. What I am concerned with here is the Acta themselves, apart from their hymns. A. von Harnack, Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur, Leipzig 19582, II 2.176, also thought that the hymns had Bardaiṣanite origins. 193 S. Ephraem Syri commentarii in epistulas divi Pauli, Venetiis 1893, 119. 194 Moreover, it is notable (see Drijvers, Bardaiṣan, 211–212) that some images in hymns in the Acta Thomae—especially Sophia’s nuptial Song and the Hymn of the Pearl—are very similar to those which appear in Bardaiṣan’s hymns or those of his “son” or his followers in Ephrem’s quotations in his Hymn 55 Contra Haereses: e.g., the Seven (planets), the Twelve (Zodiacal signs), the Father, the Mother, and the Son, etc. However, if the hymns in the Acta were originally independent of the Acta and anterior to them, these cannot have been composed by Bardaiṣan or his followers. Yet, it is possible to hypothesize that the Acta were composed in an Edessan Bardaiṣanitic milieu in which these ancient hymns also were known, and might have inspired others in Bardaiṣan and his followers, might have been interpreted by Bardaiṣan in a philosophical sense or by 191 192

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dependently of a possible connection of the Acts of Thomas with the school of Bardaiṣan,195 what is most relevant to the present investigation is that they provide a further very positive testimony on Bardaiṣan, whose words and arguments are directly ascribed to a saint who was much venerated in Edessa in the third century, shortly after Bardaiṣan’s death. One more detail. A passage of the Acts of Thomas (Act 6, especially chapters 55–57) suggests that their author was acquainted with the Apocalypse of Peter.196 Now, if these Acts are somehow related to the school of Bardaiṣan, this correspondence becomes all the more significant in that the Apocalypse of Peter is one of the very first Christian witnesses to the doctrine of apokatastasis.197

8 A Very Positive Witness: the Origenian Eusebius Eusebius of Caesarea was a disciple of the sainted martyr Pamphilus, who was in turn a disciple of Origen, and, while he was imprisoned, waiting for his martyrdom, wrote his Apology for Origen. Eusebius was mainly active in the first decades of the fourth century, and organized the Caesarea library, where Origen had brought his books from Alexandria. He also completed Pamphilus’ Apology after his teacher’s death. His admiration for Origen is evident in the biography that he devoted to him in the sixth book of his Historia Ecclesiastica, the last recension of which was probably completed just after A.D. 324.198 his followers in the light of his doctrines, and might have been incorporated in the Acta as well. 195 See my “Bardesane, l’apologia.” 196 This is noted by A. Jakab, “The Reception of the Apocalypse of Peter in Ancient Christianity,” in The Apocalypse of Peter, ed. J. N. Bremmer and I. Czachesz, Louvain 2003, 174–186, in particular 178. A girl was killed by her Christian boyfriend because she didn’t want to live with him in celibacy. Thomas raises her from death and she describes hell in terms that are very similar to those of the Apocalypse of Peter 7–12. 197 Demonstration in my “Origen, Bardaiṣan, and the Origin of Universal Salvation,” which I shall not repeat here. 198 Bibliography on Eusebius is wide-ranging and continually growing. I limit myself to referring to a synthesis such as C. Curti, “Eusebio di Cesarea,” in Nuovo Dizionario Patristico e di Antichità Cristiane, dir. A. Di

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In his Praeparatio Evangelica, probably written between A.D. 312 and 322, Eusebius preserves two most valuable Greek excerpts from Bardaiṣan’s work on Fate. He also offers important information on his life and works. Eusebius’ interest in Bardaiṣan199 clearly parallels his interest in Origen, which is perfectly understandable in the light of the deep affinities of thought between Origen and Bardaiṣan, especially their doctrine of apokatastasis and their common polemic against Marcionism, Gnosticism, determinism and predestinationism.200 Eusebius inserts these long quotations from Bardaiṣan—in Greek, but corresponding rather closely to the Syriac of the Liber Legum Regionum—in support of his own refutation of Fate determinism. In PE 6.9 he introduces Bardaiṣan just before reporting his arguments, and describes him as a Syrian and an expert in Chaldean doctrines. In the Liber, indeed, Bardaiṣan himself tells that he had studied the Chaldean astrological doctrines, but then he abandoned them and even refuted them. This is how Eusebius introduces his long quotations: “I shall also adduce for you demonstrations of these theses, given by a man of Syrian stock, who reached a perfect knowledge of the Chaldean discipline. The name of this man was Bardaiṣan. And it is recorded that in the dialogues with his companions he said something like what follows” (PE 6.9.32).201 Bardaiṣan is here said to have been of Syrian stock, which is in harmony with his living in Edessa and the language he used. He is deBerardino, I, Genoa 2006, coll. 1845–53, of which a new English edition is forthcoming. For Eusebius’ adhesion to Origen’s thought see my “In Illud: Tunc et Ipse Filius… (1Cor 15,27–28): Gregory of Nyssa’s Exegesis, Some Derivations from Origen, and Early Patristic Interpretations Related to Origen’s,” forthcoming in Studia Patristica. 199 For Eusebius’ interest in Syriac Christian culture see S. Brock, From Ephrem to Romanos: Interactions between Syriac and Greek in Late Antiquity, Aldershot 1999, chap. 2: “Eusebius and Syriac Christianity” (from a 1992 article). 200 See my “Origen, Bardaiṣan, and the Origin.” 201

Paraqh&somai de/ soi kai\ tw~nde ta_j a)podei/ceij e0c a)ndro_j Su&rou me\n to_ ge/noj, e0p' a1kron de\ th~j Xaldai"kh~j e0pisth&mhj e0lhlako&toj. Bardhsa&nhj o1noma tw|~ a)ndri/, o4j e0n toi=j pro_j tou_j e9tai/rouj dialo&goij ta&de ph mnhmoneu&etai fa&nai.

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scribed as a Mesopotamian and a Babylonian by Porphyry, and as a Parthian by Julius Africanus, as I have shown; other sources designate him as an Armenian. It is remarkable that the excerpts reported by Eusebius exactly coincide—apart from small differences—with a large portion of the last section of Bardaiṣan’s discourse in the Syriac Liber Legum Regionum. Now, Eusebius describes his excerpts as dialogues that Bardaiṣan had with some companions and that were recorded; this perfectly corresponds with the literary form of the Liber, a Platonic dialogue in which Bardaiṣan clearly plays the role played by Socrates in Plato’s dialogues. His interlocutors, whom Eusebius mentions, are of two kinds in the Liber: Avida, who is labeled a nonbeliever, and who asks the first questions concerning faith and theodicy, from which Bardaiṣan begins his discourse, and some believers, who are very likely to be disciples of Bardaiṣan. Among them are Philip and Bar Yamma: the former is the first-person narrator of the whole dialogue and its frame and is probably the redactor of the Liber in its extant form; the latter will appear again in the Origenian Dialogue of Adamantius, as I shall argue. Eusebius speaks of Bardaiṣan also in HE 4.30.1–3, where he, like Porphyry, describes him as a Mesopotamian, and as eminently eloquent in Syriac. What is more, Eusebius attests that Bardaiṣan wrote works against Marcionites and other heretics, who probably were Gnostics. This, which agrees with Hippolytus’ attestation— the only one reliable, as I have argued—concerning the polemic between Bardaiṣan and a Marcionite, Prepon, flatly contradicts later accusations, leveled against Bardaiṣan, of being a heretic himself, and precisely a Gnostic, a Marcionite, or even a Manichaean. This also constitutes another remarkable similarity with Origen, who later was likewise accused of being a heretic, especially a Gnostic, whereas he in fact fought against Marcionism and Gnostic predestinationism and determinism all his life long.202

See my “La coerenza della soteriologia origeniana: dalla polemica contro il determinismo gnostico all'universale restaurazione escatologica,” in Pagani e cristiani alla ricerca della salvezza. Atti del XXXIV Incontro di Studiosi dell'Antichità Cristiana, Roma, Istituto Patristico Augustinianum, 5–7 maggio 202

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Eusebius testifies: “Under the reign of the same emperor [sc. Marcus Aurelius], while heresies proliferated, in Mesopotamia Bardaiṣan, a man of extraordinary skills and extremely fluent in Syriac, composed dialogues against the followers of Marcion and against other heretics, and published them in his own language and alphabet, along with many other works of his. Then, his followers, who were very numerous, as he had extraordinary dialectic abilities, translated them from Syriac into Greek. Among these works there is also the excellent dialogue On Fate dedicated to Antoninus, and all the other works they say he composed on the occasion of the persecution of that time. At first he belonged to Valentinus’ heresy, but then he rejected it and refuted very many points in Valentinian mythology, when he passed on to orthodoxy—or at least this is what he believed, even though he did not quite perfectly purify himself from the dirtiness of his old heresy.”203 It is notable that here, too, Eusebius shows a knowledge of the Liber legum regionum, and, what is more, he seems to identify it with Bardaiṣan’s dialogue On Fate, dedicated to an Antoninus. Eusebius also knows other dialogues of Bardaiṣan with his disciples, which he wrote in Syriac and were subsequently translated into Greek.

2005, Rome 2006, SEA 96, 661–688; eadem, “Origen, Bardaiṣan, and the Origin.” 203 )Epi\ de\ th=j au)th=j basilei/aj, plhquousw=n tw=n ai(re/sewn, e)pi\ th=j Me/shj tw=n potamw=n Bardesa/nhj, i(kanw/tato/j tij a)nh\r e1n te th=| Su/rwn fwnh=| dialektikw/tatoj, pro\j tou\j kata\ Marki/wna kai/ tinaj e(te/rouj diafo/rwn proi+stame/nouj dogma/twn dialo/gouj susthsa/menoj th=| oi)kei/a| pare/dwken glw/tth| te kai\ grafh=| meta\ kai\ plei/stwn e(te/rwn au)tou= suggramma/twn: ou4j oi( gnw/rimoi (plei=stoi de\ h]san au)tw=| dunatw=j tw=| lo/gw| paristame/nw|) e)pi\ th\n (Ellh/nwn a)po\ th=j Su/rwn metabeblh/kasi fwnh=j: e)n oi[j e)stin kai\ o( pro\j )Antwni=non i(kanw/tatoj au)tou= Peri\ ei(marme/nhj dia/logoj o3sa te a1lla fasi\n au)to\n profa/sei tou= to/te diwgmou= suggra/yai. ]Hn de\ ou[toj pro/teron th=j kata\ Ou)alenti=non sxolh=j, katagnou\j de\ tau/thj plei=sta/ te th=j kata\ tou=ton muqopoii+a / j a)pele/gcaj, e)do/kei me/n pwj au)to\j e(autw=| e)pi\ th\n o)rqote/ran gnw/mhn metateqei=sqai, ou) mh\n kai\ pantelw=j ge a)perru/yato to\n th=j palaia=j ai(re/sewj r(up / on.

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In this passage Eusebius, less than a century after Bardaiṣan’s death, testifies to his fervent activity against Marcionites and heretics, which he shared with his contemporary, Origen. Bardaiṣan’s refutation of Fate, determinism, and predestinationism, and his defense of human free will, also parallel Origen’s analogous positions. Eusebius—who seems to have had access to a Greek version of Bardaiṣan’s work, but who elsewhere intimates that he even knew Syriac204—is a witness to the original title, On Fate, of what was later labeled Book of the Laws of Countries in Syriac, with a title that reflects only a very limited part of the work. The identity of the Antoninus to whom the dialogue was dedicated is uncertain, as I have already shown. The context of Eusebius’ passage, which is located under the reign of Marcus Aurelius, and the philosophical nature of this dialogue, would naturally suggest that the “Antoninus” at stake is Marcus Aurelius, all the more in that Eusebius reports that this dialogue—we do not know whether in its present form or in a previous redaction—was written on the occasion of a persecution, which, as Eusebius implies and as Epiphanius makes clear in a passage that I shall analyze, was directed against the Christians. Now, Marcus Aurelius precisely promoted an anti-Christian persecution which, differently from all the preceding ones, was conducted through a systematic search of the Christians, whereas no emperor of the Severan dynasty persecuted the Christians.205 Moreover, Marcus Aurelius is also the probable dedicatee of an apology preserved in Syriac and ascribed to Melito,

204 See e.g. my “Possible Historical Traces in the Doctrina Addai?”; eadem, Atti di Mari, Brescia 2008; eadem, Il senatoconsulto del 35; eadem, “Gesù tra i sapienti greci perseguitati ingiustamente in un antico documento filosofico pagano di lingua siriaca,” Rivista di Filosofia Neoscolastica 97 (2005), 545–570. 205 See M. Sordi, I Cristiani e l’Impero Romano, Milan 20042; 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; “‘Protector Christianorum’ (Tert. Apol. V 4): il ‘miracolo della pioggia’ e la lettera di Marco Aurelio al Senato,” Aevum 76 (2002) 101–112.

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which has been handed down in the same manuscript that also preserves the only extant copy of the Liber Legum Regionum.206 It is commonly assumed that Eusebius, by writing “Antoninus,” meant Elagabalus. But Eusebius’ reference to the persecution indicates that it is Marcus Aurelius whom he had in mind. The conquest of Edessa under Caracalla could have hardly been indicated by him with diwgmo/j, a term which, instead, was perfectly suited to the systematic search and persecution of the Christians under Marcus Aurelius, given the notion of pursuit and ferreting out that it conveys. Furthermore, in the case of Caracalla it is difficult to speak, not only of a religious persecution, which never took place under his reign, but even of any persecution, all the more so in that recent research has demonstrated that the Abgarid monarchy in fact endured in Edessa still for some decades after him. An association between a dialogue endowed with an apologetic function and the anti-Christian persecution of Marcus Aurelius would be more easily understandable, all the more in that several apologies were indeed written on that occasion. Of course, if Bardaiṣan was in Edessa during that persecution, he was not liable to a condemnation, because the persecution promoted by the Roman emperor could formally extend only to the territories of the Roman empire. Osrhoene, however, was a vassal State of Rome, and the Abgarids, especially in the Severan age, had frequent and close contacts with Rome. Some of them even received an education in the Roman empire, and Bardaiṣan in his youth, as I shall document on the basis of Epiphanius, was educated together with Abgar the Great. To be sure, the Liber Legum Regionum in its extant form was written after Marcus Aurelius, also given that it refers to events that took place shortly afterwards, such as the Roman conquest of Osrhoene and the conversion of Abgar the Great. The Liber in its final form was probably written by a disciple, but it faithfully reports Bardaiṣan’s arguments and ideas. My contention is corroborated by the very fact that here Eusebius speaks of Bardaiṣan’s dialogue On 206 See my “L’apologia siriaca di Melitone ad ‘Antonino Cesare’: osservazioni e traduzione,” VetChr 36 (1999) 259–286; eadem, “Bardesane, l’apologia siriaca.”

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Fate and cites two extensive passages from it in Greek, which closely correspond to the extant Syriac text of the Liber Legum Regionum. Therefore, it is precisely this work that Eusebius had in mind; of course, a former redaction might have been composed by Bardaiṣan himself, perhaps even under Marcus Aurelius. At any rate, the doctrinal bulk and all the arguments and examples employed by Bardaiṣan in his refutation of the Chaldean doctrine of Fate are identical—apart from a few minimal details—in Eusebius and in the extant Syriac text of the Liber. This strongly supports my claim that these were indeed Bardaiṣan’s thoughts and words. Eusebius, as is evident, is a very positive source on Bardaiṣan. His information that he initially was close to Valentinianism, which is supported by no examples of Valentinian opinions possibly held by him, may simply depend on Hippolytus’ account on the “Ardesianes” who belonged to Eastern Valentinianism. For Hippolytus in turn, as I have pointed out, was unable to produce any genuine Valentinian doctrine of Bardaiṣan. In any case, Eusebius indicates that soon Bardaiṣan not only abandoned Valentinianism, but even refuted Valentinian mythology. As I have remarked, the polemic against Valentinian determinism is also typical of Origen and constitutes one of the many strong affinities between these two Christian philosophers, both active between the end of the second and the first decades of the third century. It is manifest that Eusebius found nothing Valentinian or generally “heretical” in the works by Bardaiṣan that he could read, even though these works were abundant in his time, as he himself says. Likewise, Eusebius definitely detected nothing heretical in the works of Origen, who was bravely defended by Eusebius’ teacher, Pamphilus, and was venerated, praised, and defended also by him. Eusebius’ line, that Bardaiṣan passed from Valentinianism to orthodoxy, is the same as Didymus’, who is the most favorable known source concerning Bardaiṣan, together with Africanus, Eusebius himself, the early Jerome, and Moses of Chorene. It is no accident, in my view, that the most positive testimonies on Bardaiṣan are provided by authors who were also deep admirers of Origen. For they were obviously aware of the close similarities of thought between these two Christian philosophers. Moreover, it is significant that these favorable sources on Bardaiṣan are also the most ancient and best steeped in Greek philosophy and culture, the

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most competent and documented, and, in sum, the best equipped to know and understand his refined thought. Therefore, Eusebius is an extremely important source on Bardaiṣan and his engagement against the most prominent “heresies” of his day, that is, Marcionism and Gnosticism. He also offers a valuable testimony regarding the Liber Legum Regionum, which he knew very well and quoted extensively in his Praeparatio Evangelica, exactly in the context of Eusebius’ own polemic against Fate, and next to the quotation of Origen’s arguments against Fate. Especially the latter, with such a close association between Origen and Bardaiṣan, is, to my mind, a revealing detail in respect to the remarkable convergence of thought between Origen and Bardaiṣan, of which Eusebius was evidently well aware.

9 The Origenian Gregory of Nyssa and His Own Work Against Fate Gregory of Nyssa, the most philosophically minded and the most Origenian of the Cappadocian Fathers in the fourth century,207 knew Bardaiṣan’s arguments against Fate and took them up. He too wrote a Kata\ Ei(marme/nhj, Against Fate, dedicated to his brother, Peter, according to codex S; this is the title of this short work in the manuscripts that preserve it, and it is the same title as that of Bardaiṣan’s work.208 Gregory’s work is based on the treatments of this very same topic by Origen and Philo of Alexandria, and perhaps by Diodore of Tarsus, but also, I think, on Bardaiṣan’s arguments, with which he was familiar at least thanks to the excerpts provided by Eusebius some decades before.209 Eusebius had devoted a substantial part of his Praeparatio Evangelica, the whole Book See my Gregorio di Nissa. Sull’anima e la resurrezione, Milan 2007. A systematic investigation into his dependence on Origen in all fields of his thought is badly needed and in preparation. 208 Critical edition in Gregorii Nysseni Opera, III, II, Leiden – New York 1987, 31–63. I refer to these pages in the text. 209 See the investigation of Gregory’s background provided by B. Motta, Il Contra Fatum di Gregorio di Nissa nel dibattito tardo-antico sul fatalismo e sul determinismo, Pisa and Rome 2008, who, however, largely overlooks Bardaiṣan’s work against Fate. 207

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6, to the refutation of the doctrine of Fate. It is here that he reported his excerpts from Bardaiṣan’s Against Fate. If one assumes that the narrative frame of Gregory’s work is not entirely fictitious, one can take it as the transcription of a debate in which Gregory engaged with a pagan philosopher (pepaideume/noj th\n e1cw filosofi/an) in Constantinople, perhaps on the occasion of the council in A.D. 381. His interlocutor was a supporter of the doctrine of Fate (31–32), probably a follower of Stoicism and of astral determinism. He maintained that the whole of human life is submitted to the necessity of Fate in all those respects that Bardaiṣan subjected to nature, fate, and human free will, that is, respectively, the sphere of the body, the facts of life that do not depend on each one’s will, and the choices of each moral agent. Even these choices, according to Gregory’s interlocutor, are subjected to Fate, including the choice of the kind of life to lead and the choices of vice or virtue (33). Now, this means that free will is excluded: “our reasoning faculty is in no case in control of the decision.”210 Remarkably, decisions are considered to directly depend on one’s reasoning faculty or logismo/j, according to the ethical intellectualism that goes back to Socrates and Plato and that Gregory absorbed; as I have argued, such an ethical intellectualism is repeatedly shown by Bardaiṣan as well. “It would not depend on us to freely choose for ourselves whatever we wish” (34).211 Gregory is using the Stoic and Neoplatonic category of the ta\ e)f ) h(mi=n and ta\ ou)k e)f ) h(mi=n, the things that depend on us and those that do not.212 210 211

Mhdamou= to\n logismo\n tou= ai(rome/nou ku/rion ei]nai. Mh\ e)f’ h(mi=n ei]nai o3per a2n qe/lwmen kat’ e)cousi/an ai(rei=sqai.

212 On these notions in Stoicism (Chrysippus, Seneca, Musonius, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius), Middle Platonism (Philo of Alexandria, Plutarch, Alcinous, Ps.-Plutarch, Nemesius, Calcidius, Apuleius and Maximus of Tyre), and Plotinus, Enn. 6.8(39), 3.1(3); 1.4(46); 3.2(47), with the omission of 6.6(34), see now E. Eliasson, The Notion of That Which Depends on Us in Plotinus and Its Background, Leiden / Boston 2008, Philosophia Antiqua 113, who shows how ethical intellectualism became stronger and stronger in this route and reached its culmination in Plotinus. To this history, I find, one could also add Bardaiṣan and his theorization as reflected in the Liber and the Porphyrian fragments.

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Gregory’s interlocutor, like the adversaries of Bardaiṣan, had Fate depend on the heavenly bodies (34–35).213 For everything, in heaven and on earth, is tied by a ei(rmo/j and an a)kolouqi/a of necessity (37). Gregory objects (44) that such a theory eliminates justice, holiness, virtue, and every responsibility for good and evil. Likewise, in the Liber Legum Regionum Bardaiṣan observed that praises and blames are the right consequences of a virtuous or a vicious behavior, which attributes a responsibility to the moral agent. Also, Gregory observes that, if Fate depends on the movement of the stars, it could easily depend as well on that of rivers or any other natural entity in perpetual movement (46). Gregory adduces a further argument, which is similar to that which I have pointed out in his contemporary Didymus the Blind’s criticism of Fate in his Commentary on Genesis, and which is also found in Philo (De Prov. 87): catastrophes involving entire peoples, epidemics, and all cases in which enormous amounts of people perish in the same circumstances and in the same moment prove that the death of each individual does not depend on his or her personal horoscope, that is, on the configuration of the stars that obtained at each one’s birth. It is worth noticing that Gregory refutes both the kinds of astral determinism that Bardaiṣan counters in his own Kata\ Ei(marme/nhj: 1) that based on the individual horoscope, which was believed to determine the whole life of a person, and 2) that which revolved around the theory of the climatic zones of the earth, each one controlled by a given heavenly body (55). Gregory’s argument against the first type of astral determinism relies on the so-called no/mima barbarika/, already adduced by Philo (De Prov. 84–86), Origen (Philoc. 23.16), and Bardaiṣan against this kind of predestinationism. While Bardaiṣan in the Liber expanded a great deal on the “laws of countries,” Gregory employs a concise form of the same argument. He limits himself to mentioning the Persians’ customs and their incests, which they permit but other peoples abominate, 213 To\ ei(rmw=| tini a)paraba/tw| kata\ th\n poia\n sumplokh\n tw=n a)ste/rwn a)nagkai/wj a)potelou/menon tw=| o)no/mati th=j Ei(marme/nhj diermhneu/etai.

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to demonstrate that it is not Fate to determine human choices, but “the free determination of each one, which makes its choices in full mastery” (56).214 This is why—as Gregory explains by adducing further examples that were brought forward by Bardaiṣan as well— some people marry their own mothers, others kill strangers, others eat human flesh, etc. Against the second kind of determinism, that of climatic zones, Gregory argues again using the same proof already adduced by Bardaiṣan (57): all Jews obey to the same law, that of Moses, even though they are spread everywhere on earth. Moreover, like Bardaiṣan, Gregory too regards the facts of human life as depending on God’s will (63). Indeed, the Edessan philosopher considered them to depend on a “fate” that he conceived very differently from how the astrologers conceived it: that is, as the executor of God’s providence, not as an independent, omnipotent force. Both the arguments used by Gregory against the two kinds of astral determinism—i.e., the argument of the no/mima barbarika/ and that of the Mosaic law being respected by all Jews all over the world—were already deployed by Origen against the same theories (Philoc. 23.16). Origen’s reasoning was reported by Eusebius in PE 6.11.69–70, immediately after the section (6.10) containing his excerpts from Bardaiṣan’s work On Fate. I observe, however, that the argument concerning the Jews is used differently by Gregory and Origen, and I suspect that Gregory here was influenced by Bardaiṣan rather than by Origen. Indeed, Gregory adduced the example of the Jews against the theory of the climatic belts, just like Bardaiṣan, and explains that the Jews keep the same law even if they inhabit many different regions of the earth. Origen, instead, adduced the example of the Jews against the deterministic theory of the horoscope and observes that all the Jews are circumcised, even though they are not born all on the same day and at the same hour, and thus they do not have the same horoscope.215 I deem it prob214 (H e(ka/stou proai/resij gi/netai to\ dokou=n kat’ e)cousi/an proairoume/nh. 215 Ou)k oi]d' o3pwj dunh&sontai sw~sai to_ tw~n me\n e0n 0Ioudai/a| sxedo_n pa&ntwn toio&nde ei]nai to_n sxhmatismo_n e0pi\ th~j gene/sewj, w(j o)ktah&meron au)tou_j lamba&nein peritomh/n.

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able that, in this case, Gregory followed Bardaiṣan more closely than Origen, and that he knew Bardaiṣan’s argument through Eusebius.

10 Diodore of Tarsus and His Closeness to Origen’s Eschatology and Refutation of Fate Diodore of Tarsus († 392), the teacher of John Chrysostom and of Theodore of Mopsuestia in Antioch, surely knew the Liber Legum Regionum and closely followed it in his own treatise Against Fate. Diodore was deeply acquainted with Origen as well, and, even though he did not share his preference for allegory,216 he certainly shared his theory of apokatastasis.217 In his approach to the problem of theodicy, human freedom, and determinism, Diodore wants to cancel even the name of the Fate, whereas Bardaiṣan did maintain its name, but in fact, like Diodore, deprived it of any power, in that he excluded both human free will and nature from the jurisdiction of fate and submitted fate to God, making of it the expression of God’s Providence. Diodore’s Kata\ Ei(marme/nhj notably bears the same title as Bardaiṣan’s work, in the form transmitted by Epiphanius and Theodoret. Diodore’s treatise is lost in its integrity, but a detailed abridgment of it is preserved by Photius (Bibl. cod. 223). The most important passages, which I am going to cite (PG 103.829C-832B), come from chapter 51 of he lost work of Diodore: “In chapter 51, 216 Even regarding the allegory / literalism divide, it is to be recognized that this opposition, often drawn between the Alexandrian and the Antiochian school, is more a scholarly construct than a reflection of reality. See my “Giovanni Crisostomo e l’esegesi scritturale: le scuole di Alessandria e di Antiochia e le polemiche con gli allegoristi pagani,” in Giovanni Crisostomo: Oriente e Occidente tra IV e V secolo. Atti del XXXIII Incontro di Studiosi dell’Antichità Cristiana, Roma, Augustinianum 6–8 maggio 2004, SEA 93.1, Rome 2005, 121–162, and M. Mitchell, “Christian Martyrdom and the ‘Dialect of the Holy Scriptures’: The Literal, the Allegorical, the Martyrological,” Biblical Interpretation 17 (2009) 177–206: 184–186; eadem, The Corinthian Correspondence and the Birth of Christian Hermeneutics, forthcoming in Cambridge. I am very grateful to Margaret Mitchell for sharing and discussing her book with me prior to publication. 217 See the demonstration in my Apokatastasis, forthcoming.

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in which he demolishes the belief in Fate, [Diodore] also criticizes Bardaiṣan’s doctrine. This doctrine, indeed, is somewhat odd and, so to say, left midway. For, to be sure, he liberates the soul from fate and from the so-called horoscope, and keeps its free will safe. However, he submits to the government of Fate the body and what concerns it, that is, richness and poverty, illness, life and death, and all that does not depend on us, and he teaches that all this is a work of Fate.”218 Diodore defined Bardaiṣan’s doctrine of Fate as h(mimanh/j and h(mi/tomoj, a bit odd and left midway. These two adjectives, with h(mi-, show very well that he did consider that doctrine to be a detachment from the pagan, “Chaldean” doctrine of Fate, but only partial. For, according to Diodore, Bardaiṣan would have had to completely eliminate Fate, even canceling its name. Diodore overlooks the fact that Bardaiṣan reduced Fate to a mere instrument of God’s will and entirely powerless in respect to human free will. Diodore himself did not entirely ignore this fundamental detail, as is evident from Photius’ account, which I shall examine. A second summary in Photius (PG 103.876A–877A) is similar, although Diodore here mentioned the followers of Bardaiṣan instead of Bardaiṣan himself: “After dealing with these topics in chapter 50 as well, [Diodore] passes on to chapter 51, where he refutes the heretical followers of Bardaiṣan, who pretend to recognize the prophets and admit that souls are free from horoscope and endowed with free will, whereas they subject the body to the control of horoscope. For they say that richness and poverty, illness and good health, life and death, and all that does not depend upon us, is a work of Fate.”219 Diodore admits again, clearly, that 218 (En me/ntoi ge tw=| a’ kai\ n’ kefalai/w| a3ma th\n th=j ei(marme/nhj katasei/wn do/can kai\ th\n Bardisa/nou sunepirrapi/zei. Au3th de\ h(mimanh/j ti/j e)sti kai\ h(mi/tomoj. Th\n me\n ga\r yuxh\n ei(marme/nhj te kai\ th=j legome/nhj geneqlialogi/aj e)leuqe/ran a)polu/ei, sunthrw=n au)th=| to\ au)tecou/sion, u(pota/ttei de\ th=| tau/thj dioikh/sei to\ sw=ma kai\ ta\ peri\ to\ sw=ma, plou=ton dh/ fhmi kai\ peni/an kai\ no/son kai\ zwh\n kai\ qa/naton kai\ o3sa ou)k e)f’ h(mi=n, kai\ tau=ta pa/nta th=j ei(marme/nhj e1rga dogmati/zei. 219 )Alla\ toiau=ta me\n kai\ kata\ to\ n’ kefa/laion dielqw\n me/teisi e)pi\ to\ a’ kai\ n’ e)n w{| tou\j a)po\ Bardisa/nouj ai(retikou\j diele//gxei de/xesqai me\n prospoioume/nouj tou\j profh/taj kai\ ta\j me\n yuxa\j gene/sewj e)leuqe/raj kai\ au)tecousi/ouj o(mologou=ntaj to\ sw=ma de\ th=| tau/thj

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Bardaiṣan and his followers did support the theory of human free will. The terminology concerning Fate, however, is a little different: the horoscope, in the meaning of “astral configuration at someone’s birth,” is indicated with ge/nesij, whereas in the former passage it was rendered with geneqlialogi/a. Diodore’s statement that Bardaiṣan’s followers accepted the prophets, and therefore at least a part of the Old Testament, further proves that Bardaiṣan was distant from Marcionism and some trends in Gnosticism, as is attested also by Hippolytus, Eusebius, Jerome, and the Vita Abercii. What is more, Diodore clearly deployed Bardaiṣan’s Kata\ Ei(marme/nhj for the many good arguments that it offered against Fate, as the careful examination that follows will prove. I shall analyze the whole of Photius’ abridgment from Diodore’s Kata\ Ei(marme/nhj (PG 103.829–876), which preserves very well, if not the very wording, at least the main argument lines and indeed is very detailed. The title is the same as that of Bardaiṣan, and is certain, in that it was faithfully transmitted by Photius, from his own manuscript(s): “A work by Diodore, bishop of Tarsus, has been read, entitled Against Fate, in eight books and fifty-three chapters.”220 His witness is confirmed by the Suda in the lemma devoted to Diodore of Tarsus, in which a work Kata\ a)strono/mwn kai\ a)strolo/gwn kai\ Ei(marme/nhj is registered, which is obviously the same work that was also known to Photius. Likewise, it was known to John Chrysostom, a disciple of Diodore in Antioch,221 who devoted six homilies to the refutation of the doctrine of Fate. In the first book of his lost work, according to Photius’ summary, Diodore argued against the eternity of the world, in that he u(pota/ttontaj dioikh/sei: plou=ton ga\r kai\ peni/an kai\ no/son kai\ u(gi/eian kai\ zwh\n kai\ qa/naton kai\ o3sa ou)k e)f’ h(mi=n e1rgon ei]nai le/gousi th=j ei(marme/nhj. 220 )Anegnw/sqh bibli/on Diodw/rou e)pisko/pou Tarsou= Kata\ Ei(marme/nhj, e)n lo/goij me\n h’, kefalai=oij de\ g’ kai\ n’.

See my “Giovanni Crisostomo e l’esegesi scritturale: le scuole di Alessandria e di Antiochia e le polemiche con gli allegoristi pagani,” in Giovanni Crisostomo: Oriente e Occidente tra IV e V secolo. Atti del XXXIII Incontro di Studiosi dell’Antichità Cristiana, Roma, Istituto Patristico Augustinianum 6–8 maggio 2004, I, Rome 2005, SEA 93, 1, 121–162. 221

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considered it to be the theory upon which the supporters of the omnipotence of Fate based themselves. For such an idea could develop only in the absence of the idea of a God who is a creator and governs the world after bringing it into existence out of nothing. In this respect, Diodore agreed with Bardaiṣan, who regarded the current world as created by God through Christ-Logos and entirely ruled by God’s Providence. Indeed, he too rejected the doctrine of the omnipotence of Fate and rather subjected everything to God’s control. This is Photius’ account: “Now, in Book 1 [Diodore] reviews several points concerning Fate, and shows on the basis of what such a false doctrine dared to express itself with so much liberty. He refutes the opinion that this world is uncreated, because Diodore thinks that the erroneous theory of Fate is grounded precisely in the assumption that the world is uncreated. Then he puts an end to Book 1, and in Book 2 he does not abandon this kind of discussion.”222 Diodore argued that the world had a beginning and will have an end, just as all creatures in it, especially human creatures, have a beginning and an end. This is a sign of their very status as creatures, depending on God (col. 831). This is why—certainly in the light of Bardaiṣan’s doctrine of the elements—Diodore affirms that the elements or stoixei=a are creatures themselves (col. 833). He wanted to support the doctrine of the creatio ex nihilo223 and to exclude that anything else, besides God, exists that is uncreated, i.e. immutable and absolutely autonomous. Now, it is worth noticing that Bardaiṣan himself likewise conceived that the “beings” ()YtY*), to which I shall return in my investigation into Ephrem 222 )En me\n ou]n to\ a’ lo/gw| a1lla te/ tina peri\ Ei(marme/nhj dielqw/n, kai\ o3qen e1sxe th\n to/lman h( pla/nh parrhsia/sasqai, kai\ kata\ th=j legou/shj do/chj to/de to\ pa=n a)ge/nhton ei]nai dianista/menoj – oi1etai ga\r e)k th=j u(polh/yewj th=j to\n ko/smon a)ge/nhton poiou/shj, e)kei=qen kai\ to\ th=j Ei(marme/nhj sugkrotei=sqai pla/sma – peratoi= to\n a’ lo/gon, kai\ e)n tw=| b’ tou= au)tou= mh\ a)fista/menoj a)gwni/smatoj.

On which I limit myself to referring to G. May, Creatio ex nihilo: The Doctrine of ‘Creation out of Nothing’ in Early Christian Thought, English transl. by A. S. Worrall, Edinburgh 1994 and C. Köckert, Christliche Kosmologie und kaiserzeitliche Philosophie, Tübingen 2009, who shows how late the notion of creatio ex nihilo arose in Christian thought. 223

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and the so-called “cosmological traditions”), to be sure, preexist this world, but they are creatures nevertheless, and do depend on God. In the Liber Legum Regionum, Bardaiṣan calls God “their creator” and says that they are subjected to God: “The beings are not deprived of their own nature once they are fixed in the order, but of the force of their energy, which is diminished by the mingling of one with another, and they are subjected to the power of their Creator” (551). Indeed, properly speaking, Bardaiṣan’s “beings” become “elements” ()SKw*+S)) only after the creation of this world. Therefore, not even these observations of Diodore’s are really at odds with Bardaiṣan’s ideas. Clearly, indeed, when in the passage from the Liber I have cited Bardaiṣan speaks of “beings” and “elements,” he means the primordial entities that are described by the so-called cosmological traditions and refers to an event that is narrated therein. The original “beings,” which preexist the world but are not made by Bardaiṣan equal to God, but are subordinated to the divinity, who is expressly said to be their creator, after an accident which made them liable to disorder and darkness, invoked God’s help. God, then, sent Christ-Logos to liberate the “beings” from the darkness, which symbolizes non-existence and evil. Christ-Logos ordered them according to the “mystery of the Cross.”224 It is to this action that Bardaiṣan alludes in the Liber passage, when he says that the elements were “fixed in the order.” He means that this ordering activity of Christ-Logos did not deprive the “beings” of their nature, but only of their individual force, in the present world, which results from the mixture of the original elements. This mix, decided by the Lord, “damps the force of the natures,” that is, the individual force of the “beings,” as Bardaiṣan says at the end of the Liber: “For this order and this government that have been given [sc. by God], and the mixture of one with the other, damps the force of the natures, that they may not be completely dangerous, or completely damaged, as they were harmful and harmed before the creation of this world. And there will come a time in which even his residual capacity for harm in them will come to an end, thanks to 224

tions.

See discussion below, in the treatment of the cosmological tradi-

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the instruction that will take place in a different association of things. And after the constitution of this new world, all evil movements will come to an end.” Bardaiṣan goes on to explain the eventual apokatastasis.225 In the present world, the natures or beings still have some capacity for harm, which will be eliminated in the apokatastasis, when no free will will choose evil any more, thanks to the work of instruction and illumination that will take place in the end. Hence, evil will finally disappear in the final restoration, “as a gift of the Lord of all natures.”226 This is, therefore, what Diodore said concerning the elements, in Photius’ résumé: Diodore “maintains that the elements are creatures, and, on the basis of what is seen, they continually need one another. For what is uncreated is both immutable and independent… the world should be deemed to be neither uncreated nor created spontaneously, nor bereft of providence, but we should know with clarity and we should consider to be indubitable that it is God who provides creatures both with being and with being well.”227 Diodore also denied that the elements were created by Fate (col. 836), a doctrine that was never taught by Bardaiṣan: “Should they dare to ascribe even the creation of the elements to Fate, let them tell us which heavenly body, after entering a given constellation of the zodiac, created the earth, which the air, or fire, or water.”228 Diodore in his work Against Fate refuted the same “climatic” theory of Fate that was rejected by Bardaiṣan in the Liber Legum Regionum. This theory is found refuted only in Christian authors, See my “Origen, Bardaiṣan, and the Origin of Universal Salvation,” HTR 102.2 (2009) 135–168. 226 These are the final words of Bardaiṣan in the Liber Legum Regionum. See my wide-ranging commentary in my Bardesane Kata Heimarmenēs. 227 Genhta\ de/ fhsi ta\ stoixei=a kai\ e)c w{n o(ra=tai kaq’ e(ka/sthn a)llh/lwn deo/mena: to\ ga\r a)ge/nhton kai\ a1trepton kai\ a)nendee/j … mh/te a)ge/nhton mh/te au)to/maton nomi/zein to\n ko/smon, mh/t’ au] a)prono/hton, 225

Qeo\n de\ au)toi=j kai\ to\ ei]nai kai\ to\ eu] ei]nai parasxo/menon safw=j ei)de/nai kai\ a)dista/ktwj e)pi/stasqai. 228 Ei) de\ tolmh/saien kai\ tw=n stoixei/wn dhmiourgi/an a)na/ptein th=| Ei(marme/nh|, lege/twsan h(mi=n poi=oj me\n a)sth\r ei)j to/de to\ zw/|dion ei)selqw\n a)pete/lese th\n gh=n, poi=oj de\ to\n a)e/ra h2 to\ pu=r h2 to\ u3dwr.

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beginning with Bardaiṣan himself and including Gregory of Nyssa, as I have demonstrated. It is the astrological doctrine according to which the earth is divided into climatic zones, each of which is subjected to the influence of a given planet or constellation of the zodiac (chap. 29, col. 837): “In chapter 29 [Diodore] explains how they divide the whole earth into belts of equal size assigned to the twelve zodiacal constellations: they refer these earthly zones and those who inhabit them to each of the zodiacal signs, in that each one supervises the section of the earth allotted to it, as though it were a cloud.”229 This is clearly a perfect account of the second doctrine that Bardaiṣan refutes in the Liber. It is again Bardaiṣan who obviously inspired Diodore’s argument that the heavenly bodies cannot influence the course of nature (col. 840). Fate cannot extend its own control to everything; for example, it cannot have snow fall during the summer. Likewise, Bardaiṣan in the Liber Legum Regionum argued that Fate, for instance, cannot have either a child or a decrepit man beget a baby. For both generation and seasons depend on the laws of nature, against which Fate has no power. Diodore adduces this very same argument, deriving from the inviolability of the laws of nature, in many variants, for example in col. 853, where the dependence on Bardaiṣan’s arguments is patent: in the case of animals, their figure, their way of nourishing or expressing themselves, their migrations, etc., depend on their respective species, and therefore on their nature, not on Fate. Humans, on the contrary, depend not only on nature, which determines the laws of their own species, within the sphere of their bodies, but also on their free will, on which their behavior and choices depend (col. 856ff.). This distinction between the body, governed by nature, and the spirit, endowed with free will, also corresponds to that which Bardaiṣan draws in the Liber Legum Regionum, which is clearly the source of inspiration for this whole work of Diodore. Indeed, Diodore produces the same examples as Bardaiṣan does when he men)En de\ tw=| kq’ fhsi/ pw=j th\n o3lhn gh=n ei)j i1sa me/rh toi=j dw/deka katameri/zontej zw|di/oij, ta\ me\n tmh/mata th=j gh=j kai\ tou\j e)n au)toi=j oi)kou=ntaj ei)j e3kaston a)fwrisme/nwj a)nafe/rousi tw=n zw|di/wn e3kaston di/khn nefe/lhj th=| e)forisme/nh| moi/ra| th=j gh=j e)poxou/menon. 229

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tions those aspects of human life that are governed by nature and over which Fate has no power (col. 860): “But nature annihilates the power of Fate and overcomes it in all respects: in the extension of times, in the union of bodies, in the varieties of births, in the transformations with age, and in all other aspects depending on nature, none of which the Fate is capable of changing.”230 It was above all in Book 6 of his Kata\ Ei(marme/nhj, chap. 44, that Diodore took up Bardaiṣan’s argument in order to prove that it is human mind, rather than stars, to determine the customs and laws of the various peoples. That Diodore’s argument was identical to that of Bardaiṣan is clear even from Photius’ abridged version (col. 861): “It is evident that the intellect was given by God to the human beings; with passing time and with labor, and, above all, thanks to the help of God, it discovered what was useful to life: there is no need to invent further explanations with much effort. How is it that, even within the same race, a whole people has its hair grow whereas another cuts it? And how is it that another people has as a custom that men have intercourse with their own mothers, while the vast majority of the people consider this custom abominable? And peoples are different for numberless other distinctions of laws, life styles, and habits. And no course of stars has those who keep their hair long cut it, or forces others to do things which they did not learn in their customs. And these are the contents of the present chapter.”231 230 )All’ h( fu/sij to\ e)kei/nhj lu/ei kra/toj, kai\ pantaxou= tau/thn nika=|, e)n parata/sei xro/nwn, e)n o(mili/a| swma/twn, e)n kuoforiw=n diaforai=j, e)n e)callagai=j h(likiw=n kai\ e)n toi=j a1lloij pa=si toi=j kata\ fu/sin, w{n ou)de\n e)kei/nh e)calla/ttein du/natai. 231 Dh=lon o3ti o( para\ Qeou= toi=j a)nqrw/poij doqei\j nou=j, xro/nw| kai\ po/nw| kai\ pro/ ge tou/twn th=| a1nwqen sunergi/a| ta\ pro\j to\n bi/on xrh/sima e)ceurw/n, e1sth tou= porrwte/rw kai\ ma/thn e)ntalaipwrei=sqai tai=j e)pinoi/aij. Pw=j de\ tou= au)tou= ge/nouj e1qnoj me\n o(lo/klhron koma=|, a1llo de\ kei/retai; Kai\ a1llo me\n mhtrogamei=, ta\ plei/w de\ musara\n th\n pra=cin h(gou=ntai; Kai\ muri/aij a1llaij katate/mnontai diaforai=j no/mwn, bi/wn, e)qw=n: kai\ ou)dei\j a)ste/rwn dro/moj ou1te tou\j komh/taj kei/rei, ou1te tou\j keirome/nouj koma=n e)kbia/zetai, ou)de\ ta\ a1lla pra/ttein a1llouj, o3sa toi=j para\ sfi/si no/moij ou)k e1maqon. Kai\ ta\ me\n tou= paro/ntoj kefalai/ou toiau=ta.

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Diodore proves even closer to Bardaiṣan in chapter 45, in which Diodore responds to the very same astrological objection concerning the climatic zones, each governed by a star, to which Bardaiṣan had replied first. Now, Diodore in turn responds to this objection exactly like Bardaiṣan. For he too produces the same examples of the Jews and the Christians, two peoples who maintain their laws in many different regions of the earth. The most disparate peoples in every zone have converted to Christianity and have submitted to the law of Christ. The very words with which Diodore introduces his treatment of the Christians, “our race [ge/noj], I mean that of the Christians,” are an echo of the phrase with which Bardaiṣan introduced his own example of the Christians: “the new race of us Christians.” It even seems that Diodore is citing from the Greek text, not from the Greek translation, which in Eusebius is different, in that he renders ai3resij, not ge/noj. Bardaiṣan’s adjective “new,” in reference to “race,” also corresponds to Diodore’s sentence, clearly adapted to his own time, that Christianity is only four hundred years old and yet has already conquered the whole world. Moreover, Bardaiṣan too, like Diodore now, observed that Christianity had already spread “in every land and in all regions.” Here is Diodore’s reworking of Bardaiṣan’s argument: “In the subsequent chapter he adds that, even if the fanatic supporters of Fate deemed it good to have recourse to the simultaneous rising of the stars which are different from those of the zodiacal signs and planets, and neither do they rejoice in the effects of the horoscope, nor are they in reciprocal harmony, but each of them produces its own effects, according to the different climates, let them tell us where the argument concerning the horoscope could remain stable and unshaken. For, each one of these stars, according to what they say, with its own forces wipes out the influences of the horoscope. What is more, not even all of them occupy the same measure of the earth, like, for instance, the space occupied by the Iberians, the Lazians, the Romans, and the others. How is it possible, then, that this people here may live with a life style, laws, and customs diametrically opposed to those of this other people? Second: how could one explain that very many peoples, even though remaining within the boundaries of their land, have converted to the customs of the Romans? Moreover, third: the Jewish people migrated to Egypt, but did not abandon their ancestral laws. Then, after leaving Egypt, they settled in Palestine and Arabia, and chased away their

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previous idolatrous inhabitants by means of wars, and they did not detach themselves from the Mosaic laws. But not even when it was brought to Babylon in captivity, and when, subsequently, it was dispersed throughout the earth, did the Jewish people separate from its ancestral laws, nor did any of the simultaneous risings of the stars, or the horoscope, force them to break the commandment either of the circumcision or of the Shabbat. Our own race, then, I mean that of the Christians, had its origin four hundred years ago, and immediately has conquered the whole inhabited world. It has detached each people from its own customs and has converted them to the way of living characterized by piety, without their changing their homeland, but while they continued to inhabit the same as beforehand. Thus, Christianity has demonstrated that the old influences of the contiguous raisings are fallacious, vain, and risible. The preaching of unlearned people [sc. the Christian apostles] has manifestly annihilated these theses [sc. the theory of the climatic zones, first refuted by Bardaiṣan], to which the theory of the horoscope had already yielded, in that it did not work. Once upon a time, the world was subject to the Assyrians, then it was Babylon to exercise its power; then the Medes, in turn, took command; then the world power passed on to the Macedonians. But each people kept its own customs, and they were governed by their own sovereigns, even though they did not know the common Lord who governs upon all. Now, instead, just as the faith is one, so is also the emperor one, and the only legitimate power of the Romans extends over three hundred peoples or more, just as one and the same religion also does. And the horoscope of each single human being, now, forces nobody either to adore idols, or to have intercourse with their mothers, or to other behaviors due to which the various peoples not only differed from each other, but were also opposite to those who were contrary to them. Now, let them tell us what follows: if it is Fate to determine the changes of religion and thought, how is it that it had no power to change the rest as well? For it has clearly demonstrated that it could not persuade or force anyone to wish ignominy, poverty, illness, slavery, insult, or many other things of this kind, but, just as nature has proven in each case stronger than the influences of the

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horoscope, so does our reasoning faculty, maintaining its own privilege of free will, in all that it does on the basis of a free choice, prove superior to the babble of the astrologers.”232

232

)En de\ tw=| e(ch=j e)pa/gei w(j, ei) kai\ do/ceien katafeu/gein oi( th=j Ei(marme/nhj e)rastai\ e)pi\ tou\j paranate/llontaj, oi4 tw=n zwdi/wn kai\ tw=n planh/twn ei)si\n e3teroi kai\ ou1te toi=j th=j gene/sewj a)potele/smasi xai/rousin ou1te a)llh/loij suna/|dousin, a)lla\ kata\ ta\j tw=n klima/twn diafora\j e3kastoj au)tw=n ta\ oi)kei=a xorhgei= a)potele/smata, ei)pa/twsan h(mi=n pou= to\ th=j gene/sewj be/baion kai\ a)sa/leuton. 3Ekastoj ga\r tou/twn i)di/aij e)nergei/aij ta\ tau/thj a)nako/ptwn, e)c w{n fasin, e)pidei/knutai a)potele/smata. Kai/toi ou)de\ pa/ntej to\ au)to\ th=j gh=j e1xousi me/tron, oi{on h( Persw=n kai\ )Ibh/rwn moi=ra h2 h( Lazw=n kai\ (Rwmai/wn h2 tw=n a1llwn. Pw=j ou]n to/de to\ e1qnoj pro\j to/de a)ntikeime/noij kai\ bi/w| kai\ no/moij kai\ h1qesi dioikei=tai; Deu/teron de\ pw=j ta\ plei=sta tw=n e)qnw=n e)n toi=j i)di/aj gh=j o3roij i(drume/na ei)j ta\ tw=n (Rwmai/wn mete/balen h1qh; )Alla\ kai\ tri/ton, metw/|khse me\n to\ )Ioudai/wn e1qnoj ei)j Ai1gupton, tw=n de\ patrw/|wn no/mwn ou) metane/sth. Ai)gu/ptou de\ pa/lin a)panasta/ntej Palaisti/nhn me\n kai\ )Arabi/an e)poikou=si, tou\j pri\n oi)kou=ntaj ei)dwlola/traj pole/moij w)sa/menoi, kai\ tw=n Mwsaikw=n ou) paretra/phsan no/mwn. )All’ ou)d’ o3te pro\j Babulw=na doria/lwton to\ e1qnoj a)ph/xqh, kai\ meta\ xro/nouj e)pi\ ps=san th\n gh=n dieskeda/sqh, tw=n patrw|/wn ou)k a)pesta/thse no/mwn, kai\ ou1te tij tw=n paranatello/ntwn ou1te h( ge/nesij katena/gkasen au)tou\j h2 th=j peritomh=j h2 tou= Sabba/tou to\ pare/ggelma lu/sai. To\ de/ ge h(me/teron ge/noj, to\ tw=n Xristianw=n le/gw, pro\ tetrakosi/wn me\n e)tw=n th\n a)rxh\n e1sxen, a)qro/on de\ pa=san e1laben th\n oi)koume/nhn, kai\ tw=n me\n oi)kei/wn e)qw=n e3kaston a)pe/sthsen e1qnoj, ei)j de\ to\n th=j eu)sebei/aj meterru/qmise bi/on, ou) th=j patri/doj meqistame/nouj, a)lla\ th\n au)th\n w(j kai\ pro/teron oi)kou=ntaj, kai\ ta\ tw=n paranatello/ntwn a)potele/smata poluxro/nia saqra\ kai\ gela=sqai kate/lipen a1cia: kai\ pro\j a4 h( ge/nesij i)sxu\n ou)k e1xousa katedu/eto, tau=ta perifanw=j to\ tw=n a)gramma/twn kate/luse kh/rugma. )Edou/leuse me\n ou]n )Assuri/oij o( ko/smoj pa/lai, ei]ta Babulw\n e)kra/tei, kai\ Mh=doi th\n a)rxh\n diede/canto, kai\ met’ e)kei/nouj Pe/rsai, kai\ pro\j Makedo/naj u3steron to\ kra/toj o3lon mete/balen. )All’ e3kastoj e1qnoj toi=j oi)kei/oij e)ne/menen e1qesi, kai\ basileu=sin i)di/oij e)politeu/onto, ei) kai\ mh\ to\n pa/ntwn kratou=nta koino\n Despo/thn e)pegi/nwskon. Nuni\ de/, w3sper h( eu)se/beia mi/a, ou3tw kai\ o( to\ basi/leion kra/toj e1xwn ei{j, kai\ triakosi/wn e)qnw=n h2 kai\ pleio/nwn mi/a tij e1nnomoj h( (Rwmai/wn, w3sper kai\ h( eu)se/beia, e)pa/rxei a)rxh/: kai\ ou)de/na bia/zetai h( ge/nesij nu=n ou1te ei)dwlolatrei=n ou1te mhtrogamei=n ou)de\ ta\ a1lla, o3soij ta\ dia/fora tw=n e)qnw=n ou)k e)ch/llatte mo/non a)llh/lwn, a)lla\ kai\ pro\j ta\ a)ntikei/mena katete/mneto.

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Diodore closely follows Bardaiṣan’s argument. The reference to the Lazians, a Colchian people, cited by Lucian (41.44), who was only slightly anterior to Bardaiṣan, is particularly interesting. Indeed, it is on the basis of this reference that in my edition of the Liber Legum Regionum, col. 596 Nau, I proposed to correct the reading “Zazians” of the manuscript into “Lazians,” also given the resemblance between l and z in Syriac, both in est?rangela and, even more, in ṣerto. It is likely that the manuscript of this work that Diodore read, whether it was Syriac (as I tend to believe) or Greek, still had the exact reading, whereas the only Syriac manuscript of the Liber that is available to us has a variant reading that is probably corrupt. This is my translation of the Liber passage: “In Northern Sarmatia and in Iberia,233 in all the lands North of Pontus, and in the whole country of the Alans and among the Albans, among the Lazians and in Brusa, which is beyond the Douros.” A clear proof of the difficulty of this passage and of the impossibility of individuating and locating the “Zazi” (“Zasians”) is given by the versions of Eusebius, Caesarius, and the Ps.-Clementines: none of these )Ekei=no de\ h(mi=n lege/twsan, pw=j, w3sper h( ei(marme/nh metabola\j poiei= qrhskei/aj kai\ dogma/twn, ou)xi\ kai\ ta\ a1lla i)sxu\n ou)demi/an metabalei=n e1sxen; Ou)de/na ga\r e)fa/nh pei/sasa ou)de\ biasame/nh a)doci/aj ptwxei/aj h2 a)rrwsti/aj h2 doulei/aj h2 kola/sewj h2 u3brewj ou)de\ muri/wn a1llwn toiou/twn po/qon labei=n: a)ll’ w3sper h( fu/sij krei/ttwn w1fqh pantaxou= tw=n th=j gene/sewj a)potelesma/twn, ou3tw kai\ o( logismo\j to\ oi)kei=on th=j e)leuqeri/aj a)ci/wma diasw|/zwn, e)n oi{j au)qaire/twj pra/ttei, tw=n e)kei=qen dei/knutai katecousia/zwn lh/|rwn.

Mentioned as it is between Sarmatia and Pontus, it seems to me that this region here is the Caucasian Iberia, not the Spanish peninsula. The Greek translation of Eusebius and Caesarius, indeed, has “in Scythia,” e)n th=| Skuqi/a|; likewise, the Latin of the Recognitiones has Scythas. The Syriac test in the Liber presents )YNPS), the same term that in the Doctrina Addai indicates the “children of Iberia,” who are not the Iberian of Western Europe, but those of the Caucasian region, as I have argued in “Alcune osservazioni sulle origini del Cristianesimo nelle regioni ad est dell’Eufrate,” in La diffusione dell’eredità classica nell’età tardoantica e medioevale. Il Romanzo di Alessandro e altri scritti, Atti del Seminario Internazionale di Studi, Roma – Napoli 25–27.IX.1997, ed. R. B. Finazzi – A. Valvo, Alessandria 1998, 209–225; eadem, “Possible Historical Traces in the Doctrina Addai.” See also my “Edessa e i Romani.” 233

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keeps “Zazians”; they do not change this reading into “Lazians” either, but they omit this bit altogether, or else they replace it with other expressions, completely different. Eusebius in his Greek partial translation in Praeparatio Evangelica 6.10234 renders )Wtanh=| kai\ Sauni/a| kai\ e)n Xrush=;| Caesarius entirely skips this phrase,235 and the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitiones only have in Chrysea insula.236 The sections excerpted by Eusebius correspond to Liber Legum Regionum coll. 559.11–563.1 Nau and 583.5–611. 8 Nau. 235 The words of Bardaiṣan’s Kata\ Ei(marme/nhj quoted by Eusebius appear again also in Caesarius, Quaestiones, cc. 47–48, quaest. 109–111 (PG 38.977–988). He was the brother of Gregory of Nazianzus, who, according to the tradition, was the redactor of the Philocalia of Origen’s writings together with Basil. All the Cappadocians admired and followed Origen, and Gregory of Nyssa did so most of all. Caesarius’ interest in Bardaiṣan’s argument against Fate fits very well in the picture that has emerged in my research, i.e., that Bardaiṣan was appreciated by the estimators of Origen. 236 The second part of Eusebius’ excerpt (corresponding to cols. 583.5–611.8 Nau of the Liber) returns, with only a few alterations, in the Recognitiones attributed to Clement of Rome (9.19–29), which are preserved in Rufinus’ Latin translation. They seem to have originated in a Syrian area around A.D. 360 on the basis of an anterior writing of A.D. 220 ca., this too of a Syrian provenance, and very close to the Liber Legum Regionum from the chronological point of view. On this work and its genesis there is a large bibliography; I limit myself to referring to B. Pouderon, “La Genèse du Roman Clémentin et sa signification théologique,” in Studia Patristica XL, eds. F. Young, M. Edwards, P. Parvis, Leuven 2006, 483– 507. In this connection, it is interesting to point out a detail that has been overlooked by scholars: Origen (Philoc. 23.22), in an argument devoted to the refutation of Fate and of astral determinism, preserved by Eusebius in his Praeparatio Evangelica 6.11, immediately after the excerpt (in 6.10) from Bardaiṣan’s Kata\ Ei(marme/nhj, cites precisely the Ps. Clementines, in their ancient stage of the so-called Peri/odoi Pe/trou, and he cites them in order to support his own argument: “Clement of Rome, a disciple of Peter the apostle, in the Periodoi, while speaking with his father in Laodicea, says things that are in agreement with the arguments that I have now adduced concerning this question. He puts forward an extremely cogent argument toward the end of his discourses on this theme, in section 14, about what seems to depend on the horoscope” (Klh&mhj de\ o( 9Rwmai=oj, Pe/trou tou~ 234

a)posto&lou maqhth/j, sunw|da_ tou&toij e0n tw|~ paro&nti problh&mati pro_j

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This clearly indicates that none of these authors had any more access to the correct reading, whereas Diodore could. I believe Diodore had a good Syriac text, or at least a good Greek version, at his disposal. The very detail of the Lazians and that concerning the Christians’ ge/noj, which I have illustrated, make me think that he did not simply use Eusebius’ excerpts, but a full text of good quality, either Syriac—which I deem probable—or Greek. The second argument adduced by Diodore in the aforementioned passage is that of the peoples who, conquered by the Romans, modify their laws and customs and assume those of the Romans. Now, this argument is inspired by that of Bardaiṣan on peoples changing their laws upon the decision of their governors; what is more, it even echoes the specific example adduced by Bardaiṣan, i.e., that of Abgar the Great, who, after his conversion to Christianity, forbade a pagan ritual mutilation. Indeed, according to Cassius Dio, he officially introduced that reform as an assimilation to the Roman customs.237 Diodore, who lived when Christianity had already been recognized as a legitimate religion under Constantine, and was about to become the official religion of the empire with Theodosius, clearly found the assimilation between the Christian and the Roman law even more natural than it was in the day of Bardaiṣan. The latter, of course, lived when the Roman empire was not yet Christian; though, he lived at the court of Abgar the Great, who probably was a Christian himself, and in any case was certainly not hostile to Christianity. And he lived in a philo-Roman State, Osrhoene, which in those days certainly did not persecute the Christians, but allowed them to have a church and even had some of them at court. The argument concerning the Jewish people, too, was present already in Bardaiṣan, and the one concerning the Christians is identical in Bardaiṣan and in Diodore, with the addi-

to_n pate/ra e0n Laodikei/a| ei0pw_n e0n tai=j Perio&doij, a)nagkaio&tato&n ti e0pi\ te/lei tw~n peri\ tou&tou lo&gwn fhsi\n peri\ tw~n th~j gene/sewj dokou&ntwn e0kbebhke/nai, lo&gw| id’). Then, Origen also quotes the relevant

passages. This seems to me highly significant. 237 A careful analysis of this and other sources on Abgar the Great is found in my Edessa e i Romani.

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tion of the point based on the succession of the empires.238 The latter was a natural addition for Diodore, who lived in a Christian empire, in a time in which the extension of the empire coincided with that of Christianity.239 Diodore concludes his extensive argument, parallel to that of Bardaiṣan, by observing that changes in religion, convictions, laws, and so on, depend, not on Fate, but on human free will. This is repeated by Diodore immediately afterwards as well (col. 855): the fact of adhering to a given philosophical school or religion depends, not on Fate, but on a free moral choice for good or for evil, therefore on our free will. Consequently, evil does not derive from Fate, and certainly not from God either, but from bad choices. This is why God punishes them, indeed, which means that they depend upon us. In chapter 49 Diodore also added arguments based on Scripture and on the so-called salvific economy, which he defined a “great mystery.” For in it he included the apokatastasis too, a theory which he held, just as Bardaiṣan did.240 Photius reports: “He adduces the laws and the exhortations of our Sacred Scriptures, and praises, full rightly, the great mystery of our salvation. And here he also refutes astrology, in an apt manner, on the basis of the same divine Word.”241 Finally, Diodore added (col. 873) that our will remains free even in respect to the demons. For, just as Origen stated in Book 3 of his Peri\ )Arxw=n,242 Diodore also argued that we can 238 See I. Ramelli, “Alcune osservazioni sulla teoria orosiana della successione degli imperi,” InvLuc 22 (2000) 179–191. 239 A proviso should be made for the question of the barbarians and their conversion, which in the age of Theodosius began to be particularly felt. See my remarks in “L’inedito Pròs basiléa di Temistio, con due postille e due tavole,” in collaboration with E. Amato, Byzantinische Zeitschrift 99 (2006) 1–67. 240 See demonstration in the section devoted to Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia in my Apocatastasi. 241

Th=j i(era=j h(mw=n Grafh=j tou\j no/mouj kai\ ta\j paraine/seij kai\ to\ me/ga th=j swthri/aj h(mw=n musth/rion kai\ ma/la dikai/wj e)cumnei=: e)n w{| kai\ th=j a)strologi/aj e)k tw=n au)tw=n qeoxrh/stwn logi/wn a(rmodi/wj kaqa/ptetai. 242

See my “La coerenza della soteriologia origeniana.”

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resist demons, who can only tempt, but not determine our free will.243 I think that Diodore entirely agrees with Bardaiṣan on the fact that fate is utterly impotent in respect to human free will. There is only one point in which he detaches himself from Bardaiṣan’s position, that is, the complete removal of both the concept and even the name of fate. For it is not enough for him to subtract to fate every independent power, to submit it to God’s will, and to take away from it all that is determined by natural laws—just as Bardaiṣan had done—and all the decisions that depend on human free will—located by Diodore in the intellect, precisely where it was also located by Bardaiṣan—but Diodore wants to utterly erase every notion of “fate.” Now, Bardaiṣan in fact had eliminated Fate as well, actually limiting himself to maintaining its name. Indeed, the only discrepancy between Diodore and Bardaiṣan is much more a matter of names than of substance: Diodore conceives as directly dependent on God what Bardaiṣan conceived as dependent on God through Fate. For Bardaiṣan regarded Fate, not as an independent force, or even a deity, but as an expression of God’s providence. He had already emptied Fate of any autonomous function and authority, having it depend on God. So, why did Bardaiṣan maintain the name of “fate,” instead of abolishing it altogether? I believe that he did so for at least two reasons. First, he wished to keep the notion of the stars as mediators of the dispensation of God’s will; second, he probably intended to retain a precise correspondence. Indeed, the “nature– fate–free will” tripartition, in which all the elements depend on God—nature is created by God, Fate is governed by God’s will, and free will is a gift of God to the human being—exactly corresponds to the anthropological tripartition that is typical of Bardaiṣan’s thought and was already present in Paul, in Origen, and in other philosophers as well.244 This is the relevant equation in Bardaiṣan’s theoretical framework: Ou)k a2n h)gnoh/samen o3son u(po\ Qeou= tetimh/meqa ou1d’ o3son kata\ daimo/nwn i)sxu/omen. 243

244 See my “Tricotomia,” in Enciclopedia Filosofica, dir. V. Melchiorre, Milano 20062, Centro di Studi Filosofici di Gallarate, 12.11772–11776.

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nature : body (sw=ma) = fate : soul (yuxh/) = free will : intellect (nou=j) / spirit (pneu=ma) For, nature determines the laws that regulate generation, nutrition, and so on, and concerns the physical sphere; fate, according to Bardaiṣan, presides over the cases of life that do not depend on human will, such as richness or poverty, good health or illness, exiles, the length of one’s life, even if some aspects of these may indeed be influenced by our voluntary choices—for example, a dissolute life may bring about illnesses; imprudent behaviors may lead one to death, and the like—and free will is exercised by our intellect, which is defined by Bardaiṣan in the Liber as “child of freedom,” that is, free. I suspect that it is also for the sake of this symmetry that Bardaiṣan hesitated to abolish fate also in name, after refuting and eliminating it in fact. If Photius is accurate in reporting his thought, as he generally is, Diodore missed this point. What he precisely failed to grasp is that, according to Bardaiṣan, it is not the body to be subjected to fate, while the soul is free, but it is precisely the vital or inferior soul, i.e., the soul that vivifies the body, to be subjected to fate, whereas what is free from fate is the intellect. This misunderstanding is evident from Diodore’s own criticism (col. 876). Indeed, while speaking of Bardaiṣan’s followers mentioned in chapter 51, which I have analyzed beforehand, Diodore affirms that they “subject the body to the rule of fate.”245 This is certainly untrue of Bardaiṣan himself, who subjected the body to nature, not to fate, as is transparent in the Liber. In his refutation, Diodore insists on the body and argues that, since Christ healed many persons in their bodies, it is impossible that this body be submitted to fate. In fact, this was not what Bardaiṣan thought. Here is Diodore’s relevant piece: “But if not even the works of the salvific economy accomplished long ago by means of the angels and the prophets were an effect of the horoscope (that is, of the configuration of the stars at each one’s birth), nor even the works performed by our Lord Jesus Christ, when he manifested 245

To\ sw=ma u(pota/ttontej th=| tau/thj dioikh/sei.

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himself in the body, healing innumerable human bodies, how could we possibly deem it good to affirm that the body is governed by the astral configuration that was present at each one’s birth? For, otherwise, they would imply that God’s threats against the disobedient and God’s promises of rewards for the obedient are false. Or else, if the first option is true, the second is false. Moreover, how is it possible to submit the body to the power of the stars but set the soul free from it? … Bardaiṣan’s followers should necessarily, either subject the soul too to the stars, or else, given that they dare not do so, declare the body free from their influence as well. And this is how chapter 52 ends.”246 Thus, Diodore states that one ought to either submit to Fate the soul, too, which Bardaiṣan’s followers refused to do because of human free will, or leave the body free from fate as well. But what Diodore misses is that Bardaiṣan subjected to Fate the inferior and vital soul, not the superior and rational soul, that is, the intellect, which he regarded as absolutely free from fate, nor did he submit the body to fate, since he rather subjected it to nature. Diodore’s argument is misleading here, in that it does not correspond to Bardaiṣan’s anthropology, so that it cannot be considered to constitute a valid objection. On the other hand, it is clear that, according to Diodore, Bardaiṣan was simply right in demolishing the pagan doctrine of Fate, and availed himself of excellent arguments. Indeed, it is not by chance that Diodore himself appropriated most of them, often even to the point of verbal echoes. His only critique is that Bardaiṣan should have been even more radical and should have eliminated even the very name of fate. But this critique derives 246 Ei) de\ ou1te ta\ di’ a)gge/lwn kai\ profhtw=n oi)konomhqe/nta pa/lai gene/sewj e1rgon h]n, ou)d’ a3per o( Ku/rioj h(mw=n )Ihsou=j Xristo\j dia\ sw/matoj fanei\j ei)rga/sato, muria/daj a)nqrwpei/wn i)asa/menoj swma/twn, pw=j oi1ontai to\ sw=ma le/gein gene/sei dioikei=sqai; h2 ga\r to\ a)peilei=n to\ Qei=on toi=j parakou/ousin, eu)ergetei=n de\ tou\j peiqoume/nouj, ei)j yeu=doj a)pa/cousin: h2 ei) to\ prw=ton a)lhqe/j, pla/sma to\ deu/teron. Xwri\j de\ tw=n tw=n ei)rhme/nwn, pw=j oi{o/n te, sw/matoj u(pokeime/nou gene/sei, ta\j yuxa\j tau/thj a)phlla/xqai; … a)na/gkh tou\j e)k Bardisa/nouj h2 kai\ th\n yuxh\n u(pota/cai gene/sei, h2 tou=to mh\ tolmw=ntaj kai\ to\ sw=ma tau/thj a)pofai/nein e)leu/qeron. Ou3tw me\n kai\ to\ b’ kai\ n’ a)poperatou=tai kefa/laion.

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from a misunderstanding, since in fact Bardaiṣan eliminated fate as an independent force and subjected it to God’s will. Therefore, the only disagreement between him and Diodore is more nominal than real. And it is completely isolated. Indeed, the last polemic in Diodore’s treatment of the matter is not against Bardaiṣan or his followers, but is grounded in an argument that is found in Gregory of Nyssa as well: “In a subsequent chapter he refutes the extreme impiety of those who dare subject even our Lord Jesus Christ to the power of the stars, taking as an excuse the star that appeared at his birth … Diodore argues that the star that manifested itself at Jesus’ birth was not one of the many stars that are found in heaven, but a divine power that assumed the appearance of a star, in order to announce the birth of the common Lord … The Lord, as soon as he was born, made himself known to some Persians before presenting himself to other people, to indicate that the grace and salvation coming through him are offered to those who wish them, even among mages and enchanters.”247 Now, this was already observed by Gregory of Nyssa in his homily In diem Natalem, devoted to the birth of the Lord, in A.D. 386. Here, Gregory had also analyzed the astronomical configuration at Jesus’ birth in the light of the salvific economy: Christ came to this world precisely when the night was the longest, that is to say, in a spiritual sense, when evil was at its culmination. This is the sign of God’s intervention in the radical elimination of evil that will peak at the apokatastasis—a doctrine that was professed both by Gregory and by Diodore, in addition to being professed by Bardaiṣan and by Origen.

247

)En de\ tw=| e)fech=j th\n e)sxa/thn a)se/beian diele/gxei, tw=n gene/sei tolmw/ntwn u(poba/llein kai\ to\n Ku/rion h(mw=n )Ihsou=n Xristo/n, to\n fane/nta pro/fasin poioume/nwn a)ste/ra … dei/knusi to\n fane/nta a)ste/ra mh\ e3na tw=n pollw=n tw=n kat’ ou)rano\n ei]nai, a)lla\ du/nami/n tina qeiote/ran ei)j a1stron me\n sxhmatizome/nhn, th\n de\ tou= koinou= Despo/tou khru/ttousan ge/nesin … e)mfani/zetai de\ texqei\j Pe/rsaij pro\ tw=n a1llwn e)qnw=n o( Despo/thj e(auto/n, deiknu\j o3ti kai\ ma/gwn kai\ goh/twn toi=j e)qe/lousin h( di’ au)tou= pare/xetai xa/rij kai\ swthri/a.

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If Diodore and Gregory depend on a common source,248 this is very likely to be Origen, who was very well known to both. In his Contra Celsum he had maintained that the star of Bethlehem was not a natural phenomenon: “The star that was seen in the East had an extraordinary nature: it was not comparable to any of those natural and usual, either in the sphere of the fixed stars or in lower spheres. In its appearance it must have been similar to the comets, which manifest themselves from time to time, or to the barbed stars, etc.” We may even go further back and notice that already Clement of Alexandria, a contemporary of Bardaiṣan, had described the star of Bethlehem as absolutely extraordinary and different from all other heavenly bodies. Moreover, according to Clement, this star could destroy the domination of stars and Fate,249 that is, the very same theory that Bardaiṣan was refuting in that time: like Clement and Origen, he denied the power of Fate and proclaimed that of divine Providence, which controls fate too. Diodore is thus located within this tradition, which goes back to both Origen and Bardaiṣan.

11 Bardaiṣan’s Fight Against Marcionism I have already shown how both Hippolytus and Eusebius attest to Bardaiṣan’s polemic against Marcionism. Now I shall demonstrate that this is confirmed by another source that is later than Hippolytus and Eusebius, but might go back to a contemporary of John Chrysostom, in turn, drew on his teacher Diodore’s exposition in his Homily 7. For the exegesis of the star of Bethlehem in some Patristic authors see also T. Hegedus, “The Magi and the Star of Matthew 2:1–12 in Early Christian Tradition,” in Studia Patristica XXXIX, eds. F. Young, M. Edwards, P. Parvis, Leuven 2006, 213–217. 249 Clement, Excerpta ex Theodoto, 74: Dia_ tou~to o( Ku&rioj kath~lqen 248

ei0rh&nhn poih&swn, th_n a)p' ou)ranou~ toi=j e0pi\ gh~j, w3j fhsin o( 0Apo&stoloj: Ei0rh&nh e0pi\ th~j gh~j kai\ do&ca e0n u(yi/stoij. Dia_ tou~to a)ne/teilen ce/noj a)sth_r kai\ kaino&j, katalu&wn th_n palaia_n a)stroqesi/an, kainw|~ fwti/, ou) kosmikw|~, lampo&menoj, o( kaina_j o(dou_j kai\ swthri/ouj trepo&menoj, au)to_j o( Ku&rioj, a)nqrw&pwn 9Odhgo&j, o( katelqw_n ei0j gh~n i3na metaqh|~ tou_j ei0j to_n Xristo_n pisteu&santaj a)po_ th~j Ei9marme/nhj ei0j th_n e0kei/nou Pro&noian.

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Bardaiṣan, i.e., Abercius, the bishop of Hierapolis, who probably is to be identified with the Abercius of the epitaph now preserved in Rome, Museo Pio Cristiano. Now, the content of this epigraphical source250 is in full accord with the data given by the Liber Legum Regionum (and other contemporary sources) on the spread of Christianity in the Near East in the day of Bardaiṣan. Indeed, in his epitaph Abercius avers that he crossed the Euphrates and reached Nisibis, traveling through the Mesopotamian area, where he found Christians (“siblings, consanguineous”) everywhere. Abercius shared his polemic against Marcionism with his contemporaries, Bardaiṣan and Origen. Of him we also have a biography, which was probably composed about one century after his epitaph and clearly shows a good knowledge of Bardaiṣan’s Liber Legum Regionum, very probably known to the redactor through a Greek version.251 Indeed, the discussion between Abercius and Euxinianus therein is modeled on the Liber: the questions of Euxinianus to Abercius precisely correspond, both in their content and in their succession, to those of Avida to Bardaiṣan in the Liber Legum Regionum.252 In the Vita Abercii Euxinianus is the supporter of Marcionism. He is also likely to represent Marcion himself, who came from Pontus Euxinus. In particular, at the beginning of the dialogue, Euxinianus asks Abercius a question that, differently from 250 See my “L’epitafio di Abercio: uno status quaestionis e alcune osservazioni,” Aevum 74 (2000), 191–206. A contribution by Margaret Mitchell is forthcoming in Berlin in the proceedings of the conference on Ablution, Initiation, and Baptism in Early Judaism, Graeco-Roman Religion, and Early Christianity, Lesbos, 3–10 September 2009. 251 See Th. Nissen, “Die Petrusakten und ein bardesanitischer Dialog in der Aberkiosvita,” ZNTW 9 (1908) 190–203 and 315–328, in part. 326; see then H. Grégoire, “Bardesane et St. Abercius,” Byzantion 25–27 (1955– 57) 363–368; G. Bundy, “The Life of Abercius: Its Significance for Early Syriac Christianity,” Second Century 7 (1989–90) 163–176; M. Guarducci, “Abercio,” in Nuovo Dizionario Patristico e di Antichità Cristiane, dir. A. Di Berardino, I, Genoa 2006, coll. 12–13, of which a new English edition is forthcoming in Cambridge; Guarducci also refers to my study quoted in the previous note and agrees with it. 252 This was noted already by Nissen, Petrusakten, 315.

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the others, is not found in the Liber, that is, how can God be good and just at the same time, which evidently constituted the crucial problem for Marcionism. Indeed, it is precisely for the inability to conciliate these two characteristics in God that Marcionites distinguished God the Creator of the Old Testament, whom they regarded as an evil Demiurge, and God the Father of Christ of the New Testament, only whom did they consider to be good. Origen strenuously fought against the notion of the incompatibility of justice and goodness in God, and the very split of God into two: he maintained that God is one, and has both justice and goodness. The triumph of both will take place in the Final Judgment and in the apokatastasis, without contradiction. Likewise, against the Marcionites Origen emphasized the unity between the Old and the New Testament, both of them forming a single body, which is the body of Christ, a complete unity that constantly emerges from his exegetical method.253 It is certainly very meaningful, I find, that in this text, which is devoted to the celebration of orthodoxy in the fourth century— when of course orthodoxy itself was much better defined than in the time of Bardaiṣan and Origen—and which exalts Abercius as a champion of orthodoxy against the heresy of Marcionism, Bardaiṣan is not only taken up as a source, but he is also expressly mentioned, and with much respect and admiration, in an episode which, according to Drijvers, is historical.254 This episode occurred while Abercius was traveling eastward: he crossed the Euphrates, reached Nisibis and other Mesopotamian churches, in order to contrast Marcionism even there. Then he was approached by a mission of Christians, led by “Bardaiṣan, who outclassed all other people both for nobility of birth and for

See my “Origen and the Stoic Allegorical Tradition: Continuity and Innovation,” InvLuc 28 (2006) 195–226. 254 Drijvers, Bardaiṣan, 171. Grégoire had already called attention to this episode: H. Grégoire, “Bardésane et Saint Abercius,” Byzantion 25–27 (1955–57), 363–368. 253

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riches.”255 Of course, Abercius does not accept any material gift or honor; therefore, Bardaiṣan proposes to offer him the title of “equal to the apostles” (i)sapo/stoloj), as nobody but the apostles had ever undertaken so long and heavy travels to save his or her fellow-Christians. Since all the members of the delegation accepted Bardaiṣan’s proposal, Abercius was given the title of “equal to the apostles.” Thus, in an orthodox text of the fourth century, Bardaiṣan is assimilated to Abercius in his defense of orthodoxy against Marcionism and is presented in a full positive light. In the Vita Abercii he is a Christian who profoundly estimates Abercius, the orthodox bishop of Hierapolis, and confers on him the same title that later belonged to Constantine. Not only does the Vita Abercii include no reference to an alleged heterodoxy of Bardaiṣan, who is here presented as entirely orthodox just like Abercius, but it even suggests that he had some official position in the local church, given that he takes the initiative of leading a delegation that approaches the bishop and solemnly bestows on him a religious title. Indeed, this agrees with Didymus the Blind’s testimony that Bardaiṣan was a Christian priest, and continued to be such until he died, and with other ancient attestations that he was a deacon. If he actually was a deacon, or even a priest, of the Edessan church, his initiative would be even better understandable.

12 Jerome’s Parallel Turn: From Admirer to Criticizer of both Origen and Bardaiṣan At first, Jerome was a fervent admirer of both Origen and Bardaiṣan; then, he changed his mind and criticized both of them. As for Origen, he deeply esteemed him for a long time and drew lots of materials especially from his exegetical works. When the so-

255 Barxasa/nhj, o4j kai\ ge/nei kai\ plou/tw| die/feren pa/ntwn. See Vita Abercii 69–70. The edition is that of Th. Nissen, S. Abercii Vita, Leipzig 1912, Bibliotheca Teubneriana Graeca.

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called Origenistic controversy became acute, however, he distanced himself from Origen and even criticized him very severely.256 The development of his attitude toward Bardaiṣan appears to have been exactly the same. In his De viris illustribus 33, which he wrote when he still was an enthusiastic admirer of Origen and published in A.D. 392, Jerome presents Bardaiṣan in an extremely positive light. He sticks to the portrait offered by Eusebius in his Historia Ecclesiastica and does not even reproduce Eusebius’ final statement that some small errors may have remained in Bardaiṣan’s thought after abandoning and fighting against Valentinianism. Jerome exclusively emphasizes Bardaiṣan’s role of defender of the faith against heresies: “Syrians praise his brilliant mind, powerful in disputation. He wrote infinite volumes against almost all heretics, who pullulated in that time. Among these there is a very famous and incisive book, which he presented to Marcus Antoninus, on fate, and many other volumes written on the occasion of the persecution, which his followers translated from Syriac into Greek, at least if we assume that in a translation there is as much force and splendor as there is in the original language.”257 Thus, exactly as Eusebius, Didymus, the Vita Abercii and other authors did, at the end of the fourth century Jerome still considered Bardaiṣan to have been fully orthodox, and even to have fought against heresies. Jerome not only praised Bardaiṣan, but also used his works. In Adversus Iovinianum 2.14 he cited him as a source on the Indian Gymnosophists and their division into Brahmans and Śramanas, very probably employing his work On India: “Bardaiṣan the Babylonian divides the Gymnosophists among the Indians into two 256 See J. Gribomont, “Girolamo,” in Nuovo Dizionario Patristico e di Antichità Cristiane, dir. A. Di Berardino, II, Genoa 2007, coll. 2262–68, and especially the section that I devote to Jerome in my Apocatastasi. 257 “Ardens eius a Syris praedicatur ingenium et in disputatione vehemens; scripsit infinita adversus omnes paene haereticos, qui aetate eius pullulaverant, in quibus clarissimus est et fortissimus liber, quem Marco Antonino de fato tradidit, et multa alia super persecutione volumina, quae sectatores eius de Syra lingua verterunt in Graecam, si autem tanta vis est et fulgor in interpretatione quantam putamus in sermone proprio.”

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schools, which he names, the first, the school of the Brahmans and the other that of the Śramanas. They are so sober as to aliment themselves through the fruits of the trees growing near the Ganges, or rice that germinates spontaneously, or food made out of flour. And when the king visits them, he usually worships them, as he is convinced that peace in his land depends on their prayers.”258 Jerome may have drawn this information from Porphyry as well (De abstin. 4.17). The latter, too, knew the work of Bardaiṣan and spoke of Brahmans and Śramanas; Jerome, however, cites Bardaiṣan, not Porphyry, and there is nothing in his passage that makes one think that he drew his information from Porphyry, apart maybe from the description of Bardaiṣan as a “Babylonian,” which corresponds to that of Porphyry, who presents him as “Babylonian” and “coming from Mesopotamia.” At a certain point, however, Jerome distanced himself from Origen’s teaching, even though earlier he had exalted him and had borrowed plenty of materials from his exegetical works, even including the most discussed of his doctrines, such as those of the apokatastasis and of the so-called pre-existence of souls.259 After his rejection of Origen, Jerome radically changed his attitude toward Bardaiṣan as well and suddenly began to regard him as a heretic, just like Origen, although Jerome continued to admire the intelligence and culture of the Edessan philosopher. In A.D. 406, when he proclaimed heretical also Origen’s doctrine of the so-called preexistence and fall of the souls, which until that moment he had professed himself with decision and in more than one place, he 258 “Bardesanes, vir Babylonius, in duo dogmata apud Indos gymnosophistas dividit: quorum alterum appellat Brachmanas, alterum Samanaeos. Qui tantae continentiae sunt, ut vel pomis arborum iuxta Gangen fluvium, vel publico orizae, vel farinae alantur cibo; et cum rex ad eos venerit, adorare illos solitus sit, pacemque suae provinciae in illorum precibus arbitrari sitam.” 259 The expression “preexistence of soul” is in fact incorrect in reference to Origen. For Origen did not teach the pre-existence of mere souls; he is clear that the noes or logikoi / logika did not exist without a corporeality, although very fine, before their fall. Only the Holy Trinity can live absolutely without a bodily matter.

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wrote the following in his Commentary on Hosea 2.10: “Nobody can found a heresy but those who have a brilliant intelligence and are naturally endowed with those gifts that come from God the Creator. Such a person was Valentine; another such was Marcion: as we read, they were extremely learned. Such a person was also Bardaiṣan, whose intelligence is admired even by philosophers” (PL 25.902).260 Bardaiṣan is still admired by Jerome, but by now he is a heretic. It is to be noticed that Jerome never explains which are the heretical doctrines that Bardaiṣan held, all the more in that he knew them also beforehand, but at first they did not seem to him heretical at all, whereas after his anti-Origenian turn they suddenly began to appear heterodox to him. What is more, Bardaiṣan is assimilated to Marcion and Valentinus, whereas I have shown, on the basis of Eusebius, the Vita Abercii, Hippolytus, and other sources, that Bardaiṣan defended the orthodox faith of his time against Marcionism and Gnosticism. Jerome himself had praised him and listed him among the viri inlustres precisely in that Bardaiṣan “wrote innumerable works against practically all the heretics who pullulated in his day.” In his piece on Bardaiṣan in his commentary on Hosea, Jerome also remarks that he was admired even by philosophers. One of these philosophers was Porphyry, who employed his work on India and probably knew also other works by Bardaiṣan. Since Jerome uses a present, admirantur, in contrast with the perfect fuit (referring to the epoch in which Bardaiṣan, Valentinus, and Marcion lived, i.e., the second – early third century), this may also point to philosophers who were contemporary with Jerome (end of the fourth – beginning of the fifth century). At any rate, Porphyry’s interest in Bardaiṣan is notable, in that it is the interest of a Neoplatonist for a Christian philosopher who was certainly influenced by Middle Platonism.

“Nullus enim potest haeresim struere, nisi qui ardentis ingenii est et habet dona naturae quae a Deo artifice sunt creata. Talis fuit Valentinus, talis Marcion, quos doctissimos legimus. Talis Bardesanes, cuius etiam philosophi admirantur ingenium.” 260

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13 The Dialogue of Adamantius and the Portrait of a Bardaiṣanite From the methodological point of view, in a research on Bardaiṣan’s thought, it is vital to endeavor to always distinguish between what refers to Bardaiṣan himself in the sources and what to his followers, all the more in that the latter were not only his immediate disciples, but continued to exist along whole centuries. Some of them, moreover, got close to Manichaeism, others to other doctrines, as a consequence of which many sources project back Manichaean and other doctrines onto Bardaiṣan himself. Now, the scholar who investigates these sources must be very careful to avoid ascribing to Bardaiṣan theories that were maintained only by some followers of his, maybe even whole centuries after him. The fact that many sources, especially among those which I shall analyze in what follows, in fact have to do more with the Bardaiṣanites than with Bardaiṣan himself, parallels what actually happened in the so-called Origenistic controversy. In the course of it, most accusations, and the eventual condemnation under Justinian, in fact pertained to advanced forms of Origenism much more than to Origen’s own thought.261 A follower of Bardaiṣan is one of the speakers in the Dialogue of Adamantius.262 This rather mysterious writing may have originated in a Syrian area around A.D. 300 and have been subsequently reworked. The redactors of the Philocalia, that is, according to the tradition, Basil and Gregory of Nazianzus, attributed this dialogue to Origen, in that they identified Adamantius with Origen himself, who indeed bore also this name or epithet. Consequently, at the end of the fourth century Rufinus translated this dialogue as a part of his program of systematic translation of Origen’s works. See my Apocatastasi. See R. A. Pretty, Dialogue on the True Faith in God. De recta in Deum fide, ed. G. W. Trompf, Louvain 1997; short status quaestionis in E. Prinzivalli, “Adamanzio,” in Nuovo Dizionario Patristico e di Antichità Cristiane, dir. A. Di Berardino, I, Genova 2006, col. 65. Several assumptions concerning this dialogue, however, may prove to be liable to change in the light of a reassessment of the whole evidence. I shall not enter this discussion here, though. 261 262

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In the Dialogue of Adamantius the character of Adamantius himself supports the orthodox position in respect to resurrection. This is the same position that Methodius of Olympus in his De Resurrectione ascribes to Memmianus. Differently from Adamantius, Marinus, who is presented as a Bardaiṣanite, in the Dialogue defends a view that in Methodius’ De Resurrectione is argued for by Aglaophon, who denies the resurrection of the body. I think that the name of Marinus, which in Latin means “of the sea, marine,” alludes to Bar Yammâ, “child of the sea, marine,” a character of the Liber Legum Regionum. Marinus is depicted therein as one of those who listen to Bardaiṣan’s arguments and ask him questions. Together with Philip, Marinus faces Bardaiṣan with the crucial objection of the Chaldean doctrine that had all human actions depend on Fate. Bardaiṣan replies to this objection by expounding his own theory on human free will and on fate, which, in his view, is not an independent force, let alone a divinity, but depends on God.263 The author of the Dialogue of Adamantius is likely to have known the Liber Legum Regionum, but he never refers to Bardaiṣan’s positions therein; rather, he reports the alleged thought of a Bardaiṣanite. It is very likely that he ascribes to this character, Marinus, the ideas of the Bardaiṣanites of his own day, i.e., of at least one century after the death of Bardaiṣan himself, or even two if we consider Rufinus’ translation. It may even be that the author 263 This is my translation of the relevant passage of the Liber: “ ‘There are others who maintain that it is by the decree of Fate that human beings are governed, sometimes badly and sometimes well.’ Bardaiṣan replied: ‘I too, o Philip and Bar Yamma, know very well that there are these people who are called Chaldeans, and those others who love the knowledge of this art … On the other hand, there are yet other people who maintain the opposite view, such as what follows: that this art is a lie of the Chaldeans, or even that fate does not exist at all, but is an empty name, and all things, big and small, lie in the hands of (sc. depend on) the human being. And all the defects and deficiencies of the body happen by chance. Yet other people aver that, whatever the human being does, it is by his or her will that s/he does so, thanks to the free will that has been given to humans. And all the defects and lacks and ill things that happen to a human are received as a punishment from God.’”

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of the Dialogue was simply ascribing to Marinus the ideas of Methodius’ character, Aglaophon, adding some ideas which likewise have little to do with those of Bardaiṣan himself.264 In any case, the Dialogue cannot be used to reconstruct Bardaiṣan’s ideas. It is also meaningful that the Dialogue of Adamantius develops a polemic against Marcionism and Valentinianism, which are represented by Megethius and Marcus and Droserius respectively. But other sources, such as Eusebius, Jerome, and the Vita Abercii, attest that Bardaiṣan himself fought against both the Marcionites and the Gnostics, like Origen in his day, so that von Harnack hypothesized that Bardaiṣan’s writings against Marcion, in their Greek version, were used as a source for the anti-Marcionite polemics that are found in this work.265 The difficulties that prevent a scholar from taking the Dialogue of Adamantius as a reliable source on Bardaiṣan’s thought are increased by a fact that suggests the complexity of the stages that lie behind the Dialogue in the form in which we have it today and of the reception of Bardaiṣan’s thought in the Origenian milieu. The fact, which is quite remarkable, is that a passage in the Dialogue of Adamantius is almost identical to a passage in Methodius’ De autexusio. The very title of the latter, related to free will, reveals that the theme is surely close to the interests of both Origen and Bardaiṣan. Moreover, in his Praeparatio Evangelica Eusebius, who cites both Origen’s and Bardaiṣan’s arguments on human free will and against fate, also cites the very same passage I mentioned, which is present in both Methodius and the Dialogue. Eusebius, however, does not Namely, that the devil was not created by God—whereas, as I shall show, Bardaiṣan maintained that evil was not created by God, exactly as Origen thought, and that it will disappear in the apokatastasis. Marinus, on the other hand, is described as a dualist in the style of the Manichaeans, as a supporter of the theory of the two principles of Light and Darkness, corresponding to good and evil as opposite and equal forces. This is clearly a retro-projection onto Bardaiṣan of his later followers’ adhesion to Manichaeism. Another doctrine ascribed to Marinus is that Christ was not generated by Mary, but not even this reflects Bardaiṣan’s thought, as I shall show. 265 A. von Harnack, Marcion. Das Evangelium vom fremden Gott. Neue Studien zu Marcion, Leipzig 19242, 60*. 264

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ascribe this excerpt either to Methodius or to “Adamantius,” but to a work On Matter by a certain Maximus, whom he says to have lived much earlier than Methodius did, in the time of Commodus and of Septimius Severus. That was precisely the epoch of Bardaiṣan. Methodius, who knew Origen very well,266 certainly may have taken up the text of “Maximus,” who, according to Eusebius (HE 5.27.1), was interested in the topic of free will, which was very dear to Bardaiṣan and Origen as well, and also polemicized against the Gnostics, exactly like Bardaiṣan and Origen. Another resemblance between Maximus and these two Christian philosophers is that, as is attested by Eusebius, Maximus was an e)kklhsiastiko/j, and was interested in the problem of the creation of matter (peri\ tou= genhth\n u(pa/rxein th\n u3lhn) and of the origin of evil (peri\ tou= ... zhth/matoj tou= po/qen h( kaki/a). Both these questions intensely occupied Bardaiṣan, as is attested both by his Liber Legum Regionum and by the so-called cosmological traditions, which I shall investigate later on. One may even wonder whether there was a relationship between Bardaiṣan and this mysterious Maximus.267 Anyway, if the Dialogue of Adamantius is certainly not a reliable source concerning Bardaiṣan’s ideas, its author, maybe a follower of Methodius (or Methodius himself?), seems to have known some works of Bardaiṣan and / or his school, at least the Liber Legum Regionum, with its treatment of free will and the character of Bar Yamma / Marinus, and also the work of “Maximus,” who may have been somehow related to Bardaiṣan himself. This whole problem, however, still needs further investigation.

266 On Methodius’ dependence on Origen see my “L’Inno a CristoLogos nel Simposio di Metodio di Olimpo: alle origini della poesia filosofica cristiana,” in Incontro di studiosi dell’Antichità cristiana, Roma, Augustinianum, 4–6 Maggio 2007, Rome 2008, Studia Ephemeridis Augustinianum 108, 257–280. 267 See my “‘Maximus’ on Evil, Matter, and God: Arguments for the Identification of the Source of Eusebius PE VII 22,” forthcoming.

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14 Ephrem between Documentation and Misunderstandings St Ephrem the Syrian (306–373) is a most valuable, albeit biased, source on Bardaiṣan.268 He was born in Nisibis, but he abandoned it in A.D. 363 and reached Edessa, where Bardaiṣan had lived. According to tradition, Ephrem founded the so-called “School of the Persians” therein.269 Ephrem’s bias against Bardaiṣan is well explained not only in the light of several doctrinal disagreements, but also in the light of his aversion to Greek philosophy: whereas Bardaiṣan was deeply steeped in Greek philosophy and culture and was heavily influenced by them, Ephrem (De fide 2.24) spoke of the “bitter venom of the Greeks’ wisdom,” even though much rhetorical emphasis must be reckoned with in this phrase.270

Literature on Ephrem is wide ranging and continually growing. I only refer to K. den Biesen, Bibliography of St. Ephrem, Giove in Umbria 2002, and the annual updatings by Sebastian Brock in Hugoye. A good overview is offered by F. Rilliet, “Efrem Siro,” in Nuovo Dizionario Patristico e di Antichità Cristiane, dir. A. Di Berardino, I, Genoa 2006, 1586–90, also forthcoming in Cambridge in a new English edition. As for the translations from Ephrem’s Syriac, those I shall provide are always my own, just as in the rest of the book, unless differently stated. 269 On the institutional import of this school see A. Becker, Fear of God and the Beginning of Wisdom. The School of Nisibis and Christian Scholastic Culture in Late Antique Mesopotamia, Philadelphia 2006, with my review in Hugoye 10.2 (2007) 131–141. 270 Ephrem himself was not extraneous to Greek philosophy. See U. Possekel, Evidence of Greek Philosophical Concepts in the Writings of Ephrem, Louvain 1999, CSCO 580, according to whom (cf. eadem, “Bardaisan philosopher or Theologian,” 444) “Ephrem’s rhetorical rejection of Hellenistic concepts, in particular of syllogisms, must be understood in the context of his opposition to Neo-Arian attempts to define the Godhead.” See also S. Griffith, “Faith Seeking Understanding in the Thought of St. Ephraem the Syrian,” in G. C. Berthold (ed.), Faith Seeking Understanding. Learning and the Catholic Tradition, Manchester, New Hampshire 1991, 35– 55; P. S. Russell, St. Ephraem the Syrian and St. Gregory the Theologian Confront the Arians, Kottayam 1994; C. [T.] Shepardson, “’Exchanging Reed for Reed’: Mapping Contemporary Heretics onto Biblical Jews in Ephrem’s 268

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Ephrem’s attitude toward Bardaiṣan ought to be evaluated also against the backdrop of his polemics against the heresies of his own time, which of course were not those of Bardaiṣan’s time: Manichaeism, Marcionism, and Bardaiṣanism itself. It is crucial to observe that the first did not even exist in Bardaiṣan’s day; the second was contrasted by Bardaiṣan himself, and the third was obviously constituted by Bardaiṣan’s followers, but it must be taken into account that they often distanced themselves from the doctrines of their founder, as a close analysis of the sources, which I shall carry out in the following sections of this monograph, will show. As I shall also point out, both Sozomen and Theodoret notice that Ephrem’s criticisms are directed, not only against Bardaiṣan, but also against his followers. Like Ephrem, they too mention a “son of Bardaiṣan” who might have been his son, to be sure, but may also have been a disciple of his: the Syriac expression “child of” often means “belonging to” and can designate one’s disciple or follower. Indeed, in his refutations of Bardaiṣan Ephrem alternates singulars and plurals, the former referring to the master, the latter to the disciples. As a consequence, it is very difficult to distinguish the ideas of the master and those of the disciples, who lived even more than a century after their founder’s death, in the time of Ephrem. This premise also functions as a methodological proviso, in order to avoid attributing to Bardaiṣan “heretical” doctrines that were held only by his followers.271 Another call to caution is based on the fact that Ephrem, although inadvertently, actually contributed to a misunderstanding of Bardaiṣan’s thought, in that he quoted very short passages from his works, entirely deprived of their original context. All this, moreover, he did while reading and interpreting Bardaiṣan from the viewpoint and the heresiological parameters of his own time, more than one century after the lifeHymns on Faith,” Hugoye 5.1 (2002); eadem, Anti-Judaism and Christian Orthodoxy: Ephrem’s Hymns in Fourth-Century Syria, Washington, D.C. 2008. 271 Ephrem himself distinguishes Bardaiṣan and his son, e.g. in Prose Refutations 2.221–222, and between his hymns and those of his followers in Hymn 55 Contra Haereses.

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time of the Edessan philosopher. Indeed, Ephrem regarded Bardaiṣan as a precursor of Mani, and thus tended to project Manichaean conceptions back onto him.272 Ephrem’s most important (and authentic) works relating to Bardaiṣan are two of his Carmina Nisibena, 46 and 51, in which Bardaiṣan is criticized above all for his conceptions regarding the resurrection, his fifty-six Hymni contra Haereses, where Bardaiṣan is mentioned several times,273 and his Prose Refutations, which are usually cited under their English title; this work was found in a palimpsest, now British Library Add. 14623.274 Unlike the former, the latter were addressed, not to the congregation, but to a more restricted and intellectual public; they were probably composed later than the Hymni and prove much more detailed in describing and commenting on the doctrines that are refuted. The Prose Refutations expound Bardaiṣan’s ideas and also cite passages of works by him or his followers, in addition to being rich in Manichaean quotations.275 In this work, one can almost never be sure that Ephrem is quoting or paraphrasing Bardaiṣan himself rather than later Bardaiṣanites.276 This has been shown by E. Beck, “Bardaisan und seine Schule bei Ephräm,” Le Muséon 91 (1978) 271–333 part. 320–333; idem, Ephräms Polemik gegen Mani und die Manichäer im Rahmen der zeitgenössischen griechischen Polemik und der des Augustinus, Louvain 1978, CSCO Subsidia 55. 273 Des heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymni contra Haereses, ed. E. Beck, Louvain 1957, CSCO 169–170 Syri 76–77. A German translation was already offered by A. Rücker, Des heiligen Ephräm des Syrers Hymnen gegen die Irrlehren, München 1928, whereas the old editio Romana (S. Ephraem Syri opera omnia, II, Romae 1740) on which Nau based himself is no longer authoritative. 274 St. Ephraim’s Prose Refutations of Mani, Marcion and Bardaisan, I, ed. C. W. Mitchell, London 1912, II, edd. A. A. Bevan – F. C. Burkitt, London 1921. Cf. E. Beck, “Ephräms Rede gegen eine philosophische Schrift des Bardaisan,” Oriens Christianus 60 (1976) 24–68. 275 J. C. Reeves, “Manichaean Citations from the Prose Refutations of Ephrem,” in Emerging from Darkness. Studies on the Recovery of Manichean Sources, edd. P. Mirecki – J. BeDuhn, Leiden – New York – Koln 1997, 217–288. 276 This has been rightly emphasized by Camplani, “Rivisitando Bardesane.” 272

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Ephrem is the first known source that, treating of the followers of Bardaiṣan, assimilates them to the Manichaeans. But the Bardaiṣanites who were contemporaries of Ephrem lived far more than one century after Bardaiṣan himself. Therefore, even if some Bardaiṣanites may have embraced Manichaean doctrines, this means nothing in respect to the position of Bardaiṣan himself. This is Ephrem’s statement: “Consider Bardaiṣan’s followers: by which argument were they persuaded, with which hope were they charmed by him, so that they applied his name to themselves? Which was the origin of this denomination? Were they begotten by him as the Hebrews were by Heber? But if the origin of their name was a doctrine, this doctrine was named after the name of the master, as is demonstrated by the doctrine which he supported, which was not orthodox in the least. For it is not granted that whoever gives precepts to a group of people must also add his own name … The Apostle [sc. Paul] instructed numerous peoples, and yet he did not glorify any by naming it after himself [hM$].” It is from this angle that Ephrem unduly projects Manichaeism back onto Bardaiṣan himself. He assimilates him to other heresiarchs, such as Valentinus, Marcion, and Mani,277 without taking into account the fact that Bardaiṣan himself polemicized both against Marcionism and against Gnosticism, as is attested by Eusebius, Jerome, the Vita Abercii and other sources, and likewise ignoring that Bardaiṣan certainly did not know Manichaeism. What is more, it is Ephrem himself who testifies to some decidedly anti-Marcionite statements of Bardaiṣan. For example, in Prose Refutations 2 p. 53.35–40, clearly referring to Bardaiṣan himself, “Valentinus [swNY+NLw] stole sheep from the Church and named them after himself [hM$B]. Quq [)YKwK] named sheep after his own name, and the cunning Bardaiṣan [ocYdrB] subtracted sheep to the Church. They all made of their own sheep a flock outside the Church. Marcion [nwYQrM] took a separate sheepfold for himself; then Mani [yN)M] came and attracted the sheep to himself.” “Bardaiṣan [ocYdrB] impressed his own mark upon his sheep and called them his own. Mani and Bardaiṣan [ncYdrBw yN)M], after contaminating the beds of the churches, with a vulgar art of adulterers, changed their names and made them their own.” 277

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and not to his disciples, Ephrem attests: “He said that the Law was given by God.”278 Now, the Law indicates the Pentateuch, which formed the most important part of the Old Testament together with the Prophets (and the “Writings”). Whereas the Marcionites contended that the Old Testament was not given by God, but by an evil demiurge, Bardaiṣan maintained that it was given by God and that it was divinely inspired. Thus, he decidedly opposed Marcionism in regard to a crucial question, and it is Ephrem himself who attests to this. In reference to Mani and Bardaiṣan, Ephrem observes: “What should I say? That they abandoned every sense of shame and lacked every spark of decency? For at the beginning of their writings they placed the name of a man: they eliminated the ancient formula ‘The Lord of Hosts speaks as follows,’ and listened to the scribe beginning reading the following words: ‘So does Marcion speak,’ [nwYQrM rM) )NKhd] that fool, ‘Mani,’ [yN)Mw] and ‘Bardaiṣan’ [ncYdrBw].” Bardaiṣan obviously put his name at the beginning of his works just as other authors did, without presuming to present himself as the author of the sacred Scriptures. But Ephrem entirely centers his polemic on the topic of the heretic who wants to impose his name, as though it were a mark of private property, on the flock that belongs only to the Lord.279 Ephrem insists that the only legitimate name for a Christian is “Christian,” other names are only sectarian and more recent than the name deriving from the name of Christ: “Let us learn whence the most ancient Churches drew their name, when Bardaiṣan had not yet seen the light, and Marcion’s name was still unknown. Let us establish to appropriate that ancient name forever, and let us reject more recent denominations.” The unity of the Christian name is stressed by Ephrem especially in the twenty-fourth of his Hymni Contra Haereses: “They preach various Christs [)XY*$M )Y*GS], one who was a contemporary of Mani, another contem.yBhYt) )hL) oMd wh rM) )SMN See John 21:15ff. Jesus hands his sheep and small lambs to his shepherds, but the flock continues to belong to him: ta\ a)rni/a mou, ta\ pro/bata/ mou. See my “‘Simon Son of John, Do You Love Me?’ Some Reflections on John 21:15,” NovT 50 (2008) 332–350. 278 279

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porary with Bardaiṣan, and another who was born in the time of Marcion.” This statement is obviously hyperbolical; it aims at emphasizing the different conception of Christianity that each of these alleged heresiarchs entertained. At any rate, it is worth noticing that Ephrem lists Bardaiṣan along with Mani, Marcion, and Valentinus280 mainly because he simply considers him to be a heresiarch who stole people from the Church, more than on account of a particular doctrinal affinity. Of course, there are several specific reproaches that Ephrem addresses to Bardaiṣan’s thought. One of these is related to his knowledge of astronomy and Chaldean astrology (e.g., “Bardaiṣan assiduously frequented, not the Prophets, the Truth’s alumni [)t$wQ yN*B )Y*BN], but the books that treated the Zodiacal constellations [)$*QLM]”). Ephrem attacked the doctrine of Fate and Chaldean astrology himself, especially in his Hymni Adversus Haereses 4–14. But in criticizing Bardaiṣan he does not take into consideration that Bardaiṣan’s knowledge of these disciplines does not mean that he approved of their theories. In the Syriac Liber, and in Eusebius’ excerpts from his On Fate, Bardaiṣan overtly refutes astrological determinism, and devotes all his arguments to dismantling it, in both its forms (namely, the one depending on the horoscope and the other depending on the climatic zones, respectively). Hymn 51.13 is interesting in this connection: “The disgrace threatened by Our Lord struck Bardaiṣan, who preached the seven beings [)(B$ )Y*tY) mSd]. It pierced with the sword of Truth that chattering sophist who preached the signs of the Zodiac, observed the horoscopes, approved of the seven (planets), investigated the hours of births, admitted of the division of the seven climatic zones, and transcribed this all for his own disciples.” It is to be noticed that when here Ephrem speaks of the seven “beings” in Bardaiṣan’s theory, the connotation in this case is astronomical, not ontological. Indeed, the reference is to the seven planets, rather than to the “beings” or )Y*tY) which pre-existed See just one further example: “Is it better and more appropriate to be called Christian [)YXY$M] or Marcionite [)YNwYQrM]? Christian [)NY+sYrK] or (Bar)daiṣanite [)YNcYd] tares?”. 280

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the present world and which are attested to in the so-called cosmological traditions (which I shall examine below). In Greek the planets were also called stoixei=a, “elements,” and )Y*tY) also can mean “elements” in Syriac. That Bardaiṣan admitted of the determinism according to the seven climatic zones is disproved by the Liber, from which it even results that, on the contrary, he was probably the first to refute this theory. As in many other cases, Ephrem, when accusing Bardaiṣan of supporting astrological deterministic theories, was thinking more of the Bardaiṣanites than of Bardaiṣan himself. I shall show that some of his followers were deeply interested in astrology and, on this basis, supported a deterministic view that Bardaiṣan knew but rejected. In the following sentence, indeed, Ephrem himself speaks of the Bardaiṣanites while he ascribes them astrological determinism: “Their fundamental activity is the observation of the movements of the heavenly bodies, the evaluation of specific moments in times, the examination of thunders on the basis of fixed doctrines, from which they draw occult meanings, the comparison of full moons with a Zodiacal constellation. They carefully consult extremely dangerous books, whereas it would be good for them to rather converse with the Church, a sheep that ruminates the saints’ books.” In Hymn 51.4, likewise, it is to the Bardaiṣanites that Ephrem refers what follows: “But Love necessarily compels you, my brothers, to bear the iterations of their words, on the beings [)Y*tY)] and the impeding principles, on the heavenly bodies and the Zodiacal constellations, on the body that derives from evil [)$YB oMd )rGP], on the resurrection that will not take place [h[YtYL htMYQd], and on the soul that comes from the Seven (planets) [)(B$ oMd )$PN], to omit the rest.” The doctrine that here Ephrem ascribes to the Bardaiṣanites are both astronomical and anthropological. The connection between these two fields is provided by the human soul. The soul, while descending to earth for its incarnation, passes through the spheres of the seven planets, and from each derives certain qualities. This is a theory that is widely attested in Late Antiquity, from Hermeticism to

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Martianus Capella to Servius (in Aen. 6.439), just to name a few examples.281 Ephrem also attributes to the Bardaiṣanites the doctrine of the derivation of the body from evil. This may actually be a conception supported by some followers of Bardaiṣan, but it certainly was not maintained by Bardaiṣan himself. As I shall show also on the basis of the analysis of further sources later on, Bardaiṣan thought that the human body, just as the rest of the world, was constituted by a mixture of pre-existing “beings” or elements—well attested also in the so-called cosmological traditions—with the addition of some particles of darkness. The latter also explain the perishable nature of both the present world and the body itself. That the body comes from evil and the soul from the good is a Manichaean position, not one of Bardaiṣan. The latter, who was criticized by Mani for not holding a dualistic opposition between body and soul (as I have already pointed out), thought that the soul draws its qualities from 281 In particular, in the Hermetic treatise Poimandres (second century A.D.), which is not far removed from Bardaiṣan from the chronological point of view and appears strongly influenced by Platonism, in chapter 9 the divine Intellect is presented, which generates another demiurgic intellect. This produces seven “controllers,” i.e., the planets, which in the astrological works are called “Governors.” The control that they exercize is called Fate: this is precisely what Bardaiṣan repudiates in the Liber and in Eusebius’ excerpts from his On Fate. In chapters 24–26 of the Poimandres the ascent of the soul through the seven planetary spheres is described: the soul returns to each sphere the qualities that were conferred upon it by that specific sphere during its descent. I shall be able to draw further parallels between the Poimandres and Bardaiṣan from the cosmological point of view. On Hermeticism, see my essays and texts in my Corpus Hermeticum, Milan 2005; on Martianus see my Marziano Capella, Milan 2001, and Tutti i commenti a Marziano Capella, Milan 2007. See also A. Yarbro Collins, Cosmology and Eschatology in Jewish and Christian Apocalypticism, Leiden 2000, 47– 53. Agapius of Mabbug (tenth century) offers a parallel of this doctrine precisely referring to Bardaiṣan: “He affirms that the brain of the human being comes from the Sun, the bones from Saturn, the veins from Mercury, the blood from Mars, the flesh from Jupiter, the hair from Venus, and the skin from the Moon” (Kitâb al-‘Unwan, in Patrologia Orientalis 7.518–521). See below.

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the seven skies, but its free will can orient itself toward either the good or evil and it is not governed by the stars or the planets. Bardaiṣan did not teach a dualistic doctrine that identifies evil with matter, and thus with the body, too, as opposed to the soul. This is also why it is legitimate to suspect that Bardaiṣan did not deny the resurrection of the body, as is alleged by late Syriac and Arabic sources such as Ps. Maruta, Michael the Syrian, Barhebraeus, Abû’l-Barakât, and Agapius of Mabbug. This doctrine is completely absent from the Liber, from Porphyry’s and Eusebius’ fragments, and from all other early sources, both Greek and Latin; as for Ephrem, here he attributes it to the followers of Bardaiṣan properly; moreover, in his interpretation of Bardaiṣan he is strongly mislead by the assimilation he draws between his thought and Manichaean dualism. Indeed, the denial of the resurrection of the body would be consistent with a Gnostic or Manichaean ontological dualism, but not with Bardaiṣan’s thought, within which the resurrection could indeed fit: he could conceive of a resurrection of the bodily substance, finally pure and without any mixture with darkness, which would also guarantee the incorruptibility of the risen body. In this view, the body can rise again, if finally constituted by pure elements, unmixed with darkness. For, according to Bardaiṣan, it is not matter in itself to be evil; therefore, it can be liberated from evil and can remain in the end, after the completion of the purifying process that, as I shall point out, is attested to in the cosmological sources. Bardaiṣan could have conceived of the resurrected body of each human being as a living and incorruptible body like that of the Cosmic Christ described, as I have argued, in one of the Porphyrian fragments from Bardaiṣan’s De India. I shall return to the question of the resurrection in Bardaiṣan. For now, it is important to observe that the denial of the resurrection of the body was repeatedly attributed also to Origen, but definitely on no grounds.282 It is clear from another passage from the Prose Refutations (I 122.32–123.1 and 28) that Ephrem ascribed to Bardaiṣan the doctrine of the derivation of the body from evil only because of an undue and unhistorical assimilation of Bardaiṣan’s thought to that 282

See demonstration in my Gregorio di Nissa Sull’Anima.

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of Mani: “Since [Mani and Bardaiṣan] saw that this body is well composed, that its seven senses are disposed in good order, that the heart receives the movements of the soul, and that the harp of words is in the tongue, they felt ashamed to overtly curse it, and they used cunningness to divide it up into two parts. They established that its nature derived from evil and its formation from the Principates, but the logos of its constitution from Wisdom-Sophia. The latter showed the image of her beauty to the Principates and the Governors, and deceived them in this. When they strongly desired to do what they had seen, each of them would offer what he possessed from his treasury, so that their treasuries would be emptied of what they had usurped. And since here Mani realized that he could not cross the river in a different point, he had to cross it in the same point in which Bardaiṣan had crossed it. For the latter too said what follows about the first human being: by means of the image which she showed to the children of the darkness, she compelled them.” As is evident, this theory is Manichaean and is simply extended back to Bardaiṣan. What led Ephrem to the assimilation of Bardaiṣan to Mani was his polemic engagement and the threat that Manichaeism represented for orthodoxy in his own day, whereas this was not the case in the time of Bardaiṣan, of course, when it did not yet exist. Another factor that influenced Ephrem surely was the fact that, later on, some Bardaiṣanites actually adhered to Manichaeaism. That the above-quoted passage of Ephrem describes a Manichaean notion is also demonstrated by what follows. The idea of the “children of darkness” does not belong to Bardaiṣan himself, but to the Bardaiṣanites, or rather to the Manichaeans. I shall point out that it occurs again in another heresiological account, which ascribes to the Bardaiṣanites some decidedly Manichaean customs, such as wearing white clothes in order to indicate that they were children of the light, in opposition to the black, which was the color of the children of darkness. Furthermore, Ephrem himself in his Prose Refutations (1.67.18– 30) ascribes the very same doctrine exposed in the aforementioned fragment specifically to Mani, and only to Mani, not to Bardaiṣan as well: “The Virgin of light, about whom they say that she manifested her beauty to the Principates, that they might desire to pursue her.”

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Bardaiṣan, instead, as the Liber makes clear, considered the governors of the stars to be simply “instruments of God’s Wisdom, which never errs,” in contrast to human beings and angels, who are provided with free will.283 They are not at all an expression of the Cols. 543–551 Nau, my translation: “Now, as for what Avida said, i.e., how it is that God did not create us in such a way that we would be unable to sin and make ourselves guilty, well, if the human being had been created such, it would be nothing per se, but it would be the instrument of the one who would move it. And it is clear that, moreover, the one who would move the human being would move it either to the Good or to the evil. In this case, in what would the human being differ from a harp, which someone else plays, or a chariot, which someone else drives, and the praise or blame pertains to the artist, and the harp does not know what is played on it, nor does the chariot know if it is well governed and guided, but they are simply tools made for the use of those who have the science in themselves? But God, in his goodwill, did not want to make the human being like this, but has exalted it over many creatures, and has made it equal to the angels. For, behold the sun, the moon, and the starred sky, and the rest of those things that are superior to us in certain respects: you see that they are not granted free will over themselves, but they are all fixed in the order of having to do only what is commanded them, and nothing else. For, the sun never says, “I shall not rise in the time that is established for me,” nor does the moon ever say, “I shall not have phases, and shall not decrease, and shall not increase,” nor does any of the stars say, “I shall not rise and shall not set,” nor does the sea affirm, “I shall not sustain the ships, nor shall I keep within my boundaries,” nor the hills, “We shall not remain in the places in which we were located,” nor do the winds say, “We shall not blow,” nor does the earth say, “I shall not carry or sustain all that is upon me,” but all these things obey and are subject to one single order, as they are instruments of God’s Wisdom, which does not err.” Indeed, if every being served others, and nothing else, who would be the one who is served? And if all beings were served, who would be the one who serves? And there would be nothing distinct from anything else. For, something that is one and has no difference in itself is an as yet uncreated Being. But those things which are aimed at service have been put under the power of the human being, since it was created in the image of God. This is why the human being was given these things thanks to God’s good will, that they may serve it for a certain period. The human being has been endowed with the capacity of governing itself through its own free will, and all that it can do, if it wants, it will do it, but if it does not want, it will not do it, and it will justify itself or make itself 283

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power of darkness, and of evil as a force opposed to God. This is a Manichaean conception very far removed from Bardaiṣan’s own notion of evil, i.e., as something totally passive, as non-being, and pure negativity. Bardaiṣan’s conception of evil was close, not to that of Mani, who criticized him, but to that of Origen.284 Ephrem’s passage deforms in a Manichean direction the notion that the human being derives from a manifestation of the divine beauty. In the fragment, this manifestation is offered by a decayed Sophia to the Archons, “children of the darkness,” for the sake of deception; in Bardaiṣan, on the other hand, it assumes the form of the “theology of the image.” This means that the human being is the manifestation of God’s image. The roots of this conculpable. For, if it had been made in such a way as to be unable to do evil, so to avoid culpability for this, in the same way also the good that it would do would not belong to it, and it couldn’t be justified by virtue of it. Indeed, if one did not do what is good or evil voluntarily, one’s justification and condemnation would lie in the will of the One by whom it has been created. Consequently, it will be clear to you that God’s goodness toward the human being was great, and that free will was given to it more than to all these elements of which we have spoken, and that thanks to this free will it justifies itself and behaves similarly to God, and is associated with the angels, who also possess free will over themselves. For we understand that the angels, too, if they had not had free will over themselves, would not have had intercourse with the daughters of the human beings, would not have sinned, and would not have fallen down from their places. In the same way, the others, who executed their Lord’s will, thanks to their free will over themselves, were exalted and sanctified, and received copious goods. All that exists, indeed, needs the Lord of the universe, to whose gifts there is no end. However, know that even those things which I said that are subject to orders are not completely lacking in freedom, and for this reason in the last day all of them will be liable to the Judgment. — I asked him: And how can those realities which are fixed be judged? — He told me: Philip, the elements will not be judged in that they are fixed, but in that they have some power. For the beings are not deprived of their nature once they are fixed in order, but only of the force of their energy, which diminishes in the mixture of one with the other, and they are subjected to the power of their Creator. And in that they are subjected they will not be judged, but they will be in what belongs to them.” 284 On which see my “Christian Soteriology and Christian Platonism.”

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ception are certainly to be found in the Bible (Gen 1:26–27)285 and its developments are especially clear in Origen and in his follower St Gregory of Nyssa. The latter insists a great deal on the notion of divine beauty reflected in the human being, which was obfuscated by sin, but will be fully recovered in the eventual universal restoration.286 Origen and Gregory show a remarkable closeness to Bardaiṣan also in the following respect: God’s image in the human being is not to be found in the body, but in the intellectual soul, which is immortal and endowed with free will as a gift from God. In the Liber, indeed, as I have already remarked, Bardaiṣan calls our intellect “child of freedom.” Even if in the Liber and in other sources concerning Bardaiṣan there is no trace of this, it may be that, as is suggested by Ephrem’s passage, Bardaiṣan ascribed the creation of the human body, not directly to God and to God’s Logos, but to other inferior—but not evil—powers.287 The intellectual soul, instead, which he considered to be God’s presence in the human being, in that it is the place of God’s image in each human, was created directly by God. Such a conception would derive from Philo and from Plato himself. Philo (Opif. 72–75) had the inferior powers of God intervene in the creation of the human being, and Philo too, like Bardaiṣan, was engaged in biblical exegesis in the light of Middle Platonism. As for Plato’s Timaeus, I have demonstrated on the basis of the valuable fragments from his De India that this dialogue surely influenced Bardaiṣan’s protology. Therefore, Bardaiṣan, while reading Plato’s Timaeus, found that the inferior deities created by God the good creator (i.e., the Demiurge), in turn created the human 285 For the interpretation of this fundamental biblical verse in Syriacspeaking Christianity see C. Pasquet, L’Homme, image de Dieu, Seigneur de l’Univers. Interprétation de Gn 1,26 dans la tradition syriaque orientale, I–II, Paris 2006. 286 See my Gregorio di Nissa Sull’anima e la resurrezione, Saggio introduttivo and Saggio integrativo I; my Agathon and Kalon in Philosophical Dictionary of Gregory of Nyssa, eds. L. F. Mateo-Seco and G. Maspero, forthcoming in Leiden. 287 See H. J. W. Drijvers, Bardaiṣan von Edessa als Repräsentant des syrischen Synkretismus im 2. Jahrhundert n. Chr., in Id., East of Antioch, London 1984, n. XII, in part. 121–122.

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body from the four elements of the world. They also created the inferior and mortal part of the soul (69Dff., 70Dff.), while the superior soul, that is, the rational and intellectual soul, is created by the Demiurge himself from the same components from which he created the world soul (41D-42A). It is this superior soul that the Demiurge gives to each one as a dai/mwn (90A), thus as something divine. Moreover, in Plato’s Timaeus Bardaiṣan also found a close correspondence between macrocosmos and microcosmos (that is, the world and the human being) that seems to characterize his cosmogony and anthropogony, as is again suggested by his fragments from De India and as is confirmed by further sources, which I shall analyze. For in the Timaeus Bardaiṣan found, not only the correspondence between the human soul and the cosmic soul, which I have already mentioned in the analysis of the fragments from De India, but also that the human body itself is constituted by the same elements of the world, which are the four elements for Plato, and for Bardaiṣan the four original beings mingled with darkness and functioning as elements as well. He also found therein that the human soul is constituted by the very same components as the world soul. Furthermore, in Plato’s Timaeus Bardaiṣan found that the intellectual and immortal soul is divine. This very notion clearly reappears in Bardaiṣan, both in the fragment from De India in which the intellect is said to be a “divine image” on the head of the cosmic Christ representing both the world and the human being, as I have argued, and in a testimony from Ephrem, which I shall discuss in a moment. Moreover, this motive is also adumbrated in the Liber Legum Regionum, where the human intellect, equipped with free will, is presented as a gift from God and the image of God. Hence, it is clear that Bardaiṣan, like Origen and Gregory of Nyssa after him,288 located God’s image in the intellectual soul of the human being. Ephrem’s fragment also refers to the doctrine according to which the soul, during its descent to the body, assumes different qualities from the different planetary spheres. This doctrine is also 288

rezione.

See my philosophical essay in Gregorio di Nissa: Sull’anima e la resur-

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attested by Ephrem in Hymn 54.3: “They say that the soul, too, is constituted from [sic] the ‘beings’ [)$PN p) )dYB( )YtY*}) oM ], but that it cannot grasp the Being / Entity [)twtY)] that is its source and root.” Indeed, whereas the Being / Entity is surely God, it is likely that here “beings” indicates the planets, according to a designation that I have already indicated, or else the elements, which Bardaiṣan also calls “beings,” especially in their existence anterior to this world. The reference in the former case would be again to the widespread ancient doctrine of the derivation of the soul’s qualities from each of them. The astronomical meaning of the word )YtY*}), “beings,” is well attested also in the Liber Legum Regionum, columns 544, 548, and 572 Nau, and another passage from Ephrem, Prose Refutations 1 p. 8.8– 10, refers to the qualities conferred to the soul by each planetary circle: “the soul is formed and constituted by seven parts.”289 The fact that the soul is unable to grasp God becomes clear in the light of Bardaiṣan’s trichotomous anthropology, which also underlies the Liber Legum Regionum and parallels the “nature – fate – free will” tripartition. The human being consists in body, soul, and intellect or spirit (nou=j, pneu=ma). The faculty of knowledge is the intellect / spirit or the rational soul, not the vital soul. The latter is the psychic level; the former is the intellectual, rational, and spiritual level, and these levels are different from one another. I have already highlighted this trichotomy in Bardaiṣan, and its correspondence to that of Origen, in the section devoted to Diodore of Tarsus. From the Liber Legum Regionum it is clear that these three components, body, soul, and spirit / intellect, correspond to the levels of nature, fate (subordinate to God), and human freedom respectively. In Liber, col. 574 Nau, the idea of the progressive descent from intelligence to soul and from soul to body is expressed: “And according to this process and order, the intelligences are transformed in their descents to the souls, and the souls are transformed in their descents to the bodies.” Now, this notion perfectly corresponds to the conception also expressed by Origen, who moreover

289

.t(BQt)w )$PN tGNMt) nw*NM 9B$ oMd

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applied an etymological wordplay to it: the soul is called yuxh/ precisely in that the nou=j in its descent has suffered a yu=cij.290 Ephrem himself attests to the presence of this anthropological tripartition in Bardaiṣan, in Hymn 29 Contra Haereses, 4–5, and in Prose Refutations, II p. 158,20ff.: Bardaiṣan ascribed to the human being not only a body and a soul, but an intellect / spirit, and thought that the soul per se, as vital soul, does not possess knowledge, which is a privilege of the intellect / spirit, i.e., the rational and divine component of the human being: “The Logos [)(dM]—as they say—is the unknown yeast that is hidden in the soul [)$PN], which is deprived of knowledge and a stranger both to the body [)rGP] and to the Logos. If things stand so, the body, being earthly, cannot adhere to the soul, nor can the soul adhere to the Logos, who is divine [whd )(dML wh )YhL)].” Bardaiṣan clearly refers to the yeast in the parable of Matt 13:33 and Luke 13:21, which denotes a constant exegesis of the New Testament. In this passage he also distinguishes very clearly the three components of the human being, body, soul, and intellect / spirit, like Paul, Philo, Origen, and some Middle Platonists and late Stoics. The body—at least the present, heavy body— is earthly and mortal; the soul is an intermediate entity, and the intellect is divine and derives from the Godhead, who is unknown and unknowable because of its transcendence, according to a conception which was widespread in Middle Platonism and was grounded in Plato’s Timaeus, well known to Bardaiṣan.291 Some Arabic testimonies on Bardaiṣan’s anthropology precisely refer to the Logos / intellect / spirit, as distinct from the vital soul. One comes from Al-Bîrûnî († 1048): “Bardaiṣan was convinced that God’s light had sought a place in his heart.”292 Now, with this Bardaiṣan did not refer only to his own heart, but to all human intellects, the true dwelling place of the image of God. This 290 291

See my Gregorio di Nissa, first Integrative Essay. In Tim. 28C Plato declared: to\n me\n ou]n poihth\n kai\ pate/ra

tou=de tou= panto\j eu(rei=n te e1rgon kai\ eu(ro/ntaj ei)j pa/ntaj a)du/naton le/gein. This is the sentence that inspired the Middle Platonists to affirm

the unknowability and ineffability of God. 292 Al-Bîrûnî, Chronologie, ed. E. Sachau, Leipzig 1878, 207.5–12.

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is particularly clear from the parallel passage by Jâh?iz?, Kitâb alh?ayawan, 5.38.9: according to Bardaiṣan, the soul, understood as the rational and intellectual soul, is “a beam of sun that reaches the heart of the human being.”293 The sun is a symbol of the Father, as is confirmed by Ephrem’s attestation: “As he admired the paths of the sun [)$M$] and the moon [)rhS], he imagined that the former was a father [)B)] and the latter a mother [)M)]. He distinguished gods and goddesses, and attributed them a numerous offspring … and he praised the deities whom he himself had created, and greeted them with this solemn formula: ‘glory to you, lords of the gods’ [)$NK )Y*rM nwKL )XBw$d )hL)d].”294 The sun and the moon, which are mentioned in Gen 1:14 as the luminaries of the world, have an important role in it, but in the Liber Bardaiṣan does not place the sun, the moon, and the stars on the same plane as God, but he rather presents them as creatures and instruments of God’s Wisdom, as I have already pointed out. Far from being equal to God, they are simple executors of God’s will. They have no free will, but only a minimal amount of freedom, very different from human and angelic free will. The sun, the moon, and the stars depend on God and are not separate powers, as is the case in Gnosticism. Indeed, among the so-called “Gnostics,” as, e.g., the Apocryphon of John295 testifies, the archons, that is, the governors of the planetary spheres, are the product of that part of the divine that got separated after the typically Gnostic intra-divine crisis. They are the children of Jaldabaoth, the abortive son of Sophia, whom she had after her sin and her separation from the divine world. The expres293

387.

See A.-J. Festugière, La révélation d’Hermès Trismégiste, I, Paris 19502,

558D. NHC II 1; III 1; IV 1; BG 8502,2. It is the revelation made by the risen Lord to John, the son of Zebedee, and rereads the first chapters of the book of Genesis. It aims at the description of the creation, fall, and salvation of humanity. It probably existed in the second century and was still used in the eighth by the Audians in Mesopotamia. Jaldabaoth in turn created angels who assisted in the creation of the human being, who was made after the image of God, the perfect Father. 294 295

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sions of Bardaiṣan that Ephrem blames do not indicate that Bardaiṣan was a polytheist, but they are astrological wordings. Astrologers called the sun and the moon “Lords,” )Yr*M, and the Zodiacal signs “gods” and “goddesses,” since some of them were masculine and some feminine.296 The Liber shows that Bardaiṣan did know the astrological doctrines, but rejected their determinism, and denied the astrological doctrine of Fate. The same equivocation in respect to monotheism and polytheism is found in another of Ephrem’s testimonies on Bardaiṣan. While the Liber makes it clear, right from the beginning, that Bardaiṣan was a monotheist and professed one and only one God, Ephrem misunderstood his “beings” or )Y*tY) as deities. This is due to the fact that Ephrem in the fourth century wished to reserve to God alone the name “being,” )YtY). This term derives from tY), which in Syriac corresponded to the Greek ou)si/a. Ephrem does not understand that Bardaiṣan’s beings are not gods and therefore do not undermine his monotheism, in the same way as Origen’s no/ej or logikoi/ do not undermine his own monotheism: “Bardaiṣan, who maintained that there cannot be several deities [oY*hL)], if he teaches that there are several beings [)Y*GS )Y*tY)], ends up with admitting what he denied.” It is notable that Ephrem himself attests that Bardaiṣan did not admit of a plurality of deities. But he considers his )Y*tY) to be divine: “If there are not several deities [)hL)], there are not several )Y*tY) either, since the divine natures and these )Y*tY) share both their name and their dignity.” Bardaiṣan’s “beings,” however, even if they preexist the present world, are not deities, but they depend on God as God’s creatures: in the Liber Bardaiṣan overtly states that God is “their Creator.” What makes Ephrem feel uneasy is Bardaiṣan’s use of )YtY), “being,” which he deems appropriate only to God. I think that this conviction of Ephrem’s is due to God’s self-definition in Ex 3:14, e)gw/ ei)mi o( w1n, but in Bardaiṣan this term was not at all an exclusive designation of God and did not indicate divine qualities. It rather indicates the beings that preexisted the present world, the elements, the planets, or the beings in general. Ephrem takes again Bardaiṣan’s 296

See Firmicus Maternus, Matheseos Libri VIII, 2.2; 23; 28 and 4.21.

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“beings” as deities when he complains as follows: “The error of the Greeks [)YNwY] has presented itself again in Bardaiṣan, who taught that all things were created and constituted by the beings [)Y*tY)].” Of course, the things in this world, according to Bardaiṣan, were created by God on the basis of the existent elements. However, Bardaiṣan did not call )Y*tY) only the elements or )SKw+S) (stoixei=a), which are well attested in the so-called cosmological traditions. I shall analyze them afterwards. But I shall show from later testimonies that Bardaiṣan called )Y*tY) also the mind, the intellect, and so on. It is true, however, that he did call )Y*tY) the elements as well, so that the following sentence of Ephrem very probably refers to him: “another called ‘beings’ [)Y*tY)] the air, the fire, the water, and, since there was another ‘being’ and had no power, he named it ‘darkness’ and yet he called it ‘being’” (532E). Bardaiṣan, however, does not call )Y*tY) only the elements. In any case, even if we assume that the “beings” in the abovequoted testimonies are the elements, the thesis that all the created beings were constituted on the basis of elements which preexisted the present world does certainly not imply that Bardaiṣan was a polytheist and considered these )Y*tY) to be equal to God and uncreated. Indeed, they are not deities, nor are they creators, but they are creatures depending on God, who in the Liber is said to be “their creator.” They were created by God and ordered by God’s Logos, that is, Christ. I shall argue for this when I investigate the so-called cosmological traditions preserved in Syriac. In his third Hymn Contra Haereses, 1–7, Ephrem also reports the number of these beings, not without a certain hesitation between five and six, which is also found in Bardaiṣan’s disciples and in some cosmological sources, which I shall analyze. It is due to the uncertainty, also testified to by an-Nadîm for the Bardaiṣanites, whether to consider darkness a being, in addition to the other four, which seem to coincide with the pure elements, that is, air, water, fire, and light. Indeed, for Bardaiṣan, just as for Origen, evil is mere negativity; it is not a being and a creature of God. It is notable that the first text from Ephrem’s third Hymn refers to the

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Bardaiṣanites, not to Bardaiṣan himself: “They distribute its divine essence over five forces” (Hymn 3.2);297 “It is foolish to posit within the Being five beings together with it” (Hymn 3.5).298 “Because of the six directions he counted six beings [)t$ b$X )YtY*)]: he placed four of them in correspondence with the four winds, and he located one in the depths and another on high” (Hymn 3.6). In the light of the Syriac accounts on Bardaiṣan’s cosmological thought, I shall call attention to the importance of this disposition of the elements according to the four winds, as it is connected to the role that Bardaiṣan ascribed to Christ’s cross already in the creation of the world. Also from the analysis of Ephrem’s Prose Refutations it results that the beings and God were in an empty space (PR 1 p. 52.30–37), and the four pure elements, that is, light, air, fire, and water, were disposed in correspondence with the four winds, whereas God was above and the darkness in the depth (PR 2 p. 226.3–17). This is the same account that we have already encountered. In another passage, the disposition of the beings is said to depend on their weight. The sequence, from the heaviest to the lightest, and consequently from the lowest to the highest, is: darkness, water, fire, air / gust, and light (PR 2 p. 224.36–225.26). Bardaiṣan “placed” darkness “in the abyss” since the beginning, and he probably was inspired by Gen 1:2, “darkness was upon the face of the abyss” (literally, according to the Hebrew; LXX: Kai\ sko/toj e)pa/nw th=j a)bu/ssou). Darkness is not a being proper, which again explains the shift in the sources between six beings—which are also attested in Hymn 41.7, where Ephrem interprets Bardaiṣan’s darkness as a “being,” )YtY)—and five, according to other passages of Ephrem himself. To count five beings means to exclude darkness / evil from the beings. The conception underlying the latter option, and shared by both Bardaiṣan and Origen, is that evil is not at all a being, but it is rather a nonbeing, as it was not created by God and is a mere lack and negation.

297 298

.htwtY)L h{wGLP oYLY*X )$MX tYBd .yh )LKS hM( mYSN )$MX )twtY)Bd

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Ephrem offers further information concerning Bardaiṣan’s “beings” or “entities.” In Hymn 53.10 he seems to imply that Bardaiṣan regarded them as provided with different qualities, even if Ephrem’s formulation is not univocal: “Who did distinguish and make identical, distinguish their natures [nwhYNY*}K] and make their names [nwhYhM*}$] identical?” The name “being” is the same for all of Bardaiṣan’s “beings,” even though each of them also has a proper name (air, water, fire, light). They are different from one another thanks to their qualities. Indeed, another passage from Ephrem’s testimony supports this interpretation. Each of the beings which, together with darkness, form the )Lwh (u3lh, “matter”: see Prose Refutations 1 p. 141.9–17), is constituted by atoms299 that have a particular color, which expresses their different qualities: the water is green, the air / gust is blue, the fire is red and the light is white. Likewise, the atoms of each “being” have a particular sound, smell, taste, and form (ibidem 2 p. 214.24–215.12; 223.23– 224.7; also the whole passage 214.46–220.34). It is not to be excluded, but I rather deem it probable, that Bardaiṣan was also reminiscent of a doctrine of Plato’s in his Timaeus, a work by which, as I have argued, Bardaiṣan was deeply inspired. I mean the doctrine that each element has specific qualities, which in turn are determined by the “mathematic entities.” The latter are realities that are ontologically intermediate between the noetic sphere of the Ideas and the sense-perceptible plane. Given the purely negative nature of darkness / evil according to Bardaiṣan, it is excluded that he was a dualist who professed two antithetical principles (Good and Evil, Light and Darkness) and consequently two divinities, as Ephrem was tempted to intimate, and as is denied by the Liber, where monotheism is patent. Ephrem includes his statement in the context of an assimilation of Bardaiṣan with Marcion, who was really a dualist: “Now Bardaiṣan avers, with Marcion, that there are two gods [oYhL) oYrt], now The influence of atomism on Bardaiṣan was studied above all by Beck, Bardaisan, 310–319. This is another point he has in common with Origen; Origen’s approach to atomism is examined by C. Markschies, Origenes und sein Erbe, Berlin – New York 2007, 127–154. For Ephrem on Bardaiṣan’s atomism see Possekel, Evidence, 113–126. 299

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he repudiates this, by saying that it is impossible.” In fact, Ephrem tended to assimilate Bardaiṣan also to Mani, who was a radical dualist insofar as he posited two antithetical principles, both equally powerful: Light and Darkness, Good and Evil. Bardaiṣan, on the contrary, as the cosmological traditions and the Liber make clear, considered evil / darkness as a passive and merely negative element, absolutely not equal to God, but so close to nothingness to be rather doomed to a complete vanishing in the eventual apokatastasis. The same was maintained by Origen, who asserted the ontological non-subsistence of evil, which in his view, too, would utterly disappear in the final apokatastasis. Both these tenets, the ontological negativity of evil and its vanishing in the apokatastasis, were taken up by Gregory of Nyssa.300 This is really a pivotal point, which differentiates Bardaiṣan’s (and Origen’s) thought from Gnostic and Manichaean dualistic systems, including the Sethian one of which Hippolytus speaks in Ref. V 19–21. Ehlers Aland pointed out some parallels with Bardaiṣanism.301 But the differences between the Sethian system and Bardaiṣan’s own view are more substantial and conspicuous. The main divergence precisely consists in their respective conceptions of darkness / evil, which, according to the Sethians, is active, endowed with initiative and with an intellect of its own, whereas in Bardaiṣan it is passive, pure non-being and negativity; it has no intellect of its own, and therefore—given that the intellect is the seat of free will according to both Bardaiṣan and Origen—does not act freely. I deem it probable that Bardaiṣan was influenced by Plato’s Timaeus also in this respect. According to Plato and his ethical intellectualism, only what is endowed with intellect and, thus, freedom can have a true 300 See my “Christian Soteriology and Christian Platonism. Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, and the Biblical and Philosophical Basis of the Doctrine of Apokatastasis,” VigChr 61 (2007) 313–356; eadem, Apocatastasi, Milan 2010. 301 See B. Ehlers, “Bardesanes von Edessa, ein syrischer Gnostiker. Bemerkungen aus Anlass des Buches von H. J. Drijvers, “Bardaisan of Edessa,” Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 81 (1970) 334–351; eadem, “Mani und Bardesanes. Zur Entstehung des manichäischen Systems,” in Synkretismus im syrisch-persischen Kulturgebiet, Göttingen 1975, 123–143, who assimilates Bardaiṣan’s thought to a dualistic system.

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initiative of its own and choices and actions provided with an aim, so to be able to orient itself toward the Good. What is deprived of intellect is governed by necessity, not by freedom, just as the a)na/gkh / matter itself, which has no initiative and no aim, and whose movements are therefore disordered (Tim. 46DE, 48A, 53A, 68E). Evil is the negation of Good, a lack of being and positivity, the absence of aim. Bardaiṣan’s position in respect to evil is closer to those of Plato and Origen than to the Gnostic and Manichaean views. Ephrem’s assimilation of Bardaiṣan’s thought to the dualism of Marcion and Mani is misguided: “Marcion and Bardaiṣan impiously affirm that the Creator is not one [)YwrB dX )Ld], but ascribed the works of that supreme Creator to its creatures; likewise, they mixed up the creatures [)YrB] with the Son and the Holy Spirit [)$dwQ xwrw )rBw].” Bardaiṣan in fact does not maintain that the “beings” are creators: as is also clear from the cosmological traditions, it is Christ-Logos, not the elements / beings, to create the present world. The creative function of the Logos is certainly shared by Bardaiṣan with Origen. The Logos created them from the elements / beings, which are the constituents of the world, but certainly not its creators. While Ephrem assimilates Marcion and Bardaiṣan, I have already demonstrated, on the basis of Eusebius, the Vita Abercii, and other sources, that Bardaiṣan overtly refuted Marcionism, and on the basis of Hippolytus that a polemic occurred between him and a Marcionite, Prepon. Indeed, Bardaiṣan, Marcion, and Mani are grouped together by Ephrem not because of precise theoretical contents, but as founders of heresies. Chronologically, Marcion was the first; then came Bardaiṣan, and subsequently Mani: “Ask them about their age, who is the eldest of them: will Mani arrogate to himself the right of the firstborn? But Bardaiṣan came before him. Will Bardaiṣan claim that he is the eldest? But he is younger than those who are older than he is. Indeed, it was Marcion to be the first thorn of all.” Mani came after Bardaiṣan and cannot have influenced him; as for Marcion, he lived before Bardaiṣan, who knew him, but I have already demonstrated that Bardaiṣan did not at all endorse his doctrines, but rather refuted them. Ephrem seems to be more reliable in another testimony concerning Bardaiṣan and his conception of the “beings” or )Y*tY). From this passage it seems that Bardaiṣan did not affirm the creatio

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ex nihilo. This, of course, was not yet an official Christian doctrine, and was far from being a dogma. After all, still a couple of centuries after Bardaiṣan, Calcidius, the Christian commentator of the Timaeus, did not maintain this doctrine.302 Now, Ephrem seems to report that Bardaiṣan supported the Platonic idea of the preexistence of matter: God created the world not ex nihilo, but from a matter that was already there: “From the Greeks [tYB oM )Y*NwY] they took up the abominable name of the shameful ‘matter’ [)Lwh, transliteration from Greek u3lh]. For, neither does Moses mention it in his Pentateuch, nor have the prophets even indicated it, nor have the Apostles written it. Indeed, all the supporters of the Truth have professed one and only one Being [)YtY)]. The supporters of lie prove to be similar to one another, they who have written that matter is a substance [)twtY)]. Marcion taught that matter disagrees with the Creator; Bardaiṣan also had it intervene in the act of creation” (Hymn 14.7). The cosmological traditions also attest that Bardaiṣan admitted the preexistence of the elements. What is improbable, however, is that Bardaiṣan assigned an active role to matter, which will appear again only in Theodore Bar Konai’s cosmological account on Bardaiṣan. Ephrem repeats that Moses (above all in Ex 3:14), the prophets, and the apostles preached only one Being, that is, God, also in Hymn 53.7–10, where he states that Moses and David (that is, the Pentateuch and the Psalms) mention only one Being. Ephrem, who wants to reserve the term )YtY) only to God, denies that matter is a substance ()twtY)), and considers as a true creation only a creatio ex nihilo of matter itself and of the rest of the world. Consequently, he regards Bardaiṣan’s matter and “beings” as a threat to monotheism, even if their preexistence to this world does not exclude their status as creatures and their dependence on God. Both these aspects clearly emerge from the Liber Legum Regionum and from the Syriac cosmological accounts on Bardaiṣan, which I

302 See, e.g., my “Macrobio allegorista neoplatonico e il tardo platonismo latino,” in Macrobio. Commento al Sogno di Scipione, ed. M. Neri, Milan 2007, 5–163.

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shall analyze soon, and in which the beings ask God for help, before the creation of this world, and God sends them Christ-Logos. I would draw a comparison, which seems to me very interesting, between Bardaiṣan’s preexistent beings and Origen’s no/ej or logikoi/, which also exist before the katabolh/ of this world and yet are not at all deities, but creatures of God, constituted by God ex nihilo, out of God’s goodness and grace.303 According to Origen, it is the incident of their fall that originated this world, just as according to Bardaiṣan it was an incident of the beings that originated the creation of this world on the part of Christ-Logos. Both these Christian Platonists were surely reminiscent of Plato’s explanation of the fall of the souls in Phaedr. 248C: the immortal souls304 fall into a body when they lose their wings, and this fall is caused by “an accident,” tini\ suntuxi/a.| Both Bardaiṣan and Origen conceived of this accident very differently than the “Gnostics,” their contemporaries, did. The latter viewed it as an intra-divine crisis,305 and were actively combated by both Bardaiṣan and Origen. These impressive correspondences between Bardaiṣan and Origen are only some among many, especially in protology and eschatology, but even in other fields. They have never been investigated in depth, nor even have they been adequately noticed by scholars, but they seem to me to be highly remarkable and worthy of a systematic analysis.306 Bardaiṣan and Origen both developed a Christian philosophy, almost at the same time, and reveal remarkable similarities. They also fought against the same heresies, Marcionism and Gnosticism, and theorized the eventual universal apoSee P. Tzamalikos, Origen: Cosmology and Ontology of Time, Leiden – Boston 2006, 80–81, with my review in RFN 99 (2007) 177–181. 304 As I have mentioned, Origen posits preexistent no/ej, which are not disembodied souls. In reference to Plato it is correct, but in reference to Origen it is imprecise, to use the widespread expression “preexistence of souls.” See my Gregorio Sull’Anima, first Integrative Essay. Plato’s fall of the souls into a body becomes in Origen the acquisition of a heavy body on the part of the no/ej, not the acquisition of a body tout court, since the no/ej already had a subtle body. Origen is clear that only the Holy Trinity can subsist without a body. 305 See A. Magris, La logica del pensiero gnostico, Brescia 1997, 205–271. 306 See my Origen and Bardaisan. 303

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katastasis. I find that it is no accident that the positive sources on Bardaiṣan, all of them and only these, are constituted by Origenian authors. Not only the so-called cosmological traditions, which I shall examine, but also Ephrem in Prose Refutations, 1 p. 55.15–24 and 56.5–35 attests to the initial “incident” of the “beings” from which, according to Bardaiṣan, the creation of this world derived. The initial harmony and order were disturbed by a mingling which occurred among the pure “beings,” beginning with the shift of the air / wind / gust toward the fire. Neither Ephrem nor the cosmological sources regarding Bardaiṣan clearly explain the nature of this accident. All that is clear is that it did not result from God’s will: this is the case with both Bardaiṣan and Origen. The nature of the initial incident seems to have been debated among the followers of Bardaiṣan, as is indicated by Ephrem (ibid.), who is also likely to have preserved a literal quotation from Bardaiṣan in Prose Refutations 1 p. 69.40: “A cause accidentally arose and the gust was pushed toward the fire.” Here, the gust / wind seems to be passive, unless one takes the verb to be a reflexive, which, however, is much less probable. Indeed, both Mitchell and Drijvers render the verb as a passive as well: “The Wind was impelled against the Fire.”307 In another passage, however (Prose Refutations 2 p. 214.24–215.12), the same element, i.e. the gust / wind / air, is presented as somewhat more active, although we cannot be sure that this is a literal quote from Bardaiṣan. Here the gust appears to be the initiator of the process of the mixture of the preexisting elements. The gust is located in the West, the light in the East, the water in the North and the fire in the South. This disposition of the elements, which form a cross, perfectly coincides with that reported by the so-called cosmological accounts of Barh?adbshabba, Moses Bar Kepha, and (Ps.) John of Dara, which I shall analyze. Moreover, the special role of the gust / wind in the initial accident will occur again in the cosmological account of Theodore Bar Konai, according to which the wind, for an accident, was the instigator of the confusion when it came closer to the fire.

307

Mitchell, Prose Refutations, LXII, and Drijvers, Bardaiṣan, 138.

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In Prose Refutations 1 56.5–14 Ephrem also relates that darkness acquires a role only after the initial accident, after the action of the gust and the fire, whereas beforehand it was absolutely passive and mere negativity. Hence, the initial incident is not due either to God or to darkness, which represents evil. The latter is only passive and negative; it is not an active principle equal and opposite to God, as in Manichaean dualism, but is assimilated to nothingness, )L mdM (Origen’s conception of evil as ontologically non-subsistent was exactly along the same lines): “The whole lies upon nothingness” (Prose Refutations 1 p. 58.16–23).308 The reference is to the position of darkness / evil / nothingness underneath all the beings. According to Ephrem’s account of Bardaiṣan’s cosmogony in Prose Refutations 2 p. 216.3–8, darkness, which is cold, when it is reached by fire, produces black smoke—which will appear again, as I shall highlight, in the cosmological report of Theodore Bar Konai—: “The heat had the cold vanish, and its smoke arose” (Prose Refutations, II p. 226).309 Darkness / evil has no power per se, no substance, and no initiative. The beginning of its activity is triggered by other causes, and its activity itself is merely negative, in that it consists in disturbing the order established by God. This disturbing activity goes on also in this world, in which a certain quantity of darkness-evil has remained imprisoned. This is why the world still needs purification, until evil will have disappeared completely, according to the total negativity of its nature. This conception is also very close to Origen’s. The positive action, that of ordering, as opposed to the negative action of disrupting the order, is typical of God, and in it consists the creation of the present world. This will be clear from the analysis of the so-called cosmological traditions, but already Ephrem in his Prose Refutations describes this activity of “ordering” (oQt), an ordering which aggregates the atoms of the elements in given combinations, so to create seas, winds, and so on (Prose Refutations II p. 215.13–44). This order is realized by God’s Logos, as is attested also by the cosmological traditions (Barh?adbshabba, Moses 308 309

mdM lK mYS mdM )L l(d hNNt r+(w )twrYrQL htr$ mL )twMYMX

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Bar Kepha, [Ps.] John of Dara and Theodore Bar Konai): “As Bardaiṣan said, it is the power of the original Logos [)LYX )YMdQ )rM)Md], which has remained in creation, to have made everything [mdM lK dB( wh )tYrBB 4Pd]” (Prose Refutations 2 p. 220.10ff.). This is, notably, a literal quotation from Bardaiṣan preserved by Ephrem. It also expresses the functions of the Logos as both creator and conservator. The permanence of the divine Logos ()rM)M = lo/goj) in the creation is a doctrine which is Christianized in Christian Platonic philosophers and which goes back to Stoicism and was appropriated by Middle-Platonism. Within the latter, it is typically present in Plutarch, according to whom the germinal Logos impresses Ideas into matter and organizes the sense-perceptible universe. It remains in it as a du/namij that keeps nature in cohesion and permeates everything as nou=j (Quaest. Plat. 1101B; De an. procr. 1026C). This doctrine was also shared by Clement of Alexandria and Origen,310 from whom Gregory of Nyssa will draw it.311 Of course, the attribution of creation to Christ-Logos is already to be found in the Johannine Prologue, from which the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed took it. I deem it certain that the Logos is identified by Bardaiṣan with Christ, which is also attested by the so-called first cosmological tradition, as I shall point out. A proof of this is the presence therein of the “Mystery of the Cross” in the creation performed by the Logos. Christ’s cross is present from the very beginning, from creation itself, from the first disposition of the “beings” preexisting this world. Another proof that the “Mystery of the Cross,” a symbol endowed with mystical value,312 was already operating in crea310 On the doctrine of Logos in Clement see my Mystérion negli Stromateis di Clemente Alessandrino: aspetti di continuità con la tradizione allegorica greca, in Il volto del mistero. Mistero e religione nella cultura religiosa tardoantica, ed. A. M. Mazzanti, Castel Bolognese 2006, 83–120 and now my “Clement’s Notion of the Logos ‘All Things as One.’” For Origen my philosophical essay in Gregorio di Nissa Sull’anima e la resurrezione. 311 See my Gregorio di Nissa: Sull’anima e la resurrezione, second Integrative Essay. 312 Cf. the meaning of musth/rion in Clement of Alexandria, which is found again also in Origen and underlies the “Mystery/Symbol of the Cross” in Bardaiṣan: see my “Mystérion negli Stromateis di Clemente.”

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tion comes from the fragment from Bardaiṣan’s De India, which I have already analyzed. There appears the archetype of the cosmos in the form of a human being e)n tu/pw| staurou=. This, as I have argued, is the cosmic Christ, who is the Logos as creator and at the same time the Logos as containing the Ideas which are the paradigms of all cosmic realities and correspond to the intelligible cosmos of Plato’s Timaeus, but are reinterpreted according to the intradivine conception of the noetic world that is typical of Middle Platonism. Plato’s Ideas in Middle Platonism became God’s ideas and thoughts; they are the models of realities and are located precisely in the Logos. In Bardaiṣan’s fragment, the Logos has a human form and the symbolic shape of a cross: this is why Christ-Logos, according to Bardaiṣan, created the world, by means of an ordering action, “according to the Mystery of the Cross.” The conception of creation as fundamentally an ordering and repartition seems to reveal an influence from Middle Platonism, the same that is still revealed by the Christian Calcidius in his commentary on Plato’s Timaeus, where he also presents creation as an ordering rather than a creatio ex nihilo.313 Indeed, this very conception is patent in the Timaeus itself, which was well known to Bardaiṣan and surely influenced him. It is also in the light of the Timaeus, indeed, that he read the Bible philosophically and allegorically. This kind of reading was basically similar to those of Philo, Origen, and Gregory of Nyssa.314 Plato’s passage in Timaeus 30AB is worth considering: “God’s will was that all things might be good and nothing, insofar as possible, might be evil. Thus, God took what was visible and was not still, but moved about with violence and confusedly [kinou/menon plhmmelw=j kai\ a)ta/ktwj], and brought it from disorder [e)k th=j a)taci/aj] to order [ei)j ta/cin] … by putting together the intellect into the soul and the soul into the body, God composed the universe.” It is clear that there are close convergences between Bardaiṣan and Plato. For both of them, God’s creation is See my “Macrobio allegorista neoplatonico e il tardo Platonismo latino,” critical essay in Macrobio. Commento al Sogno di Scipione, ed. M. Neri, Milan 2007, 5–163. 314 See I. Ramelli, “Philosophical Allegoresis of Scripture in Philo and Its Legacy in Gregory of Nyssa,” Studia Philonica Annual 20 (2008) 55–99. 313

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essentially an ordering and composition, the action of bringing a situation from disorder to ta/cij. The latter is the same Greek term that is found, transliterated into Syriac (sYSK+, )SK+), as a philosophical technical term, in several Syriac witnesses to Bardaiṣan’s cosmology, including the Liber. In its final section )SK+, the transliteration of ta/cij, refers to the order given by God to this world when it was created out of the preexisting “beings,” here called “natures”: “For, this order [)SK+] and this government that were given [by God], and the reciprocal mixture, dampens the force of the ‘natures,’ so that they may be neither completely harming nor completely harmed, as they were harming and harmed before the creation of the world.” A further element of close correspondence between Bardaiṣan and Plato’s Timaeus is this: God’s action of ordering took place, not on an inert matter, but upon what “was moving about with violence and confusedly,” exactly like Bardaiṣan’s “beings,” upon which—according to the so-called cosmological traditions on Bardaiṣan which I shall analyze—God’s ordering action took place through Christ-Logos, while these “beings,” after an incident, were moving around in a violent way and chaotically against one another. It is precisely this stage that Bardaiṣan refers to in the Liber when he says that the “natures,” i.e., the preexisting beings, “were harming and harmed before the creation of the world.” Moreover, in the passage from Plato’s Timaeus that I have quoted, three components of the universe and the human being are mentioned: the intellect (nou=j), the soul (yuxh/), and the body (sw=ma). The same tripartition, as I have pointed out, is found in Bardaiṣan’s anthropology, and it is probable that he too applied it also to the cosmos, given the correspondence between micro- and microcosmos that I have highlighted in his thought while discussing his fragments from De India. I shall further point it out in the analysis of subsequent sources. And there is another substantial convergence between Plato’s account in his Timaeus and Bardaiṣan’s thought on creation: both of them insist that God the creator—Plato’s Demiurge—is absolutely good and is not responsible for evil. In this way, Bardaiṣan took a position that was opposite to those of the Marcionites and of many Gnostics, who attributed the creation of this world to an evil demiurge or a decayed divine entity. Against these heretics’ doctrines, Bardaiṣan found a strong assertion of the fundamental goodness of

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creation, as a reflection of the goodness of God the creator, both in the biblical Genesis and in Plato’s Timaeus, that is, in his main sources of inspiration: Scripture and philosophy, especially Platonism. Indeed, in the whole cosmogonical and anthropogonical narrative of the book of Genesis Bardaiṣan repeatedly found the statement, “And God saw that it was a good thing” (kai\ ei]den o( Qeo\j o3ti kalo/n). Hence, it was also impossible to ascribe the origin of evil to God. And in Plato’s Timaeus Bardaiṣan repeatedly found that God the creator, the Demiurge, is absolutely good and his creation is the best possible. Likewise, Plato too refrained from ascribing the origin of evil to God: he is even the coiner of the famous formula, Qeo\j a)nai/tioj, found in his myth of Er: “God is not responsible for evil.” According to Bardaiṣan’s fragment in Ephrem, which I am analyzing, the Logos created this world by ordering the original “beings,” and then has remained in the world so created, in order to keep it in existence, to purify and to vivify it. Given that the fragment is said by Ephrem to be a literal quote from Bardaiṣan himself, its very wording is worth noticing. Christ-Logos, who created this world, is therein designated as “the power of the primordial Logos.” The Logos’ being primordial and original is related to its divinity. Precisely because it is God, the Logos was “in the beginning” (e)n a)rxh=|: John 1:1, echoing Gen 1:1) and the power to which Bardaiṣan’s formula alludes, and which corresponds to du/namij in Greek, is nothing but another aspect of Christ-Logos. Indeed, in Origen too, du/namij is one of the main e)pi/noiai of Christ, besides Logos and Sophia.315 This conception is already

315 Cf. il mio La triade ousia – energeia – dynamis in Gregorio di Nissa: ascendenze origeniane e alcuni sviluppi, in Ousia – dynamis – energheia. La triade ontologica neoplatonica e la sua fortuna, prefaced by G. D’Onofrio, forthcoming in Salerno: Schola Salernitana Series; I think that the doctrine of Christ’s epinoiai in Origen owes very much to Philo. Many of Origen’s passages on Logos and Dynamis are collected in L. Cignelli, “Il tema Logos-Dynamis in Origene,” LA 34 (1984), 239–272; the notion of du/namij in Origen and its relationship to Christ-Logos has been studied by R. Somos, The Divine Power in Origen’s Theory of Salvation, in Pagani e cristiani alla ricerca della salvezza (secoli I–III). XXXIV Incontro di studiosi dell’Antichità Cris-

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very clear in Justin, one of the very first Patristic philosophers, and influenced by Platonism as well.316 In his Dialogue with Trypho, written when Bardaiṣan was a child or shortly earlier, Justin calls Christ precisely Du/namij, Lo/goj, and Sofi/a: “God begot him from himself in the beginning, before all creatures, Power of Logos [du/namij logikh/] … Child, Wisdom [Sofi/a] … God, Lord, and Logos [Lo/goj]” (61.1). Most remarkably, Justin’s expression, “Power of Logos begotten in the beginning,” in reference to Christ, exactly corresponds to Bardaiṣan’s designation of Christ in his fragment preserved by Ephrem: “Power of the primordial Logos.” I wonder whether this impressive correspondence might indicate that Bardaiṣan knew Justin. It is worth while to report Justin’s subsequent statement concerning the divinity and eternity of the Logos and its action in creation: “The Logos of Wisdom is itself God, begotten by the Father of universe, Logos, Wisdom, Power, and glory of the Father;” it is this who said: “The Lord established me as the principle … before the world … while God prepared the heavens I was there.” Notably, Clement of Alexandria also connected the Logos of God with the duna/meij, and more precisely with the spiritual powers.317 For Justin, Clement, Bardaiṣan, and Origen, ChristLogos is God’s Power and Wisdom, by means of which God created the world. According to Bardaiṣan, this creation was already characterized by “the Mystery of the Cross,” as is revealed by the so-called “first cosmological tradition”—I shall analyze this testimony—: it is precisely the Cross that is defined both “power [du/namij] and wisdom [sofi/a] of God by St. Paul, who was well known to Bardaiṣan and to his contemporary, and equally antiMarcionite, Abercius.318 tiana, Roma, Augustinianum, 5–7 maggio 2005, Roma 2006, SEA 96, 711– 724. 316 See my San Giustino Martire: il multiforme uso di mystérion e il lessico dell'esegesi tipologica delle Scritture, in Il volto del mistero. Mistero e religione nella cultura religiosa tardoantica, ed. A. M. Mazzanti, Castel Bolognese 2006, 35– 66. 317 See my “Clement’s Notion of the Logos,” with discussion and documentation. 318 In his epitaph, Abercius states that during his pilgrimage to the East, across the Euphrates, he always carried “Paul” with him, on his car-

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Therefore, Ephrem has handed down one appellation of Christ according to Bardaiṣan: “Power of the primordial Logos [)tLM],” together with two variants of it: “Power of creation” and even simply “Power,” respectively in Prose Refutations, 2 p. 215.22–27 and 154.28–39. Given the indication of the literal quotation and the explicit reference to Bardaiṣan himself and not to his followers, it is probable that this epithet is original with him and that Ephrem is reporting Bardaiṣan’s own expression. This denomination is to be analyzed together with another, attested in the so-called cosmological tradition, which I shall examine: “Word [)rM)M] of Thought,” which seems to me to be the exact translation of the Greek lo/goj in both its semantic values, both of “word” and of “reason, reasoning, thought.” Indeed, notably, the first word of this expression is )rM)M, which only means “word, discourse, treatise, homily,” which couldn’t render, by itself, the complexity of the Greek lo/goj, and therefore required the addition of a complement (“thought”). The Syriac term )tLM, instead, corresponds much more completely to the Greek lo/goj, and it is precisely the term that is used in Bardaiṣan’s expression, “Power of the primordial / original Logos.” This is also why I have rendered the Syriac syntagm in this way, and not “Power of the primordial / original Word.” Also in the Syriac versions of the Bible, it is )tLM that renders the Greek lo/goj, especially when the Logos is identified with Christ, such as it is in the Prologue of John,319 which Bardaiṣan very probably had in mind when he riage: this seems to mean that he brought the epistles of Paul with him (see my Epitafio). The Marcionites, on the other hand, rejected and athetized—as though they were interpolated—many parts of Paul’s letters, for their references to God the Creator (of the OT), which they distinguished from the Father (of the NT). See Meeks–Fitzgerald, The Writings of St. Paul, 284–290. 319 John 1:1 in the Vetus Syra (Curetonianus) reads as follows: section a: .)tLM )wh yhwtY) tY$rB section b: .)hL) twL )wh yhwtY )tLM )hw section c: .)tLM hw )wh yhwtY )hL)w In the Peshitta it is identical, apart from the vocalization. In the Harklean version it reads as follows: section a: .)tLM )wh yhwtY) tY$rB

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thought of the “Power of the primordial Logos” and the “Word of Thought,” that is, again the Logos.320 Therefore, it is very probable that Bardaiṣan, like Justin, Clement, and Origen, ascribed to the divine agent in creation the epithets “Logos” and “Power” (du/namij); the Liber Legum Regionum also proves that he ascribed it the epithet “Wisdom” (Sofi/a); so, he says that “God’s Wisdom is that which established the world and created the human being,” and that the stars and the other elements of this world are “instruments of God’s unfailing Wisdom.” Sometimes this has been taken to be a contradiction,321 which surely is not. All of these are appellatives of Christ, which Origen called Christ’s e)pi/noiai. They are ways in which the Godhead manifests itself to the creation and to human beings in particular. Lo/goj and Sofi/a are the main e)pi/noiai of Christ according to Origen, along with Du/namij. Precisely Sofi/a has a particular role in cosmology and in relation to the beings that preexisted this world, both for Origen and for Bardaiṣan. For it is exactly in God’s Wisdom (poetically, as embroideries on its garments) that the rational creatures, no/ej or logika/, led a divine life, before their fall and the katabolh/ of this world.322 Therefore, the testimony offered by the Liber is in perfect agreement with the other epithets of Christ used by Bardaiṣan in a

section b: .)hL) twL )wh yhwtY )tLMw section c: .)tLM )wh yhwtY )hL)w I follow George A. Kiraz, Comparative Edition of the Syriac Gospels, Aligning the Sinaiticus, Curetonianus, Peshît?tâ, and H?arklean Versions, Leiden 1996, 3. 320 Some authors who—not accidentally—had little acquaintance with Greek philosophy, such as Aphrahat, also use )rM)M in reference to Christ-Logos, and even )LQ, “voice,” in that they adhered more to the Genesis literal account than to the Greek conception of logos, and identified Christ-Logos in the Johannine Prologue with the words repeatedly pronounced by God during the creation (“God said: ‘Let light be!’ And light was,” and so on). 321 See Camplani, Rivisitando Bardesane, 563. 322 See my review of Tzamalikos, Cosmology, in Rivista di Filosofia Neoscolastica 99 (2007) 177–181.

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cosmological context and found in other attestations from Ephrem and other Syriac authors. I even suspect that Bardaiṣan’s doctrine of the permanence of the divine Logos in the creation—which, as I have just shown, is attested in Ephrem—can cast light on his statement that God is “in the place,” reported in Prose Refutations 1.135.37. It is true that Bardaiṣan considered the Godhead to be unknowable because of its transcendence, but he also maintained that it is present in the world through its Logos, which performed the creation, remains in it, and sustains it. This idea is likewise present, not only in Clement of Alexandria and in Origen, but also in the Origenian Gregory of Nyssa, who repeatedly affirms that the Godhead, even if it is transcendent—and, in his view, also infinite, seeds of which conception I showed to be already present in Origen323—nevertheless dia\ pa/ntwn dih/kei, “permeates everything.”324 This explanation of Bardaiṣan’s affirmation that God is “in the place” would eliminate the necessity of hypothesizing that Bardaiṣan conceived of God as bodily and material,325 since only what is material can be subject to dimensionality, time and space. Bardaiṣan probably regarded all the rest as corporeal, including souls and spiritual realities, every being apart from God, even if he probably had a conception of corporeality at various levels, from the finest and subtlest to the heaviest bodies. These various degrees of corporeality are all characterized by atoms (cf. Prose Refutations, 2 p. 214.47–215.44; 217.43–48; 220.10–33), even if the applications of atoms to the spiritual powers derived from the tripartition of Bardaiṣan’s Logos is only attested for a subsequent phase of Bardaiṣanism, both in Ephrem (Prose Refutations II.220.10–33, which I shall analyze in the next paragraph: Ephrem ascribes this passage to some learned Bardaiṣanites) and, as I shall show, in the so-called third cosmological tradition. Now, in this conception, too, I would find a perSee my Gregorio Sull’anima. Discussion of this formula in I. Ramelli, “Il contributo della versione copta all’edizione del De anima et resurrectione di Gregorio di Nissa,” Exemplaria Classica n.s. 10 (2006) 191–243. 325 This is the way in which Camplani, Rivisitando Bardesane, 553, tries to explain the fragment. 323 324

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fect parallel with Origen, who maintained that all beings are corporeal, including the angels, even if their bodies have different levels of subtlety or purity, since only the Holy Trinity is absolutely incorporeal.326 In the passage of his Prose Refutations I have just referred to, Ephrem also documents that some learned followers of Bardaiṣan divided the ordering principle, the Logos, into three spiritual entities that are also attested by the so-called third cosmological tradition, as I shall point out: “There are other atoms of Intellect, Power, and Thought [)tY(rtdw )LYXdw )Nwhd], that is, other three entities [oYtY*)] that were sent by the Lord of the universe onto the darkness that was at the beginning, for that process of ordering [)YrM]. And some of these atoms were mixed with the others” (Prose Refutations 2 p. 220, 10–33). The process of creation by ordering performed, according to Bardaiṣan, by Christ-Logos, separated darkness, or most of it, from the beings, by forming a cosmos in which they cannot be either completely damaged or completely damaging, as is stated at the end of the Liber. A sort of equilibrium was thus established, which, however, is still in need of a purification, since some particles of darkness-evil are still mixed with the present creation, both in the human being and in all the components of the world: earth, sea, sky (Prose Refutations 2 p. 204.32–47). Now, this purification passes through knowledge and faith: “According to Bardaiṣan and Mani, the creation [)tYrB] is purified and refined [)YKdtM )LLc+Mw] through knowledge and faith [)t(dYB )twNMYhBw].” Origen likewise maintained that the purification takes place in history, during the present and the future aeons, and will culminate with the apokatastasis, after the final vanishing of evil. This perspective is completely shared by Bardaiṣan; at the end of the Liber, moreover, he presents the completion of the purification of the world as the result of instruction and persuasion. Origen also saw in instruction and acquisition of both knowledge and faith the elements of purification that are necessary for the realization of the 326 De Principiis I 6, 4; II 2, 2. This has been rightly emphasized by M. J. Edwards, Origen against Plato, Aldershot 2002, 107–111.

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apokatastasis, which, according to him, is characterized by perfect love and unity.327 This is a further respect in which I find a remarkable convergence between the respective conceptions of these two Christian philosophers. That Origen also made of faith a necessary presupposition of the apokatastasis is proved by several passages, for instance from his Commentary on Romans 4.2–3, where he states that the apokatastasis will be the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham, that in him all families of the earth would be blessed. This will come to pass cum plenitudo gentium introierit et omnis Israel salvabitur, “when the totality of the gentiles / peoples will have entered, and the whole of Israel will be saved.” This means that all the human beings will be saved, and they will be saved as heirs of Abraham, who will inherit the whole world (heres totius mundi), and this through faith: per iustitiam fidei.328 That is, all the human beings will acquire faith in the end, and it is through this faith that they will be justified and saved. Bardaiṣan also thought that faith, together with knowledge, is indispensable for purification and salvation. The purification that he deemed necessary concerns both all human beings and the whole cosmos, with the “seven regions and ten firmaments,” which are still waiting to be purified (Prose Refutations 2 p. 204.32–47). According to Bardaiṣan’s strong parallelism between macroand microcosmos, the human being, and probably also the cosmos, was vivified by God by means of the insufflation of God’s Spirit of life into it, along the lines of the Genesis account. This is Ephrem’s testimony, which he refers to the followers of Bardaiṣan: “Against them, let us cite the words that they themselves utter: that the Unknown insufflated its life into the beings and bound them [nwN) mzXw xPN )YtY*B )YrKwN].” God the Creator See my Gregorio Sull’anima, first Integrative Essay. “Quod signaculum illo utique in tempore dissignabitur cum in novissimis diebus, postquam plenitudo gentium introierit, omnis Israel salvus fiet … Per istud ergo signaculum, ut exponit apostolus, iustitia fidei, quam in praeputio positus Abraham accipere meruit, indicatur et pater esse multarum gentium, quod tunc credimus resignandum cum plenitudo gentium introierit et omnis Israel salvabitur … Quod ergo dicit, ‘Benedicentur in te omnes tribus terrae,’ hoc est heredem factum esse [Abraham] totius mundi … heres sit mundi per iustitiam fidei.” 327 328

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is here called Unknown perhaps in opposition to Marcion, who distinguished the “unknown God” of the New Testament from the evil demiurge of the Old Testament. This would be perfectly coherent with the anti-Marcionite polemic attested by Eusebius and other sources, which I have already documented. On the other hand, the definition of God as “unknown” (and unknowable) may also refer to God’s unknowability due to the divine transcendence, of which Philo, Clement, Origen, and then the Origenian Gregory of Nyssa, were well aware,329 and as Bardaiṣan seems to have been as well. Indeed, the notion of the unknowability, and hence ineffability, of the supreme and transcendent God is widespread in Middle Platonism,330 which Bardaiṣan probably knew well. One might—rightly—object that here Ephrem is speaking of the followers of Bardaiṣan proper. But, as I shall point out, Barh?adbshabba’s account on Bardaiṣan confirms it. For he refers to Bardaiṣan himself when he reports his doctrine that “the Lord of all the beings has made himself knowable to no one.” Another problem is connected with the recipient of the insufflation described in Ephrem’s account. As Beck realized,331 the insufflation of God’s vivifying Spirit into matter is a reference to Gen 2:7. Now, this verse specifically refers to the insufflation of the divine Spirit into the earth from which the human being was molded. Of course, this fragment may have specifically referred to the creation of the human being; however, I deem it probable that the passage is susceptible of a two-level reading, I mean both on the cosmic and on the human plane, i.e. in reference to the macroand microcosmos. A confirmation comes, to my mind, from the fact that this doubleness and synthesis between macro- and microSee Ramelli, “Philosophical Allegoresis of Scripture.” See, e.g., Arrhetos Theos. L’ineffabilità del primo principio nel Medioplatonismo, ed. F. Calabi, Pisa 2002, with my review in Stylos 14 (2005) 177– 182; J. P. Kenney, “Ancient Apophatic Theology,” in Gnosticism and Later Platonism. Themes, Figures, and Texts, ed. J. D. Turner – R. Majercik, Atlanta 2000, 259–276; M. A. Williams, “Negative Theology and Demiurgical Myths in Late Antiquity,” ibid. 277–301. 331 Beck, Bardaisan, 307. 329 330

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cosmos is found, as I have demonstrated, in a fragment from Bardaiṣan that is certainly authentic, the second fragment from his De India. In it, the cosmos directly appears in the form of a human being, the cosmic Adam. The cosmic exegesis of Adam was widespread enough in Hellenistic Judaism and Early Christianity. A correspondence was drawn between the four letters of ADAM and the four cardinal points, and a derivation from the four elements was assumed.332 In addition to depicting the cosmic Adam, the passage from De India at the same time also represents the cosmic Christ, as this human being, with the whole cosmos represented on it, is also crucified. The Adam-Christ correspondence is so insisted upon in St Paul first, and in Origen after,333 that it comes as no surprise to encounter it also in Bardaiṣan, who knew Paul very well and displays remarkable similarities with Origen, as is emerging from the present investigation. The Adam-Christ correspondence is emphasized also in Origen, in whose thought it is essential also as a basis for the apokatastasis. The underpinning of this conception is Pauline: as all die in Adam, so all will receive life in Christ (1Cor 15:22–23), where Origen interpreted the notions of “death” and “life” not merely on a physical plane, but also, and first of all, on a spiritual plane (Comm. in Io. 20.25.224). As all became culpable in Adam, so all will be justified—will receive the dikaiosu/nh—in Christ: “Because of one single human being [sc. Adam] the condemnation came upon all humans: likewise, also for the work of justice of one single human [sc. Christ], the life-giving justification comes upon all humans: thanks to the obedience of one single person, all will be constituted just” (Rom 5:18–19). According to Origen, Christ, by assuming the whole of humanity, the whole Adam who represents it (Philoc. 1.23334; C. Cels. 4.40335) and becomes “the body of Christ,” vivifies Cf. A.-J. Festugière, La révélation d’Hermès Trismégiste, I, Paris 1950, 268–269; Camplani, “Rivisitando Bardesane,” 562. 333 E.g. in C. Cels. 6.36 and an infinity of other places. 332

334 Pa&ntwn a)nagome/nwn e0pi\ to_n 0Ada_m o4n o( a)po&stoloj ei]nai/ fhsi to_n Xristo&n. Il riferimento è chiaramente alla concezione di Cristo come

nuovo Adamo in s. Paolo.

335 Peri\ tou~ 0Ada_m kai\ peri\ th~j a(marti/aj au)tou~ filosofh&sousin oi9 e0gnwko&tej o3ti kaq' e9lla&da fwnh_n o( 0Ada_m a1nqrwpo&j e0sti, kai\ e0n toi=j

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it entirely. And, again, the life brought about by this vivification, as is often the case with the terms “life” and “death” in Origen, is to be understood not only as physical life—and, consequently, this vivification not only as a resurrection of the body—but also and above all as spiritual life and salvation.336 The notion that the whole of humanity will form the eschatological body of Christ will be directly inherited by Gregory of Nyssa, who in his In illud: Tunc et ipse Filius will interpret the final submission of Christ to the Father announced in 1Cor 15:28 as the submission of Christ’s body—that is, all humanity—to God, that God may be “all in all.”337 As Origen already insisted, Gregory also will maintain that this submission is salvific: it will be a swth/rioj u(potagh/, an expression that will be taken up also by Eusebius, another admirer of Origen’s, in the exegesis of the same passage, an exegesis that likewise points—even though less overtly—to the apokatastasis.338 The Adam-Christ correspondence is pivotal also in Bardaiṣan’s thought, not only from the cosmological and anthropological point of view, but also from the soteriological one: as I shall point out in a short while, it is precisely Ephrem who testifies that, just as Adam introduced the spiritual death, Christ has made it again possible for all humans to have access to salvation, which had been precluded by Adam’s sin. If, according to Bardaiṣan, the “Mystery of the Cross” was included from the beginning in the dokou~si peri\ tou~ 0Ada_m ei]nai fusiologei= Mwu+sh~j ta_ peri\ th~j tou~ a)nqrw&pou fu&sewj. Kai\ ga_r e0n tw|~ 0Ada&m, w3j fhsin o( lo&goj,pa&ntej a)poqnh&skousi kai\ katedika&sqhsan e0n tw|~ o(moiw&mati th~j paraba&sewj 0Ada&m, ou)x ou3twj peri\ e9no&j tinoj w(j peri\ o3lou tou~ ge/nouj tau~ta fa&skontoj tou~ qei/ou lo&gou. 336 See my “Origen’s Exegesis of Jeremiah: Resurrection Announced throughout the Bible and its Twofold Conception,” Augustinianum 48 (2008) 59–78. 337 Full analysis and demonstration in I. Ramelli, “Clement’s Notion.” 338 See my critical essay and commentary on In Illud: Tunc et Ipse Filius in Gregorio di Nissa Sull’anima e la resurrezione. For Eusebius’ taking up of this notion see eadem, “In Illud: Tunc et Ipse Filius… (1Cor 15,27–28): Gregory of Nyssa’s Exegesis, Some Derivations from Origen, and Early Patristic Interpretations Related to Origen’s,” forthcoming in Studia Patristica, and further proofs in my chapter on Eusebius in my Apokatastasis.

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four constitutive elements of the cosmic Adam, it is clear that there is a correspondence between the cosmic Adam and the cosmic Christ, which also underlies the fragment from Bardaiṣan’s De India. Moreover, a correspondence between macro- and microcosmos, i.e., between the world and the human being, in Bardaiṣan’s thought is facilitated by the fact that he—more or less metaphorically and mythically—depicted the cosmic entities as endowed with characteristics that are common also to the human beings. This is evident especially from the so-called cosmological traditions that I shall analyze, where they are said to have asked the Most High for help and to have thanked God for the intervention of the Logos, who liberated them from darkness and established order. But this is also clear from the Liber, where a very small amount of free will is mentioned in reference to these beings or elements, which for this reason will also be judged in the Final Judgment.339 This particular conception of the preexisting beings can be better understood if considered in the light of that of Origen’s preexisting no/ej, who lived a divine life in God’s Wisdom, identified by him with Christ-Logos, and of their incident and fall, which originated the katabolh/ of the present world, seen as a place of instruction, purification, and progress, for the no/ej to come to the free and rational choice of the Good, that is, God.340 When this choice is made by all, it will be the apokatastasis, which will not be 339 “Even these things, which I have told you that are submitted to the commandments, are not completely destitute of all freedom, and for this reason all of them will be subject to judgment on the last day … Philip, the elements will not be judged insofar as they are fixed, but insofar as they have power. For the beings are not deprived of their nature after being fixed in order, but of the force of their energy, which is diminished in the mixture of one with another, and they are subject to the power of their Creator. And insofar as they are subject, they will not be judged, but they will be in what depends on them.” 340 Cf. P. Tzamalikos, Origen: Cosmology and Ontology of Time, Leiden – Boston 2006, with my review in Rivista di Filosofia Neoscolastica 99 (2007) 177–181; M. Beyer Moser, Teacher of Holiness. The Holy Spirit in Origen’s Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, Piscataway, NJ 2005, with my review in Augustinianum 46 (2006) 265–269.

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a mere return to the beginning, to the pre-lapsarian condition of the no/ej, but it will mark an improvement precisely in that the adhesion to the Good will not be a simple datum, but a free choice: this is why the end will not simply be “like the beginning,” but better than the beginning.341 Origen indeed conceives of a spiritual progression of the no/ej, which will be taken up by Nyssa for his doctrine of epektasis.342 Furthermore, both Bardaiṣan and Origen assign a fundamental role to Christ in the purification and illumination that make the apokatastasis possible.343 From the methodological point of view, I always endeavor to draw a comparison between Ephrem’s testimonies on Bardaiṣan and other available testimonies, possibly authentic fragments such as those from his De India, in order to critically assess Ephrem’s account. In the following case, Ephrem offers an attestation concerning Bardaiṣan’s doctrine of fate, which of course calls for a comparison with the ample treatment of this matter in the Liber and in Eusebius’ excerpts from his Peri\ (or Kata\) Ei(marme/nhj. Now, in the sixth of his Hymni contra haereses (9.10) Ephrem presents Bardaiṣan as a supporter of the doctrine of Fate: “Bardaiṣan is cunning, who has placed fate under the control of a Fate that is greater than fate itself.”344 Nevertheless, the whole of the Liber and the whole of Eusebius’ excerpts are occupied by a set of arguments against fatalistic determinism and in favor of human free will, which, together with nature, is subtracted from the influence of fate. Bardaiṣan denies a divine or absolute status to fate and has it depend, not on another superior Fate, but on God’s will. Indeed, it seems to me revealing that Ephrem, in order to attack Bardaiṣan, is repeatedly forced to accuse him of duplicity— this, for instance, already at the beginning of his Hymni contra haereses (1.11–12)—evidently because what he considered to be his errors were not patent, and his ideas seemed correct and even “orthodox,” even according to the conception of orthodoxy that was See Ramelli, “La coerenza della soteriologia origeniana.” See my Gregorio Sull’Anima, First Integrative Essay. 343 For this role in Origen see Gregorio di Nissa Sull’anima e la resurrezione, first Integrative Essay; for this role in Bardaiṣan see below. 344 .hNM brd )QLXB )QLX wh[L hrS)d ncYdrB oY+Q 341 342

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current in the day of Ephrem himself, more than a century after Bardaiṣan’s death. This is why Ephrem, in order to criticize him, must have recourse to the strategy of stating that Bardaiṣan, being particularly astute and deceitful, seems to express ‘orthodox’ ideas, but in fact what he meant is heretical: “The devil gave Bardaiṣan a granary full of darnel, so that, once sown in the fields, it might grow and asphyxiate the wheat by means of its thorns … Bardaiṣan’s words, externally, were moderate; however, on their hidden side they turned into an ineffable blasphemy. He was a woman who acts furtively and sins secretly. [The devil] adorned Bardaiṣan with elegant garments and precious stones … The devil provided each one of those who belong to him with particular vices: Marcion with evil speaking, Bardaiṣan with cunningness [yY(w+B].” From Ephrem’s words themselves it results that Bardaiṣan’s “heresy,” of which he was accused long after his death, was not at all manifest from his words and teaching, differently from those of Marcion or Mani. This, of course, can be interpreted in two ways: either Bardaiṣan hid his heretical thinking and did not let it appear from his words, as Ephrem maintains, or his thinking simply was not “heretical.” Indeed, many ancient sources, or even sources that are contemporary with Bardaiṣan, from Julius Africanus to Eusebius to Didymus, from the sources of the Vita Abercii and of the Chronicon Edessenum to Jerome, do not consider Bardaiṣan to be a heretic at all, but rather regard him as a defender of the Christian faith against the heresies of his day, especially Gnosticism and Marcionism. In his Hymni contra haereses (51.6) Ephrem also attests that Bardaiṣan wrote 150 hymns or psalms, with which he imitated the biblical Psalms of David and corrupted the youth. Most of these hymns are lost, but Ephrem has preserved some fragments of them, especially in his own Hymn 55 Contra Haereses. Nevertheless, reconstructing Bardaiṣan’s doctrine from these fragments is extremely difficult and almost impossible. The first big obstacle is given by the difficulty of distinguishing therein what must be attributed to Bardaiṣan and what to his followers, whom Ephrem calls his “children” with a typically Semitic expression. Among them, Ephrem also singles out one particular “child” who is called Harmonius in other testimonies and who might have been either Bardaiṣan’s son or a disciple of his. This difficulty in distinguishing between Bardaiṣan and his follow-

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ers is especially caused by continual shifts from singular to plural and vice versa in Ephrem’s references. For instance, the fragment cited in Hymn 55.1 is ascribed by Ephrem to the “children of Bardaiṣan,” therefore his disciples. The fragment cited in 55.2 is introduced by a “he says,” which should refer to the sole Bardaiṣan; the one in 55.3 is introduced by an analogous reporting verb, but in the plural, which therefore should refer to the Bardaiṣanites, but in 55.5 there is a further turn to the singular. The fragment quoted in 55.6—which seems to derive from a different hymn than that cited in 55.5—is introduced by a reporting verb in the plural, which would seem to refer to Bardaiṣan’s followers. In 55.7 these seem to be again referred to, because of the presence of a plural, but the last fragments, in 55.7–10, are introduced by a verb in the singular. This situation is, of course, puzzling, to the point that, for example, Jansma considered the fragments in Hymn 55 to be not by Bardaiṣan, but by that portion of his disciples who, much later, adhered to Gnostic and Manichaean doctrines.345 According to Jansma, Ephrem did know the Liber Legum Regionum—which indeed seems to me very likely—but he did not employ it in his polemic against Bardaiṣan, because it does not include doctrines that may have seemed heretical. The other big difficulty with Ephrem’s fragments from Bardaiṣan and / or his followers in this Hymn, and also elsewhere, is constituted by their being extremely short fragments, totally deprived of their original context. In this way, their interpretation becomes much harder. Moreover, Ephrem is not neutral in citing them, but he quotes them in order to criticize them. Likewise, the scholar who studies the sources of the Origenist controversy is faced by a similar situation: short passages from Origen were excerpted, always the same, cut in the very same points at the beginning and the end; these quotations were always read and understood—or rather misunderstood—outside their original context.346 A final consideration: these are hymns, and the poetic form is very different from a philosophical exposition, whether the latter See T. Jansma, Natuur, lot en vrijheid, Wageningen 1969, 131–134. See, e.g., E. Prinzivalli, Magister Ecclesiae, Rome 2002, and my Apocatastasi. 345 346

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has the genre of the treatise or of a philosophical dialogue. Myths themselves, according to Plato, whose methodological proviso Bardaiṣan surely had in mind, have an epistemological status that is quite different from that of a theoretical exposition. It is in the light of these premises that Ephrem’s attestations in Hymn 55 should be read. The first is the following, from Hymni contra Haereses 55.1: “Pray, my brothers, for Bardaiṣan’s disciples [ocYdrBd yhw*NB],347 that they may not babble again, as small children use to speak: Something flew and descended [mdM tXNw )dr] from the Father of Life [)Y*Xd )B) wh oM], and the Mother conceived in the form of a dove [)rB )M)w tN+B )YSB],348 and brought it forth, and it was called ‘Child of Life’ [)YX*d )rB yrQt)w htdLYw].” Ephrem’s account here concerns the opinion of the Bardaiṣanites, rather than of Bardaiṣan himself. It is also worth noticing that he does not curse them, but he wishes to rescue them and to integrate them into the Church, which, as I shall point out, is confirmed by another passage from Ephrem. Interpretations of this fragment in the light of the Manichaean triad “Father of Greatness – Mother of Life – First Human Being”349 clearly cannot refer to Bardaiṣan himself, who is much anterior to Manichaeism and did not share its ontological dualism at all. Ephrem may have misunderstood the aforementioned expressions, referring them to the generation of Jesus Christ. It is not to be excluded that they were, but an astral exegesis is possible as well. Ephrem goes on in 55.2, now citing Bardaiṣan himself and no more his disciples: “Oh Jesus Christ, glory to your Father! Also because [Bardaiṣan] said that it is impossible for a solitary being to produce and generate. And he called our Lord [nrM] ‘germ’ Cf. the translations of Drijvers, Bardaisan, 147, and Camplani, “Rivisitando Bardesane,” 524. 348 Here there is a textual problem. Instead of the reading nûnâ, “fish,” H. Kruse, “Irrtümer,” 39, proposed the emendation yawnâ, “dove.” Camplani, “Note bardesanitiche,” 37 supports this conjecture by means of a reference to the Greek Acts of Thomas, 50, in which the Godhead in its feminine aspect is described as a “sacred dove who generates a couple of twin small chicks.” Orbe interpreted these chicks as Christ and Sophia. 349 Jansma, Natuur, 149–150. 347

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[)(rz] born from two beings [dYLY oYr*t tYB oM] in the way of a spousal union.” Bardaiṣan, however, may have simply distinguished the generation of Christ’s divine nature, due to God, and that of Christ’s human nature, due to Mary. Indeed, as is indicated by Hippolytus’ account, which I have extensively analyzed beforehand, Bardaiṣan probably spoke of the latter, which involved the intervention of the Holy Spirit. Bardaiṣan might even have attributed the intra-divine generation of the Son to the Father and the Spirit, which in Syriac (and in Hebrew) is notoriously feminine: rûh?â. The very reference to the generation operated by the Father of Life and the Mother of Life “in the form of a dove” may support a connection between the “Mother of Life” and the Holy Spirit, which in the Gospels manifests itself in the form of a dove during Jesus’ baptism (Luke 3:21–22; see also John 1:32). Another consideration should be devoted to the symbolic value of the spousal union, which can serve as a mystical metaphor: suffice it to think of Origen—to whom Bardaiṣan is so similar in many respects—and to his commentary on the Song of Songs, in order to immediately get an idea of the mystical use of the metaphor of the nuptial union.350 Also in the light of the fact that Bardaiṣan too, as I shall show, was not unfamiliar with allegorical exegesis, the application of the spousal metaphor to the generation of the Son would not be blasphemous, just as it is not blasphemous to interpret—with Origen—the Song of Songs in reference to the love between Christ and the soul or the Church. Moreover, wedding metaphors were usually employed by Bardaiṣan, as is attested by Ephrem at the very end of his refutation of Bardaiṣan’s Domnus (p. 49 Mitchell): “But Bardaiṣan juggled even by names and supposed that the nature [sc. of things] is like their names. For because ‘light’ in the Aramaic language is called as masculine, and ‘eye’ feminine in the same, he hastily coupled them together in a foolish phrase, saying that ‘Light, like a male, sows perception in the Eye.’ And lo, he, Bardaiṣan, calls the moon feminine in the Aramaic language: when therefore (?) the eye looks at the 350 On the spousal allegorical exegesis of the Song of Songs in Origene see for instance I. Ramelli, “Origen and the Stoic Allegorical Tradition.”

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moon, does that female sow perception in a female? Well, then, because in the Greek language ‘sun’ and ‘eye’ are both called masculine, when the eye looks at the sun a male sows perception in a male, according to the teaching of Bardaiṣan!” These spousal metaphors disturbed Ephrem, but they were often used by Bardaiṣan to express his thought in a figural and allegorical way, just as by Origen, as I have shown. I suspect that he may have been acquainted with the tradition of allegory applied to philosophy,351 which was typical of Stoicism but also of Middle Platonism. Ephrem, in Hymni contra Haereses 55.3–6, may reflect a misunderstanding, in that he ascribes to the Holy Spirit what Bardaiṣan may have said of the gust or wind, an element or “being.” Such a misunderstanding could have occurred very easily, because both the gust / wind and the Spirit in Syriac are expressed with )Xwr, just as with pneu=ma in Greek. It is also notable that here Ephrem refers again to the Bardaiṣanites rather than to Bardaiṣan himself: “Who will not close his ears in order not to listen to those people [sc. the Badaiṣanites] say that the Holy Spirit generated two daughters [yXwr tdLY oN*B oYtrt )$dwQ]? This is, indeed, the way in which they represent the Spirit, which blandishes her352 daughters: Immediately after you353 A daughter will come to me, a sister to you.354 I am ashamed to refer its conception; may Jesus purify my mouth, as I stain my tongue in order to refer their secret doctrines: She generated two daughters [tdLY oYNB oYtrt]: one, the redness355 of the dry earth [)$BYd )tthB )dX], and

See my Allegoria, 1, L’età classica, Milan 2004. “Spirit” is feminine in Syriac. 353 This is the translation accepted by Camplani, “Rivisitando Bardesane,” 524. 354 .)tX yKLw )trB mL / yL )wht yKLGr trB 355 The Syriac word behttâ may also indicate the generative organs, or the redness deriving from shame. It might also be translated, “modesty,” perhaps even “shame.” The lack of the context renders every interpretation tentative. 351 352

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the other the image356 of the waters [)Y*Md )trwc )dX]” (Hymni contra Haereses 55.3–4). Bardaiṣan may have meant the two components of the earth (the planet), that is, the soil and the water. They are presented as created by the gust-spirit. It is probable that this passage reflects an exegesis of Genesis ch. 1 (see argument below), here especially of Gen 1:10, where, after saying that God had the sub-heavenly waters appear and the dry—that is, the dry earth—come to light, it is stated that “God called the dry ‘earth’ and the mass of waters ‘sea.’”357 Camplani358 drew a connection between the redness of the earth in this fragment and the red earth, adamah or parqe/noj gh=, from which Adam was molded according to Gen 2:7: e1plasen o( Qeo\j to\n a1nqrwpon xou=n a)po\ th=j gh=j. On this Aphraat meditated in Demonstratio 8.6 and 18.9, but I observe that this was also the object of Philo’s reflection in De opificio 134ff., especially 136– 137. Here Philo reflects on the excellence of Adam’s body, which was taken from an earth that was new, just created after its separation from the waters (Gen 1:9–10), “without mixture, genuine and pure,” and perfect. For God selected “the best part” of the earth, “the purest part of pure matter, refined to the highest degree,” so that it might be a temple for the human rational soul, “the most similar to God among all the images.” This meditation was then developed by Irenaeus and Gregory of Nyssa, who interpreted the pure earth from which Adam was formed as a prefiguration or typos of the virgin Mary, from whom the new Adam was born. Irenaeus (AH 3.18–21) observes that, just as Adam was molded from virgin earth, so was Christ formed by the virgin earth of the womb of the virgin Mary. Gregory of Nyssa, in Antirrheticus 9 GNO 3.1.144, It is also possible to understand: “the collection.” With these two poetical expressions Bardaiṣan seems to indicate the dry earth and the waters. 357 Kruse in his “Irrtümer” hypothesizes that the two daughters of the Spirit, i.e., the redness / shame of the dry earth and the image of the waters, are to be interpreted allegorically, as the Synagogue and the Church, the latter being generated from the waters of baptism. 358 Camplani, “Rivisitando Bardesane,” 575. 356

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likewise states that “the Logos built a dwelling place for itself taking the earth from the Virgin’s womb.” As is often the case with Gregory, behind his conception there lies an echo of Origen; in Fr. in Ps. 88.4–5, the latter precisely expressed the notion of the edification of a dwelling place from the earth / flesh, that is, human nature.359 In a Valentinian text perhaps dating to the late third century A.D., the Gospel of Philip, preserved in Coptic (NHC 2.3.71.17– 22), the birth of Adam is referred back to two virgins, the virgin earth and the spirit, and a connection is drawn between his and Christ’s birth: “Adam came into being from two virgins, from the Spirit and from the virgin earth. Christ, therefore, was born from a virgin to rectify the fall which occurred in the beginning.”360 If this reflection on the earth from which Adam was molded was already present in Bardaiṣan—although the fragment refers to the Bardaiṣanites proper—this favors an assimilation between cosmogony and anthropogony. The notion of the cosmic Adam emerges again, and immediately refers to that of the cosmic Christ, which I have already pointed out for Bardaiṣan in connection with the passage from his De India in which the cosmos is represented on a statue that has all the characteristics of a living human being as the sum of both genders, of unknown and incorruptible matter. Philo, too, in the above-cited De opificio 137, describes the first a1nqrwpoj—not yet divided into genders, molded from the pure earth and whose soul was directly insufflated by God, and superior to all other human beings both in the body and in the soul—as a “statue of human appearance,” formed from the purest possible matter, and beautiful. The resemblance with Bardaiṣan’s fragment from De India is remarkable. Even Philo’s detail of the human intellect as a divine image in the human being, who is its temple, “a sa359

9Wj oi0ki/a oi0kodomei=tai, ou3twj o( qro&noj tou~ Daui\d h2 w(j w|)kodo&mhto o( Qeo_j th_n pleura_n h4n e1laben a)po_ tou~ 0Ada_m ei0j gunai=ka, ou3twj fhsi\ kai\ to&: Oi0kodomh&sw ei0j genea_n kai\ genea_n qro&non sou. Ei0 qro&noj e0sti\ tou~ Xristou~ fu&sij logikh&, tau&thn de\ pepoi/hken o( Qeo/j, kalw~j le/getai Xristo_j kekaqike/nai e0pi\ qro&nou Daui\d tou~ patro_j au)tou~. 360 I report the translation of W. W. Isenberg, The Nag Hammadi Library in English, ed. J. M. Robinson, Leiden 1996, 152.

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cred image, the most similar to God among all images (De opificio mundi 137), corresponds to the representation of the intellect as a divine image sitting on a throne on the head of the living human statue in Bardaiṣan’s De India. After reporting the fragment, Ephrem goes on adding his own observations: “You see how blasphemous these people are: while in the waters it is impossible to see even the image of a demon, how could the pure and hidden nature of the Holy Spirit be represented in that mirror, since it cannot be represented even in the mind?” Soon after, Ephrem cites another excerpt, but this is ascribed, not to the Bardaiṣanites, like the preceding one, but to Bardaiṣan himself. It is notable that Ephrem here (Hymni contra haereses 55.5) even uses the particle that indicates a direct quote (lm): “He also said: When shall we see [h[YzXN bwt ytM)] your nuptial banquet, o Spirit? [)Xwr yKtwt$ML]361 The girl—I quote—is the daughter [mL )tYL+ yh )trB] whom she has put onto her knees [h[YKrw*B l(d] and has blandished with her song to have her fall asleep [h[trcNw h[tMS].”

“She” may be again the Spirit, as in the preceding fragment; or else it may be the Mother of Life, whose daughter would be the Spirit. In this case, according to Camplani,362 this would be the feminine counterpart of the Son of Life. The nuptial banquet mentioned here might be the wedding feast of the Son of Life.

Or perhaps: “young Spirit.” This might be the subject of the immediately preceding sentence, in which case the subsequent sentence becomes as follow: “She is the daughter who…” According to Cramer, this “young Spirit” is the human spirit, the rational and intellectual soul deriving from Wisdom / Sophia and destined to the wedding banquet, that is, the mystical union with Christ-Logos; in the present condition, this spirit laments its state of destitution. Cf. W. Cramer, Der Geist Gottes und des Menschen in frühsyrischer Theologie, Münster 1979, 40–47. 362 “Rivisitando Bardesane,” 576. 361

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Immediately afterward, in Hymni contra Haereses 55.6, Ephrem reports the words that were ascribed to the Spirit in a hymn that is not said to have been authored by Bardaiṣan himself, but to be one of the “secret hymns” of the Bardaiṣanites: “To their shame, suffice it (to cite) one of their ‘secret hymns,’ in which she [sc. the rûh?â] said, whatever may be meant: ‘My God and my Lord [yL) yN$rw], / you have left me alone [ydwXLB yNtQB$]’” (see Psalm 22:2; Matt 27:46). It is unclear whether the rûh?â here ought to be understood as the wind or as the Holy Spirit, as Ephrem understands it. That this is Ephrem’s interpretation is clear from the sentence with which he introduces the quotation. Here, Ephrem claims that Bardaiṣan “humiliated the splendid name of the Holy Spirit.” It is notable that the introductory words mention Bardaiṣan himself, but the above-quoted fragment is ascribed to the Bardaiṣanites. It is probable that Bardaiṣan, while speaking of the )Xwr from which the dry earth and the waters derived, drew inspiration from Gen 1:1 and 9–10, in which it is recounted that the Lord’s Spirit / breath (precisely )Xwr in the Syriac versions of the Bible) floated over the waters, which then gathered together and thereby let the dry earth appear. The Lord called the latter “earth,” whereas he called the former—i.e., the gathered waters—“sea.” This couple seems to be reflected in the aforementioned “redness of the earth” and “image of the waters.” This )Xwr, then, in the “secret hymn” of the Bardaiṣanites, laments that she has been abandoned by God, after remaining imprisoned in the creation of this world, since in it, according to Bardaiṣan—as is attested by the so-called cosmological traditions, which I shall analyze—there are some particles of darkness / evil.363 The Logos, too, who is Christ, remains in this Camplani, “Note bardesanitiche,” 38, notices that according to Irenaeus AH 1.8.2 the Valentinians thought that Christ on the cross revealed Sophia’s sufferings. His words, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” indicated that Sophia was abandoned by the light: “The Lord came to suffer a passion in the last times of the world to show the passion that had taken the last of the aeons … on the cross, the Lord revealed the passions that she endured. Indeed, by means of the words, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?,’ he indicated that Sophia was abandoned by the Light and was impeded by the Limit from going 363

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world after creating it at the very beginning, according to a Stoic and Middle-Platonic doctrine whose presence in Bardaiṣan is attested by Ephrem. In the present fragment, it seems that Jesus’ cry on the cross is ascribed to the part of God that has remained in the world and therefore feels abandoned here. It is as though Christ on the cross were manifesting the condition of the Spirit that has remained—just like the Logos—in the creation. Indeed, the creation, according to the so-called first cosmological tradition which I shall analyze, was structured “according to the Mystery of the Cross.” This would suggest that Bardaiṣan read the events of Jesus’ life, as narrated in Scripture, also in a spiritual and “cosmic” sense. Indeed, I shall point out also on other grounds that he seems to actually have applied an allegorical-symbolical exegesis to Scripture, another feature that he shares with his great contemporary, Origen.364 It seems to me that it should not be ruled out that the spirit“child” who is mentioned in the fragments of this hymn—and is first “cuddled” by the Spirit who is her mother, then suffers the sufferings of Christ-Logos on the cross and remains imprisoned in ahead.” In Ephrem’s testimony Sophia is not mentioned, but rather the spirit is. In the Valentinian Gospel of Philip (NHC 2.3.68.26–29) Jesus’ words on the cross are interpreted as indicating the separation, which first occurred with Adam and has to be overcome by union in the bridal chamber: panoute panoute etbeou p`oeis akkaat n_swk n_ta3`e naei hi pstauros n_ta3pwr` gar m_pma etmmau, “‘My God, my God, why, o Lord, have you forsaken me?’ On the cross he pronounced these words, because there he was separated.” (Here I depart from the translation of Isenberg in The Nag Hammadi Library, 151: “It was on the cross that he said these words, for he had departed from that place”). The first separation occurred with Adam: “When Eve was still in Adam, death did not exist; when she was separated from him, death came into being. If he enters again and attains his former self, death will be no more” (ibidem 68.23–26). Redemption will be union (vs. separation) in the bridal chamber: “The redemption takes place in the bridal chamber” (ibidem 69.25–26). 364 Kruse, “Irrtümer,” offers an alternative exegesis. As I have mentioned, he interprets the two daughters of the Spirit as the Synagogue and the Church. In this connection, he ascribes Jesus’ cry on the cross to the Synagogue, who was abandoned for the formation of the Church. Ephrem misunderstood Bardaiṣan’s allegory.

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matter, and seems to be destined to the spousal union with the Son—also represents the human spiritual and intellectual soul. For this soul, in both the Middle-Platonic and the Neo-Stoic perspective, is of divine origin and represents the divine part in us: therefore, it can be well described as the daughter of the divine Spirit. As for its envisaged wedding with the Son, in a fragment from Bardaiṣan preserved by Ephrem (Prose Refutations 2.165.9–19) it is precisely the intellectual and rational soul that is said to have been liberated by Christ (the Son) from “the ancient impediment” that arose from Adam’s sin and thus can finally ascend to the “bridal room of light” (attested in Prose Refutations 2.164.29–40),365 representing illumination and salvation. Indeed, in Bardaiṣan’s story of the salvation of the intellectual soul the spousal symbolism is well present, and it also characterizes the spiritual being who is destined to the marriage with the Son, Christ-Logos, and whose vicissitudes are narrated in the fragments in Ephrem’s Hymn 55. Precisely the marriage between the intellectual soul of each human being and Christ-Logos are the object of an author, Origen, who is both chronologically and culturally close to Bardaiṣan. This exegesis is central to his Commentary on the Song of Songs, in which it explains the nuptial symbolism in reference to the union of the intellectual soul with Christ, and is flanked by another, which refers this mystical marriage to Christ and the Church.366 In this work of Origen’s there are these two main allegorical levels; I deem it not impossible that the same may have been the case with Bardaiṣan, even though we have only scant fragments, moreover referred by Ephrem both to him and to his followers. In these fragments there may have been more than one allegorical level intended, so that the spirit mentioned therein may be both the divine spirit that has remained in the world, as the Logos, and the human spirit, i.e., the intellectual soul, which, after separation and suffering, is destined to the bridal union with the Logos, i.e., to salvation. Indeed, in the aforementioned fragment from the Prose Refutations, Bardaiṣan describes salvation precisely as the entrance into the bri365 For this widespread imagery see S. Brock, The Luminous Eye. The Spiritual World Vision of Saint Ephrem, Kalamazoo, Mi. 1985, 115–130. 366 See my Origen and the Stoic Allegorical Tradition.

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dal chamber of the Logos. And I have already pointed out on more than one occasion how Bardaiṣan drew a close relation between macro- and microcosmos; thus, it was natural for him to draw one between the Logos and the individual logos as a faculty in each soul. Camplani367 has interestingly proposed to read the fragment concerning Jesus’ cry on the cross in reference to an assimilation between Christ’s body and matter: that cry is “the cry of Christ’s human and material component transferred to the corrupt matter, separated from pure matter and waiting for redemption.” I find that this fits well with Bardaiṣan’s idea of the cosmic Christ, which I have explained while commenting on his fragments from De India. Christ’s suffering body is the separated cosmic matter, that in which particles of darkness are still present and which needs to be purified; his glorious, resurrected, and immortal body is the purified world, that which is also envisaged in the eschatological description at the end of the Liber Legum Regionum, where the eventual apokatastasis is depicted. Ephrem’s hymn then focuses on Bardaiṣan’s conception of paradise or the Garden of Eden (Hymni contra Haereses 55.7–10). Ephrem finds it offensive, in that a conjugal union is mentioned therein. This is why in strophe 7 he introduces the quotation with the words, “They profess to accept Moses’ Law, but he offended Moses when he wrote…” And after the quotation of the fragment, Ephrem comments on it as follows: “The Law, beautiful, like a mirror, reproaches their perverse doctrine.” This is the first fragment itself concerning the paradise, in Hymni contra Haereses 55.7: “The highest part of the building,368 whose doors opened at the order, before the Mother [)M)], and places the Paradise in a shameful place [)SYdrPL hMS )r)wKd )rt)Bw].” Ephrem uses “shameful” because of the mention of the spousal union of the Mother and the Father, but the references to the Mother and the Father, as will be clear from the subsequent pasCamplani, Rivisitando Bardesane, 585. The translation from Camplani’s Italian is mine. 368 The Syriac has, “the head [)$Yd] of the building.” Rücker and Drijvers (Bardaisan, 147) translate “the palace.” 367

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sages reported by Ephrem himself and by further sources that I shall analyze later, should be interpreted as references to the moon and the sun. These were called “gods” in the astronomical lexicon, and their mention does not mean that Bardaiṣan admitted of other deities in addition to God, whose unicity is stated not only in the Liber, but also in the “cosmological traditions” and other testimonies. Bardaiṣan seems to have had the moon and the sun intervene in the constitution of the paradise through their vital influences,369 but this does not at all exclude that he denied that the Creator is God. It is not even excluded that the Mother and the Father of Life were assimilated to Eve and Adam, because the latter couple, too, was in the paradise, and from it all the human living beings were constituted. Furthermore, the biblical etymology of Eve’s name in Gen 3:20 is “Mother of the living beings,” or “Mother of Life,” a coincidence that scholars who have studied the figure of the “Mother of Life” in Bardaiṣan seem to have failed to notice, but that is worth remarking. In this case, Bardaiṣan would be interpreting the Bible, and references to Mandaeans and Manichaean texts, which moreover are later, for parallels in regard to the conception of “parent of life” would turn out to be secondary.370 Didymus the Blind, too, who knew very well both Bardaiṣan and Origen, commenting upon Gen 3:20 in his Commentary on Genesis 105, insists on the interpretation of Eve as “mother of all the living beings” (mh&thr pa&ntwn tw~n zw&ntwn) and “life” (zwh/), and ibidem 106 he adds the allegorical exegesis of the Church as the true mother of the living beings in that she brings people to Christ, who is the true Life. 369 G. Widengren, “Bardesanes von Edessa und der syrischmesopotamische Gnostizismus. Ein Beitrag zur Vorgeschichte des Manichäismus,” in The Many and the One. Essays on Religion in the GraecoRoman World presented to H. L. Jansen on his 80th Birthday, Trondheim 1985, 153–181, esp. 159–161, has shown that the idea of the paradise constituted by the Father and Mother of Life has some parallels in Gnostic texts; however, he has not offered a global interpretation of the fragments included in Hymn 55 in a Gnostic perspective. 370 These parallels, which are interesting per se, are pointed out by Widengren, Bardesanes, 157–159.

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This is how Ephrem goes on to quote and comment on Bardaiṣan in Hymni contra haereses 55.8: “Again, Bardaiṣan rejected the Saint’s blessed Paradise, and believed in another paradise of shame: ‘It was measured and placed by the gods. The Father—I quote—and the Mother [)M) p) mL )B)] with their union planted it [yhwBcN nwhGwwzB], and with their germs founded it [yhwLt$ nwhtKr*wdB].’371 But Moses testifies to the contrary concerning Paradise; indeed, he did not write such things. The Sacred Scriptures narrate completely different things, and refer and describe that the garden of delights was constituted by the Lord in the region of Eden. Thus, Moses indicated only one Paradise, whereas these people invent two of them, and they lie in saying that these were created by the gods according to a measure. And it is not even licit to say in which place they [sic] located them. The serpent that deceived Adam on the tree fooled and confused Bardaiṣan on the issue of paradise.” It is worth observing that here Ephrem acknowledges that the Bardaiṣanites accepted Moses’ Law, even if in his view they did not stick to Moses’ authority. Indeed, he contests their interpretation of the Old Testament. His wording in Hymni contra Haereses 50.2 is telling: “May Bardaiṣan be ashamed, in that he errs, and induces other people into error as well, and teaches that many have spoken in the Law.” Bardaiṣan seems to have taught that “the Law” is not only by Moses, but by many. This bit may indicate that Bardaiṣan and his school applied elements of textual criticism to the Bible. Some contemporaries of Bardaiṣan shared this approach to the biblical text: the Gnostics, especially Ptolemy and Heracleon, and Origen, all of whom also applied an allegorical exegesis to it; Origen’s Hexapla and all of his exegetical works attest to this double approach: textual criticism and allegorical interpretation of the Bible.372 It is probable that both these aspects were present in

See Gen 2:8–9. Here I follow the text and the interpretation offered by Camplani, “Note bardesanitiche,” and “Rivisitando Bardesane,” 524. 372 For the presence of these aspects together in Origen see my Origen and the Stoic Allegorical Tradition. 371

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Bardaiṣan as well, since he is likely to have admitted of various levels in the exegesis of Scripture. At the end of his hymn Ephrem depicts Bardaiṣan as a pagan polytheist, in that he misunderstands his use of the appellative “gods” in reference to the heavenly bodies; for Ephrem does not take into consideration the astrological, as opposed to the theological, meaning of this term: “He looked at the sun and the moon, and assimilated the Father to the sun and the Mother to the moon. He distinguished masculine and feminine deities within their descent and their offspring. He blasphemed with the words of his mouth, and he praised many deities, by saying: ‘Glory to you, o Lords, children of my lords.’ He preached a great number of deities and was not ashamed of this. Those who were with the Maccabees373 found some Jews killed, and upon them they discovered small statues of pagan deities, and they offered prayers and gifts for those dead. Now, you, good children, pray for Bardaiṣan, who died in heathenism; for, on his mouth there is our Lord, but in his heart there is a legion [sc. of demons]” (Hymni contra Haereses 55.10).374 Notably, Ephrem, just as other late sources, contradicts the ancient attestation of Eusebius, Jerome, Didymus the Blind, and some others, that Bardaiṣan did not pass from orthodoxy to heresy, or even to paganism, but vice versa. For Bardaiṣan died while belonging to the Church, according to Didymus as a presbyter, according to other sources, which I shall analyze, as a deacon. Eusebius expressly says that Bardaiṣan, after his initial adherence to Valentinianism—which the Church historian perhaps felt compelled to mention by Hippolytus’ account—remained in orthodoxy. Ephrem, on the contrary, accuses Bardaiṣan of having maintained not only heretical assumptions, but even paganism, until his death. Bardaiṣan, however, was a monotheist and a Christian, as is evident from the Liber Legum Regionum, from the so-called cosmological traditions, from the fragments from De India and even from some evidence preserved by Ephrem himself. The “gods” that in Ephrem’s view denounce Bardaiṣan’s paganism are both the heavenly bodies and—as I have pointed out—the “beings,” since 373 374

2Mac 12:40–44. Mark 5:9.

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Ephrem considers the name “being” as proper to God alone, so that Bardaiṣan’s “beings” are deities from his point of view, whereas Bardaiṣan did not in the least put them on the same plane as God, but subordinated them to God. In the Liber they are expressly called creatures of God. I think that, far from being a sign of paganism, Bardaiṣan’s expressions reflect a derivation from Plato’s Timaeus, a fundamental text for Middle Platonism. I have already endeavored to point out that the Timaeus, along with the Bible, is relevant to Bardaiṣan’s cosmology and anthropology. This is demonstrated not only by the long second fragment, surely authentic, coming from Bardaiṣan’s De India, but also by other convergences, which I am pointing out and shall be pointing out between Bardaiṣan’s conceptions and the cosmogony of the Timaeus. In this particular case, the appellative ‘deities’ for the heavenly bodies, rather than reflecting a supposed polytheism, precisely correspond to what is found in the Timaeus. Here, the souls, especially those of the stars, are dai/monej, and therefore divine beings, which God the creator, the Demiurge, treats as his own children. In Timaeus 40AB, indeed, the heavenly bodies are presented as endowed with intelligent souls. Not even in Plato are they equal to God, the good creator; they are produced by the deity and are not coeternal with it. Consistently with this conception, in Tim. 40D the stars are called “visible and created / generated deities” (qeoi\ o(ratoi\ kai\ gennhtoi/). Indeed, differently from God the creator, these minor deities are both created and visible. If not even for Plato are the stars deities equal to God the creator, they are even less so for the Christian philosopher Bardaiṣan. As I have already pointed out, in the initial sections of the Liber Bardaiṣan is very far from polytheism, when he declares that the stars are “instruments of God’s infallible Wisdom” and do not even possess the gift of free will proper. This is consistent with the whole argument of the Liber itself, that Fate is not a divinity, nor is it determined by the stars as independent agents. But it is drastically limited and entirely submitted to God: it is God that establishes fate, which operates through the influences of the stars. The latter thus become instruments of God’s will, very differently from human beings and angels, who are fully provided with free will, a gift from God: “God, instead, in his benevolence did not want to make the human being in this way, but, thanks to free will, has exalted it above many creatures, and has rendered it equal to

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angels” (col. 543 Nau). Indeed, Bardaiṣan, as a Christian philosopher, goes one step further than Plato did, detaching himself from any possible polytheistic view. For the stars not only are not deities proper, as God is, but they are not even equal to human rational souls (which Plato was more inclined to admit): for Bardaiṣan, only these are in the image of God, and only these, together with the angels, are endowed with free will. Bardaiṣan’s thought is not inspired by polytheism or by Chaldean astrology, which is explicitly rejected in the Liber, but is inspired by the Timaeus, which he read from a Christian perspective. In Ephrem’s above-quoted passage one encounters the prayer for Bardaiṣan, just as for his disciples beforehand. This is coherent with his wish to convert and save the followers of Bardaiṣan and with his initial statement that his attacks on Bardaiṣan have a therapeutic aim: “Whoever wants to heal an ill person exaggerates the therapy, which entails suffering, but he does not love this person less for this reason. He torments, but does not hate, this person; he is never less enraged than when he employs harshness.” That Bardaiṣan identified the Father and the Mother (of Life) with the sun and the moon, as I have suggested, is confirmed both by testimonies on Bardaiṣan which I shall analyze (Agapius, Michael the Syrian, and Barhebraeus) and by Ephrem himself in Prose Refutations 1.27.32–38: “And [sc. Bardaiṣan] said concerning the moon [)rhS] that it is an earth and a womb [yh )(r) )SrKw] that is filled with a sublime and high flux [oMd )YLM yL(w )Mr )(P$].” This flow comes from the sun and fills the moon, which in turn pours its gifts onto the sublunar zone. It is again from Ephrem that we learn that, according to Bardaiṣan, the children of the moon and the sun are the months. Using their Babylonian names, Bardaiṣan called the first two Tešri and Marh?ešwan, which he etymologically related to “beginning” (šry, yr$) and “to crawl on all fours” (rh?š, 4Xr). His “son”—that is, maybe his child proper, maybe a disciple of his—instead, designated the first two months as “first” and “second Tešri”: “In his hymn he [sc. Bardaiṣan’s son] says: ‘O—I quote—Tešri [mL w) yr$t], mother of the year [)tN$d )M)], produce another Tešri for us! [)trX) yr$t oL dLw)]’ Now, he says this in reference to the Mother of Life [)Y*}Xd )M)], when he asks her to produce and leave behind her a daughter in her image” (Prose

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Refutations 2.223.13–22). The astral meaning of the Mother and Father of Life is here evident and should probably be ascribed to these expressions also when they appear in Hymn 55, although multiple layers of meaning and references are perhaps to be taken into account. As a result of this analysis of the fragments in Hymn 55 Contra Haereses the impression arises that we have a certain number of quotations, which are difficult to interpret, in that they are detached from their original context. Moreover, most of them do not refer to Bardaiṣan himself, but to his followers. So that it is quite thorny, if not impossible, to isolate what can be safely ascribed to him. It is also impossible to classify Bardaiṣan as a Gnostic on the basis of this Hymn. It is true that there are possible parallels with Gnostic expressions (in Ptolemaeus, in the Gospel of Philip, in the Ophites of Irenaeus AH 1.30), but, as Camplani rightly observed,375 Gnosticism proper is ruled out from Bardaiṣan’s thinking by the absence of the notion of an intra-divine crisis. In his thought there is no guilt or sin of a divine entity that provokes a theological dualism.376 This, indeed, is very far from Bardaiṣan, who was an anti-Marcionite and anti-Gnostic, and thought that evil is so far from belonging to the divine sphere that it is close to non-being. Indeed, I find that Bardaiṣan is much closer to Origen’s than to the Gnostics’ view. The thesis that Bardaiṣan was a Gnostic goes back to Hilgenfeld’s old hypothesis.377 But he proposed it from a very partial methodological perspective: he took into consideration practically only Ephrem’s Hymni contra Haereses, and on the basis of scanty and uncertain evidence he reconstructed a complex Gnostic Camplani, “Rivisitando Bardesane.” On the Gnostic “antecedent guilt” and its differentiation from the Biblical perspective of the original sin see my “La colpa antecedente come ermeneutica del male in sede storico-religiosa e nei testi biblici,” in XIV Atti del XIV Convegno di Studî vetero-testamentarî dell’Associazione Biblica Italiana: Origine e fenomenologia del male: le vie della catarsi vetero-testamentaria, RomaCiampino, Istituto Il Carmelo, 5–7 settembre 2005, ed. I. Cardellini, Ricerche Storico-Bibliche 19 (2007) 11–64. 377 A. Hilgenfeld, Bardesanes, der letzte Gnostiker, Leipzig 1864, esp. 29– 32. 375 376

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system. Moreover, he had at his disposal only the ancient editio Romana of Ephrem. Several scholars, often on the basis of valid arguments, have indeed excluded that Bardaiṣan’s thought was Gnostic, even if some of his followers may have adhered to Gnosticism and Manichaeism. For example, Hort378 observed that none of Bardaiṣan’s fragments showed any trace of Valentinianism; Haase379 remarked that it is impossible to regard as a Gnostic a monist like Bardaiṣan, who believed in God the Creator, about whom it is not even certain that he was a Docetist, and for whom not even Ephrem’s Hymni contra Haereses provide sufficient evidence that he was a Gnostic. Teixidor380 also regards Bardaiṣan as a Christian philosopher rather than a Gnostic. Kruse381 refutes many Gnostic exegeses of Bardaiṣan and even of Bardaiṣanitic material; moreover, he offers an obvious—but often disregarded, as in the case of Origen—methodological guideline: it is impossible to evaluate Bardaiṣan with the canons of Nicene and post-Nicene doctrine. Beck382 also has detached Bardaiṣan’s thought from Gnosticism, and from Manichaeism as well, relying on precise passages. I refer to his contributions several times in this study. Indeed, I find that Eusebius’, Didymus’, Jerome’s, the Vita Abercii’s and other sources’ testimony that Bardaiṣan, far from being a Gnostic, in fact refuted Gnosticism and Marcionism, just as Origen did all his life long, is best confirmed by his own thinking, such as we can reconstruct it on the basis of the Liber Legum Regionum, of the fragments from his De India, which, as I have pointed F. J. A. Hort, “Bardaisan,” in A Dictionary of Christian Biography, Literature, Sects, and Doctrines, edd. W. Smith – H. Wace, I, London 1877, 250– 260. 379 F. Haase, Zur Bardesanischen Gnosis, Leipzig 1910, 80ff.; Id., “Neue Bardesanesstudien,” Oriens Christianus 22–24 (1922–24), 129–40; Id., Altchristliche Kirchengeschichte nach orientalischen Quellen, Leipzig 1925, 330ff. 380 Teixidor, Bardesane d’Édesse, in part. 110–113. 381 H. Kruse, “Irrtümer,” 24–52. 382 E. Beck, “Bardaisan und seine Schule bei Ephräm,” Le Muséon 91 (1978), 271–333; idem, Ephräms Polemik gegen Mani und die Manichäer im Rahmen der zeitgenössischen griechischen Polemik und der des Augustinus, Louvain 1978, CSCO Subs. 55. 378

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out, are certainly authentic, and from some fragments from Ephrem and from the so-called cosmological traditions which are directly quoted from his work—as is attested by the quoting particle mL—and which I shall analyze in the present study. For, Bardaiṣan undoubtedly knew, like Origen, the main lines of the Gnostic system(s), but, far from sharing them, he strongly rejected the fundamental Gnostic pillar of the intra-divine accident with which the Gnostics explained the origin of evil, by introducing a crisis and a dualism in the divine world. As I shall make clear through the analysis of the so-called cosmological traditions, indeed, Bardaiṣan explained the origin of evil by means of an incident that is not intra-divine, but that took place among the “beings,” which are completely different from God. As I have demonstrated, even if they preexist this world, they are subordinate to God and have the status of creatures, both in the cosmological traditions and in the Liber, where Bardaiṣan calls God “their creator.” I shall also argue that Bardaiṣan’s explanation of the origin of evil is very similar to that which Origen offers in his conception of the fall of the intellectual beings or no/ej. In the same way, not only from the aforementioned testimonies, but also and above all from Bardaiṣan’s thought itself it is clear that this Christian philosopher—again exactly like Origen— also reacted to Marcionism, with its separation between the Old and the New Testament and between the evil demiurge of the former and the good God, Father of Jesus Christ, of the latter. For instance, both the Liber and the ‘cosmological traditions’ are unanimous in attesting that Bardaiṣan did not at all ascribe the creation of this world to an evil demiurge; he rather ascribed it to Christ-Logos, Wisdom and Power of God, sent by God. In another group of testimonies, Ephrem deals with Bardaiṣan’s notion of the resurrection.383 Ephrem accuses U. Possekel, “Bardaisan of Edessa on the Resurrection. Early Syriac Eschatology in its Religious-Historical Context,” OrChr 88 (2004) 1–28, who follows Ephrem’s exposition concerning Bardaiṣan’s alleged denial of the resurrection, rightly notes that in Bardaiṣan the idea of the death of the soul as a consequence of sin is not Greek, but biblical. Indeed, I observe that this notion is well present in Philo and Origen, who 383

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Bardaiṣan of denying the resurrection of the body. Now, it is noteworthy that the very same charge was repeatedly leveled against Origen.384 In the case of Origen it is certain that this accusation was ungrounded; it is worth while considering whether this might not be the case also with Bardaiṣan. In Hymni contra Haereses 1.9 Ephrem observes: “How great an aversion had the evil one [)$YB, sc. the devil] to Bardaiṣan’s body, that he should deny his own hope, with his own mouth, and should infame one half of himself? He used his tongue to deny, under oath, his own resurrection.” The following statement, instead, refers to the Bardaiṣanites: “They taught that our bodies were put together by the one whom they call ‘evil principle,’ and they maintain that, after the fall, they will no more rise. They affirm that, instead, the soul continues to subsist and is produced by the seven planets.” But Bardaiṣan did not conceive of evil as creator, as an active force opposed to God. For him, evil is not a principle, but is close to nothing. Once again, the conception described by Ephrem is rather Gnostic and Manichaean; indeed, I have already remarked that Ephrem tends to assimilate Bardaiṣan to the Manichaeans. It may even be that Ephrem ascribed the docrine of some Bardaiṣanites—who may have actually denied the resurrection, also under the influence of Manichaeism—back to Bardaiṣan himself. Ephrem’s following statement, instead, is very likely to be exact, as it finds a confirmation from the comparison with other valuable sources: “It is still necessary to insist with Bardaiṣan, that he may confess that the human being cannot be deprived of any of the three forms of which it is composed [nwhY+Lt oM dX )$NrBd yhwMKS)], just as nobody could take away its form from the fire, unless one also extinguishes the fire itself. To such an had the Bible as their first and foremost source of authority. Bardaiṣan identifies the human being primarily with its soul—like Origen, again— and thus he may seem less interested in the resurrection of the body. This, however, does not automatically imply that he denies the resurrection of the body, as it does not at all entail this for Origen. 384 See my “Origen’s Exegesis of Jeremiah” and Gregorio di Nissa: Sull’anima e la resurrezione, first Integrative Essay.

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extent it is necessary that the number of parts remain, as long as life remains. For this is how nature created it: provided with three forms [tY)tYLt],” or tripartite. Indeed, Bardaiṣan’s anthropology is tripartite, as I have already demonstrated. This is confirmed in the Liber, especially in cols. 551 and 572 Nau, where the three components of the human being are identified with intelligence ()(dM), soul ()$PN), and body ()rGP). This corresponds to the nou=j-yuxh/–pneu=ma tripartition found in Greek philosophy, especially in Middle and Neoplatonism and in late Stoicism.385 In Prose Refutations 2.159.9–13 Ephrem, again shifting to the Bardaiṣanites instead of referring here to Bardaiṣan himself, attests that they drew a connection based on ‘weight,’ ‘density,’ and ‘refinement’ among the aforementioned three components of the human being: “The soul in respect to the body—as they assert—is fine, whereas it is ‘corporeal’ in comparison with the intellect.”386 It is clear that in Bardaiṣan’s (and / or his followers’) view the intellect is much finer than the soul, which in turn is finer than the body. The fact that “density” is expressed as “corporeality” indicates that in Bardaiṣan’s perspective there were different degrees of corporeality, more or less heavy. The intellect, corresponding to Greek nou=j, is also mentioned in the immediately preceding section, in Prose Refutations 2.158.20–26, as a gift of God to the human being, in perfect correspondence with what emerges from the Liber, especially from col. 547, in which the human intellect is declared to be endowed with free will and to be the image of God in the human being. Free will, in turn, is said to be the gift of God to the human being. Consistently with this, and with the Stoic and Middle-Platonic conception of the intellect, Ephrem in Prose Refutations 2.220.35–221.6 attests that for Bardaiṣan the intellect, being the faculty of knowledge ()t(dY)), is a part of God: therefore, it is the divine element present in every human being. 385 See my “Tricotomia,” in Enciclopedia Filosofica, dir. V. Melchiorre, Milano 20062, XII, 11772–11776. Such a tripartition may have been present also in Aristotle, at least according to Abraham Bos, The Soul and Its Instrumental Body, Leiden 2003. 386 oYrM)d )M kY) )rGP yNY(B )$PN p) yh )MY$G )(dM yNY(Bw yh )NY+Q

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This conception also corresponds very well, I find, to the authentic fragment from De India in which the statue representing at the same time the cosmos and a living human being, has on its head, sitting on a throne, the “divine image” that is the intellect. Here too, therefore, is the intellect represented as divine. It is thus very probable that Bardaiṣan actually conceived of the human being as divided into body, vital soul, and the intellectual soul, that is, intellect / spirit, which is regarded as what is divine in each human being. Moreover, this is further confirmed by Ephrem, Prose Refutations 1.124.8–28, where the body-soul-spirit distinction appears again. The body is said to be subject to “stupid guide signs” ()LK*}S )Nr*BdM), which are to be interpreted as the heavenly bodies, those which in the Liber are represented as the executors of God’s will under the name of “fate”—not the Chaldean Fate, but a Christianized fate—; the spirit, instead, endowed as it is with free will, is said to be able to determine itself however it wants. It is to the spirit / intellect, that is, the divine part in each human being, that knowledge and free will are attached as relevant faculties, which constitute the “image of God” in the human being. It is no accident that in the fragment from De India the intellect is precisely a “divine image.” That the image of God is not in the body, nor even in the soul understood as vital soul and the seat of passions, but in the intellect (nou=j), is a notion that Bardaiṣan shares with Philo, Origen, and Gregory of Nyssa.387 In Hymn 29 contra Haereses, too, even if he does not expressly refer to Bardaiṣan, Ephrem seems to allude to his anthropological tripartition into spirit, soul, and body. The latter is constituted both by pure components and by something evil, deriving from darkness. Interestingly, Ephrem observes that, according to the author whom he is criticizing and who must be Bardaiṣan, this negative component can be active only when the human being is awake and alert, whereas it must necessarily sleep when the human being is asleep. Now, this statement is perfectly coherent with Bardaiṣan’s idea of evil: evil is close to nothingness, it has no existence of its 387 See my “Philosophical Allegoresis of Scripture in Philo and Its Legacy in Gregory of Nyssa,” Studia Philonica Annual 20 (2008) 55–99.

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own, nor any activity, but it comes into being only because of the evil will of some existing creature. Once again, this understanding of evil typical of Bardaiṣan is very similar to that of Origen, and is quite different from the Gnostic and Manichean conceptions. It is impossible to establish whether Bardaiṣan really denied the resurrection of the body, and, if he actually did, in which precise terms he did so. For there are no original fragments that attest this; in the Liber Legum Regionum, or in the fragments from De India, or in the few other fragments that are direct quotations—usually marked by the particle mL—from Bardaiṣan, there is no trace of a denial of resurrection. Notably, Ephrem’s own words that, according to Bardaiṣan, there will be no resurrection for the bodies produced after the fall— which of course relies on the principle of the so-called “double creation,” shared by Origen as well388—does not rule out, and might even indicate, that the bodies will be resurrected and restored to the condition prior to the fall. These were, and will be, not heavy bodies, liable to passions, but fine, spiritual bodies, which will be apt to the kind of life that will obtain after the resurrection, according to a conception that was typical of Origen as well. For neither did Origen deny that there will be a resurrection of the bodies, nor did he maintain that before the fall the human being was bodiless. For instance, in Fr. in I Cor. 29, he admits that the human being did have a body before the fall and before the assumption of the “skin tunics,” which represent for him, not the body tout court,389 but only the heavy and corruptible body that was given by God to humans after the fall. This line was taken up also by Gregory of Nyssa.390 Origen did not identify the skin tunics with the body tout court. Already Clement had warned that such an identification, endorsed by the encratite Cassian, was incorrect (Strom. 3.14.95.2). Origen, in Contra Celsum 4.40, declared that the skin tunics conceal a mystery that is deeper than that of the fall of the soul according to Plato. Procopius of Gaza (Comm. in Gen. PG See documentation in the study cited in the precedent note. This is clearly denied by Origen for example in Sel. in Gen. 12.101. 390 See my Gregorio di Nissa Sull’anima e la resurrezione, Introductory Essay and second Integrative Essay. 388 389

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87 / 1.221A) very probably attests to Origen’s interpretation of the skin tunics: these are not the body, since the human being in paradise had already a body, fine (leptomere/j), and luminous (au)goeide/j) and immortal, but are the mortal and heavy corporeality that was given to the anthrōpos after the sin. But after death, at the resurrection, all humans will recover immortality. An important confirmation to Procopius’ attestation is provided, to my mind, by his quasi-contemporary Simon Gobar (ap. Phot. Bibl. cod. 232.287b-291b), who knew Origen and his admirers very well and often reports his thought. Concerning the skin tunics, he too attests to their identification with mortality and heavy corporeality and liability to passions, which arrived after the fall, but which we shall lose at the resurrection (288a). The key term au)goeide/j is used here, too, which confirms the identity of source with Procopius. Gregory of Nyssa, in turn, in De virg. 12–13 stresses that the skin tunics are not the body, but “a fleshly mentality.” In Vit. Moys. GNO 7 / 1.39–40, the skin tunics are “the dead and earthly kind of vision.” Thus, they are directly linked to death. I deem it possible that, likewise, Bardaiṣan did not deny the resurrection of the bodies tout court, but only that of the heavy, post-lapsarian bodies, and that he admitted of the resurrection and restoration of the bodies to fine, pre-lapsarian bodies. It is in this perspective that the death of the post-fall body was seen as a benefit and an advantage by Origen and his followers, just as Methodius and Nyssa, in that this death paves the way to the restoration of the decayed body to the pre-fall incorruptible body.391 Methodius, who followed Origen in many respects,392 in Symp. 9.2 claims that God, without being responsible for death— since the cause of death is sin, not God—gave physical death to See my “Death,” in the English edition of the Nuovo Dizionario Patristico e di Antichità Cristiane, ed. A. Di Berardino, forthcoming in Cambridge: CUP. 392 See my demonstration in “L’Inno a Cristo-Logos nel Simposio di Metodio di Olimpo: alle origini della poesia filosofica cristiana,” in Motivi e forme della poesia cristiana antica tra Scrittura e tradizione classica. Incontro di studiosi dell’Antichità cristiana, Roma, Augustinianum, 3–5 Maggio 2007, Rome: Augustinianum 2008, Series: Studia Ephemeridis Augustinianum 108, 257– 280. 391

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humanity as a providential gift, “that the human being might not sin forever and might not be liable to an eternity of condemnation.” Therefore, the very possibility of an eternal punishment is excluded by Methodius, surely in line with Origen, and it is excluded thanks to God’s providential gift of physical death. Gregory of Nyssa also regards physical death as a providential gift that paves the way to our immortality. In De mort. GNO 9.55–62 he explains that God inflicted death upon the human being after the fall as a good: through the experience of evil, the human being would discover that it is finite and, since it is foreign to our nature, it cannot endure forever. The resurrected body will take off the skin tunics when it will be transformed at the resurrection, and death and fire have purified it from mortality and passions and all the scoriae of the present life, which are totally extraneous to life in the next world: “The body will be transformed when it is created again at resurrection into something more divine: death will have purified it from all that is useless and superfluous to the enjoyment of the future life. After purification in fire, it will take off all that is earthly and useless, what the experts call scoriae … now the nature of our body has many qualities that are scoriae, which have some usefulness for the present life, but will be completely useless and alien to the blessedness we hope for.” The very same idea of the deposition of the skin tunics at resurrection was already set forth by Origen. Even the selfsame verb, a)poti/qhmi, is used by Origen and by Gregory for this action of “taking off.” Death, Gregory maintains, is a good thing, because it destroys all that is superfluous to the next, blessed life: “What happens to iron in fire, when the fusion destroys what is useless, will also happen when all that is superfluous will be destroyed through dissolution in death, and our body will be set right through death.” Physical death is thus presented by Gregory in a positive and providential light. For it will free us from all passions and will direct our desires to what is really worthy of them: “Scoriae will disappear, those things to which the impulses of our desires are now directed: pleasures, richness, love for glory, power, anger, haughtiness, and the like. Thus, our impulse, once liberated and purified from all this, will turn in its activity only to what is worth desiring and loving: it will not altogether extinguish our natural impulses toward those objects, but will transform them in view of the immaterial participation in the true goods.” Death is good because it destroys our present body, our

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“earthy house,” to give us our new house, not made by human hands but by God, for the other world: “It is the purified body that we should love, not the scoriae that have been taken off. For what divine Scripture says is true: after the destruction of our earthly house, then we shall find the building made by God for us: a house not made by human hands, in the next world, in heaven, worthy of being itself the home of God in Spirit.” The purified body is the pre-lapsarian body and the body of resurrection, as opposed to the post-lapsarian, heavy, and corruptible body. All the properties of our body will be transformed into something “more divine.” Likewise, also in De an. 148–149 Gregory foresees the deposition of the skin tunics, these “dead tunics” taken “from animals” and symbolizing death. Now, in the light of this Origenian conception, it seems to me remarkable that Bardaiṣan, too—who probably shared with Origen and Gregory the distinction between the present, corruptible body and the spiritual and incorruptible body—considered physical death to be a benefit, an advantage, and a gain. This is attested by Ephrem in the fifty-first of his Carmina Nisibena: Bardaiṣan “deprives the body of its resurrection and the soul of its companion, and calls ‘gain’ the damage caused by the serpent.”393 It is evident that the damage caused by the Genesis serpent, the devil, can be called a gain only if it is identified with physical death, not with spiritual death, since the latter cannot possibly be considered a gain in any respect. Therefore, it is clear that, according to Bardaiṣan, the fall produced, not only spiritual death, but also physical death, the “gain.” This is tantamount to saying that Bardaiṣan thought that 393 Des heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Carmina Nisibina, hrsg. und übers. von E. Beck, CSCO Syri 102–103, in part. Hymn 51.2–4.7,13 and Hymn 46.2.8. Ephrem says that he read a book by Bardaiṣan full of blasphemy, in that he separates the body and the soul and denies the resurrection of the former. Elsewhere, too, Ephrem speaks of other books by Bardaiṣan which he probably read, in his Hymni Contra Haereses, 56.9.4 and 1.14, in which a title also seems to be cited: Book of Mysteries. If this is the case, this title is in perfect accord with Bardaiṣan’s use of the expression “Mystery of the Cross.” Moreover, the reference to “mysteries / symbols” suggests that allegory may have played a particular role in his thought and method (for which see below).

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physical death is not a natural property for the human being, but is a consequence of the fall and it involves only the post-lapsarian body. Now, this plainly contradicts Ephrem’s statement that according to Bardaiṣan Adam’s sin produced only spiritual death, and not physical death, and that the human body would have been liable to corruption and destruction even without the fall, and that the life brought about by Christ is only spiritual life, that is, the salvation of the soul, and not also the resurrection of the body. Ephrem’s interpretation is at odds with the fragment that he himself reports, and is not confirmed by any other fragment from Bardaiṣan. Ephrem, in the quotation above, states that Bardaiṣan deprives the body of its resurrection because he may have misunderstood a conception of the resurrection as the restoration of the body to its pre-lapsarian state, so that the risen body is a spiritual body and not a corruptible and heavy body. This may have been misunderstood as the denial of the resurrection of the body tout court. Contrary to what Ephrem understood, as I have argued, Bardaiṣan did not maintain that the death brought about by Adam and the life brought about by Christ were only spiritual and not physical. I rather suspect that Bardaiṣan—like Origen394— conceived of the death caused by Adam and of the life produced by Christ on both planes at the same time, physical and spiritual: on the one hand, physical death and resurrection of the body to a pure and incorruptible body; on the other hand, spiritual death—sin— and spiritual life, that is, salvation. This would be but one of the many points of convergence between Origen and Bardaiṣan. This, of course, is consistent with a thought that contemplates not only the existence of corruptible, material, and heavy bodies, those of the present, decayed state, but also of pure, fine, incorruptible, and spiritual bodies, those which, according to Origen, were possessed by all intellectual creatures before the fall. That this may also have been Bardaiṣan’s conception seems to me to be further supported by Beck’s investigation.395 This research has shed light onto Bardaiṣan’s idea of an ascending gradation from a heavy 394 395

See Ramelli, Origen’s Exegesis of Jeremiah. Beck, Bardaisan, 300–307.

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and corruptible corporeality to a lighter and lighter one, typical of the spiritual creatures. Now, of the latter kind is the spiritual body that Origen ascribed to the human beings after the resurrection, and I would not exclude that Bardaiṣan may have held a similar view, all the more in that the idea of an incorruptible body, different from the mortal and heavy body that characterizes humans in the present decayed condition, is attested for Bardaiṣan by the fragment from De India that I have analyzed. Here, the cosmic Adam / cosmic Christ is described as having a living but incorruptible body, which very closely resembles, and is very likely to be, the prelapsarian body and the risen body. In Bardaiṣan’s conception— which will emerge even clearer from the analysis I shall offer of the so-called cosmological traditions—this glorious and incorruptible body must be constituted by pure entities without any mixture of darkness, which instead is present, to some degree, in this world and in mortal bodies. Ephrem affirms in Prose Refutations 2.160.14–16 that, according to Bardaiṣan, the body, being heavy by nature, can not cleave to the soul, which is light. When the body dies, the soul “flies away lightly.” This is perfectly consistent with the notion of the heaviness of the present, corruptible, and mortal body. But a light body—such as that of the angels, the pre-lapsarian body and the body of resurrection, the “spiritual body”—will be able to cleave to the soul. The luminous and glorious body of the resurrection is not a heavy body, but a light sw=ma pneumatiko/n. A further convergence between Bardaiṣan’s and Origen’s thought is that Origen also maintained that all the creatures have a body, including the angels and the risen humans, and that only the Holy Trinity can exist without a body (Princ. 1.6.4; 2.2.2). As I shall show, Bardaiṣan too, like Origen, was probably convinced that all creatures are corporeal to some extent. Moreover, Origen grounded this claim in the fact that only the Holy Trinity is uncreated; all other beings are creatures of God, including the spiritual beings preexisting this world. This conviction, too, was shared by Bardaiṣan: only God is uncreated, and all other beings are creatures of God, including the “beings” that preexisted this world. Indeed, both Bardaiṣan and Origen thought that evil is no being, just because it is no creature of God, but, far from being an independent entity, is rather close to nothing. These parallels further support the hypothesis that Bardaiṣan, like Origen, admitted of the existence of

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resurrected bodies in the future world, but not the heavy, post-fall, and corruptible bodies, but glorious and incorruptible bodies: spiritual bodies, according to the expression used by Origen, and also by St. Paul before him, who called the risen body a sw=ma pneumatiko/n. And it is very likely that Bardaiṣan read Paul, both because he was an anti-Marcionite and thus, like Origen and Abercius, did not expurgate Paul’s letters, and because his reflection on the cosmic Adam and the cosmic Christ and the correspondence between Adam and Christ as synthesis of all humanity was probably inspired by Paul. As I have mentioned, according to Bardaiṣan, the human body, like all the present world, is constituted not only by pure elements, but also by some particles of darkness / evil. However, it is certainly not entirely made up by the “nature of evil(ness)” ()t$YBd )NYK) of which Ephrem speaks in Prose Refutations 1.147.18ff. ascribing this idea to Bardaiṣan, which would rather be a Manichaean conception. Ephrem says that according to Bardaiṣan the dead body returns to “dust” (ibid. 2.143.1–24), which is after all a biblical statement, which he could refer to the present, heavy body, which in the creation account was molded from the earth (before Adam’s sin). Darkness / evil is present in the body, but Bardaiṣan does not consider the body to be evil, and doomed to perish on this account, and the soul to be good. This, again, is more typical of Manichaean dualism, which Ephrem tends to unduly ascribe back to Bardaiṣan, as he wrote in a time in which Manichaeism appeared to be the principal threat to Christianity. But for Bardaiṣan, who regarded evil as negative and passive, the darkness / evil that is present in the mortal body cannot determine anything, precisely because it is mere negativity. Like Origen, he rather thought that doing evil exclusively depends on the free will of each human being, which pertains, not to the body, but to the intellectual soul. The body, per se, is neither evil nor good, and the particles of darkness that are present in it are also scattered throughout the world, as I shall point out in the analysis of the “cosmological traditions.” The death of the body is not a punishment for the body’s evilness, but is rather the consequence of the fall, which made the human body perishable, and which depended on human free will, not on the body’s evilness.

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In Prose Refutations 2.153 Ephrem accuses Bardaiṣan of evacuating both Adam’s sin and Christ’s sacrifice of significance, in that they do not bring about physical death and resurrection respectively. I have remarked that similar accusations were leveled against Origen as well, but in his case on no grounds, and I have already demonstrated that Bardaiṣan, by calling “advantage” and “gain” the death caused by Adam, clearly shows that he thought that Adam’s sin brought about, not only spiritual death, but also physical death. The latter, therefore, is for him the consequence of the fall, and would not have existed without it, contrary to Ephrem’s interpretation of Bardaiṣan’s thought, which here—as elsewhere: see, for example, his accusations of Manichaeism and even paganism— would seem to be misguided. This is also clear from another example. In Prose Refutations 2.143.17–22 (see also 162.32–38; 164.41–165.8), Ephrem remarks that according to Bardaiṣan the first human being who died was Abel. Ephrem’s argument seems to run as follows: the death of Abel the just, being anterior to Adam’s death, demonstrates that for Bardaiṣan the death decreed by God against Adam as a punishment for his sin396 was not physical death, but spiritual death. But if Abel died before Adam it is only because he was killed by his brother while still young. Abel’s death does not mean that, if Adam had not sinned, he would have died all the same. Abel’s death must be included in the death decided by God for Adam; the death of all the human beings is Adam’s death; for “all die in Adam,” as St Paul has it, just as all will be vivified in Christ. Differently from Ephrem’s interpretation, it is probable that according to Bardaiṣan—just as according to Origen—Adam’s sin produced both physical and spiritual death. Of course, the latter is more serious than the former, and this is why Bardaiṣan, like Origen, emphasizes it. Adam brought about the death of the soul, which lies in sin, and Christ brought about its vivification, that is, its eternal salvation. This is clear from the following passage, which belongs to the section of the Prose Refutations (2.143–169) usually called Against Bardaiṣan: “According to Bardaiṣan’s teaching, the death [)twM] 396

See Gen 2:17; Rom 6:23.

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which Adam introduced was an impediment to the souls, in that they were impeded in the place of their crossing, because Adam’s sin impeded them. ‘And the life—I quote—that our Lord has brought about [nrM l()d mL )Y*Xw] lies in the fact that he taught the Truth [)t$wQ] and rose / ascended / was lifted up [qLtS)w],397 and let them cross and enter the Reign [)twKLML nwN) rB()w]. This is why—I quote—our Lord taught us [nrM oPL) mL nwGdB] that ‘whoever observes my Word [rtN ytLMd )NY) lKd] will not taste death forever [m(+N )L mL(L )twM],’398 because—I quote—this person’s soul is not impeded when it crosses in the crossing place [l( )rB(d )M h$PN )YLKtM mL )Ld )trB(M],399 as it was the case with the ancient impediment by which the souls were impeded [)YMdQ )NYLK kY) )t$PN ywh oYLKtMd] when our Savior had not yet come [oQwrP )t)N )L d(].” It is important to observe, first of all, that here Ephrem is quoting directly from Bardaiṣan, as is indicated by the particle mL. This fragment, which is crucial, shows that Bardaiṣan, like Origen and Nyssa, understands the terms “life” and “death” both on the physical and on the spiritual plane, and surely regards the latter as more important—but by no means the sole— plane.400 For spiritual death is much more serious than physical death, and spiritual life, which is identified with salvation, is more important than physical life. This does not at all imply that either Origen or Nyssa denied the resurrection of the bodies, notwithstanding many accusations of this kind leveled against Origen. From Origen’s and Nyssa’s writings it is evident that neither of 397 The possible meanings are slightly different from one another: “ascended,” but also: “rose / was resurrected,” or else: “was lifted up” (not only in the Ascension, but also on the Cross, especially in the Johannine lexicon: see below). 398 John 8:51. 399 The very same Syriac term )trB(M is also found in the Odes of Solomon (39.5–10 and 13) according to which the Lord will enable the Christian to cross at the “crossing place.” 400 See documentation in my Philosophical Allegoresis of Scripture on the physical and spiritual meanings of “death” and “life” in Philo, in Origen, and in Gregory of Nyssa.

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them did ever deny the resurrection of the bodies. Gregory even devoted a dialogue, De anima et resurrectione, precisely to the rational demonstration of the Christian doctrine of resurrection.401 This should sound as a warning to scholars who investigate Bardaiṣan’s thought. The fact that Bardaiṣan, too, was accused of denying the resurrection of the body does not automatically imply that he actually did so. Indeed, what I have argued so far seems to suggest that, like Origen and then Gregory of Nyssa, he did not, but that he rather had a twofold understanding of death and resurrection, physical and spiritual, and that he conceived of the resurrection as a restoration of the body to its pre-fall state, fine and incorruptible. The fact that Bardaiṣan conceived of death and resurrection as spiritual does not imply, per se, that he denied the resurrection of the body as a counterpart to physical death. From the above-quoted fragment preserved by Ephrem we learn that from Adam, according to Bardaiṣan, there came spiritual death, which characterizes the sinful condition, and which was represented by him as an obstacle preventing the souls from reaching salvation. Bardaiṣan’s fragment adds that Christ removed that obstacle, but it does not add—and it does by no means imply—that the resurrection of the bodies will never take place.402 401 I provided a new edition of the Greek text, with essays, translation, and commentary in Gregorio di Nissa Sull’anima e la resurrezione. 402 Likewise, the remark that Ephrem ascribes to Bardaiṣan, that Christ, when he descended to Hades / Sheol between his death and his resurrection, did not resuscitate the bodies of those whom he liberated from Sheol (“Our Lord, who was raised, why did he not raise all their bodies, so that as their destruction was by Adam, so their resurrection should be by our Lord?”), does surely not imply that the final resurrection will take place. Indeed, the “orthodox” Christian doctrine itself does not at all assume that Christ raised the bodies of those whom he liberated from Hades during his descensus ad inferos. Origen also thought that the primary sense in which Adam brought in death and Christ resurrection for all (1 Cor 15:22–23: “As all die in Adam, so will all [pa/ntej] be vivified in Christ”) is spiritual, as indeed is confirmed by the parallel in Rom 5:18–19, in which it is declared that as Adam caused the condemnation of all, so Christ brought about the justification of all for their life, clearly spiritual life, i.e. salvation (“because of one single human being, condemnation has reached all humans; likewise, thanks to the work of justice of one single

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Indeed, what Bardaiṣan says in the fragment reported by Ephrem in Prose Refutations 2.164. 18–26, “death [)twM] is sin,” perfectly corresponds to the main meaning ascribed to “death” by Origen in his Dialogue with Heraclides 25ff.: the worst kind of death, as opposed to the death of the body, which is no evil, is the death of the soul, which is constituted by sin: this, and not physical death, is “the real death,” o( o1ntwj qa/natoj (“the soul is mortal in respect to the real death,” Origen stated therein). This, of course, does not entail the denial of physical death, but spiritual death is certainly regarded by Origen—and by Bardaiṣan—as much more serious and a true evil, whereas physical death is deemed to be an indifferent, or, according to Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, even a good. In his Commentary on John 20.25.221 Origen remarks that Adam and Eve in fact died on the very day on which they committed their sin, “and they were killed by none other than the devil, who kills the human beings.” Exactly like Bardaiṣan, Origen is speaking, not of physical death, but of spiritual death, caused by sin. This does not at all mean that Origen did not maintain that sin produced also physical death—which Origen in his Commentary on Romans 5.7 calls “the shadow” (velut umbra) of spiritual death (mors animae), precisely because it necessarily followed it—nor does it entail the negation of the resurrection. And if it does not entail it for Origen, it does not necessarily entail it for Bardaiṣan as well. In the above-quoted fragment from Bardaiṣan, Christ’s salvific action is contemplated in its spiritual respect, as carried out at the intellectual level, in that he taught the truth and then “ascended / arose / was lifted up,” which may refer both to his Ascension (or to his resurrection) and to his being lifted on the cross, an aspect that is especially emphasized in the Johannine theology of the cross. Bardaiṣan may have had in mind Jesus’ words (John 12:31– 32): “Now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up form earth, shall drag all [pa/ntaj] to me.” This statehuman being, life-giving justification reaches all human beings … all [pa/ntej] will be constituted just”). Here it is clear that it is not simply the life or death of the body to be at stake. Yet, Origen also accepted the resurrection of the body in a glorious form, and the same may well have been accepted by Bardaiṣan too.

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ment, moreover, is crucial in respect to the apokatastasis as well, because of its universalism. Thanks to his teaching and his being lifted up on the cross and his resurrection and ascension, Christ made it possible for humans to gain access again to true life, which was precluded by Adam’s sin. If Jesus’ salvific “being lifted up” refers to the cross, there seems to emerge a centrality of the Cross in all of Bardaiṣan’s thought. As I shall point out in my subsequent analysis of the socalled cosmological traditions, the “Mystery of the Cross,” according to Bardaiṣan, was already present at the beginning of creation, when Christ-Logos ordered the preexistent “beings” and liberated them from darkness / evil. Then the Mystery of the Cross is present and operating in this world, as a mystery of purification and reconciliation that will find its glorious achievement at the end of the world, which, according to Bardaiṣan, will be the prelude to the apokatastasis. Christ’s cross, as Bardaiṣan states in the abovequoted fragment from Ephrem, has reopened the access to salvation, which had been closed by Adam’s sin; Christ’s cross, which was already present at creation to structure the world, becomes an instrument of reconciliation, a ladder that leads to salvation. And in Bardaiṣan’s fragment from De India, which I have analyzed beforehand, the Cross is even one and the same thing with the cosmic Christ, whose arms are spread in the form of the Cross. This is the cross that orders and unifies the universe, both material and spiritual; it unites the earth and the heavens, the human beings and God. Indeed, it opens the access to salvation to the rational and spiritual creatures. The same notion of Christ’s cross as a cosmic mystery of unification will be found again in a Patristic philosopher who was deeply influenced by Origen, such as Gregory of Nyssa. Moreover, he based his conception precisely on the same passage (John 12:32) that, as I have mentioned, was probably present to Bardaiṣan’s mind. For, according to Gregory, Oratio catechetica magna 32, Christ, while spreading his arms on the cross, has embraced and unified everything, and has attracted everything to himself. This is why Christ’s cross is the mystery of universal recapitulation (a)nakefalai/wsij). Indeed, in Contra Eunomium GNO 2.120–122, basing himself on Eph 3:18, he remarks that the four dimensions of the cross, which are represented by its four arms, by embracing everything indicate that “all the heavenly and infernal realities, and

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all the extremes of all that exists, are governed and kept together by the One who in the Mystery of the Cross has manifested this great and ineffable power.” This, as I have mentioned, is precisely the unifying Mystery or Symbol of the cosmic Cross that for Bardaiṣan is attested both in the fragment from De India and, even more clearly, in the cosmological tradition. It is also hinted at in Bardaiṣan’s fragment from Ephrem that I am analyzing, on the lifting up of Jesus that opened the way to salvation for all human beings. Gregory insists on the mystery of universal unification as symbolically expressed by Christ’s cross also in De tridui spatio GNO 9.1.298–303.403 Here, he returns to the spatial symbolism offered by the arms of the cross in order to deduce from it that the salvific power of the cross, i.e. of Christ’s sacrifice, is absolutely universal; the same deduction was provided by Origen.404 First of all, Gregory tackles the question why Christ’s sacrifice took place precisely through the cross and not in some other way. His answer is that St Paul saw that the figure of the cross symbolizes the divine power and providence, pervading everywhere. This Christophanic notion of the cross is perfectly consistent with the idea of the cross as mystery or symbol, as both Gregory and Bardaiṣan describe it. Gregory’s conclusion is that the four arms of the cross “clearly manifest that there is no being that is not under the providence of the divine nature, absolutely, above the heavens, under the earth, and up to the extremes of all that exists” (ibid. 300–301). God’s providence and Logos permeating all existing things (dia\ pa/ntwn dih/kei) is a notion that is typical of Gregory of Nyssa, from his De anima et resurrectione to his last works. I have proposed (above) to read in this sense also Bardaiṣan’s affirmation, “God is in the place,” a fragment reported by Ephrem in Prose Refutations 1.135.37. Soon after the above-quoted passage, Nyssa adds: “You are the one who permeates everything, making of yourself the bond that unites and holds everything together [su/ndesmoj], keeping together all the extremes in itself: You are above and are present beSee above the chapter on the fragments from De India. See my “The Universal and Eternal Validity of Jesus’s HighPriestly Sacrifice.” 403 404

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neath; Your hand is placed on one extreme and Your right rules over the other.” The Cross as a symbol of Christ’s universal power derives both from Irenaeus (Demonstratio 34) and from Origen, who emphasized the universal effectiveness of Christ’s cross405 and who influenced Athanasius in turn, who in De Incarnatione 25 presented the cross as a revelation of the divinity and power of Christ, with reference to John 12:32 and to the Johannine understanding of the cross as glorious. Origen’s influence on this conception of Gregory406 is also indicated by the reference to 1Cor 15:28—Origen’s favorite passage in support of the apokatastasis—at the end of Gregory of Nyssa’s argument in De tridui spatio (GNO 9.303.2–12): “Through the figure of the cross God indicates the divine power that protects all the beings. This is why he says that it was necessary that the Son of the Human Being, not simply ‘would die,’ but ‘would be crucified,’ that, for the most capable of understanding, the cross might proclaim God, as in its symbol / mystery it proclaims the omnipotent sovereignty of the one who offered himself upon it, and who is ‘all in all.’” It is from Christ’s cross that for Gregory, just as for Origen, began the realization of the eschatological apokatastasis, in which God will be precisely “all in all” (1Cor 15:28). This will take place thanks to Christ, who has taken upon himself the whole of humanity, and whose crucified body subsumes both the whole cosmos—as is maintained by Bardaiṣan in his fragment from De India and by Gregory in his reflection on the universal symbolism of the cross—and the whole of humanity, whose final submission to the Father is indicated by the submission of the Son in 1Cor 15:28. This conception, which excludes every subordina405 See my “Origen’s Interpretation of Hebrews 10:13, the Eventual Elimination of Evil and the Apokatastasis,” Augustinianum 47 (2007) 85– 93. 406 The contribution of Origen on this point is underlined by H. R. Drobner, Die drei Tagen zwischen Tod und Auferstehung unseres Herrn Jesus Christus, Leiden 1982, 155. A wide-ranging symbolism of the Cross was already developed by one of the earliest exponents of Patristic Platonism: Justin. See my “San Giustino Martire: il multiforme uso di musth/rion e il lessico dell’esegesi tipologica delle Scritture,” in Il volto del mistero. Mistero e religione nella cultura religiosa tardoantica, ed. A. M. Mazzanti, Castel Bolognese 2006, 35–66.

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tionism and supports the apokatastasis at the same time, is fundamental for both Origen and Gregory Nyssa.407 Now, I have already demonstrated that the doctrine of apokatastasis is attested for Bardaiṣan as well, who elaborated it at the same time as Origen, perhaps even somewhat earlier.408 Therefore, in the light of Bardaiṣan’s fragment, quoted by Ephrem, on the salvific effect of Christ’s teaching and cross, which removed the impediment produced by Adam’s sin; in the light of the final section of the Liber Legum Regionum, in which the apokatastasis is described as a result of teaching, and in the light of a passage of the cosmological tradition which I shall analyze and in which Christ’s conception and birth are described as a means of purification for this world, which will culminate in the apokatastasis, I think it safe to hypothesize that, according to Bardaiṣan, Christ’s role is pivotal not only in the creation, which took place thanks to Christ-Logos and according to the Mystery of the Cross, but also in the history of salvation and in the apokatastasis. And the fundamental role of Christ in creation, salvation, and apokatastasis is an essential feature also in Origen’s and in Gregory of Nyssa’s thought, as I have demonstrated elsewhere.409 The importance of Christ’s cross and incarnation does not fit too well with Drijvers’ conclusions that Bardaiṣan’s thought can be said to be Christian only insofar as the Logos in his conception is identified with Christ, but for the rest it is a philosophical system without time, in which incarnation, passion, crucifixion, and resur407 See my “The Trinitarian Theology of Gregory of Nyssa in his In Illud: Tunc et ipse Filius: His Polemic against “Arian” Subordinationism and the Apokatastasis,” International Congress on Gregory of Nyssa, Tübingen Sept. 2008, forthcoming. 408 See my “Origen, Bardaiṣan, and the Origin of Universal Salvation,” Harvard Theological Review 102,2 (2009), 135–168. 409 See my Sull’anima e la resurrezione, second Integrative Essay; eadem, “Aiônios and Aiôn in Origen and Gregory of Nyssa,” forthcoming in Studia Patristica; eadem, “Origen and the Apokatastasis: A Reassessment,” lecture presented at the Origeniana X, Cracow, 31.VIII–4.IX 2009, forthcoming in Leuven; eadem, Apocatastasi. Indeed, this doctrine, albeit repeatedly accused of being pagan, especially during the Origenistic controversy, is in fact Christian.

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rection have no place.410 Remarkably, such accusations were leveled against Origen as well during the so-called Origenian controversy; their unfoundedness has begun to be demonstrated only recently.411 The demonstration that I offered that Bardaiṣan foresaw the eventual apokatastasis also questions the assumption that Bardaiṣan’s system is without time, since it presents a conception of history characterized by the creation and the end of this world and the orientation of the whole of human history to the telos, when “all lacks will be filled,” and “all fools will be persuaded,” and “there will be safety and peace as a gift of the Lord of all natures.” It is notable that this conception of history, all oriented to the telos, is also found in Origen.412 Moreover, the very fact that Christ’s incarnation, death, and resurrection are central to the history of salvation according to Bardaiṣan also makes it improbable that he really denied the resurrection of the human bodies. It is more probable that such accusations, attested only from Ephrem onwards, stemmed from a misunderstanding of his twofold conception of life, death, and resurrection, on both the physical and the spiritual plane, all the more so in that the same misunderstanding took place also in the case of Origen, with whom Bardaiṣan reveals so many and deep convergences of thought. Furthermore, Bardaiṣan’s probable understanding of life and death in both the physical and the spiritual sense is perfectly coherent with 1) his threefold conception of the human being as body, soul (inferior, vital soul) and intellect (intellectual soul, superior soul), each level governed respectively by nature, fate, and free will, and 2) the allegorical exegesis of Scripture, which seems to have been practiced by Bardaiṣan. If this were the case, this would be H. J. W. Drijvers, “The School of Edessa. Greek Learning and Local Culture,” in Centres of Learning. Learning and Location in Pre-Modern Europe and the Near East, ed. J. W. Drijvers – A. A. MacDonald, Leiden – New York – Köln 1995, 49–59, in part. 53. Giustamente dissente anche Camplani, “Rivisitando Bardesane,” 595. 411 Cf. P. Tzamalikos, Origen: Philosophy of History and Eschatology, Leiden – Boston 2007; my Gregorio di Nissa Sull’anima e la resurrezione, first Integrative Essay. 412 See above all Tzamalikos, Origen: Philosophy of History. 410

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another aspect shared by Bardaiṣan and Origen, who assimilated the literal level of interpretation to the body of Scripture, the ethical level to its soul, and the spiritual level to its intellect / spirit.413 The allegorical exegesis of a text, indeed—the Bible in the case of Bardaiṣan and Origen—can coexist along with the respect and valorization of the literal-historical meaning, as it happened in the case of Origen, very differently from the pagans’ and the Gnostics’ exegesis.414 That this multiplicity of interpretive planes may have coexisted in Bardaiṣan as well is suggested by Ephrem’s aforementioned remark that Bardaiṣan was double; at a first interpretive level he seems to maintain nothing heterodox, but at a further level he hides heterodox teachings. This very duplicity of planes is of course emphasized by Ephrem for his own polemical purpose, in order to denounce Bardaiṣan’s presumed heterodoxy even though Bardaiṣan’s own texts did not at all demonstrate it. But it may also suggest a duplicity, or multiplicity, of interpretive levels in Bardaiṣan’s own exegesis of Scripture. Indeed, another passage from Ephrem, Hymni contra Haereses 50.2, of which I have already cited a bit, suggests that Bardaiṣan interpreted Scripture on more than one plane, literal and allegorical: “Bardaiṣan should be ashamed, he who erred and made others err as well. He taught that many spoke in the Law [wLLM )Y*GS )SwMNB]; he blasphemed and did not realize that truth [)t$wQ] is only one, which grows up in its laws, evolves in its sentences, develops in its benefits, and does good in its judgments.” This might be simply a misunderstanding: Bardaiṣan may have spoken of the plurality of human laws as opposed to the unicity of Christ’s law, as is evident from the Liber Legum Regionum.415 Or else, as I have suggested earlier, he may have applied a principle of textual criticism to the Pentateuch, or, as Drijvers first hypothesized,416 Ephrem may obscurely refer to multiple interpretations of See my Origen and the Stoic Allegorical Tradition. Documentation in my Origen and the Stoic Allegorical Tradition. 415 See my “L’Europa e i Cristiani,” in Studi sull’Europa antica, ed. M. Sordi, II, Alessandria 2001, 263–283. 416 Drijvers, Bardaiṣan, 162. 413 414

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the Old Testament offered by Bardaiṣan, who clearly had recourse to the hermeneutical principle of allegory. Bardaiṣan, indeed, like Origen and differently from the Marcionites and some Gnostics, considered the Old Testament to be inspired just as the New,417 and applied to it an exegesis that very probably was not only literal, but also allegorical. This seems to be further confirmed by Ephrem’s statement that Bardaiṣan offered a particular interpretation of certain passages of Scripture, in Hymni contra Haereses 51.13 and in Prose Refutations 2.165. Furthermore, in his first Hymn Contra Haereses, 17–18, he reports that the Bardaiṣanites gathered in caves and sang songs and hymns and read and expounded every kind of writing, surely including Biblical books and the works of Bardaiṣan himself. Among the latter, Ephrem in Hymni contra Haereses 1.14 and 56.9 mentions a Book of Mysteries. Its title is interesting, all the more in that in Syriac “mysteries” can be also symbols and allegories. It is against this book that Mani polemicized.418 This further shows that there were discrepancies between the two. Moreover, this title further suggests that the “Mystery of the Cross” is likely to be an authentic conception and expression of Bardaiṣan. All the elements I have presented so far suggest that Bardaiṣan too, like Origen, applied allegorical exegesis to Scripture.

15 Transition: The Transformation and Worsening of Bardaiṣan’s Image Similarly to what happened in the case of Origen, with the so-called Origenistic controversy, the image of Bardaiṣan that is reflected by the sources is more and more that of a heretic. I suspect that the possible reasons for this transformation and deformation are the same that also determined the deformation of Origen’s image: misunderstandings of his thought, the exacerbation of the controversy, the fact that doctrines of his followers were erroneously ascribed to Bardaiṣan himself, and that his own works were either lost or no longer read directly. This—just as in Origen’s case—resulted in a 417 Of course I use these terms for the sake of convenience, as in the day of Bardaiṣan the canon was not yet fully established. 418 Cf. M. Tardieu, Il Manicheismo, Cosenza 1988, 119–123.

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serious miscomprehension of his thought, which was approached, no longer directly, but through the works of his critics. This is the same phenomenon that ultimately determined, for example, the inclusion of passages from Justinian in the Koetschau edition of Origen’s Peri\ )Arxw=n. A pure paradox, as Justinian never read a line of Origen and was a fierce adversary of his thought—on the basis of hearsay. In this connection, to stick to Bardaiṣan, it seems to me highly significant that Ephrem, even if he is biased against him, never depicts him as a Valentinian. Later sources, instead, present him as a Valentinian tout court. In this way, Ephrem contributes to further support what I have argued beforehand: i.e., that Hippolytus’ brief note on the Valentinianism of “Ardesianes” has no value and cannot be used as evidence of Bardaiṣan’s Valentinianism or to reconstruct Bardaiṣan’s thought.

16 Epiphanius’ Information: A “Mixed Bag” Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis (315–403), who criticized Origen in some respects but also admired him in others,419 in Adversus Haereses 56 offers rich and interesting information concerning Bardaiṣan. This information, however, is not all of equal value, and depends in turn on the value of its sources. Moreover, the materials from these sources are not always assembled by Epiphanius in a coherent way, so that they need to be critically evaluated, and very carefully. This is what I shall endeavor to do. First of all, it seems to me notable that Epiphanius, between the fourth and the fifth century, criticizes the late followers of Bardaiṣan, who are still active in his day and whom he considers heretics, but he is absolutely unable to specify the contents of the presumed heretical teachings of Bardaiṣan himself, between the second and the third century. However, as I shall demonstrate, the information that he offers concerning Bardaiṣan is valuable in other respects.

See C. Riggi, Epifanio di Salamina, in Nuovo Dizionario Patristico e di Antichità Cristiane, dir. A. Di Berardino, I, Genoa 2006, coll. 1670–73, the English edition of which is forthcoming in Cambridge; Clark, Controversy; my Apocatastasi. 419

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Here is how he begins: “After this comes an individual called Bardesianes [sic]. This Bardesianes, from whom the heresy of the Bardesianites derived, belonged to a Mesopotamian family, of those who inhabit the city of Edessa. At first he was an excellent man, and he composed not few discourses (or: treatises), while he preserved his mind sound. For he came from the holy Church of God and was an expert in both languages, Greek and Syriac.”420 Epiphanius’ designation of Bardaiṣan with the form Bardhsia/nhj makes it immediately evident that his heresiological source, more or less direct, was Hippolytus. It is from him that Epiphanius draws all that he knows concerning the purported heresy of Bardaiṣan—that is to say, very little or nothing. On Bardaiṣan’s culture he had other, good sources. On the other hand, the discourse concerning the followers of Bardaiṣan must be kept separate. Now, as for Bardaiṣan himself, Epiphanius underscores his excellence in his culture, writings, and language. Epiphanius is the only source attesting that Bardaiṣan mastered both Syriac and Greek. He also attests that he belonged to the (orthodox) Church, but, differently from Didymus and Eusebius, who testify to his permanence in the Church until his death, and as an ordained minister of the Church, Epiphanius on the contrary says that at a certain point he abandoned the Church and passed to Valentinianism. Epiphanius’ inversion is probably due to the influence of Hippolytus’ account, which, however, is scanty and contradictory, as I have already showed, and is by no means a reliable source on Bardaiṣan. It is under the influence of Hippolytus’ account that Epiphanius makes of Bardaiṣan an excellent and productive man while he remained in the Church, and then a heretic. As I shall argue, this sudden turn—against the most ancient sources, which attest to the 420 Tou/toij katech=j sune/petai Bardhsia/nhj tij ou3tw kalou/menoj. (O de\ Bardhsia/nhj ou[toj, e)c ou[per h( ai3resij tw=n Bardhsianistw=n gege/nhtai, e)k Mesopotami/aj me\n to\ ge/noj h]n, tw=n kata\ th\n )Edesshnw=n po/lin katoikou/ntwn. 4Oj ta\ me\n prw=ta a1risto/j tij a)nh\r e)tu/gxane, lo/gouj de\ ou)k o)li/gouj sunegra/yato, o(phni/ka e)rrwme/nhn ei]xe th\n dia/noian: e)k ga\r th=j a(gi/aj tou= Qeou= e)kklhsi/aj w(rma=to, lo/gioj tij w2n e)n tai=j dusi\ glw/ttaij, (Ellhnikh=| te diale/ktw| kai\ th=| tw=n Su/rwn fwnh=|.

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contrary—costs a blatant inconsistency in Epiphanius’ narration about Bardaiṣan. This inconsistency denounces how artificial the operation was with which at a certain point Bardaiṣan began to be presented as an extraordinarily gifted Christian who, all of a sudden, became a Gnostic. Epiphanius then presents Bardaiṣan as familiar to King Abgar the Great of Edessa, who was educated together with him in Greek paideia: “From the beginning he was on familiar terms with Abgar, the king of the people of Edessa, an excellent and most holy man. He collaborated with him and shared with him the cultural formation.”421 There is no reason to doubt the historicity of this account. It is fundamental insofar as it attests that Bardaiṣan was very close to Abgar the Great, a philo-Roman king who probably was a Christian, and who in any case was not hostile to Christianity. Epiphanius seems to confirm that Abgar was a Christian, in that he calls him “most holy man,” just as Julius Africanus, the Christian contemporary of Abgar who lived at his court, had done, by calling Abgar i(ero/j. From St Paul (for example in the opening address of 2 Corinthians) onward, the Christians called themselves “the saints, the holy ones.” Bardaiṣan’s closeness to Abgar the Great is well attested also by Africanus himself, as I have pointed out in the analysis of his account on Bardaiṣan. Epiphanius’ information is notable also in respect to Bardaiṣan’s education, which was imbued with Greek philosophical thought, just as that which was received—and then taught—by Origen. Epiphanius offers an interesting chronological indication immediately afterwards: “After that king’s death [sc. of Abgar the Great], he lived until the times of the emperor Antoninus, not the one called the Pious, but Antoninus Verus.”422 Now, “Verus” (Ou)h/rou) would refer to Lucius Verus, but this—the brother of Marcus Aurelius—died in A.D. 169 and thus not after the death of Abgar the Great. This reading should be corrected either into 421 Au)ga/rw| de\ tw=| tw=n )Edesshnw=n duna/sth| a)ndri\ o(siwta/tw| kai\ logiwta/tw|| e)coikeiou/menoj ta\ prw=ta, kai\ sumpra/ttwn te a3ma kai\ th=j au)tou= metasxw\n paidei/aj. 422 Dih/rkese me\n meta\ th\n e)kei/nou teleuth\n a1xri tw=n xro/nwn )Antwni/nou Kai/saroj, ou) tou= Eu)sebou=j kaloume/nou, a)lla\ tou= Ou)h/rou.

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Seouh/rou, which would refer to Alexander Severus, or into Ou)ari/ou. This would refer to Elagabalus, whose name was Varius

Avitus. Both emendations would fit with A.D. 222, the year of Bardaiṣan’s death: Elagabalus died in that year and Alexander began his reign. In this connection, it is interesting to observe that the Syriac version of Eusebius’ Historia Ecclesiastica (4.30) locates Bardaiṣan’s activity under an emperor “Antoninus wr’” who may be either Lucius Verus (wr’ = Verus) or Elagabalus (wr’ = Varius).423 Soon after this chronological reference, Epiphanius mentions the dialogue that is extant both in Eusebius’ excerpts in his Praeparatio Evangelica and in the Syriac Liber Legum Regionum. Epiphanius was familiar with this dialogue; like Drijvers,424 I think that he read the Greek version of the Liber, although I would not rule out that he may have read it in Syriac as well, since Epiphanius seems to have known this language. Anyway, what is relevant to the present investigation is that Epiphanius read this work, but found nothing heretical in it—and Epiphanius was an expert in heresies! Likewise, he found nothing heretical in the other writings of Bardaiṣan’s that he mentions immediately afterwards: “He gathered many arguments which he expounded against Fate while discussing with the astronomer Avida, and other compositions of his are known, which are in line with the holy faith.”425 Epiphanius clearly read no ‘heretical’ work of Bardaiṣan—my suspicion is that there existed no such works by him—and the one which he describes here is that which has reached us in the form of the Liber Legum Regionum. For he mentions Avida, who is the interlocutor of Bardaiṣan in the Liber Legum Regionum. He also attests to the title of this work, Kata\ Ei(marme/nhj, which is very similar to that indicated by Eusebius, Peri\\ Ei(marme/nhj, for the writing from which he excerpted two See W. Wright – W. MacLean, The Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius in Syriac, Cambridge 1898; on the high dating of the translation: P. Keseling, “Die Chronik des Eusebius in der syrischen Überlieferung,” Oriens Christianus 1 (1926) 23–48: 26ff. 424 Drijvers, Bardaiṣan, 68. 423

425

4Oj polla\ pro\j A ) beida\n to\n a)strono/mon kata\ Ei(marme/nhj le/gwn sunelogi/sato kai\ a1lla de\ kata\ th\n eu)sebh= pi/stin e)mfe/retai au)tou= sunta/gmata.

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long passages in his Praeparatio Evangelica, and is identical to the title indicated by Theodoret, who read it in its wholeness. The writings of Bardaiṣan known to Epiphanius were “orthodox,” and he expressly declares them to be so, but, since he found Bardaiṣan cited as a “heretic” in his heresiological source, and since the followers of Bardaiṣan in his day were regarded as “heretics,” also because many indeed adhered to Manichaeism, Epiphanius attempted to reconcile these contrasting elements with the story of Bardaiṣan’s late apostasy. But, as I am going to point out, this story is flatly contradictory with the episode that Epiphanius himself narrates immediately after, in which, far from presenting him as a heretic—or even a pagan, as Ephrem does—he describes Bardaiṣan almost as a martyr, and surely as a confessor, who was ready to die for his Christian faith: “He opposed Apollonius, an intimate friend of Antoninus, who exhorted him to refuse to proclaim himself a Christian, and thus he placed himself in the host of the confessors. He replied with intelligent arguments, nobly defending the (Christian) religion, and affirming that he did not fear death, which was about to come inescapably, even if he had not opposed the emperor.”426 Now, it is evident that Epiphanius’ account is contradictory: first he states that Bardaiṣan died under Antoninus as a heretic, after abandoning the orthodox faith; then, soon afterwards, he extols him because, precisely under this emperor, when he was close to death, he was a confessor of the Christian faith. Now, this blatant inconsistency clearly arises from Epiphanius’ inversion: in order to harmonize the data he drew from his heresiological source with the rest of his information concerning Bardaiṣan, he felt compelled to present him as an orthodox Christian who at a certain point passed to Gnosticism. This contradicts earlier sources such as Eusebius and Didymus the Blind, who testify that Bardaiṣan remained in the “orthodox” church until his death. 426

)Apollwni/w| de\ tw=| tou= )Antwni/nou e(tai/rw| a)nth=re parainoume/nw| a)rnh/sasqai to\ Xristiano\n e(auto\n le/gein, o( de\ sxedo\n e)n ta/cei o(mologi/aj kate/sth, lo/gouj te sunetou\j a)pekri/nato, u(pe\r eu)sebei/aj a)ndrei/wj a)pologou/menoj, qa/naton mh\ dedie/nai fh/saj, o4n a)na/gkh e1sesqai, ka2n te tw=| basilei= mh\ a)ntei/poi.

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I have already remarked that Epiphanius’ heresiological source on Bardaiṣan is ultimately Hippolytus. Now, Epiphanius associates Bardaiṣan with Valentinus simply because he found this association in his source—whose inaccuracy and unreliability I have already demonstrated—and not because he knew specific Valentinian doctrines held by Bardaiṣan. Indeed, he is unable to produce one single title of work or one single doctrine of Bardaiṣan that is Gnostic. Thus, he tries to compensate this complete lack of information on the presumed heresy of Bardaiṣan with stereotypes and rhetorical embellishments which I quote in the next paragraph, such as the long metaphor of the ship, or that of darnel, which is found also in Ephrem in reference to Bardaiṣan. Only the last lines, which I have separated as a new paragraph, offer again valuable information, in particular on Bardaiṣan’s use of Scripture: “And thus, this man was greatly endowed in every respect, until he fell into the error of his heresy, becoming like a wonderful ship, loaded with an incomparable cargo, which, crashing against the harbor shore, ruins its load and causes the death of the other passengers. For he, unfortunately, got close to the Valentinians, and from their depravation drew that destructive element, full of darnel. For he too introduced many principles and emanations and denied the resurrection of the dead, as doctrines of his heresy. He used the Law and the Prophets, the Old and the New Testament, and some apocryphal writings as well.”427 Epiphanius obviously knows no heretical doctrine of Bardaiṣan directly: he puts forward generical and stereotyped tenets of Valentinianism: principles, emanations, and the rejection of the 427 Kai\ ou3twj o( a)nh\r ta\ pa/nta mega/lwj h]n kekosmhme/noj, e3wj o3te tw=| a)stoxh/mati th=j e(autou= ai(re/sewj perie/pese, di/khn nho\j gegonw\j kalli/sthj fo/rton te a)sunei/kastoj e)mballome/nhj kai\ para\ ta\j o1xqaj tou= lime/nouj lakisqei/shj a)polesa/shj te th\n a3pasan pragmatei/aj kai\ e(te/roij toi=j e)piba/taij qa/naton e)mpoihsa/shj. Prosfqei/retai ga\r ou[toj Ou)alenti/noij kai\ e)k th=j au)tw=n moxqhri/aj a)nima=tai to\ dhlhth/rion tou=to kai\ zizaniw=dej polla/j te kai\ au)to\j a)rxa\j kai\ probola\j ei)shghsa/menoj kai\ th\n tw=n nekrw=n a)na/stasin a)rnhsa/menoj e)dogma/tise tau/thn th\n ai3resin. Xrh=tai de\ no/mw| kai\ profh/taij, palaia=| te kai\ ne/a| diqh/kh|, kai\ a)pokru/foij tisi\n o(sau/twj.

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resurrection of the body. The valuable pieces of information that he provides, on the basis of a direct knowledge, are of a different nature, and concern historical, cultural, and literary aspects. These make of Epiphanius’ account an important source on Bardaiṣan. One example is offered by the last lines, which provide notable information on how Bardaiṣan employed Scriptures. The fact that he used both the Old and the New Testament perfectly fits with his anti-Marcionite polemic. Indeed, it is known that Marcionites and (some) Gnostics rejected the Old Testament, in that they considered it to be the expression of an evil Demiurge and not of the supreme God, the Father of Jesus Christ. Bardaiṣan, on the contrary, used both of them, clearly regarding them as both authoritative. Moreover, Epiphanius attests that Bardaiṣan also used some apocryphal writings, or at least books that in Epiphanius’ day were viewed as apocryphal. This is scarcely surprising for a contemporary of Clement of Alexandria, who in his Hypotyposeis commented on some apocryphal works such as the Apocalypse of Peter, which he considered to be inspired. The Biblical canon was fixed only much later, the Vetus Syra in the second–fourth century and the Peshitta in the fifth both omitted Revelation, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, and Jude. These books entered the Syriac canon only in the seventh century, with the Harklean version.428

17 Two Heresiological Accounts Deriving from Epiphanius’ Two heresiological compilations of the fifth century seem to be modeled on Epiphanius’ account: Augustine’s De Haeresibus 35 and, perhaps through Augustine, the anonymous Praedestinatus (35), who keeps Augustine’s order in the sequence of the heresies treated. The thirty-fifth heresy is constituted by the Bardaiṣanites, who were led astray by a certain Bardaiṣan. He is said to have been a perfect Catholic, but then, because of a disciple of Valentinus, to have fallen into the error of defining as bad the creation of human flesh 428 See S. Brock, The Bible in the Syriac Tradition, Piscataway 20062, 31– 37 e passim.

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and good that of the soul. Bishop Theocritus condemned him in Cappadocia. He taught that God, who is good, created both and joined them, and that it is not the nature of human flesh, but sin, to deserve the guilt.”429 As for Theocritus, a bishop in Cappadocia, nothing is known about him, but his condemnation of Bardaiṣanism may be historical. But the claim that Bardaiṣan maintained that human flesh is evil whereas the soul is good is inexact. I have partially demonstrated, and I shall further demonstrate on the basis of the analysis of the sources, that Bardaiṣan never contrasted the soul as the seat of good and the body as the seat of evil. Likewise, Origen never did so. But Origen, likewise, was accused of this during the Origenistic controversy. This charge is inexact also in the case of Bardaiṣan and it seems to have arisen by the assimilation of Bardaiṣan’s thought to the Valentinian and the Manichaean one. This assimilation is most developed in sources that had no access to Bardaiṣan’s own works, but were rather contemporary with advanced stages of Bardaiṣanism.

18 Sozomen Around the mid fifth century, Sozomen in Historia Ecclesiastica 3.16 narrates that Bardaiṣan’s son, Harmonius, who seems to be attested only now for the first time, received a Greek education and introduced metrics and poetry into Syriac. It was he who inspired Ephrem in the composition of his hymns: “I certainly do not ignore that also in antiquity there were such extremely learned men among the Osrhoenes, such as Bardaiṣan, who initiated the heresy that was named after him, and Harmonius, Bardaiṣan’s son, who is said to have been inspired by the theories of the Greeks, so that he was the first to submit his mother tongue to meters and musical laws. He handed his verses to choirs. Also today, the Syrians often 429 “Tricesima quinta haeresis sunt Bardesanitae, a quodam Bardesane perversi. Qui Bardesanes dicitur perfectus fuisse catholicus, sed postea in id per Valentini discipulum incurrisse ut malam diceret carnis humanae creaturam, animae bonam. Hunc in Cappadocia damnavit Theocritus episcopus, docens Deum bonum utraque fecisse, utraque copulasse, et carnis humanae non naturam sed praevaricationem esse culpandam.

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sing using, not Harmonius’ texts, but his melodies. For, since he was not completely extraneous to the heresy of his father, he put together what the latter had written in a lyrical form, drawing inspiration from the Greek philosophers’ theories concerning the soul, the birth and the destruction of the body, and the palingenesis. And he joined such doctrines with his own compositions. Now, Ephrem realized that the Syrians were charmed by the beauty of the words and the rhythm of melody, and, because of the habit that they had acquired, entertained the same opinions as Harmonius did. Thus, even if he had not received a Greek education, Ephrem endeavored hard to learn Harmonius’ metrics. And, while keeping Harmonius’ melodies, he composed other, different texts, in line with the doctrines of the Church, the fruit of his own efforts, in divine hymns and encomia of virtuous people. And since then, the Syrians have sung Ephrem’s compositions according to the meter of Harmonius’ song.”430 The “son of Bardaiṣan” of whom Sozomen speaks, provided that he is a historical figure, may have been either his son or a prominent disciple of his, as the expression “child of,” especially in a Semitic context, may also indicate a follower or disciple. I shall 430 Ou)k a)gnow= de\ w(j kai\ pa/lai e)llogimw/tatoi tou=ton to\n tro/pon para\ )Osrohnoi=j e)ge/nonto Bardhsa/nhj te, o4j th\n a)p’ au)tou= kaloume/nhn ai3resin sunesth/sato, kai\ (Armo/nioj o( Bardhsa/nou pai=j, o#n fasi dia\ tw=n par’ 3Ellhsi lo/gwn a)xqe/nta prw=ton me/troij kai\ no/moij mousikoi=j th\n pa/trion fwnh\n u(pagagei=n kai\ xoroi=j paradou=nai, kaqa/per kai\ nu=n polla/kij oi( Su/roi ya/llousin, ou) toi=j (Armoni/ou sugga/mmasin a)lla\ toi=j me/lesi xrw/menoi. )Epei\ ga\r ou) panta/pasin e)kto\j h]n th=j patrw=|aj ai(re/sewj kai\ w{n peri\ yuxh=j, gene/sew/j te kai\ fqora=j sw/matoj kai\ paliggenesi/aj oi( par’ 3Ellhsi filosofou=ntej doca/zousi, oi{a/ ge u(po\ lu/ran a4 sunegra/yato sunqei\j tautasi\ ta\j do/caj toi=j oi)kei/oij prose/mice suggra/mmasin. )Idw\n de\ )Efrai\m khloume/nouj tou\j Su/rouj tw=| ka/llei tw=n o)noma/twn kai\ tw=| r(uqmw=| th=j melw|di/aj kai\ kata\ tou=to proseqizome/nouj o(moi/wj au)tw=| doca/zein, kai/per (Ellhnikh=j paidei/aj a1moiroj, e)pe/sth th=| katalh/yei tw=n (Armoni/ou me/trwn. Kai\ pro\j ta\ me/lh tw=n e)kei/nou gramma/twn e(te/raj grafa\j suna|dou/saj toi=j e)kklhsiastikoi=j do/gmasi sune/qhken o(poi=a au)tw=| pepo/nhtai e)n qei/oij u3mnoij kai\ e)gkwmi/oij a)gaqw=n a)ndrw=n. )Ec e)kei/nou te Su/roi kata\ to\n no/mon th=j (Armoni/ou w)|dh=j ta\ tou= )Efrai\m ya/llousi.

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present other subsequent sources that mention him. In the Syriac tradition, Harmonius seems to be mentioned only by Michael the Syrian, who probably based himself on a biographical account concerning Ephrem derived from Sozomen and Theodoret. Ephrem himself speaks of a son of Bardaiṣan, but he never names him. Harmonius may have been the author of some hymns refuted by Ephrem. Ephrem himself, indeed, as I have already pointed out, oscillated between the ascription of those fragments to Bardaiṣan himself and to followers of his. This, of course, further complicates the task of the scholar who studies Ephrem’s testimonies in search of materials that may be useful for the reconstruction of Bardaiṣan’s thought. Indeed, Theodoret (ca. 395–460) confirms the suspicion, which may arise at this point, that Ephrem in fact refuted Bardaiṣan’s son or disciple, Harmonius, rather than Bardaiṣan himself. In Historia Ecclesiastica 4.29 Theodoret seems to depend on Sozomen or on a common source. After noting, like Sozomen, that Ephrem was not acquainted with Greek education (paidei/aj ga_r ou) gegeume/noj 9Ellhnikh~j), he goes on to observe: “Harmonius, that of Bardaiṣan, composed some odes and, having mixed his impiety with the sweetness of melody, charmed those who listened to them, and captured them, drawing them to ruin. Ephrem, then, took from them the harmony of melody, but joined piety to it, and provided listeners with a most pleasant and useful medicine. These songs render more splendid the feasts of the victorious martyrs.”431 The expression 9Armo&nioj o( Bardhsa&nou, “Harmonius, the one of Bardaiṣan,” renders very well all the ambiguity of the Syriac expression “child of Bardaiṣan,” meaning both “son” and “disciple.” Likewise, in Haereticarum Fabularum Compendium 1.22, where he draws materials from Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica 4.30, Theodoret mentions Harmonius, his Greek education in Athens, and his 431 )Epeidh_ 9Armo&nioj o( Bardhsa&nou w|)da&j tinaj suneteqei/kei pa&lai kai\ th|~ tou~ me/louj h(donh|~ th_n a)se/beian kera&saj katekh&lei tou_j a)kou&ontaj kai\ pro_j o1leqron h1greue, th_n a(rmoni/an tou~ me/louj e0kei=qen labw_n a)ne/mice th_n eu)se/beian kai\ prosenh&noxe toi=j a)kou&ousin h3diston o(mou~ kai\ o)nhsifo&ron fa&rmakon. tau~ta kai\ nu~n ta_ a|1smata faidrote/raj tw~n nikhfo&rwn martu&rwn ta_j panhgu&reij poiei=.

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composition of many works in Syriac: “His son, too, Harmonius, is said to have learned Greek in Athens. However, he too wrote many works in Syriac.”432 According to Eusebius, as I have already shown, Bardaiṣan too wrote many works in Syriac, which his followers translated into Greek. Sozomen’s claim that Ephrem imitated Harmonius’ poetry, and that Harmonius in turn learnt metric from the Greeks arouses some suspicion, as Drijvers remarked,433 insofar as it tends to present Syriac hymnography as derived from Greek metrics. This trend perfectly suits a Byzantine historian. Indeed, this scheme was taken over not only by Theodoret, but also by Nicephorus Callistus in the fourteenth century, in Historia Ecclesiastica 4.11, in which he also offers a portrait of Bardaiṣan drawn from Eusebius (Historia Ecclesiastica 4.30). Apart from the Harmonius question, Sozomen’s testimony is very interesting from the doctrinal point of view for the mention of palingenesis (paliggenesi/a) it includes, which I have emphasized in italics in my quotation and translation. This may easily refer to Bardaiṣan’s doctrine of apokatastasis, which, as I have demonstrated, is attested at the end of the Liber Legum Regionum, and is also reflected in the so-called cosmological tradition. The reference to palingenesis may also refer, at the same time, to the resurrection, as it is mentioned just after the issue of the birth and the death of the body; moreover, both in Origen and in Gregory of Nyssa the apokatastasis is closely connected to the resurrection.434 Remarkably, this palingenesis in Sozomen’s account is mentioned along with the doctrine of the soul and that of birth and death as one of the themes that Bardaiṣan treated in such a way as to reveal an influence of Greek philosophy. Now, very interestingly, these are also the themes that, at the very beginning of his Peri\ )Arxw=n, Origen pointed out as not yet dogmatically fixed by the Church’s doctrine and thus in need of a rational investigation. Notably, these 432

Fasi\ de\ kai\ (Armo/nion, tou/tou pai=da geno/menon, e)n )Aqh/naij th\n (Ellhnikh\n paideuqh=nai fwnh/n. Polla\ de\ kai\ ou{toj sune/graye, th=| Su/rwn glw/tth| xrhsa/menoj. 433 434

Drijvers, Bardaiṣan, 182. See my Gregorio di Nissa, first Integrative Essay.

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are again the very same themes for which Gregory of Nazianzus, an admirer of Origen, in his Contra Eunomium Oratio prodialis 27.10 proclaimed the necessity of research, both declaring them still open to rational investigation and defending Origen’s rational inquiry precisely in respect to these issues.435

19 Theodoret’s Account Theodoret offered an account, not only on Harmonius, but also on Bardaiṣan himself in Haereticarum fabularum compendium 1.22 PG 83.372: “He composed many other works in Syriac, which were subsequently translated into Greek. I too have come across some treatises of his, such as his writing Against Fate, that Against the Marcionite Heresy, and many others.”436 Theodoret thus seems to have directly read, in Greek, what has reached us in Syriac in the form of the Liber; he has preserved the original title of Bardaiṣan’s work, Kata\ Ei(marme/nhj, Against Fate. This is the same title that, as I have pointed out, is also attested by Epiphanius in Adversus Haereses 56. The one preserved by Eusebius, Peri\ Ei(marme/nhj, On Fate, is very similar, but it sounds a little more generic. Theodoret seems to have also read Bardaiṣan’s discourses against Marcion and other works of his; this, moreover, confirms the attestations of Hippolytus, Eusebius, Jerome, and the Vita Abercii, regarding Bardaiṣan’s opposition to Marcionism. That Bardaiṣan’s Syriac works were translated into Greek is a piece of information that coincides with that offered by Eusebius. Given the existence of these translations, Theodoret could actually have read the Greek versions of the works by Bardaiṣan that he says he read. In this light, it is all the more surprising that Theodoret, who knew of Bardaiṣan’s anti-Marcionism, in some letters of the socalled Collectio Sirmondiana returned to heresiological stereotypes and even assimilated him to Marcion. Indeed, he ascribed him a 435 436

See my Apocatastasi, section on Nazianzen.

Polla\ de\ kai\ th=| Su/rwn sune/graye glw/tth| kai\ tau=ta tinej mete/frasan ei)j th\n (Ella/da fwnh/n. )Entetu/xhka de\ ka)gw\ lo/goij au)tou=, kai\ Kata\ Ei(marme/nhj grafei=si, kai\ pro\j th\n Marki/wnoj ai3resin kai\ a1lloij ou)k o)li/goij.

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docetic Christology, similar to that of other heretics to whom Bardaiṣan is assimilated: Valentinus and Basilides, Marcion, and Mani. In Letter 104 (line 41) Theodoret notes: “Simon, Basilides, Valentinus, Bardaiṣan, Marcion, and the one after whom this foolishness was named, defined Christ the Lord only as God, without anything human: according to them, he seemed to human beings to be a human being, but only in appearance, in their imagination.”437 The same is claimed by Theodoret in Letter 126 (line 30): “The great mystery of salvific economy will seem to be an appearance and a mere fruit of imagination. It was Valentinus, Bardaiṣan, Marcion, and Mani who invented this story.”438 The assimilation of Bardaiṣan to Valentinus and Basilides goes back to Hippolytus, whose unreliability on this score I have already demonstrated. That Theodoret’s assimilation of Bardaiṣan to Valentinus ultimately depends on Hippolytus’ account is proven, I think, by Theodoret’s own presentation of Bardaiṣan’s presumed docetism in Letter 146 (line 99ff.): “Simon and Menander, Cerdon and Marcion completely deny the Incarnation, and call Christ’s birth from the Virgin a myth. Instead, Valentinus, Basilides, Bardaiṣan, and Harmonius, and those who adhere to their foolishness, admit the Virgin’s pregnancy and delivery, but they maintain that God the Logos was not conceived by the Virgin, but he passed through her as through an empty stick; he appeared to the human beings as a fruit of imagination, and he only seemed to be a human being.”439 437

Si/mwn kai\ Basilei/dhj kai\ Balenti=noj kai\ Bardhsa&nhj kai\ Marki/wn kai\ o( th~j mani/aj e0pw&numoj, mo&non Qeo_n a)pokalou~si to_n Despo&thn Xristo&n, ou)de\n a)nqrw&peion e1xonta, a)lla_ fantasi/a| kai\ dokh&sei fane/nta toi=j a)nqrw&poij w(j a1nqrwpon. 438 Do&khsij ga_r a)nti\ th~j a)lhqei/aj kai\ fantasi/a fanh&setai to_ me/ga th~j oi0konomi/aj musth&rion. Tou~ton de\ to_n mu~qon Balenti=noj, kai\ Bardhsa&nhj, kai\ Marki/wn, kai\ Ma&nhj e0ge/nnhsan. 439 Si/mwn me\n ga_r kai\ Me/nandroj, Ke/rdwn kai\ Marki/wn panta&pasin a)rnou~ntai th_n e0nanqrw&phsin, kai\ th_n e0k Parqe/nou ge/nnhsin muqologi/an a)pokalou~si. Balenti=noj de/, kai\ Basilei/dhj, kai\ Bardhsa&nhj, kai\ 9Armo&nioj, kai\ oi9 th~j tou&twn summori/aj, de/xontai me\n th~j Parqe/nou th_n ku&hsin, kai\ to_n to&kon: ou)de\n de\ to_n Qeo_n Lo&gon e0k th~j Parqe/nou proseilhfe/nai fasi/n, a)lla_ pa&rodo&n tina di' au)th~j

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As for Mani, I have already argued that it is simply antihistorical to assimilate Bardaiṣan to him, even though some Bardaiṣanites may have later adhered to Manichaeism. In the case of Theodoret, the most blatant contradiction regards the assimilation of Bardaiṣan to Marcion, given that his anti-Marcionism is attested not only by several other sources, which I have already highlighted, but also by Theodoret himself! That Theodoret was induced to formulate such unhistorical statements mainly by polemics that were alive in his own day, and in which he himself was actively involved, seems to me to be proved by his Letter 146 (line 15ff. and 123–128): “Those who have plotted a false accusation against us and have purchased our death at the price of many riches, have clearly revealed to be full of the plague of Valentinus and Bardaiṣan. However, they hoped to hide their impiety … But we realized that this heresy, which was extinguished a lot of time ago, was renewed by these people, we continued to cry, testifying both in private and in public, both in reception halls and in divine temples, and we unmasked the attacks attempted against the faith. Thus, they covered us with insults, claiming that we profess two Sons … These people tried hard to overcome Apolinarius, Arius, and Eunomius in impiety and now have endeavored to grow the heresy that was sown by Valentinus and Bardaiṣan long ago, and then was eliminated from its very roots by the best farmers.”440 Theodoret associated Bardaiṣan with w3sper dia_ swlh~noj poih&sasqai, e0pifanh~nai de\ toi=j a)nqrw&poij fantasi/a| xrhsa&menon, kai\ do&caj ei]nai a1nqrwpoj. 440 Oi9 ga_r th_n kaq' h(mw~n sukofanti/an u(fh&nantej, kai\ pampo&llwn pria&menoi xrhma&twn ta_j h(mete/raj sfaga&j, w1fqhsan e0nargw~j th_n Balenti/nou kai\ Bardhsa&nou perikei/menoi lw&bhn. 1Hlpisan de\ o3mwj th_n sfete/ran kalu&yein a)se/beian... 0Epeidh_ ga_r h(mei=j th_n pa&lai katasbesqei=san ai3resin a)naneoume/nhn u(po_ tou&twn o(rw~ntej, dietelou~men bow~ntej, diamarturo&menoi kai\ i0di/a| kai\ dhmosi/a|, ka)n toi=j a)spasthri/oij oi1koij, ka)n toi=j qei/oij shkoi=j, kai\ ta_j kata_ th~j pi/stewj e0gxeiroume/naj e0piboula_j e0chle/gxomen, loidori/aj h(mw~n kate/xean, w(j du&o khrutto&ntwn ui9ou&j... Ou{toi de\ to_n 0Apolina&rion, kai\ me/ntoi kai\ 1Areion kai\ Eu)no&mion u(perbh~nai th|~ a)sebei/a| filoneikh&santej, th_n u(po_ Balenti/nou kai\ Bardhsa&nou pa&lai sparei=san ai3resin, ei]ta pro&rrizon u(po_ tw~n a)ri/stwn a)naspasqei=san gewrgw~n, futeu~sai nu~n e0peira&qhsan.

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Valentinus on the basis of Hippolytus’ cliché, exclusively for Bardaiṣan’s supposed docetism, and felt so alarmed because he thought that their alleged common heresy had returned in his own day.

20 Interesting Clues in a Very Appreciative Armenian Witness: Moses of Chorene The Armenian historian Moses of Chorene (Movsēs Xorenac‘i) lived in the fifth century according to the tradition. His work, History of Armenia (Patmut‘iwn Hayoc‘) has been dated to a subsequent period, even though some scholars partially defend the traditional dating.441 Moses’ information must always be critically evaluated with particular attention. However, he occasionally offers valuable information that is handed down by no other source, but that a painstaking historical examination may prove reliable.442 In the case of Bardaiṣan and of Edessa, he may prove an interesting source, first of all because he declares that he used the Edessan archives. Moreover, Moses See K. Toumanoff, “On the Date of Pseudo-Moses of Chorene,” Handes Amsoria 10–12 (1961) 467–476; P. Krüger, “Moses von Choren,” in Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, VII, Freiburg 1962, 654–655; V. Inglisian, “Die armenische Literatur,” in Handbuch der Orientalistik, II.7, Armenisch und kaukasische Sprachen, edd. G. Deeters – G. R. Soltan – V. Inglisian, Leiden – Köln 1963, 156–250, in part. 178–179; Moses Khorenats’i, History of the Armenians, ed. R. W. Thomson, Cambridge (Mass.) – London 1978, especially the introduction; G. X. Sarkisyan, The History of Armenia by Movses Khorenatsi, Erevan 1991; G. Traina, Il complesso di Trimalcione. Movsês Xorenac‘i e le origini del pensiero storico armeno, Venice 1991, who values the traditional dating; idem, “Materiali per un commento a Movsēs Xorenac‘i, Patmut‘iwn Hayoc‘, I,” Le Muséon 108 (1995) 179–333, in part. 293–297; A. Ouzounian, “Quelques aspects du discours rapporté dans l’oeuvre de Movsēs Xorenac‘i,” Revue des Études Arméniennes 26 (1996–97) 7–24; S. J. Voicu, “Mosè di Corene (Movsēs Xorenac‘i),” in Nuovo Dizionario Patristico e di Antichità Cristiane, ed. A. Di Berardino, II, Genoa 2007, 3390. 442 See argument in I. Ramelli, “Un tributo dei Parti a Roma agli inizi del I sec. a.C.?,” RIL: Rendiconti dell'Istituto Lombardo, Accademia di Scienze e Lettere, Classe di Lettere, 134 (2000) 321–330; eadem, “Mosè di Corene e i rapporti romano-partici. La spedizione di Ventidio,” Hispania Antiqua 25 (2001) 141–150. 441

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seems to have known Syriac as well. Indeed, some information he provides regarding the Abgarid kings of Edessa and other issues concerning the relationships between the Parthians and the Roman empire, which are not transmitted by any other source, is quite valuable as I have demonstrated elsewhere.443 Furthermore, Moses himself in PH 2.10 states that he was directly acquainted with the historical work of Sextus Julius Africanus, whose account on Bardaiṣan I have already analyzed and who personally knew both Bardaiṣan and Origen. Also, Moses seems to have directly read some of Bardaiṣan’s works, among which a “history of Armenia” of which he availed himself for his own historical work. Of course, he read other main sources as well, such as Eusebius, concerning Bardaiṣan. Here is his account on him: “Bardaiṣan of Edessa flourished as a historian in the time of the last Antoninus … he did not falsify history. Bardaiṣan was a strong and powerful man in words. He even dared address a writing to Antoninus” (P.H. 2.66).444 The first thing Moses says is that Bardaiṣan was a historian, and accurate at that. Of course Moses, who was a historian himself, was interested most of all in this aspect of Bardaiṣan’s complex intellectual personality. Moses admires Bardaiṣan’s learning and eloquence, just as other authors did, such as Eusebius, Epiphanius, and Jerome. In the same way, Moses also shares with other sources the mention of the problematic emperor “Antoninus.” He specifies that the emperor under whom he locates his floruit was “the last Antoninus;” therefore, it should be Elagabalus, whom Porphyry identified as “the Antoninus from Emesa” and related to Bardaiṣan’s De India. This fits well both with his death in A.D. 222 and with the fact that Bardaiṣan’s historical work on Armenia seems to date to the last period of his life. Like other Greek and Latin sources that I have already examined, Moses also says that Bardaiṣan addressed a dialogue to Antoninus, without specifying See a critical and comparative analysis with other sources (Greek, Latin, and Syriac) in my “Edessa e i Romani” and my “Un tributo.” 444 On Moses’ testimony on Bardaiṣan cf. G. Traina, “Materiali per un commento a Movsês Xorenac‘i, Patmut‘iwn Hayoc‘, II,” Le Muséon 111 (1998) 95–138, in part. 99–100. 443

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which Antoninus, whether the last or a former one. What seems certain is that this dialogue is the one Against Fate mentioned by Eusebius, Epiphanius, and Theodoret, the same that was excerpted by Eusebius and whose arguments survive in the Liber. In PH 2.66 Moses also attests that Bardaiṣan wrote a refutation of the Marcionites and that he initially adhered to Valentinianism, but then he left this heresy and wrote a refutation of it. I have already pointed out that the dispute between Bardaiṣan and Marcionites is attested by Eusebius, Jerome, and Epiphanius, according to whom Bardaiṣan wrote a Dialogue against Marcion and other Heretics, and even by Hippolytus, who, in a passage that is distinct from the one, unreliable, in which “Ardesianes” is described as a representative of Eastern Valentinianism, and deriving from a different source, attests the polemics between Bardaiṣan and a Marcionite, Prepon. Moses is in line with Eusebius’ presentation of Bardaiṣan also when he speaks of his initial adherence to Valentinianism and his subsequent detachment from it and refutation of it. The same line, as I have demonstrated, is also found in Didymus and Jerome, whereas its reversal, in Epiphanius, leads to inconsistencies, as I have pointed out, and ultimately depends on Hippolytus. Moses’ testimony (ibid.) deserves a careful examination: “These facts are attested by Bardaiṣan of Edessa … He much debated against the heresy of the Marcionites, against Fate, and against the worship of idols, which was practiced in our land. Bardaiṣan came here in order to endeavor to convert someone in this rough people of pagans. But he was not received; thus, he entered the fortress of Ani, read the history of the temples, in which the deeds of the kings were also reported. To all this he added what happened in his day and translated everything into Syriac. Subsequently, this was also translated into Greek. Bardaiṣan recounts, according to the annals of the temples, that Tigranes … It is from this historical account that I have drawn mine; I have reproduced it for you from the reign of Artavasdes up to the annals of Kosrov.” Thus, Bardaiṣan is the historical source of Moses, as the latter claims. He wrote not only refutations of Marcionism and Gnosticism, like Origen, but also a work Against Fate. This is clearly the same work as that mentioned by Eusebius, Epiphanius, and Theodoret, the same from which Eusebius’ excerpts in Praeparatio Evangelica derive, and the same whose arguments are found in the Liber.

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Moses may have been directly acquainted with this work. In indicating its title he does not depend on Eusebius, who refers to it as Peri\ Ei(marme/nhj, but he gives the same title as Epiphanius and Theodoret provide: Kata\ Ei(marme/nhj. Moreover, Moses, like Eusebius, attests that the first redaction of Bardaiṣan’s works was in Syriac, and then they were translated into Greek. It is remarkable that, far from accusing Bardaiṣan of paganism or of heresy, as Ephrem and various heresiological sources do, Moses presents Bardaiṣan as an apostle of Christianity. The primary purpose of his travel to “Armenia” is said by him to have been the desire of converting people there to Christianity. According to Moses, who is a very favorable source on Bardaiṣan—indeed, the only so favorable source on him besides the “Origenian” sources— the Edessan historian both refuted the heresies of his day, essentially Gnosticism and Marcionism—just like Origen—and fought against paganism and idolatry. It is worth noticing that the latter, too, is an aspect that Bardaiṣan shares with Origen, who, especially in his Contra Celsum, rejected pagan attacks upon Christianity. According to Moses, Bardaiṣan went to Armenia first of all in order to convert someone to Christianity, but then he also composed a historical work, basing himself on archive documents he found there, especially temple annals, apparently for events of more remote times, and then adding himself what happened in his day. Moses is the only source attesting that Bardaiṣan —whose historical work he claims to know and to have used—updated and translated “Armenian” archive material in the last years of his life. Now, Bardaiṣan seems to have written his historical work in Syriac, whereas it is uncertain whether the archive documents on which he based it were in Syriac as well. As for the Armenian language, we have no writings dating to the second century A.D. or earlier. Moses seems to imply that the archive documents used by Bardaiṣan were in Armenian, since he says that Bardaiṣan translated them, obviously into Syriac. This piece of information, however, should be considered cautiously, since Moses tends to entertain an “Armenian” vision of the Syriac world, and, for instance, offers an

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Armenian etymology of the Syriac name Abgar, while this name of many kings of Edessa is Syriac.445 The historical moment and context of Bardaiṣan’s travel to Armenia is not specified by Moses. Drijvers, followed by other scholars, suggested that it took place on the occasion of Caracalla’s conquest of Edessa in A.D. 216446 and presented it as a kind of exile. It is unknown whether he also died in exile. However, recent research on the end of the Abgarid dynasty in Osrhoene and on the definitive submission of Edessa to the Roman rule renders less necessary, and less probable, the hypothesis of an exile, all the more one that lasted from A.D. 216 to 222, the year of Bardaiṣan’s death. Bardaiṣan was a prominent figure at the court of Abgar the Great, together with whom he had received his Greek education; he was not only a learned man, but also a noble; thus, it was natural to assume that, when the Abgarid dynasty ceased in Edessa, he went into exile. But if what we know of the end of the Abgarid dynasty has changed, our hypothesis on Bardaiṣan’s last years may also change.447 A study by Luther448 and some other recent publications have modified our perspective on the end of the Edessan dynasty, thanks to the discovery of papyrus and parchment Mesopotamian documents of the first half of the third century A.D.449 See my Edessa e i Romani. See Drijvers, Bardaiṣan, 207–208; J. W. Sedlar, India and the Greek World, Totowa 1981, 173–174. 447 See my “Abgar Ukkama e Abgar il Grande alla luce di recenti apporti storiografici,” Aevum 78 (2004) 103–108; eadem, Bardesane Kata Heimarmenēs, 408–415. 448 A. Luther, “Elias von Nisibis und die Chronologie der edessenischen Könige,” Klio 81 (1999) 180–198; cf. H. J. W. Drijvers, The Old Syriac Inscriptions of Edessa and Osrhoene. Texts, Translations and Commentary, Leiden – Boston – Köln 1999, Handbuch der Orientalistik, 1, Abt. Nahe und Mittlere Osten 24, 237–248. 449 D. Feissel – J. Gascou, “Documents d’archive romains inédits du Moyen Euphrate (IIIème siècle après J.-C.),” Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions, 1989, 535–561; T. Gnoli, Roma, Edessa e Palmira nel III sec. d.C.: problemi istituzionali. Uno studio sui papiri dell'Eufrate, Pisa – Roma 2000, 17– 29 on the documents and 67–88 for the hypateia in Edessa cited therein, and on the Abgarids in the third century; S. K. Ross, Roman Edessa. Politics 445 446

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and thanks to a reconsideration of the “list of the kings of Edessa” inserted in Elias of Nisibis’ chronological work.450 The latter in particular was studied by Luther, who has also modified von Gutschmid’s chronology, which was grounded in the Chronicon of Zuqnîn or the Syriac chronicle of Ps. Dionysius of Tell-Mah?re.451 Gawlikowski452 studied the last king of Edessa, who lived a good

and Culture in the Eastern Fringes of the Roman Empire (114–242 C.E.), London – New York 2001, part. 46–82, with bibl. 185–95 and analysis of the documents on 73–75; Archaeology of the Upper Syrian Euphrates, edd. G. del Olmo Lete – J. L. Montero Fenollós, Barcelona 1999. 450 Eliae Metropolitae Nisibeni Opus Chronologicum pars prior, ed. E. W. Brooks, Paris 1910, rist. Louvain 1954, CSCO 62, Syri 21; tr. 63, Syri 23. 451 I had already corrected Gutschmid’s chronology in Edessa e i Romani both for Abgar Ukkama (4 B.C.–A.D. 7 and 13–50 d.C. according to Gutschmid) and for Abgar the Great. In Edessa e i Romani, 108, 109 and 129–30 I proposed to assign to Ukkama only the years of the Tiberian and the Claudian age, and for Abgar the Great I adhered (ibidem 130 n. 58) to the correction of Gutschmid’s chronology in H. J. W. Drijvers, “Hatra, Palmyra, und Edessa,” in ANRW, 2.8, Berlin – New York 1977, 799–906: 870–79, that is, 177–212 d.C., the same chronology that is accepted by Luther and by Gnoli, also citing (109 n. 7) F. Millar, The Roman Near East 31 B.C.–A.D. 337, Cambridge, Mass. 1993, 553–562 and passim and (108 n. 3; 130 n. 58) Drijvers, Hatra, 872; 870–79; Id., “Abgarsage,” in W. Schneemelcher, Neutestamentliche Apokryphen in deutscher Übersetzung, I, Tübingen 19875, 389–95: 393; M. L. Chaumont, La christianisation de l’Empire iranien, Louvain 1988, CSCO 80, 14–16; W. Cramer, Abgar, in Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, I, Freiburg i.B. 19932, 48–49. See also my “Alcune osservazioni sulle origini del Cristianesimo nelle regioni ad est dell’Eufrate,” in La diffusione dell’eredità classica nell’età tardoantica, Seminario di Studi, Roma – Napoli 25–27 settembre 1997, a c. di R. B. Finazzi – A. Valvo, Alessandria 1998, 209–225. For further chronological improvements see my Abgar Ukkama e Abgar il Grande. 452 M. Gawlikowski, “The Last Kings of Edessa,” in Symposium Syriacum VII, Uppsala University, 11–14 August 1996, ed. R. Lavenant, Roma 1998, OCA 256, 421–429. Ramelli, Edessa, 113 n. 15, mentions the disappearance of the Abgarid dynasty in A.D. 242; see also A. Desreumaux, Histoire du roi Abgar, Turnhout 1991, 18–19.

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while after Bardaiṣan’s death, and Teixidor453 the Abgarids who came after Abgar the Great. A parchment published by Teixidor, PMesopotamia A, has revealed the existence of Aelius Septimius Abgar, who was formerly unknown. He is attested in this parchment as “honored with the u(patei/a in Orhāy,” that is, in Edessa, in A.D. 239 / 40, eighteen years after Bardaiṣan’s death. Luther and Gnoli offered a picture of the end of the Abgarid dynasty that substantially agrees with those provided by Millar and Ross,454 even though some doubts persist. A king named Abgar was deposed in A.D. 212 / 13, under Caracalla, but Gnoli identified this king with Abgar Severus, whereas Teixidor identified him with Abgar the Great, and Ross supposed that Abgar Severus was the same as the Great, while Gawlikowski identified Abgar Severus, mentioned by the chronographer Ps. Dionysius, with a successor of the Great himself.455 Of course, these uncertainties do affect the historical context of the last year of Bardaiṣan’s life. After the foundation of a Roman colony in Edessa, Abgar’s son, Ma‘nu, ruled—according to Ps. Dionysius (128 Chabot)—for twenty-six years. The title he had is attested by PMesopotamia A:456 paṣgribā, “crown prince,” “hereditary prince.” After these twenty-six years, in A.D. 239 / 240, well after Bardaiṣan’s death, but when his followers were still present in J. Teixidor, “Les derniers rois d’Édesse d’après deux nouveaux documents syriaques,” ZPE: Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 76 (1989) 219–22; Id., “Deux documents syriaques du IIIème siècle après J.C., provenant du moyen Euphrate,” Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions 1990, 144–166. See now also P. M. Edwell, Between Rome and Persia: The Middle Euphrates, Mesopotamia and Palmyra under Roman Control, London 2008. 454 Millar, The Roman Near East, 553–62; Gnoli, Roma, 74–79; Luther, “Elias von Nisibis,” 194–98; Ross, “Roman Edessa,” 150–185. 455 Teixidor, “Les derniers rois,” 221; idem, “Deux documents syriaques,” 160; S. K. Ross, “The Last King of Edessa: New Evidence from the Middle Euphrates,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 97 (1993) 197–206, in part. 194–195 (cf. Ramelli, Edessa e i Romani, 130–31); Gawlikowski, “The Last Kings of Edessa,” 428; Millar, The Roman Near East, 559–562; Gnoli, Roma, 74 n. 36. 456 Ed. Teixidor, “Deux documents,” 144–166. 453

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Edessa—they will remain there for whole centuries—Ma‘nu’s son, the aforementioned Aelius Septimius Abgar, is attested by the same source. The Roman emperor Gordian III deposed him in A.D. 242, according to PMesopotamia B.457 Therefore, there was still an Abgar king of Edessa twenty years after Bardaiṣan’s death. The historical background for Bardaiṣan’s last years is different from that which resulted from Ps. Dionysius (131 Chabot). For, the latter fixed the end of the Abgarids’ reign to A.D. 220 / 21, just one year before Bardaiṣan’s death, because he, like Elias of Nisibis, ignored the reign of Aelius Septimius Abgar, which ended more than twenty years later. The consideration that the Abgarid dynasty came to an end only twenty years after Bardaiṣan’s death, in A.D. 242, makes it less necessary to suppose that Bardaiṣan went into exile and remained in exile until he died. Jacob of Edessa (281 Brooks)458 attests that the Abgarids ruled “until the year 560 of the Greeks,” that is, of the Seleucid era, corresponding to A.D. 248. On the basis of this testimony, Luther hypothesized an interregnum from A.D. 242 to 248, when a complete abolition of the monarchy took place in Edessa. Moreover, Elias (91 Brooks) under A.D. 218 / 19, during Ma‘nu’s rule, also attests an “Abgar the Handsome” (Šapirā).459 However, he does not mention either Ma‘nu’s twenty-six years or Abgar Severus’ reign, which, according to Millar, accepted by Gnoli, was shared by Abgar 457 Ed. J. Teixidor, “Un document syriaque de fermage de 242 après J.-C.,” Semitica 41–42 (1993) 195–208; Gnoli, Roma, 73–75; Ross, Roman Edessa, 61–68, part. 69–70 e 73–82. 458 Chronica Edessena. Chronica minora, pars III, edd. E. W. Brooks – I. Guidi – J.-B. Chabot, Paris 1905, CSCO Syri, 5, 281. Ibidem 282: “Their kingdom was completely abolished in the fifth year of the Roman Caesar Philip, in the 560th year of the Greeks; in the days of Abgar Severus the kingdom was subtracted to them, when the Romans chased him because he wanted to defect, and they created hegemon [= Greek h(gemw/n transliterated into Syriac], instead of the king, Aurelianus son of Habsay, after imposing a tribute of submission on them. And thus the kingdom of the Edessans came to an end, in the 560th year of the Greeks, in the fifth year of Philip, after a thousand years from the foundation of the City.” See also Gnoli, Roma, 78–79. 459 Luther, “Elias von Nisibis,” 194–197.

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with his son and lasted for a few months in A.D. 212 / 13. In that year Bardaiṣan was still alive and well and active in Edessa, and Abgar Severus, according to Jacob of Edessa, was deposed by the Romans, whose emperor was Caracalla, because of his unfaithfulness,460 and was replaced by another ruler, whom they trusted more. This is Jacob’s account: “In the day of Abgar Severus the kingdom was taken away from them, when the Romans chased him because he wanted to defect, and instead of the king they made governor Aurelianus son of Habsāy.”461 It was perhaps on this occasion that Bardaiṣan left Edessa and went to Armenia, but it is unnecessary to postulate a perpetual exile, given that it is now known that the Abgarids resumed the power and remained for twenty years, of course with the Romans’ approval. Indeed, it was Rome that handed the rule, for some time, to Abgar the Handsome and Aelius Septimius Abgar,462 and to others who are indicated as die/pontej th\n u(patei/an.463 These were governors of the knightly order mentioned in four official documents of the Mesopotamian dossier: the “most illustrious” (diashmo/tatoj) Pomponius Letianus, the diashmo/tatoj Marcellus, who is said to be die/pwn ta\ me/rh th=j h(gemoni/aj, and above all Julius Priscus, governor of Mesopotamia (u3parxoj Mesopotami/aj) and Philip the Arab’s brother. Notably, Philip—to whom and whose wife Origen wrote letters concerning his own orthodoxy464—may have been the first ChrisOn the loyalty of the Abgarids to Rome see my Edessa e i Romani and, more generally, on the loyalty of client sovereigns D. Braund, Rome and the Friendly King: The Character of Client Kingship, New York 1984. 461 Gnoli, Roma, 79 is right to pay attention to this, even though he does not draw consequences from this. 462 So Gnoli, Roma, 80; the identification of the two Abgarids in CIL VI 1797 and IG XIV 1315, dating from the end of the dynasty, remains more uncertain. 463 Gnoli, 89–123 discusses this expression, and likewise Ross, Roman Edessa, 75–81 and passim. 464 These letters themselves render more probable that Philip was a Christian, as is implied by Eusebius HE 6.34, who refers that a bishop forbade him to take part in the church’s prayers on Easter’s eve before penitence for his crimes (probably in A.D. 244 for the elimination of Gordian III). This episode is resumed by Jerome, Vir. Ill. 54. John Chry460

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tian emperor of Rome, just as Abgar the Great was probably the first Christian king of Edessa. Aelius Septimius Abgar in PMesopotamia A is still described as ruling in Edessa: “Aelius Septimius Abgar, king, son of Ma‘nu hereditary prince [paṣgribā], son of king Abgar, who is honored with the hypateia in Orhāy,” that is, Edessa.465 Hypateia (Greek u(patei/a)466 designates the sovereignty in Edessa after the transformation of this city into a Roman colony in A.D. 213.467 What is most relevant to the present investigation is that the Abgarid kings continued to rule in Edessa until the end of Bardaiṣan’s life, and well after his death. Bardaiṣan’s travel to Armenia for documentary—and, according to Moses, also apossostom, Bab. 6, identifies that bishop with Babylas of Antioch, who died during Decius’ persecution, which was ordered precisely as a reaction to Philip (Eusebius HE 6.39.1). The hostility of all pagan sources to Philip further supports the hypothesis that he was a Christian. Philip’s contemporary, Dionysius of Alexandria, in his letter to Hermammon, speaks of emperors who were said to have been publicly Christian, which cannot but refer to Philip: ou)de\ ga\r a1llwj tij ou3tw tw=n pro\ au)tou= basile/wn eu)menw=j kai\ deciw=j pro\j au)tou\j diete/qh, ou)d’ oi( lexqe/ntej a)nafando\n Xristianoi\ gegone/nai (ap. Eus. HE 1.7.10). It is no accident that this is the time of the publication of Origen’s Contra Celsum, the first public refutation of the )Alhqh\j Lo/goj written under Marcus Aurelius. On Philip see e.g. P. Southern, The Roman Empire from Severus to Constantine, London 2001, 71–74. Favourable to his being a Christian are J. M. York, Philip the Arab, the first Christian Emperor of Rome, Diss. Univ. of Southern California 1965, summary in Dissertation Abstracts 25 (1965) 5230–5231; M. Sordi, I Cristiani e l’Impero romano, Milan 2004, 135–139; contrast H. Pohlsander, “Philip the Arab and Christianity,” Historia 29 (1980) 463–473. 465 The Syriac hpty’ is a transparent transliteration of u(patei/a. 466 W. Eck, “C. Iulius Octavius Volusenna Rogatianus, Statthalter einer Kaiserlichen Provinz,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 90 (1992) 199–206: 201 n. 11 thought that this title indicated a kind of governorship of Coelesyria; Millar, The Roman Near East, 478, supposed that it indicated a consulship or an equal rank; D. Feissel – J. Gascou, “Documents d’archives romains inédits du Moyen Euphrate. IIIème siècle après J.-C.,” Journal des Savants 65 (1995) 65–119, esp. 81 n. 68, thought that it designated the imperium maius. 467 See Gnoli, Roma, 82–83, 87; 105–08; 157.

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tolic—purposes is certainly probable; on the other hand, it is unnecessary to suppose that he also died in exile. Moses appears to be well documented on Bardaiṣan, with whose work he was directly acquainted. One consequence of this is that he preserves some information that is not offered by any other source. Moreover, it is highly significant that Moses’ presentation of Bardaiṣan, both as an historian and as a Christian thinker, is definitely positive. There is no trace of accusations of heresy (or even paganism, as in Ephrem!) in Moses’ account, but only admiration and the mention of Bardaiṣan’s anti-Marcionite and anti-Gnostic polemics and of the apostolic motivation of his trip to Armenia. According to Barhebraeus (Chronicon Ecclesiasticum 1.47)468 Moses used Bardaiṣan’s historical work also as a source for his own, Armenian, version of the story of Abgar Ukkama and Addai which is narrated by Eusebius, too, and by the Syriac Doctrina Addai, a historical novel of the genre of the so-called “apocryphal acts of apostles”469 whose final redaction is to be placed between the end of the fourth and the beginning of the fifth century, but which is based on more ancient sources and may even contain some historical traces.470 468 Edition: Gregorii Barhebraei Chronicon Ecclesiasticum, edd. J. Abbeloos – T. J. Lamy, I–II, Louvain 1872; III, Paris 1877. 469 See my “The Narrative Continuity between the Teaching of Addai and the Acts of Mari: Two Historical Novels?,” in Framing Plots, Proceedings of the London 2006 Conference, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 189 (2009) 411–450. 470 On which see my Edessa e i Romani; eadem, Possible Historical Traces, and Atti di Mar Mari, Brescia 2008, introductory essay. The various editions and translation of the Doctrina are based on different manuscripts: that of W. Cureton, Ancient Syriac Documents, London – Edinburgh 1864, on ms. British Library Add. 14654; that of G. Phillips, The Doctrine of Addai, the Apostle, London 1876, on ms. Petropol. N.S. 4, the same which was re-edited, with a new English translation, by G. Howard, The Teaching of Addai Chico, CA 1981. The photographs of the St. Petersburg manuscript are in E. N. Mescherskaja, Legenda ob Avgare, Moskva 1984. A French translation of the same ms. is in A. Desreumaux, Histoire du roi Abgar et de Jésus, Turnhout 1993, and a Spanish in J. González Núñez, La leyenda del rey Abgar y Jesús, Madrid 1995. German translation in Doctrina Addai / De Imagine Edessena, übersetzt und eingeleitet von Martin Illert, Turnhout

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This is in line with what Moses states in PH 2.66, that is, that he based himself on Bardaiṣan’s historical work for the events occurred “from Artavasdes’ reign up to the annals of Kosrov.” Now, it is precisely within this period that the story of Abgar Ukkama and Addai falls. The nucleus of the Abgar-Addai legend developed precisely in the Severan age, so that it has been hypothesized that Abgar Ukkama’s portrait in this legend was strongly influenced by the figure of Abgar the Great, at whose court Bardaiṣan played an important role.471 Now, in the light of this remark, I deem it possible that Bardaiṣan included this episode in his own historical work, all the more so in that the Addai story narrated the first evangelization of Edessa, his own city, and may even have included—as later the Doctrina Addai did—some missionary openings toward Armenia, which of course were interesting for Moses. Bardaiṣan probably received the Addai legend and included it in his own historical account; he may have contributed to the consolidation of this legend, which he probably saw as a homage to Abgar the Great, at whose court he lived and with whom he also received a common education, the Greek paideia. Bardaiṣan’s intention was the glorification of Abgar (through his homonymous predecessor), of his dynasty, and of the early entrance of Christianity into Osrhoene. This, of course, would be even better understandable if, as I deem it probable, Abgar the Great was a Christian himself. I have already adduced several arguments for this, especially in my study Edessa e i Romani. Bardaiṣan himself, as a character of the Liber, in reference to Abgar the Great, affirms that, “when king Abgar believed,” he forbade some pagan ritual mutilations.472

2007, with my review in Review of Biblical Literature [http://www.bookreviews.org] February 2009. 471 See my Edessa e i Romani; eadem, “The First Evangelization of the Mesopotamian Regions in the Syriac Tradition: the Acta Maris as a Continuation of the Doctrina Addai,” Antiguo Oriente 3 (2005) 11–54, and A. Mirkovic, Prelude to Constantine, Frankfurt a.M. 2004, 61 and passim. 472 See above my discussion in the chapter devoted to the testimony of Africanus.

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Barhebraeus’ information on the inclusion of the Abgar-Addai legend in Bardaiṣan’s historical work perhaps should not be too promptly discarded. His information becomes all the more interesting in the light of the fact that, as I shall demonstrate,473 Barhebraeus’ attestations on Bardaiṣan find a confirmation in Ephrem and prove reliable. Moreover, it is simply natural that Bardaiṣan, Edessan himself, and an intimate friend of the Edessan king, should have included some more or less developed mentions of past kings of Edessa in his historical work. If the Abgar-Addai legend was fixed by Bardaiṣan in a written form between the end of the second and the beginning of the third century, very probably in Syriac, within his historical work, and then was translated into Greek—like other works of his, according to Eusebius’ attestation—by his followers in the third century, what has so far remained obscure would be altogether clear, I mean, the origin of the Greek version of the Abgar-Addai legend that Eusebius included in his own historical work, Historia Ecclesiastica, at the beginning of the fourth century.474 Eusebius, who indeed declares that he used Edessan material, drew his information from the relevant section of Bardaiṣan’s historical work (probably already translated from the Syriac, but this would not even be necessary, as Eusebius could also use and translate Syriac documents, or perhaps have them translated by his collaborators). Now, this would come as no surprise at all, given that in his Praeparatio Evangelica he also inserted long excerpts from Bardaiṣan’s work against Fate. This indeed shows that he had an ample and first-hand documentation on Bardaiṣan and his works. In this light, it seems not so strange that his Abgar-Addai material may have ultimately derived from Bardaiṣan. A detailed analysis of Eusebius’ whole account on Abgar the Black and Addai in HE 1.13.1–22 may be revealing. He first reports a short summary of it in 13.1–4; on the basis of several clues, I shall show that it is probably based on Bardaiṣan’s own account See below the chapter devoted to Barhebraeus’ testimony on Bardaiṣan. 474 For an analysis of Eusebius’ version of the Abgar-Addai story see my Edessa e i Romani and “Bardesane e la sua scuola.” 473

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in his historical work. The most conspicuous is that in this section Abgar Ukkama, who in fact was the toparch (topa/rxhj) of a small buffer state located between the Roman and the Parthian empires,475 is remarkably presented as a sovereign invested with great power and dignity, a “dynast who reigned over the peoples beyond the Euphrates with magnificent splendor”: basileu_j 1Abgaroj, tw~n u(pe\r Eu)fra&thn e0qnw~n e0pishmo&tata dunasteu&wn. Such a hyperbolical description fits very well the intention to extol Abgar; now, this intention would be natural in Bardaiṣan, who exalted Abgar the Black in order to glorify his friend and king Abgar the Great, but certainly not in Eusebius, who, moreover, wrote almost one century after the Abgarid monarchy had disappeared in Edessa. This is further proved by the fact that, I shall point out, when Eusebius speaks by himself, he does not at all exalt Abgar in that way. This seems to me the most telling sign that our Edessan author may lie behind the first section of Eusebius’ narration concerning Abgar Ukkama and Addai. And there are several other such signs. The same intention to extol the ancestor of Abgar the Great, which would be easy to explain if the source of this section were Bardaiṣan, also lies behind the remark that Jesus “deemed Abgar worthy of a letter of his,” e0pistolh~j gou~n au)to_n i0di/aj katacioi=. This is evidently a huge honor, absolutely unique, and it is highlighted by an encomiastic source. And precisely in the report concerning the content of this letter there emerges another interesting clue. In this letter, indeed, Jesus promised Abgar that he would send him a disciple of his both to heal him in his body and to provide spiritual salvation to him and to all his subjects.476 Such a double meaning, both physical and spiritual, of illness and health, and of death and life, is emphasized only in this initial account, which might derive from Bardaiṣan, and not in the copies, subsequently reported by Eusebius, of the alleged letters of Jesus and Abgar. 475 On Arabic buffer states a little later, between Rome and the Persian empire, see B. Dignas, E. Winter, Rome and Persia in Late Antiquity: Neighbours and Rivals, Cambridge 2007, part II, chapter 5. 476 3Ena tw~n au)tou~ maqhtw~n a)poste/llein e0pi\ qerapei/a| th~j no&sou o(mou~ te au)tou~ swthri/a| kai\ tw~n proshko&ntwn a(pa&ntwn u(pisxnou&menoj.

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Now, this duplicity of planes, physical and spiritual, precisely corresponds to Bardaiṣan’s understanding of life and death and of sickness and health, as I have shown, an understanding that is also similar to that of Origen. A further clue in this initial section which I suspect derived from Bardaiṣan is a linguistic one. Eusebius’ source says that Abgar, who was seriously ill, rejoiced and filled with hope “when he learned both Jesus’ powerful name and his miracles unanimously attested by all,” so that he supplicated him through a letter that he sent him by means of a courier, “asking him to liberate him from his illness.”477 Of course, Abgar, the sick, could rejoice in hearing not only Jesus’ miracles, but even just his very name, in that the Aramaic-Syriac etymology of this name was transparent and referred to salvation / healing / health (cf. Latin salus), which again can refer to both the physical and the spiritual plane, to physical healing and to spiritual salvation. This meaning of Jesus’ name was obvious, not for a Greek, but for a Syriac author, such as Bardaiṣan was, and for his first intended public. For the first intended readers of Bardaiṣan’s historical work must have been Syriac, even though his work was soon translated into Greek as well, and later even into Armenian, at least in part. A further clue emerges from a painstaking analysis of Eusebius’ text. In his initial account, which may derive from Bardaiṣan, he tells that, after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, Thomas, one of the Twelve, sent Thaddaeus (the Greek transposition of the Syriac name Addai), one of the Seventy, to Edessa, “to proclaim the teaching of Christ” (kh&ruka kai\ eu)aggelisth_n th~j tou~ Xristou~ didaskali/aj e0kpe/mpei).478 It is sriking that Eusebius, differently from the later Doctrina Addai, does not at all report the contents of this teaching in the subsequent section. But the conception of Christ as a teacher of truth and of Christianity as teach-

477

(Wj kai\ tou1noma tou~ 0Ihsou~ polu_ kai\ ta_j duna&meij sumfw&nwj pro_j a(pa&ntwn marturoume/naj e0pu&qeto, i9ke/thj au)tou~ pe/myaj di' e0pistolhfo&rou gi/netai, th~j no&sou tuxei=n a)pallagh~j a)ciw~n. 478 Or, according to the variant reading th~j peri\ tou~ Xristou~ didaskali/aj, “the teaching concerning Christ.”

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ing, doctrine, and even philosophy479 is a prominent feature of Bardaiṣan’s Christian thought, as I have already shown. Indeed, a fragment preserved by Ephrem that I have already cited, Prose Refutations 2.143–169, attests that, according to Bardaiṣan, Christ’s main work during his earthly stay consisted in what follows: he “taught the truth and was lifted up.” Consistently with this conception, Bardaiṣan regarded salvation as grounded in knowledge, and thought that the eventual apokatastasis itself will depend on teaching and instruction.480 Also, in Eusebius’ initial short account, probably derived from Bardaiṣan, a close connection is established between Thaddaeus / Addai, the evangelizer of Edessa, and Thomas, the apostle of India. The latter is a land in which Bardaiṣan himself was profoundly interested, and to which he devoted a treatise—the one from which the most valuable Porphyrian fragments come— shortly after the mission of Pantaenus, Clement of Alexandria’s teacher, to India. The apostle Thomas was deeply venerated in Edessa in the day of Bardaiṣan and of his first disciples, when his relics were also solemnly translated from India to Edessa.481 If Bardaiṣan, who was a historian in addition to being a philosopher and a theologian, interested in the history and customs of various peoples, and in the history of Edessa and of Christianity, actually included the story of Abgar Ukkama and Addai, and of the origin of Christianity in Osrhoene, in his historical work, he certainly 479 From the very beginning of his argument in the Liber, Bardaiṣan posits a strong connection between faith and knowledge, to the point that he declares the quest for truth to be impossible if one lacks the foundation of faith: see above the section on the Liber. Bardaiṣan too, like Justin, Clement, Origen and others, saw Christianity as the truest philosophy, true because it is divine. 480 This is clear from the conclusion of the Liber. See my Origen, Bardaiṣan, and the Origin of Universal Salvation. 481 See my chapter on Pantaenus in Gli Apostoli in India; eadem, “La missione di Panteno in India: alcune osservazioni,” in La diffusione dell’eredità classica nell’età tardoantica e medievale. Filologia, Storia, Dottrina, Atti del Seminario Nazionale di Studio, Napoli – Sorrento 29–31 ottobre 1998, ed. C. Baffioni, Alessandria 2000, 95–106; Eadem, “Note sulle origini del Cristianesimo in India,” Studi Classici e Orientali 47 (2000) 363–78.

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highlighted the relationship between this and the Tomas legend as well. Finally, in Eusebius’ initial account, which may derive from Bardaiṣan, the Edessan geographical perspective is evident from the very beginning, from the mention of suffering people who inhabited regions that were very far from Judaea and were foreigners, just like Abgar of Edessa.482 Again, if Bardaiṣan actually included the Abgar-Addai narrative in his historical work, this is of course the geographical perspective that he adopted, i.e., that of Abgar Ukkama. Indeed, in extolling Abgar the Black he paid homage to his own contemporary and friend Abgar the Great. While for the first four paragraphs of his account Eusebius may have drawn upon Bardaiṣan’s work, it is less probable that his following treatment derives from Bardaiṣan as well. For, after his initial account, Eusebius goes on to report the apocryphal letters exchanged between Abgar and Jesus.483 It is improbable that Bardaiṣan reported them from an already existing written source, or that he even invented them. It is rather Eusebius who endeavors to insert original documents in his history, or those which he deems

482 (H tou~ Kuri/ou kai\ Swth~roj h(mw~n 0Ihsou~ Xristou~ qeio&thj, ei0j pa&ntaj a)nqrw&pouj th~j paradocopoiou~ duna&mewj e3neken bowme/nh, muri/ouj o3souj kai\ tw~n e0p' a)llodaph~j porrwta&tw o1ntwn th~j 0Ioudai/aj no&swn kai\ pantoi/wn paqw~n e0lpi/di qerapei/aj e0ph&geto. 483 In addition to the works of mine already cited, see M. Amerise, “La scrittura e l’immagine nella cultura tardoantica: il caso di Abgar di Edessa,” OCP: Orientalia Christiana Periodica 67 (2001) 437–445; A. Falcetta, “The logion of Matthew 11:5–6 Par.: from Qumran to Abgar,” Revue Biblique 110 (2003) 222–248; M. Kanaan, “Jésus et le roi Abgar,” Connaissance des Pères de l’église, 94 (2004) 12–20, especially on Eusebius, Egeria, and the Doctrina Addai; C. Marek, “Jesus und Abgar: das Rätsel vom Beginn einer Legende,” in Geschichten und ihre Geschichte, ed. Th. Fuhrer, P. Michel, P. Stotz, in coll. with Kaspar Howald, Basel 2004, 269–310; R. Salomons, “The correspondence between Abgar and Jesus: a re-edition of a Bodleian papyrus,” in Land of dreams: Greek and Latin studies in honour of A. H. M. Kessels, ed. A. Pierre M. H. Lardinois, M. G. M. Van der Poel, V. J. C. Hunink, Leiden 2006, 299–307 on Oxford, Bodleian Libr., Ms. gr. th. b I (P) = Van Haelst 613.

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such, in support of his exposition.484 Moreover, at the end of paragraph 4, there is a strong break that marks an interruption before the start of the following section: for paragraph 5ff., Eusebius declares that he has used a source, not for the story of Abgar Ukkama that he has just recounted in paragraphs 1 to 4, whose source might rather be Bardaiṣan, but for the presumed letters exchanged between Abgar and Jesus, which he is about to report, and for the description of Addai’s healing of Abgar which followed these letters in an official document preserved in the archives in Edessa, from which Eusebius declares to have drawn the material found in paragraph 5ff.485 This source is constituted by Syriac documents that were stored in the Edessan archives in the time of Eusebius, and which Eusebius himself says that he translated, or had someone translate, into Greek.486 This is a different source from Bardaiṣan’s historical work, which Eusebius moreover probably found already translated into Greek. These letters were found in the Edessan archives as a documentary complement, clearly forged ad hoc, to the Abgar legend which had meanwhile consolidated in Edessa at the time of Abgar the Great, when perhaps Bardaiṣan helped fix it, and included it in his history.487 484 On this method see now A. Grafton – M. Williams, Christianity and the Transformation of the Book. Origen, Eusebius, and the Library of Caesarea, Cambridge, Ma. – London 2006. 485 1Exeij kai\ tou&twn a)na&grapton th_n marturi/an, e0k tw~n kata_ 1Edessan to_ thnika&de basileuome/nhn po&lin grammatofulakei/wn lhfqei=san: e0n gou~n toi=j au)to&qi dhmosi/oij xa&rtaij, toi=j ta_ palaia_ kai\ ta_ a)mfi\ to_n 1Abgaron praxqe/nta perie/xousi, kai\ tau~ta ei0j e1ti nu~n e0c e0kei/nou pefulagme/na eu3rhtai, ou)de\n de\ oi[on kai\ au)tw~n e0pakou~sai tw~n e0pistolw~n, a)po_ tw~n a)rxei/wn h(mi=n a)nalhfqeisw~n kai\ to&nde au)toi=j r(h&masin e0k th~j Su&rwn fwnh~j metablhqeisw~n to_n tro&pon.

See the preceding note. Eusebius repeats this assertion at the end of the section including the letters and the account of Abgar’s conversion following them: a4 kai\ ou)k ei0j a1xrhston pro_j le/cin e0k th~j Su&rwn 486

metablhqe/nta fwnh~j e0ntau~qa& moi kata_ kairo_n kei/sqw.

The correspondence between Abgar and Jesus is very different from that between Abgar and Tiberius, which appears in Moses of Chorene and in the Doctrina Addai (a hint is even present in Eusebius himself), but it derives from a separate and more ancient nucleus, which I 487

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At the beginning of the Syriac Chronicon of Edessa, likewise, the narration of a disastrous flood which took place in the time of Abgar the Great, therefore in the day of Bardaiṣan himself, is said to have been stored and kept in the Edessan archives; even the names of those who reported the events and stored the document are indicated.488 Indeed, there is no reason to doubt that Eusebius is actually providing a faithful translation of the archival material that he found, even if this does not mean that the documents he is reporting are authentic. These letters, and the short narrative that was attached to them, were probably produced in Edessa in the period between Abgar the Great, when the Abgar-Addai legend was created or consolidated (perhaps thanks to Bardaiṣan), and Eusebius himself.489 That Eusebius actually worked on archival material in Syriac language is also confirmed by an interesting detail: in the title of the presumed letter of Abgar, Ananias, who brought this letter to Jesus, is described as a taxu/dromoj, “courier.”490 In the Doctrina Addai, on the contrary, Ananias is not a courier, but an archivist. This confirms that the common source from which both Eusebius’ text and the Doctrina Addai derived was surely Syriac, as Eusebius states. For, only from a non-vocalized Syriac )rLB+ (tblr’) could the confusion arise between “courier” and “archivist,” which respectively transliterate tabellarius and tabularius.491

even suspect may contain historical traces, as I argued in Possible Historical Traces. 488 See the analysis in the last paragraph of my Edessa e i Romani. 489 Other archival materials were, of course, authentic. The use of Syriac as an administrative language in Edessa in the time of the Abgarids is well documented and corresponds to the historical reality. See J. F. Healey, “The Edessan Milieu and the Birth of Syriac,” Hugoye 10.2 (2007), §§ 1–34. 490 ANTIGRAFON EPISTOLHS GRAFEISHS UPO ABGAROU TOPARXOU TWI IHSOU KAI PEMFQEISHS AUTWI DI' ANANIOU TAXUDROMOU EIS IEROSOLUMA. 491 In Greek, inscriptions and papyri attest to the existence of forms such as tabella/rioj and tabla/rioj, from tabellarius and tabularius respectively, but Eusebius uses taxu/dromoj, which translates the former.

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Moreover, that the section containing the letters derives from a Syriac original is also suggested by another clue, namely, the frequent reiteration of kai/ both in the letters themselves and in the immediately following section—that which Eusebius declares to be taken from the Edessan archives—whereas this feature is absent from the first four paragraphs—those which might be based on Baridaiṣan’s historical work, paraphrased or summarized by Eusebius—and in general from Eusebius’ own style. This, of course, is a clue of a Syriac Vorlage in that the conjunction w (w, “and”) in Syriac is exceedingly frequent, much more than in Greek (or in English). Eusebius seems to be providing a rather literal translation from the Syriac from paragraph 5 onward. That the source of the section containing the letters (§ 5ff.) is different from that of the first four paragraphs is also indicated by the very different description of Abgar Ukkama in these two sections respectively. First of all, in the initial section Abgar is called only by his name, whereas in the letter he is called Abgar Ukkama ( 1Abgaroj Ou1xama). Moreover, while in the initial section, which may derive from Bardaiṣan, Abgar is hyperbolically presented as a glorious monarch, as I have already pointed out, in the letters he is described thrice as “toparch,” the leader of a vassal state of Rome,492 and moreover his city, Edessa, is described as “tiny” (mikrota&th).493 Likewise, he is presented again as simply a to-

Both tabella and tabula also mean “painting”; in some versions of the legend, Ananias, the tabellarius / tabularius, is a painter as well. 492 In the title of Abgar’s letter to Jesus and in the initial greetings Abgar is described as toparch twice: ANTIGRAFON EPISTOLHS

GRAFEISHS UPO ABGAROU TOPARXOU TWI IHSOU KAI PEMFQEISHS AUTWI DI' ANANIOU TAXUDROMOU EIS IEROSOLUMA. 1Abgaroj Ou1xama topa/rxhj. Likewise, Abgar is called

“toparch” in the title of Jesus’ letter, which has no initial greeting formula: TA ANTIGRAFENTA UPO IHSOU DIA ANANIOU TAXUDROMOU TOPARXHI ABGARWI. Procopius in De bell. Pers. 2.12.6, will again de-

scribe Abgar Ukkama, or better his predecessor in the time of Augustus, as a toparch. 493 Procopius, Bell. Per. 2.12.16, not only calls Abgar a toparch, but has him say that he possesses a “small kingdom” (basilei/a braxei=a).

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parch494 in the section immediately following the letters, which, as Eusebius himself declares, was found in the Edessan archives as a supplement to the letters themselves: Tau&taij de\ tai=j e0pistolai=j e1ti kai\ tau~ta sunh~pto th|~ Su&rwn fwnh|~.

It is notable that, once again, Eusebius indicates that only the letters and the subsequent section—i.e., what corresponds to §5ff. in his narrative—derive from the material that he found in the Edessan archives, not the precedent account covering §§ 1–4, which indeed might derive from Bardaiṣan, more probably from the Greek version of his historical work. This consideration, too, along with the strong break that Eusebius placed between §§ 1–4 and § 5ff., suggests that these two sections have different sources. Another hint points to the same conclusion: the different presentation, not only of Abgar, but also of the apostle Thomas in these respective sections. In the first section, Thomas is simply presented as Qwma~j, whereas in the second, and more particularly in the part that immediately follows the apocryphal letters, he is presented as 0Iou&daj, o( kai\ Qwma~j, “Judas, the one who was also called Thomas.” This is also the way in which this apostle is presented in the Doctrina Addai, which indeed is based on the same Edessan documents as Eusebius’ §§ 5ff.. Yet another clue suggesting that the two above-quoted sections in Eusebius derive from two different sources is the different way in which Thaddaeus is described in each of them. In the second section, in the part that immediately follows the letters, the group of the Twelve, to which Thomas belongs, appears distinct from that of the Seventy, in which Thaddaeus is included.495 But in the first section the distinction appears more blurred: “Thomas, one of the twelve apostles, by divine inspiration sent Thaddaeus, he too counted among the seventy disciples of Christ,” Qwma~j, tw~n a)posto&lwn ei[j tw~n dw&deka, Qaddai=on, e0n a)riqmw|~ kai\ au)to_n tw~n e9bdomh&konta tou~ Xristou~ maqhtw~n kateilegme/non, kinh&sei qeiote/ra| … e0kpe/mpei. This would seem that the Seventy included the Twelve, or that anyway the two groups were not well distinct (O top£rxhj 1Abgaroj. 9 pe/steilen au)tw=| )Iou/daj, o( kai\ Qwma=j, Qaddai=on a)po/stolon, A e3na tw=n e(bdomh/konta. 494 495

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from one another. This confusion is all the more evident in the part that comes soon after the letters reported by Eusebius. In this part, Thaddaeus is no more called “disciple,” but “apostle,” with the specification that he was “one of the Seventy,” who here are thus presented as “apostles:” Qaddai=on a)po&stolon, e3na tw~n e9bdomh&konta. Indeed, Thaddaeus is called “apostle” also in the Doctrina Addai, which is based on the same Edessan material, albeit with further elaboration. In the Syriac tradition, just as in the Gospel of John, the Twelve, too, and the other apostles496 are presented as maqhtai/, “disciples,” of Jesus the dida&skaloj, “teacher.”497 Moreover, two of the three lists of the Twelve in the Synoptic Gospels—John, who may have been different from the son of Zebedee and therefore may have not belonged to the Twelve,498 does not provide a list—do include Thaddaeus, but with textual variants in Matthew and in Mark. Luke even excludes Thaddaeus altogether from the Twelve.499 All this, of course, makes Thaddaeus’ belong496 The Twelve, of course, are not the only apostles: suffice it to think of St. Paul, or of Andronicus and Junia whom he names in the final greetings in his Epistle to the Romans as “illustrious among the apostles,” e)pi/shmoi e)n toi=j a)posto/loij. See E. J. Epp, Junia: The First Woman Apostle, Minneapolis 2005, with my review in Rivista Biblica 55.2 (2007) 245– 249. 497 For the emphasis on teaching and school in Syriac Christianity see A. Becker, Fear of God and the Beginning of Wisdom. The School of Nisibis and Christian Scholastic Culture in Late Antique Mesopotamia, Philadelphia 2006, with my review article in Hugoye 10.2 (2007) 131–141. Barh?adbshabba’s so-called Cause of the Foundation of the Schools recounts the whole history of humanity and Christianity in terms of teaching and schools. See my “Linee introduttive a Barh?adbeshabba di Halwan, Causa della fondazione delle scuole: filosofia e storia della filosofia greca e cristiana in Barh?adbeshabba,” ‘Ilu 9 (2004) 127–181; “Barh?adbeshabba di Halwan, Causa della fondazione delle scuole,” translation from the Syriac and notes, ‘Ilu 10 (2005) 127–170. 498 See, e.g., R. Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony, Grand Rapids, Mi. – Cambridge 2006; M.-L. Rigato, Giovanni: l’enigma il Presbitero il culto il Tempio la cristologia, Bologna 2007, with my review in Review of Biblical Literature Febr. 2008. 499 Luke 6:13–16 does not present significant textual variants, apart from the detail that Thomas was also called Didymus, which appears in

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ing to this group rather problematic. A further complication is that the identification between Addai and Thaddaeus is uncertain. Some scholars think that it was arbitrarily established by Eusebius, when he translated the Syriac texts from Edessa into Greek. If Bardaiṣan’s historical work is the source of §§ 1–4, however, it is likely that it was already translated into Greek when Eusebius accessed it (it is Eusebius himself who attests that Bardaiṣan’s Syriac works were translated into Greek by his disciples). If Bardaiṣan, and not the archival material, is the source of Eusebius’ §§ 1–4, it would be easier to explain the difference between the two parts (§§ 1–4 and § 5ff.) in distinguishing or identifying the apostles and the disciples. Matt 10:1–2 is interesting for the indifferent use of the terms “disciples” and “apostles” in reference to the Twelve: “He called the twelve disciples [maqhtai/] to himself … the names of the twelve apostles [a)po/stoloi] are…” Exactly the most ancient stratum of the Vetus Syra (in Codex SyroSinaiticus),500 the first Syriac translation of the New Testament,501 whose origin is contemporary with Bardaiṣan, instead of “the names of the twelve apostles” reads “the names of the twelve disciples” (yhwdYM*Ltd )hM$). If the sentence included in Eusebius’ initial section, “Thomas, one of the twelve apostles, by divine the Bezae Cantabrigiensis (D). Verse 13 is relevant to the double identification of the Twelve as apostles and disciples: “He summoned his disciples [maqhtai/] and chose twelve of them, whom he also called apostles [kai\ a)posto/louj].” In the synoptic parallel, Mark 3:14, the words ou4j kai\ a)posto/louj w)no/masen are missing in the so-called “Archaic Mark of Chicago” (ms. 2427 Nestle-Aland = University of Chicago ms. 972), fol. 8r l. 6, on which see M. Mitchell – P. A. Duncan, “Chicago’s “Archaic Mark” (ms 2427): A Reintroduction to its Enigmas and a Fresh Collation of its Readings,” Novum Testamentum 48 (2004) 1–35, esp. 21. 500 On which see S. Brock, The Bible in the Syriac Tradition, Piscataway 20062, 33–34; I consulted the text of the Vetus Syra for Matthew in G. A. Kiraz, Comparative Edition of the Syriac Gospels, Aligning the Sinaiticus, Curetonianus, Peshît?tâ and H?arklean Version, I, Leiden 1996, 125. In this passage the attestation of Codex Curetonianus is lacking and Codex Sinaiticus is the only testimonium of the Vetus Syra. 501 I say so because Tatian’s Diatessaron seems to have been, not a translation proper, but a harmony.

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inspiration sent Thaddaeus, he too counted among the disciples,” which seems to identify the apostles and the disciples, derives from Bardaiṣan, it would be perfectly clear in this light. Differently from the Vetus Syra, the later Syriac versions are closer to the Greek and read: “the names of the twelve apostles.” Indeed, Eusebius’ apparently odd expression would be explained very well if it derived from a very ancient Syriac text, as Bardaiṣan’s historical work. The latter probably knew one of the earliest strata of the Vetus Syra or Tatian’s yet earlier Diatessaron, which, like the Vetus Syra, in the passage that corresponded to the aforementioned list (from the Arabic version, 18.19), called the twelve apostles “disciples.”502 In this connection, it is meaningful that the Doctrina Addai, whose legend may have been consolidated by Bardaiṣan, ascribes the liturgical reading of the Diatessaron to the first Edessan Christians. A further difference between the first and the second section of Eusebius’ account lies in the different attitude toward the Jews. In the second section, the first of the two forged letters shows hostility; Abgar invites Jesus to join him in Edessa in order to escape the plot of the Jews against him: “indeed, I have also heard that the Jews are plotting against you and want to damage you” (kai\ ga_r h1kousa o3ti kai\ 0Ioudai=oi katagoggu&zousi/ sou kai\ bou&lontai kakw~sai/ se). This attitude will find further development in the

Doctrina Addai, where the Jews are called “crucifiers” and there are several anti-Jewish statements. But there is no trace of this in the initial account of Eusebius (§§ 1–4), the one that may derive from Bardaiṣan. Indeed, while Ephrem, his critic, shows hostility toward “Jews” and “Arians,” also because of the theological controversies of his day—which also implied the assimilation of Arians and Jews in that they both denied the divinity of Christ—Bardaiṣan displays no anti-Judaism. Of course, the argumentum ex silentio is always feeble, and in this case, given the loss of a good deal of material, is 502 “He summoned his disciples and picked out twelve, and these are those whom he called apostles: Simon, whom he named Cephas … Jesus descended with them and stopped in the valley, he and the group of the disciples, and a great many people. And he chose these twelve to stay with him, in order to send them preach, and so that they might heal the ill and chase the demons.”

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even more risky, but if Bardaiṣan is the source of Eusebius’ first section there is a full coincidence in the lack of anti-Judaism between Eusebius’ first section and what we know of Bardaiṣan’s thought, all the more so if compared with the anti-Judaism of the second section, then developed in the Doctrina Addai. One last point. At the end of his translation of the Edessan archival material, i.e. after the two forged letters and the story that was attached to them, Eusebius notes that the facts narrated took place “in the year 340.”503 The year 340 of the Greeks corresponds to A.D. 29 / 30. And here we find a difference from the date provided by the Doctrina Addai, which will indicate A.D. 32 / 33. Therefore, it seems improbable that Eusebius found the year 340 indicated by his Edessan archival source. He probably either calculated the date himself, on the basis of his own chronological arrangement—he was the author of the Chronicon—or found it in his other source, that of his first section, i.e. probably Bardaiṣan’s historical work. This may have indicated A.D. 29 / 30 as the year of the beginning of the events, when Abgar learnt about Jesus. The crucifixion and resurrection took place soon after, in A.D. 30, and then Thomas sent Addai to Edessa. The first section of Eusebius’ account (Historia Ecclesiastica 1.13.1–4), which might derive from Bardaiṣan’s work, focuses on Abgar Ukkama, his exaltation, his illness, and Jesus’ promise to heal him, which also resulted in Abgar’s spiritual salvation and the Edessans’ first conversion to Christianity. The sentence itself that introduces this narrative, with the use of the perfect ge/gonen (Th~j de\ peri\ to_n Qaddai=on i9stori/aj toiou~toj ge/gonen o( tro&poj), which here may also have a resultative value, indicates that Eusebius is actually availing himself of a source, probably Bardaiṣan. Then Eusebius goes on to report the alleged letters exchanged between Abgar and Jesus, coming from the Edessan archives, just as the narrative supplement that follows them. All this material was found in the archives of Edessa between the end of the third and the beginning of the fourth century. The forged letters between 503 )Epra&xqh tau~ta tessarakostw|~ kai\ triakosiostw|~ e1tei: a4 kai\ ou)k ei0j a1xrhston pro_j le/cin e0k th~j Su&rwn metablhqe/nta fwnh~j e0ntau~qa& moi kata_ kairo_n kei/sqw.

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Abgar and Jesus and their supplement may have originated some decades after Bardaiṣan’s death. From this material, plus some doctrinal developments, the Doctrina Addai also derived. But it is probable that already Bardaiṣan in his history, in order to extol Abgar the Great, narrated how Abgar Ukkama came to know Christ’s message. Just like the Great, Ukkama himself is a fully historical figure, also mentioned by Tacitus.504 I have compared the first and the second section of Eusebius’ account and I have pointed out some remarkable elements that indicate that they are based on two different sources, the first of which—for its exaltation of Abgar and other reasons—may well be Bardaiṣan. It is now useful to compare also the third section of Eusebius’ account with the other two. In Historia Ecclesiastica 2.1.6–8, after using the Edessan sources for the story of Abgar and Addai, at the beginning of Book 2 Eusebius briefly summarizes the last story narrated in Book 1, that is to say, the Abgar-Addai story. Here Eusebius seems to be speaking by himself, without reproducing a source as in Book 1; here in Book 2, he both takes up some expressions from his Edessan sources and introduces different formulas, without reproducing the wording or the tone of his sources. Here, too, I shall point out some details which seem significant, first of all the description of Abgar Ukkama as “the king of the Osrhoenes.”505 This formula is entirely correct, as Edessa was the capital city of Osrhoene, but quite different from both the highly eulogistic description of Abgar which is found in the first section, perhaps deriving from Bardaiṣan (Abgar as an illustrious dynast who reigned with glory and splendor over whole peoples beyond the Euphrates), and that which is found in the second section, admittedly drawn from documents in the Edessan archives (Abgar Ukkama as a mere toparch of “an extremely small city”). A further divergence between the third section (Eusebius’ own summary) and the first two (derived from his sources) is striking: Thaddaeus healed Abgar “with the word [or the logos] of Wide-ranging analysis of the historical sources on Abgar the Black, including Tacitus, in Ramelli, Edessa e i Romani, 107–43. 505 HE 1.2.6: )En tou/toij kai\ ta\ th=j tou= Swth=roj h(mw=n pro\j to\n 504

tw=n )Osrohnw=n basile/a te/loj e)la/mbanen u(posxe/sewj.

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Christ” (to&n te 1Abgaron i0a~tai tw|~ Xristou~ lo&gw|). Now, in the second section, translated from the archival documents, in the narrative that immediately follows the letters and tells how Abgar was healed by Thaddaeus, there is no mention at all of Christ’s logos, but the healing is said to have occurred thanks to Abgar’s faith and to the imposition of Thaddaeus’ hand upon Abgar in the name of Jesus Christ; likewise, in the narration of the healing of Abdu506 it is Thaddaeus’ hand that is mentioned. In his final résumé Eusebius presents Thaddaeus’ mission in Edessa essentially in terms of a teaching of Christianity and resumes the same wording as used by his first source, which might be Bardaiṣan’s historical work: the sentence, o( gou~n Qwma~j to_n Qaddai=on kinh&sei qeiote/ra| e0pi\ ta_ 1Edessa kh&ruka kai\ eu)aggelisth_n th~j tou~ Xristou~ didaskali/aj e0kpe/mpei is identical

both in the initial passage, deriving from Eusebius’ first source, and in his own summary at the beginning of Book 2, where immediately after he adds: w(j a)po_ th~j eu(reqei/shj au)to&qi grafh~j mikrw|~ pro&sqen e0dhlw&samen, “as I have showed shortly beforehand on the basis of the documents found in that very place,” that is, of the archival document found in Edessa and containing the letters and the subsequent report of Abgar’s healing. I have already remarked how this “didactic” conception of Christ’s message and Christianity coincides with that entertained by Bardaiṣan, who identified Jesus’ main mission with the teaching of truth and strictly associated instruction and salvation. Eusebius returns to this notion of Christianity as teaching shortly after in his summary, when he says that For Abdu and Sinnaces see my Possible Historical Traces, in which I demonstrate that these two historical figures, a powerful eunuch and a rich noble, are mentioned by Tacitus as contemporaries of Abgar Ukkama. They appear again, later, in the Doctrina Addai, and are the same who will be presented as martyrs in hagiography. Behind these two legendary martyrs lie, I think, those two important Tacitean characters, who soon entered the story of the very first evangelization of Edessa, subsequently received in the Doctrina Addai. This, together with some details in the correspondence between Abgar and Tiberius, and with some other elements, constitutes one of the most interesting historical traces behind the Doctrina Addai and the first nucleus of its legend, which may have found its first written expression in Bardaiṣan’s historical work. 506

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Thaddaeus transformed the Edessan people into “disciples of the salvific teaching” or “of the Savior’s teaching.”507 Eusebius takes up the tendency of his first source (absent in the second) to emphasize the didactic aspect of Christianity. If Eusebius’ first source were Bardaiṣan, the reason why there is such an emphasis on teaching in the first section would be clear. There is a point in Eusebius’ résumé at the beginning of Book 2 that does not correspond to the preceding two sections based on the Edessan sources. Eusebius remarks that, after the conversion of Abgar Ukkama and all the inhabitants of Edessa to Christianity, “from then on, and until now, the whole city of the Edessans is dedicated to the name of Christ.”508 Now, there is no reference to this in the two sections drawn from Eusebius’ sources in Book 1. There, it is not even reported that, after Thaddaeus’ preaching to the people of Edessa, all of the population converted to Christianity. This will rather be highlighted in the Doctrina Addai. But Eusebius affirms this here in his summary, both in the above-quoted statement and in the following, where he explains that the Edessans who converted were quite all, and that they converted because he astonished them with his miracles: tou_j au)to&qi pa&ntaj toi=j tw~n qauma&twn parado&coij e0kplh&ttei. The conversion of all the Edessans, to which Eusebius refers here and which is absent from the second section, is rather present in the first, which may derive from Bardaiṣan, and in which Jesus promises Abgar to give him, not only physical health, but also the spiritual savation of himself and of all of his subjects; and these promises are said to have been fulfilled thanks to Thaddaeus. Now, the question arises whether the statement that “up to today” or “until now” (ei0j e1ti te nu~n) the city of Edessa is dedicated to the name of Christ, clearly through the Christians who are present in it, is to be ascribed to Eusebius or to his source (of 507 Tou_j au)to&qi pa&ntaj toi=j tw~n qauma&twn parado&coij e0kplh&ttei: i9kanw~j te au)tou_j toi=j e1rgoij diaqei\j kai\ e0pi\ se/baj a)gagw_n th~j tou~ Xristou~ duna&mewj, maqhta_j th~j swthri/ou didaskali/aj katesth&sato. 508 Ei0j e1ti te nu~n e0c e0kei/nou h( pa~sa tw~n 0Edesshnw~n po&lij th|~ Xristou~ prosana&keitai proshgori/a|.

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course, that which underlies the first section). In the case of Eusebius, this statement would be certainly justified, given that exactly in his day, during the Constantinian age, the first bishop of Edessa, Qune, “laid the foundation of the church of Edessa” (mS yhrw)d )td(d )S)t$*Y )PwQSYP) )NwQ), according to the Chronicon of Edessa, p. 4 Guidi, nr. XII. But already for the time of Bardaiṣan the assertion that there were Christians in Edessa would be true and justified: leaving aside the question of Abgar the Great’s faith, Bardaiṣan himself and his disciples were Christians; moreover, the same Chronicon of Edessa attests that a Christian church, called )td( exactly like Qune’s church, existed in that city already in the time of Abgar and clearly with the king’s permission, and many sources, such as Abercius’ epitaph, synodal acts, and the Chronicon of Arbela, indicate that Christianity was indeed present in Edessa and Osrhoene in that time.509 In this context, Abgar the Great entrusted Christian intellectuals like Bardaiṣan and Julius Africanus with the education of his son Ma‘nu. Therefore, Bardaiṣan could realize, to his satisfaction—the same that is evident in the Liber—that Christianity flourished in Edessa and Osrhoene in his day, and was even welcome at court. If, as the Liber asserts and Julis Africanus indicates, even Abgar himself embraced Christianity, and for this reason forbade some pagan mutilations that were customary until then, Bardaiṣan could certainly say that Abgar’s city was dedicated to the name of Christ and could praise Abgar Ukkama in order to extol Abgar the Great. As I have shown, after Bardaiṣan’s death, and especially in the fourth century, the definition of orthodoxy entailed a campaign against heresies, which in Edessa were Marcionism, Gnosticism, and above all Manichaeism. Of these heresies Bardaiṣan was accused, even if, in fact, he did fight Marcionism and did not embrace the main metaphysical tenets of Gnosticism, and even though Manichaeism was posterior to him and he did not at all support two opposite and equal principles. Thus, during the fourth century Documentation in my “L’epitafio di Abercio: uno status quaestionis e alcune osservazioni,” Aevum 74 (2000) 191–206; Il Chronicon di Arbela, Madrid 2003, Anejos de ‘Ilu, Revista de Ciencias de las Religiones, 8; Edessa e i Romani, and Possible Historical Traces. 509

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and at the beginning of the fifth, the Christian teaching of Addai, which Bardaiṣan may have praised in his history in order to exalt Edessa and Abgar the Great, was appropriated by the orthodoxy that meanwhile had established itself, and whose expression was— one century after Eusebius and two after Bardaiṣan—the Doctrina Addai.510 Differently from the shape that the Abgar-Addai legend has in Eusebius and probably in Bardaiṣan as well, if he included it in his history, in the Doctrina the theological speeches and the doctrinal teachings are much more developed and have the precise aim of attributing orthodoxy (Nicene orthodoxy) to Addai, of course with a strong retro-projection. Now, a similar concern in the representatives of orthodoxy would be much more understandable if Addai’s figure had been previously praised by a Christian philosopher such as Bardaiṣan, who meanwhile had acquired the reputation of a heretic and whose followers had fallen into a conflict with the members of the meanwhile constituted orthodoxy. The most prominent episode in this conflict involved bishop Rabbula of Edessa, who, significantly, also promoted the substitution of Tatian’s Diatessaron with the Peshitta.511 According to his own biography,512 Rabbula destroyed, in a literal or perhaps in a metaphorical sense, the place in which the Bardaiṣanites met, and used its materials to build up the orthodox church, converting the Bardaiṣanites to orthodoxy. It is meaningful that Han J. W. Drijvers hypothesized that the final redaction of the Doctrina Addai should be ascribed to Rabbula himself.513 This re-appropriation of Cf. Mirkovic, Prelude; S. H. Griffith, “The Doctrina Addai as a Paradigm of Christian Thought in Edessa in the Fifth Century,” Hugoye 6 / 2 (2003), §§ 1–46; Doctrina Addai / De imagine Edessena. Die Abgarlegende / Das Christusbild von Edessa, griechisch, lateinisch, deutsch, übersetzt und eingeleitet von M. Illert, Turnhout 2007. 511 Cf. Brock, The Bible in the Syriac Tradition, 34 e passim. Also R. B. ter Haar Romeny (ed.), The Peshitta: its Use in Literature and Liturgy. Papers read at the Third Peshitta Symposium, Leiden 2006. 512 See below, the chapter on Rabbula, where I analyze this episode and discuss its literal or metaphorical interpretation. 513 J. W. Drijvers, “The Protonike Legend, the Doctrina Addai, and Bishop Rabbula of Edessa,” VigChr 51 (1997) 288–315; H. J. W. Drijvers, 510

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Addai’s figure on the part of the newly established orthodoxy would really fit very well with the hypothesis that this figure was first exalted in the time of Abgar the Great by an author whose orthodoxy had meanwhile become more and more suspect, such as Bardaiṣan, as is suggested by Eusebius, Moses of Chorene, and Barhebraeus. This is why the representatives of orthodoxy in Edessa felt the need to make it clear that the teaching of the evangelizer of Edessa, albeit first exalted by a “heretic,” was not at all heretical, but “orthodox” (of course ante litteram!). Bardaiṣan’s work on the history “of Armenia” (according to Moses of Chorene) very probably included also accounts concerning the early spread of Christianity in Osrhoene, Mesopotamia, and Armenia, that is, a large Mesopotamian area of Syriac and Armenian culture.514 This seems to me all the more probable in that it is perfectly in line with the main argument employed in the Liber Legum Regionum against the theory of Fate: that is, that many peoples, very different for customs and laws and inhabiting different regions and climates, passed from a variety of laws to the submission to one and the same law, that of Christ.515 Toward the end of the Liber, we can perceive a victorious, satisfied, and grateful tone, for the progressive conversion and salvation of many peoples, and this fully corresponds to the satisfaction and gratefulness in the praise of Addai and Abgar Ukkama for the first spread of Christianity in Edessa and the salvation of the king and the people. At the same time, this functioned as a prefiguration of the reign of Abgar the Great, whose conversion is mentioned in the Liber as a part of the very same argument against Fate based on the diffusion of Christianity everywhere and the introduction of the new Christian “The Image of Edessa in the Syriac Tradition,” in The Holy Face and the Paradox of Representation, edd. H. L. Kessler – G. Wolf, Bologna 1998, 13– 31, in part. 15–16; Id., “Rabbula, Bishop of Edessa: Spiritual Authority and Secular Power,” in Portraits of Spiritual Authority: Religious Power in Early Christianity, Byzantium, and the Christian Orient, Leiden 1999, 130–154. 514 On which see, e.g., I. Ramelli, “Mesopotamia,” in Nuovo Dizionario Patristico e di Antichità Cristiane, dir. A. Di Berardino, II, Genoa 2007, 3224–3239; an English edition is forthcoming in Cambridge. 515 See my “L’Europa e i Cristiani,” in Studi sull’Europa antica, ed. M. Sordi, II, Alessandria 2001, 263–283.

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law instead of the old customs. For the Liber ascribes to Abgar the decision of abolishing pagan customs when he embraced the Christian faith and law. If Bardaiṣan recorded the legend of his fellowcitizen Abgar Ukkama and Addai in his history, as is attested by Moses of Chorene and Barhebraeus, and as is indicated by the analysis conducted by Eusebius, this perfectly corresponds to the intention of exalting both Abgar the Great, with whom Bardaiṣan had been educated and at whose court he lived with honor, and the diffusion of Christianity in various peoples and of course especially in Bardaiṣan’s own people, that of Edessa. In this connection, the exaltation of Abgar the Great through his predecessor, Abgar Ukkama, was particularly splendid, as the latter was presented as the first Christian sovereign, something obviously extraordinary, all the more so in an epoch well anterior to Constantine’s. As I have mentioned, in Eusebius’ initial account of the Abgar story, that which might derive from Bardaiṣan, a strong connection is immediately drawn between Thaddaeus / Addai and Thomas, whose veneration was alive in Edessa and culminated in the third century with the translation of his relics thereto from India. This took place around A.D. 230 according to the Passio Thomae,516 shortly after Bardaiṣan’s death, and while the Abgarid dynasty was 516 This Latin narrative of the VI century tells that, upon the Syrians’ request, the Roman emperor Alexander, after fighting against the Persian king, ordered that Thomas’ body should be translated from India to Edessa. This emperor is identifiable with Severus Alexander, who indeed fought against the Persians of the Sasanian king Ardashir I and reigned from A.D. 222 (the year of Bardaiṣan’s death) to 235. See U. Monneret de Villard, “La fiera di Batne e la traslazione di s. Tomaso a Edessa,” Rend. Accademia Naz. dei Lincei eighth series 6 (1951), 77–104; K. Zelzer, “Zu den lateinischen Fassungen der Thomasakten, II,” Wiener Studien 6 (1972) 185–212; M. Bussagli – M. G. Chiappori, I Re Magi, Milano 1985, 71–73; my chapter on Thomas in Gli Apostoli in India, esp. 66 and 158 n. 213; O. Amore, “De palatio in passione Thomae: la teoria della regalità da Costantino all’età dei Maurini,” Athenaeum 93 (2005), 553–575, who relates Thomas’ ability as an architect to the building campaign promoted by Constantine. This activity was already present in the Acta Thomae. The translation is also briefly mentioned in Acta Thomae 170, in which it is said that “a brother [sc. a Christian] had secretly carried away and transferred into the West” St. Thomas’ relics. See also the late Translatio (BHL 8148d).

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still in Edessa (it is difficult to imagine that this may have happened against their will). Precisely to the land of Thomas’ mission, India,517 Bardaiṣan devoted a whole work in his maturity: his De India, from which the most valuable Porphyrian fragments come. Now, this work on India, based on accounts of Indian ambassadors under Elagabalus, is roughly contemporary with Bardaiṣan’s historical work, which Moses knew and utilized, and, just like this historical work, originated from an interest that was not only geographical, anthropological, and philosophical (also triggered by Indian Gymnosophists and Brahmans), but could also be oriented to the origin of Christianity in India, traditionally related to Thomas (and Bartholomew).518 This would be perfectly in line with the celebration, dear to Bardaiṣan, of the birth of Christianity among many different peoples, including the Osrhoenes, all the more in that, according to the Syriac tradition that was taking shape and consolidating precisely in Bardaiṣan’s day, it is exactly in Edessa that the evangelization of India had its point of departure. An extremely interesting element in this connection is offered by the quotation of a long argumentative passage of Bardaiṣan from the Liber Legum Regionum in another Syriac work belonging to the Edessan milieu, and likewise soon translated into Greek: the Acts of Thomas. This work narrates how Thomas, starting from Edessa, evangelized India.519 I have already pointed out how a con-

See my Gli Apostoli in India. See my Apostoli in India for the Bartholomew tradition as well, to which I devoted a chapter therein. 519 Here I only indicate the Syriac editions (there exists also a Greek recension of the Acts of Thomas, which is probably secondary to the Syriac, like, then, the Coptic, Ethiopic, Arab, Latin, etc.): W. Wright, Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles Edited from Syriac Manuscripts in the British Museum and Other Libraries, I–II, London 1871 (Syriac in I, 171–333; English translation in II, 146–298); P. Bedjan, Acta Martyrum et Sanctorum, III, Paris 1892, 1–175, based on ms. Sachau N. 222; A. Smith Lewis, Horae Semiticae, III– IV, London 1904, also with the edition of the Synaitic palimpsest Cod. Sin. Syr. 30, the most ancient text of the Syriac Acta known (V–VI cent.). Study and text with English translation in A. F. J. Klijn, The Acts of Thomas, Leiden 1962. See the critical chapter on the Acta Thomae in my Gli Apos517 518

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spicuous section from the Liber is quoted in the Acts of Thomas. Clearly, the author or redactor of the Acts of Thomas, who was probably active in Edessa in the third century, knew the Liber very well and moreover esteemed Bardaiṣan’s arguments to the point of ascribing to Thomas—the saint apostle and evangelizer of India, whom he was exalting in the Acts—Bardaiṣan’s words concerning the Christian moral law. Given Bardaiṣan’s interest in India and probably also in its evangelizer, Thomas, and given the quotation of a section of Bardaiṣan’s argument in the Liber in the Acts of Thomas, in which Bardaiṣan’s own words are ascribed to Thomas, and given Ephrem’s testimony that the Bardaiṣaites composed apocryphal Acts of Apostles—the genre of both the Doctrina Addai and the Acts of Thomas—one might wonder whether the Acts of Thomas originated at his school in Edessa, or in an Edessan milieu where Bardaiṣan’s thought was known. Indeed, I suspect that the first nucleus of the Abgar-Addai legend—subsequently taken up by Eusebius and further on developed into the Doctrina Addai—and the Acts of Thomas may be connected, more or less directly, with Bardaiṣan and his school in Edessa. To be sure, neither of these two “apocryphal acts” is “heretical,” but neither was Bardaiṣan a “heretic.” For I am demonstrating that, on the contrary, he fought against the two main heresies of his time, Gnosticism and Marcionism, as is attested by Eusebius, Didymus, Epiphanius, Jerome, the Vita Abercii, and Moses of Chorene. One further clue: if Bardaiṣan included the story of Abgar Ukkama in his historical work, it is easier to understand the reason why Sextus Julius Africanus, who probably knew it (and who knew Origen in turn), is the first Christian author who, well before Eusebius himself, mentioned Abgar Ukkama, in remarking that he was the homonymous of Abgar the Great.520 The parallel drawn by Africanus—who probably knew the Abgar legend and refers to Abgar toli in India and now briefly U. Possekel, “Expectations of the End in Early Syriac Christianity,” Hugoye 11.1 (2008), §§ 1–26, in part. 22–23. 520 Chron. fr. 53.2 ap. Eusebius Chron. 214 Helm: )Afrikano_j 1Abgaron fhsi\n i9ero_n a1ndra, tou~ prw&hn 0Abga&rou o(mw&numon, basileu&ein 0Ede/sshj kata_ tou&touj tou_j xro&nouj.

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Ukkama as though he had mentioned him earlier in his chronographical work—between Abgar the Great and Abgar Ukkama is the same as Bardaiṣan had probably drawn, exalting the latter in order to magnify the former. Moses’ information on Bardaiṣan is then repeated by other Armenian historians, such as Zenobius of Glag or Ukhtanes of Edessa (tenth century).521 Whereas these authors based themselves on Moses, the latter grounded his account concerning Abgar Ukkama and a whole section of his history not only on Eusebius, but also on Bardaiṣan’s historical work. Indeed, Moses of Chorene, like Eusebius, appears to be one of the most reliable sources concerning Bardaiṣan, also because he is one of the few authors who had a direct acquaintance with his work. Now, it is telling that Moses is an extremely positive source on Bardaiṣan, and presents him, not at all as a heretic, but rather as an apostle of Christianity.

21 Philoxenus of Mabbug, an Anonymous, Isho‘dad, and the Assimilation of Bardaiṣan to Valentinus or Mani Bardaiṣan’s culture, renown, and intelligence are mentioned by Philoxenus of Mabbug († 522 / 3)522: “You didn’t cite your famous teacher Bardaiṣan, who was illustrious before all for spirit and learning [4NLK twLd )rYP$ )MGtP yNwPBw )Xwr], as his disciples proclaim.”523 This, moreover, further attests that in the time of Philoxenus disciples of Bardaiṣan were still present and active. Philoxenus also speaks of Bardaiṣan’s ideas concerning the nature and birth of Christ,524 which further confirms that Bardaiṣan’s Cf. Langlois, Collection des historiens anciens et modernes de l’Arménie, I, Paris 1884, 335ff. and 343. 522 Synthesis in F. Rilliet, “Filosseno di Mabbug,” in Nuovo Dizionario Patristico e di Antichità Cristiane, dir. A. Di Berardino, I, Genoa 2006, coll. 1968–70. 523 See Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, London 1855, v–vi. 524 On Philoxenus’ Christological conceptions see M. A. Mattai, “The Suffering, Death, and Resurrection of Christ—A Philoxenian View,” Harp 4 (1991) 59–65. 521

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thought was definitely Christian, which sometimes has been questioned. Indeed, in the light of the fragments from De India and the cosmological traditions, plus some other fragments, I even suspect that it was a Christocentric thought.525 This point also offers a close analogy with Origen’s thought, which, as I have argued elsewhere, is definitely Christocentric, including his doctrine of apokatastasis, which strongly depends on Christ.526 Now, according to Philoxenus, Bardaiṣan maintained that Jesus Christ was born from the Virgin and from the Most High, which, per se, would not seem to differ from the orthodox view: “Who has admitted that the Baby who was born by the Virgin was begotten by the Most High [)tLwtK oM dLYt)d )Lw( )YL(d wh hdLYd] agrees with Bardaiṣan.”527 And: “This statement, too, that ‘The Child is more ancient than the world’ [wh )Lw( )ML( qYtOd )dh p) oYdM], it is not we who have drawn it from Bardaiṣan, but it was used by him in order to conceal his error.” Of course, this statement is clear if one reads it in reference to Jesus Christ, who, for Bardaiṣan as well, is the Logos that preexists all creatures. This would also explain perfectly well the interpretation according to which the Child is to be identified with the Ancient of Days in Dan 7:9. According to the cliché inaugurated by Ephrem, if Bardaiṣan says things that are fully coherent with orthodoxy, he is then charged with the accusation of entertaining the deceptive aim of hiding his heretical thought. Philoxenus also ascribes to Bardaiṣan (and to Valentinus: oYrM) n cYdrBw swNY+NLw) the idea that the body of Christ-Logos came from heaven (hL tX) )YM$ oM )rGP )tLM), and thus Mary’s maternity would be eliminated See I. Ramelli, Bardaiṣan as a Christian Philosopher: A Reassessment of His Christology. Lecture at the EASR / IAHR Conference, Messina 14–17 September 2009, forthcoming in the proceedings. 526 See my Gregorio di Nissa Sull’anima e la resurrezione, second Integrative Essay; eadem, “In Illud: Tunc et Ipse Filius… (1Cor 15,27–28): Gregory of Nyssa’s Exegesis,” and “Aiônios and Aiôn in Origen and Gregory of Nyssa,” also forthcoming in Studia Patristica. 527 Philoxenus of Mabbug, Dissertationes decem de Uno e Sancta Trinitate incorporato et passo, ed. M. Brière, Patrologia Orientalis 15.464. 525

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(htw$NrBtM twh mYrM oM wLw),528 even though this doctrine, which he ascribes to Bardaiṣan only to state that he was close to Valentinus, seems to contradict what he affirms in the above quoted passage, in which the Child is said to be generated by the Virgin and by God. Moreover, Mary’s maternity is never denied either in the Liber or in testimonies in Eusebius, Didymus, Jerome, Ephrem. This text confirms that the desire to assimilate Bardaiṣan and Valentinus determined the attribution of a docetic Christology to him; the same is confirmed, for example, by the anonymous author in the polemic with Julian of Halicarnassus:529 “If [Jesus] assumed an impassible body ()$w$X )L )rGP), then he does not belong to the category of those who are passible, but of those who are impassible [)$w*$X )Ld], according to the ungrounded theory of Bardaiṣan and Valentinus.” Now, as I shall point out when I analyze his text, Moses Bar Kepha attests that Bardaiṣan ascribed the purification of the world to the conception and birth of Jesus Christ, which contradicts a docetic Christology. Philoxenus’ (and the anonymous author’s) allegations seem to rather derive from the will to associate Bardaiṣan with Valentinianism. It is remarkable, in this connection, that the sources—both Greek and Syriac—which assimilate Bardaiṣan and Valentinus, depending on Hippolytus’ confused and scarcely reliable account, do not show any acquaintance with any other doctrine of Bardaiṣan. Similar distortions in Christology are ascribed to Bardaiṣan also by those who want to present him as a Manichaean and ascribe him Mani’s opinions, without even considering that Mani lived well after Bardaiṣan and even criticized Bardaiṣan’s ideas, as exposed in his Book of Mysteries or—as alternative translations—Book of Symbols or Book of Allegories. For example, Isho‘dad of Merw, toward the mid ninth century, commenting on Mark 8:38, ascribes Mani’s thought directly back to Bardaiṣan, without having any acquaintance with the writEd. F. Nau, The Christological Heresies according to Philoxenus of Mabbug, in Patrologia Orientalis 13.248. 529 Ed. R. Draguet, “Pièces de polémique antijulianiste,” Le Muséon 44 (1931) 267. 528

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ings of Bardaiṣan himself: “Mani and Bardaiṣan entertain the bizarre notion that, when Christ calls himself ‘the Son of the Human Being,’ he is that human being who existed before Adam’s creation. Since the latter, with his five children, was swallowed, the Lamb of Thought came to purify them.”530 Now, the idea of a primordial Human Being whose five children (ether, wind, light, water, and fire) constitute its “armor,” i.e., its body, with which it attacks darkness, is typical of Mani. According to him, this primordial Human Being is swallowed by darkness together with its children. This is why the Living Spirit came to rescue it from darkness and created the world, so that all the particles of light may return to their origin. This is a Manichaean myth, and Bardaiṣan has little to do with it. It is interesting, however, that the Living Spirit is replaced here by the “Lamb of Thought.” In fact, I suspect that )tY(rtd )rM), “Lamb of Thought,” should be emended into )tY(rtd )rM)M, “Word of Thought,” which is the designation of Christ-Logos in Bardaiṣan according to the first cosmological tradition, as I shall show, and exactly corresponds to the Greek Lo/goj. As for the Human Being (barnosho, in Greek a1nqrwpoj), who, more conceptually than chronologically, is anterior to Adam and Eve, this is part of an ancient exegetical tradition: the a1nqrwpoj that is above the gender division, in the image and likeness of God, was well present in Philo’s exegesis of Genesis, in Origen, in Gregory of Nyssa, and does not represent, per se, a Manichaean or heretic conception.531 Likewise, the notion of the correspondence between the first a1nqrwpoj and the new a1nqrwpoj is a Pauline doctrine that was taken over by Bardaiṣan, as I have argued on the grounds of the Porphyrian fragments from his De India. 530 Ed. M. D. Gibson, The Commentaries of Isho‘dad of Merv, II, Cambridge 1911, p. gKr: )XY$M )rQ )$N)d hrBd oYdB ncYdrBw yN)M )rBtNd mdQ )wh tY)d wh[ )$N)d hrBL h$PN )t) yhw*NB )$MXw wh (LBt)d l+M .md) .nwN) lLcNd )tY(rtd )rM) 531 See my Philosophical Allegoresis of Scripture.

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The assimilation of Bardaiṣan to other heretics will continue to reappear in sources which are of scarce or no value for the recovery of Bardaiṣan’s thought. For instance, in the Gannath Bussamê we find “those dirty deities, invented” by Mani, Marcion, and Bardaiṣan, “too despicable to be worthy of a mention.”532 These three heresiarchs are here assimilated under the label of pagan polytheism, which Ephrem indeed attributed to Bardaiṣan, but, as I have argued, with no reason.

22 Rabbula and Theodoret More than two centuries after Bardaiṣan’s death, his followers, who still existed and who partially seem to have embraced Manichaeism, in the fifth century were attacked by Rabbula of Edessa.533 This bishop actively promoted the replacement of the Gospel harmony of Tatian’s Diatessaron, probably used also by Bardaiṣan with the Peshitta.534 The Vetus Syra is not mentioned in the sources in this connection. Rabbula perhaps destroyed the place where the Bardaiṣanites met in Edessa (nwht$wNK tYB): “Bardaiṣan’s evil doctrine especially throve in Edessa, until it was fought and defeated by Rabbula. Beforehand, indeed, that cursed Bardaiṣan, with his cunningness and with the sweetness of his song, had attracted to himself all the nobles of the city, who relied on him as on a solid wall. For, that fool, who was deceived himself and who deceived his people, was convinced that he was able to strengthen his errors with the weak aid of reinforcements … That wise cultivator of the soil of human hearts [sc. Rabbula] did not only endeavor to eradi532 Cited in J. Bidé – F. Cumont, Les Mages hellénisés, II, Paris 1938, 115, and in Drijvers, Bardaisan, 198. 533 On Rabbula with wide-ranging bibliography see G. G. Blum, Rabbula von Edessa, Louvain 1969, CSCO 300; H. J. W. Drijvers, “The Man of God of Edessa, Bishop Rabbula and the Urban Poor,” JECS 4 (1996) 235–248; P. Bruns, “Bischof Rabbula von Edessa. Dichter und Theologe,” in Symposium Syriacum VII, Uppsala University, Department of Asian and African Languages, 11–14 August 1996, ed. R. Lavenant, Rome 1998, OCA 256. 534 See S. Brock, The Bible in the Syriac Tradition, Piscataway 20072, 34 and passim.

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cate from the ground this bad darnel, and to favor the development of grain, which was easy, but in his wisdom he also provided to transform the darnel into wheat, which is necessary. With his pacific and benign voice he destroyed the house of their congregation up to its very roots and brought all that was inside into his own church, and he even took the stones, in order to use them in the way they were useful to him. And he tried hard to persuade those people with gentleness and to subject them pacifically. And he brought them back to the stable truth of the Church of the Apostles, so that they could repudiate and anathematize their error. Then he baptized them in Christ and united them to his service.”535 The account of the demolition and the re-utilization of the building in which the Bardaiṣanites used to meet might even have originally had a metaphorical meaning. Indeed, the passage itself begins with a metaphor, that of the farmer and of wheat and darnel. Exactly the metaphor of the transformation of darnel into wheat is analogous to that of the transformation of the “house” of the Bardaiṣanites into a good material for the orthodox Church. In this case, both the darnel and the “house” of the Bardaiṣanites would represent the Bardaiṣanites themselves. The destruction of their house may originally have symbolized the destruction of this group of heretics, and the re-utilization of the materials and contents of that house may originally have meant that they were not abandoned or punished without a constructive goal, but they were received into the Church. Indeed, in the whole passage the idea of pacific persuasion, against constraint and violence, is particularly emphasized. Moreover, it is notable that the destruction of the place of the Bardaiṣanites is said to have taken place thanks to the “pacific and benign voice” of Rabbula, which obviously does not refer to the material destruction of a building, but to the bishop’s work of persuasion. Bardaiṣanites still existed at the beginning of the seventh century, and at least some of them were faithful to the doctrine of their founder, who supported human freedom against the doctrine of fate. I shall show that this is proved by Jacob of Edessa.

535

Bedjan, Acta Martyrum et Sanctorum, IV, 431–432.

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Rabbula’s campaign, with which he replaced the Diatessaron with the Peshitta, has an interesting parallel in that of his contemporary Theodoret, whose information on Bardaiṣan and Harmonius I have already analyzed. In his Haereticarum fabularum compendium 1.20–22, Theodoret interestingly treats Tatian and Bardaiṣan contiguously. Now, while dealing with the former, he mentions his own campaign for the abolition of the Diatessaron. This is his report in 1.20: “Tatian the Syrian, at first, was a rhetorician; then, however, he became a follower of St. Justin the martyr. But after his teacher’s death, he wanted to become the initiator of a heresy. He picked up here and there the principles of creation: from Valentinus the emanation of aeons, from Saturnilus and Marcion the aversion to marriage, and animals,536 and the communion under the species of wine. The so-called Hydroparastatai and the Encratites have him as their initiator.” Theodore offers a short presentation of these two groups, then he returns to Tatian: “He composed the Gospel called Diatessaron, ‘through four’: he eliminated all the genealogies and all other details that show that the Lord was generated according to the flesh from David’s lineage. And not only did the followers of his foolish heresy begin to use it, but also those who adhered to the apostolic doctrines did so, without realizing that this operation of synthesis of the Gospels was evil, but using the Diatessaron with excessive ease, as a compendious book. I too found out more than two hundred copies of this book, which were honored in our churches. I had all of them gathered and I banished them, and instead of the Diatessaron I introduced the Gospels of the four Evangelists.”537 536 I postulate a lacuna after th_n tw~n e0myu&xwn. I suspect that the noun “abstinence,” in the accusative, dropped. A pendant to sexual encratism was abstinence from eating animals. 537

Tatiano_j de\ o( Su&roj, sofisth_j e0gego&nei to_ prw~ton, e1peita de\ kai\ tou~ qespesi/ou 0Iousti/nou tou~ ma&rturoj e0ge/neto foithth&j. Meta_ de\ th_n tou~ didaska&lou telei/wsin, e0po&qhse gene/sqai prosta&thj ai9re/sewj. 0Hrani/sato de\ ta_j tou~ pla&smatoj a)forma/j, a)po_ me\n Balenti/nou, tw~n Ai0w&nwn ta_j probola/j, a)po_ de\ Satorni/lou kai\ Marki/wnoj, to_ to_n ga&mon bdelu&ttesqai, kai\ th_n tw~n e0myu&xwn , kai\ th_n tou~ oi1nou meta&lhyin. Tou~ton e1xousin a)rxhgo_n oi9 lego&menoi 9Udroparasta&tai kai\ 0Egkratitai/. ... Ou{toj kai\ to_ dia_ tessa&rwn kalou&menon sunte/qeiken

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Instead of the Gospel harmony, Tatian introduced the four separate Gospels. In the Syriac tradition, the name with which the Vetus-Syra translation of the Gospels was known was precisely “the Gospel of the Separated,” as a way of distinguishing it from the Diatessaron, in which the four Gospels were merged. It is also interesting that Theodoret characterizes the Diatessaron as eliminating all the details concerning Jesus’ fleshly lineage. This seems to reveal a tendency to docetism. If Bardaiṣan and his followers used the Diatessaron, this may have facilitated accusations of docetism against them. Moreover, Theodoret levels the usual charge of Valentinianism against both Tatian and Bardaiṣan, as is clear from 1.22, a chapter devoted to Bardaiṣan and his “son” Harmonius, of which I have already anticipated some bits. Ephrem is rightly said by Theodoret to have refuted both of them. Indeed, in analyzing Ephrem’s testimonies I have pointed out that many of his quotations come, not from Bardaiṣan himself, but from an unnamed “child” of his, and from other “children”—that is, followers—of his. Here is Theodoret’s account: “Chapter 22. On Bardaiṣan and Harmonius. Bardaiṣan the Syrian, from Edessa, flourished in the day of Emperor Marcus Verus.538 They say that he subtracted a great deal Eu)agge/lion, ta&j te genealogi/aj periko&yaj kai\ ta_ a1lla o3sa e0k spe/rmatoj Dabi\d kata_ sa&rka gegennhme/non to_n Ku&rion dei/knusin. 0Exrh&santo de\ tou&tw|, ou) mo&noi oi9 th~j e0kei/nou summori/aj, a)lla_ kai\ oi9 toi=j a)postolikoi=j e9po&menoi do&gmasi, th_n th~j sunqh&khj kakourgi/an ou) e0gnwko&tej, a)ll' a(plou&steron w(j sunto&mw| tw|~ bibli/w| xrhsa&menoi. Eu{ron de\ ka)gw_ plei/ouj h2 diakosi/aj bi/blouj toiau&taj e0n tai=j par' h(mi=n e0kklhsi/aij tetimhme/naj, kai\ pa&saj sunagagw_n a)peqe/mhn, kai\ ta_ tw~n tetta&rwn eu)aggelistw~n a)nteish&gagon Eu)agge/lia. 538 Theodoret places Bardaiṣan under the Roman emperor “Marcus Verus.” If this is to be identified with Marcus Aurelius, Theodoret anticipates Bardaiṣan’s floruit under this emperor, whereas he lived and was active until A.D. 222. But Theodoret may simply depend on a tradition in which, as I have already demonstrated in other cases, “Verus” is a corruption from “Severus” or “Varius,” and thus would indicate Severus Alexander or Elagabalus. Here, however, the association of “Marcus” with “Verus” would seem to designate precisely Marcus Aurelius. But of course this association may also result from confusion. Or else, Theodoret

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from Valentinus’ mythology. He also composed many works in Syriac, which were subsequently translated into Greek. I too came across some of his works: Against Fate, Against Marcion’s Heresy, and many others. They also say that Harmonius, who was his son, was educated in Athens in the Greek language. Harmonius, too, composed many works, using the Syriac language. The blessed Ephrem the Syrian nobly refuted the error of both of them.”539 Theodoret’s statement concerning the relationship between Bardaiṣan and Valentinus is based on a source of uncertain nature and value (fasi, “they say”), and moreover is rather ambiguous in its wording: “They say that he subtracted a great deal from Valentinus’ mythology.” This may mean either that Bardaiṣan eliminated, trimmed away, many elements of Valentinus’ mythology in building up his own system, and thus he did not use them, or else that he stole lots of ideas from Valentinus’ mythology, and therefore he used them. The verb periko/ptw means both of these things, but the sense is opposite. Now, Theodoret states that he read some of Bardaiṣan’s works, and the titles he cites are just of works in which Bardaiṣan refuted heretics and pagans: Against Marcion and Against Fate. It seems rather difficult to reconcile Bardaiṣan’s refutation of Marcionite, “Chaldean,” and Gnostic doctrines, which Theodoret moreover states to have read himself, with his adhesion to Valentinian Gnosticism. Valentinian predestinationism, as well as “Chaldaeism,” is decidedly refuted in Bardaiṣan’s dialogue Against Fate, which Theodoret read, and in which human free will and responsimay have found that Bardaiṣan was already active under Marcus Aurelius, which is not at all impossible, and erroneously located his floruit under this emperor. 539 KB. Peri\ Bardhsa&nou kai\ 9Armoni/ou. Bardhsa&nhj de\ o( Su&roj, e0c 0Ede/shj o(rmw&menoj, e0n toi=j Ou)h&rou Ma&rkou Kai/saroj h1kmase xro&noij. Tou~to&n fasi polla_ th~j Balenti/nou periko&yai muqologi/aj. Polla_ de\ kai\ th|~ Su&rwn sune/graye glw&tth|, kai\ tau~ta& tinej mete/frasan ei0j th_n 9Ella&da fwnh&n. 0Entetu&xhka de\ ka)gw_ lo&goij au)tou~, kai\ kata_ Ei9marme/nhj grafei=si, kai\ pro_j th_n Marki/wnoj ai3resin, kai\ a1lloij ou)k o)li/goij. Fasi\ de\ kai\ 9Armo&nion, tou&tou pai=da geno&menon, e0n 0Aqh&naij th_n 9Ellhnikh_n paideuqh~nai fwnh&n. Polla_ de\ kai\ ou{toj sune/graye, th|~ Su&rwn glw&tth| xrhsa&menoj. Th_n tw~n a)mfote/rwn de\ pla&nhn 0Efrai\m o( Su&roj o( paneu&fhmoj gennai/wj dih&legcen.

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bility are vigorously asserted against predestinationism. Consistently with this, the aforementioned sentence should mean “they say that he eliminated many elements of Valentinus’ mythology,” although it is uncertain whether this was actually meant by Theodoret. My hypothesis is further supported by Eusebius HE 4.30.1– 3, a passage which I have already analyzed: “At first he belonged to Valentinus’ heresy, but then he rejected it and refuted very many points in Valentinian mythology [plei=sta/ te th=j kata tou=ton muqopoii+/aj a)pele/gcaj], when he passed on to orthodoxy.” Theodoret was probably inspired by this sentence of Eusebius; if this is true, the meaning “he eliminated many elements of Valentinus’ mythology” is almost certain.

23 Appreciation of Bardaiṣan in a Local Source: the

Chronicon of Edessa

The anonymous Chronicon Edessenum (sixth century, but based on much more ancient documents), after extensively narrating a flood that occurred in Edessa under the reign of Abgar the Great, in the time of Bardaiṣan, basing itself on the written record of two scribes of Abgar which was kept in the royal archives,540 goes on to report much more concise chronographical information concerning Augustus’ reign, the birth of Christ, and Marcion’s heresy. At this point, it indicates the birth of Bardaiṣan under the eleventh day of Tammuz, a month corresponding to July, in the year 465 of the Greeks, i.e., of the Seleucid era. It corresponds to A.D. 154.541 Clearly, a local source had detailed information on the birth of this prominent character at the court of Abgar the Great: “On Tammuz 11 of the year 465 Bardaiṣan was born.”542 Now, it is remarkable that this Chronicon registers Bardaiṣan’s birth as that of an important intellectual figure in the Church and in Edessa, even his month and 540 The importance of this attestation for the presence of Christianity in Edessa in that epoch is analyzed by me in the last section of my Edessa e i Romani. 541 Chronica Minora I, ed. I. Guidi, Louvain 1955, CSCO Syri 1, p. 3.24–25; tr. Lat. CSCO Syri 2, Louvain 1955, p. 4.32–33. 542 zwMt )XrY)B 4MXw oYt$w ))M(Bd( tN$ .n cYdrB dLYt) hB rS(dXB

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day of birth are registered, with a precision that is granted to nobody else in this work, not even to emperors and bishops, except for very rare cases and for much later centuries. What strikes me is that this Chronicon presents, for instance, Marcion as a heretic and registers that “in the year 449 he apostatized from the Catholic Church” (p. 3 Guidi, section VI [V]), and likewise denounces the Arians as heretics in the time of Ephrem (p. 4 section XXXI), and other heretics afterwards, but it does not at all describe Bardaiṣan as a heretic. This means that the Chronicon, or its ancient local sources, considered Bardaiṣan to be an exceptional intellectual figure, and not at all a heretic. The same date for Bardaiṣan’s birth, here referred to as his “appearance,” is also given by the Chronicon ad A.D. 846 pertinens, 186 Brooks:543 “Then Tatian, the impostor, and Bardaiṣan the Syrian appeared. It was the year 465 of the Greeks.” Elias of Nisibis, in Opus Chronologicum, indicates the same day and month as the Chronicon Edessenum does for Bardaiṣan’s birth, Thammuz 11, but a different year: 445 “of the Greeks,” that is, A.D. 134. This difference can be explained away with the use of letter-numbers in the Syriac sources, where 6 and 4 (in est?rangela, s and m) are very similar, both in ṣerto and in the ancient square writing already used for Hebrew and Aramaic (s and m). Usually, scholars accept A.D. 154, although A.D. 134 would be still compatible with the date of Bardaiṣan’s death (A.D. 222), and would fit even better with Epiphanius’ and Theodoret’s accounts, which, as I have highlighted, place Bardaiṣan’s floruit under Marcus Aurelius. On the other hand, Epiphanius and Theodoret, in turn, seem to rely on Eusebius (Historia Ecclesiastica 4.30), who locates Bardaiṣan under the reign of Verus, with all the problems entailed by the identification of this Verus and by the fact that Eusebius does not specify whether Bardaiṣan flourished under Verus or was young or old at that time. While Bardaiṣan’s birth date provided by Elias is uncertain, another piece of information offered by him is really valuable (86–

543 Chronicon ad A.D. 846 pertinens, ed. E. W. Brooks, interpretatus est I. B. Chabot, Paris 1904, CSCO Syri 4.2. 186.

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88 Brooks):544 “Year 485 according to Eusebius’ chronology: in that year Bardaiṣan spread his heresy.” Elias here bases himself on Eusebius’ Chronicon.545 Indeed, placing Bardaiṣan’s “heresy” around the year 485, when Bardaiṣan was twenty, is in perfect accord with what Eusebius says about Bardaiṣan, that he was close to Valentinianism when young, but then rejected it. The same picture also emerges from another chronological work, the Chronicon miscellaneum ad annum Domini 724 pertinens (p. 149 Brooks), which also indicates that Bardaiṣan was close to Valentinianism when he was extremely young, about fifteen: “In the year 479 Bardaiṣan acquired a reputation; he spread Valentinus’ doctrine.” 546

24 The “Cosmological Traditions”: Importance and Methodological Guidelines. Barh?adbshabba ‘Arbaya, Plus Comparisons with (Ps.) Maruta and Jacob of Edessa I shall now analyze the so-called “cosmological traditions,” which are of high import for the reconstruction of Bardaiṣan’s thought. The first representative of these traditions is the Church historian Barh?adbshabba ‘Arbaya, one of the exponents of the School of Nisibis. He might be identifiable with the author of the so-called Cause of the Foundation of the Schools, Barh?adbshabba d-Halwan.547 At any rate, the question of this possible identification does not affect the present discussion. Eliae Metropolitae Nisibeni Opus Chronologicum, CSCO Syri 7, ed. E. W. Brooks, Paris 1909, pars I, 86 and 88. 545 On which see Grafton–Williams, Christianity and the Transformation of the Book, with my review in Adamantius 14 (2008) 637–641. 546 Chronicon Miscellaneum ad annum Domini 724 pertinens, ed. E. W. Brooks, Chronica Minora, CSCO Syri 4.2, Paris 1904, 149. 547 See I. Ramelli, “Linee introduttive a Barhadbeshabba di Halwan, Causa della fondazione delle scuole: filosofia e storia della filosofia greca e cristiana in Barhadbeshabba,” ‘Ilu 9 (2004) 127–181; eadem, “Barhadbeshabba di Halwan, Causa della fondazione delle scuole, con traduzione dal siriaco e note,” ‘Ilu 10 (2005) 127–170; Becker, Fear of God, with my review in Hugoye 10.2 (2007) 131–141. 544

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According to Drijvers’ classification548—which however Camplani deems somewhat oversimplified549—Barh?adbshabba represents the “first cosmological tradition” together with (Ps.) John of Dara (first half of the ninth century) and with Moses Bar Kepha (who died in A.D. 903 at ninety). I shall carefully examine all of their accounts. Theodore Bar Konai (of the late eighth century), who drew his information from a slightly different source, represents Drijver’s “second cosmological tradition.” The third cosmological tradition is represented by Arab authors, Agapius of Mabbug, Michael the Syrian, and Barhebraeus, plus a concise account of the Christian Arabic author Mu’taman ad-Dawla Abû Ish?âq al-‘Assâl. These testimonies are all rather late, but their value depends on the sources on which they are based. Since, however, these cosmological traditions are posterior to the birth of Manichaeism and it is possible that they have projected some of this thought, or of late Bardaiṣanite thought, back onto Bardaiṣan himself, it is essential to proceed with much caution and critically. A particularly helpful methodological tool will be a systematical comparison of these cosmological traditions with the Liber Legum Regionum, with the most valuable fragment from Bardaiṣan’s De India, and with Ephrem’s testimonies. Precisely this comparison, and the critical analysis of the sources, will allow me to distinguish parts of different value and sources within a single account, and to extract a doctrinal cosmological nucleus that is probably original with Bardaiṣan. Moreover, what will emerge from the study of these cosmological traditions and their comparison with the above-mentioned frag-

See Drijvers, Bardaiṣan, 96ff. A. Camplani, “Note bardesanitiche,” Miscellanea Marciana 13 (1997) 11–43, in part. 36: the relationships between Barh?adbshabba, Moses bar Kepha, John of Dara, and Theodore Bar Konai are much closer and more complex than Drijvers supposed, because Theodore shares much material with Barh?adbshabba, and the latter, in turn, has remarkable links with Moses and (Ps.) John of Dara. 548 549

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ments, is that Bardaiṣan read the Bible in the light of Plato’s Timaeus.550 Barh?adbshabba, the first of our “cosmological” sources, in his Church history often uses the historical works of Socrates and Theodoret, Nestorius’ works, and many other sources, often also unknown to us. Thanks to them, he can offer unique information, which is unrecoverable from any other source. Here he offers the following exposition of the Bardaiṣanites’ cosmology, of which I also offer a subdivision into paragraphs, which will render my subsequent analysis easier to follow:551 “The fifth heresy is that of the Daiṣanites. They speak of many beings [))Y*GS )YtY*)], and—I quote [mL]—the Lord and head of all them [nwhLKd )Brw )$r] has made itself knowable to no one. And they call the elements, too, ‘beings’ [oYNKM )YtY*) )SKw*+S)L p)w]. And they speak as follows: The world—I quote—originated from an accident [)wh )MG$ oM mL )ML(]. How? In the beginning—I quote—Light was in the East, and the Wind [)Xwr]—I quote— was opposite to it, in the West; the Fire was in the South, and the Water opposite to it, in the North. Their Lord was on high, and the enemy, that is, darkness, in the depths. And because of an accident—I quote—the ‘beings’ set themselves in motion [)YtY*) w(ztt) mL )MG$ oMw]. One of them—I quote—began to move and reached that which was beside it, and the power that each of them individually possessed was thus reduced. The heavy descended and the light ascended, and they mingled with one another. And then all of them were upset, began to flee, and sought refuge in the Most High’s mercy. Then a strong voice descended to the noise of that movement, that is, the Logos, the Word of Thought [)tLM )tY(rtd )rM)Mw]. It separated darkness from the pure beings, and the former was chased away and fell into its place down On the ways in which early Christian authors read Gen see now P. C. Bouteneff, Beginnings: ancient Christian readings of the biblical creation narratives, Grand Rapids, MI 2008. 551 Patrologia Orientalis 23 (1932) 191–192; then edition in Camplani, “Note bardesanitiche,” 25ff. 550

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there, below. And the Logos separated them and placed each of them, by itself, in its region, according to the Mystery of the Cross.552 And from their mixture it built up this world [)ML( )Nh]. And for it a period of time was fixed: the Logos established for it a limit within which it must remain. As for that which is not yet purified, it will come at the end of time and will purify it. And he also says as follows: The being that rushed against the one which was beside it was made incline and pulled away this one downward. The black darkness ascended to the heights and obscured the luminous beings. Besides this, the Bardaiṣanites deal with Fate, eliminate the human being’s free will, and deny the resurrection of the bodies. They dress all in white, in the conviction that whoever dresses in white belongs to the followers of the Good, and whoever dresses in black belongs to those of the Evil. Even though they do not repudiate the Scriptures, they admit many revelations [))Y*GS )Nw*YLG] in addition to them.” First of all, a remark on my translation “and they call the elements, too, ‘beings’” in the first paragraph. Camplani renders “agli elementi danno anche l’appellativo di ‘enti’”553 (“they give the appellative ‘beings,’ too, to the elements”). In fact, it is difficult to decide whether the right translation is “They called the elements, too, ‘beings’” or “They call the elements ‘beings,’ too,” that is, whether “too / also” refers to “elements” or, as Camplani takes it, to “beings.” I think that the former alternative is preferable, for two reasons, a linguistic and a doctrinal one. The first reason is that in the Syriac text p) (“also / too”) immediately precedes )SKw*+S)L (“the elements”); this indicates that p) modifies )SKw*+S) and not )YtY*) (“beings”). The second consideration is that, in several sources concerning Bardaiṣan and his followers, the noun )YtY*) is used to designate the elements themselves, the planets, the beings that preexisted the creation of this world and the realities in general, which in the Liber are also called “natures” ()NY*K), a term which therein signifies both the prinwhNM dXdX lKL nwN) mYQ) )BYLc z)rBw hrt)B 553 “Note bardesanitiche,” 26. 552

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mordial, preexistent entities and the other existing beings. Indeed, in the Liber God is described as “the Lord of all natures,” that is, of all the beings, of all that exists. In Barhebraeus, too, a source which I shall analyze, “beings” in the Bardaiṣanite sense means both the preexistent beings and the realities of this world.554 All this seems to point to the translation which I have proposed, “They called the elements, too, ‘beings,’” meaning that they called “beings” both the beings in general and also, more specifically, the elements. In the case of the primordial and preexisting elements, this is a technical designation, which not by chance occurs in the various cosmological sources. Let me now consider the whole of Barh?adbshabba’s account. Up to the words, “and it obscured the luminous beings,” it includes many indicators of textual quotations (mL), which I have rendered each time with the incidental expression, “—I quote—.” Now, the section that contains these quote marks, and moreover contains them very frequently, is also that which corresponds to Ephrem’s cosmological testimony, and moreover to other cosmological testimonies which I shall soon examine. These quote marks, on the other hand, are completely absent from the last section, in which, as I shall argue, a conception is even reported that is opposite to what is maintained in the Liber. This does not appear to be accidental, but strongly suggests that only the first section derives from a good source and implies a direct knowledge. What is more, between the section that includes the quote marks and the other which has none of them there is a short passage, which in my subdivision appears as a separate paragraph. Here, it is noteworthy that the reporting verb (“to say”) is not in the plural, which would refer to the Bardaiṣanites, but in the singular: “And he also says as follows: The being that rushed against the one which was beside it was made incline and pulled away this one downward. The black darkness ascended to the heights and obscured the luminous beings.” This is probably a quotation from a I anticipate here the relevant bit (for a full analysis see below): “He maintains that there are three main natures, spirit, force, and thought, and four beings: fire, water, light, and wind. From these, the beings and three hundred and sixty-six aeons originated.” 554

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text of Bardaiṣan, aimed at better clarifying the precedent cosmological account and to enrich it with a direct quotation.555 If this, as it seems, is a literal quotation from Bardaiṣan, it is highly valuable. It shows that, according to him, the primeval accident that involved the preexistent “beings” did not imply an active will on their part in it. It is true that the verb “rushed” would seem to entail that the first being mentioned by Bardaiṣan played a somewhat active role in this incident; however, the statement that it was compelled to incline or sway indicates that it was not an initiative of this “being” if it fell against the other one. This is consistent with the attribution of the initial incident to a chance, and not to any of the beings, nor even to darkness-evil, which, according to Bardaiṣan, is not an active and powerful being opposite to God, but is passive, weak, and has no initiative. Also, if Barh?adbshabba directly cites Bardaiṣan in this fragment that comes after his first account replete with quote indicators, this suggests that also the many quotations of this first account, all marked by mL, derive from Bardaiṣan himself rather than from late Bardaiṣanites. This suspicion is reinforced by the fact that the other parallel cosmological accounts, which depend on the same source as Barh?adbshabba does, cite Bardaiṣan himself. Now, in the initial section of Barh?adbshabba’s account, the definition of the Godhead as unknowable and unknown to its creatures is the same that is found in Ephrem, and which I have already pointed out. Barh?adbshabba confirms that such a description of God is due to a notion of the divinity that is close to Philo’s apophaticism, which, in the time of Bardaiṣan, was taken up and developed by Origen as well. The use of the term )YtY*}), “beings,” “entities,” perfectly corresponds to that testified to by Ephrem, who criticized this linguistic choice in Bardaiṣan, because in his view only God can be called “Being.” Ephrem’s testimony likewise corresponds to Barh?adbshabba’s account for the denomination “beings” ascribed to the elements, preexisting this world and then components of it, 555 See T. Jansma, “La notice de Barh?adbešabba ‘Arbaïa sur l’hérésie des Daisanites,” in Mémorial Mgr Gabriel Khoury-Sarkis, Louvain 1969, 91– 106.

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and for the notion that this world originated from an initial accident. The initial disposition of the four pure elements / “beings” is also similar in both accounts. An interesting parallel is also to be drawn with the Liber. Barh?adbshabba’s testimony in its initial section, which is grounded in good sources, refers to the reduction of the power of each single element in the mixture that originated after the initial accident. This is perfectly in line with Bardaiṣan’s discourse at the end of the Liber, that is, that God in the present arrangement of things, which is identifiable with the present world, has weakened the force of the “natures”—that is, of the “beings”—in order to avoid that they might either damage or be damaged completely. In Barḥadbshabba’s initial account, another notable element is the intervention of God’s Logos ()tLM), i.e., Christ, who creates the present world. This creation is essentially an ordering of the preexisting elements – and it is pivotal that this ordering is said to have taken place “according to the Mystery of the Cross,” which confirms that the Logos here is Christ. This, as I shall show, is further corroborated by Moses Bar Kepha’s testimony. This idea surely has roots also in the Johannine prologue, which ascribes to the Logos a core role in creation (e)n a)rxh=| h]n o( Lo/goj … Qeo\j h]n o( Lo/goj … pa/nta di’ au)tou= e)ge/neto, “In the beginning was the Logos … the Logos was God … everything was made by means of it”), and sheds light on Bardaiṣan as a Christian philosopher. Indeed, the other expression, )tY(rtd )rM)M, “Word of Thought,” is nothing but a literal translation of lo/goj into Syriac, in its double meaning of “word” and “reason” / “reasoning” / “thought.” If it goes back to Bardaiṣan, as it seems probable given its multiple attestation in the cosmological traditions, it reveals how this Christian philosopher “thought in Greek.” While I was treating Ephrem, I have already pointed out that this Syriac expression, meaning “Logos,” and the Logos’ involvement in creation closely correspond to what is found in the fragment quoted by Ephrem that speaks of the “Power of the primordial Logos [)tLM]” and its role in creation. In both cases it is Christ-Logos who is designated, and is said to have been active in the creation of this world.

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In Barḥadbshabba’s account, before the description of Christ as Logos and as the Word of Thought, Christ is even presented as “Voice,”556 which represents the pronounced and expressed aspect of the logos. Stoicism, with which Bardaiṣan was acquainted, called it lo/goj proforiko/j, as opposed to the intrinsic lo/goj e)ndia/qetoj (which is rather the “reason” / “reasoning” / “thought”). In turn, this conception had Platonic roots. In the Genesis creation narrative, it is the word pronounced by God in order to create: “Let the light be!” and so on. The “Mystery of the Cross” is present already at the beginning of creation, and will still operate at the end of this world. For, if Christ-Logos separates darkness / evil from the beings, the former partially remains in this world, which still needs purification, which will be perfectly accomplished at the end of time by Christ himself. This purification, completed at the end of time, fully corresponds to the apokatastasis described at the end of the Liber with the absolute eviction of evil. And it is notable that this purification and the final apokatastasis come from Christ-Logos, which constitutes a remarkable parallel with Origen’s conception. In line with the methodological indications I have put forward at the beginning of this section, I shall now compare Barḥadbshabba’s cosmological account with a passage from Ephrem’s Prose Refutations which I have already mentioned in my analysis of Ephrem, and which seems to refer to the same cosmology reported by Barḥadbshabba’s source. Ephrem, however, refutes Bardaiṣan’s cosmology without expounding it.557 In PR 2.214.24–46, he is objecting to the precise dynamics of the initial accident, and he calls Bardaiṣan’s preexistent beings “elements:” “And if something moved the Wind element [)Xwr] from behind and pushed it, as Bardaiṣan said, it would have pushed it toward the element that is diametrically opposed to it, that is, it would have projected it against the Light element. For it is the element in the East to be diametrically opposed to that in the West. Indeed, if what assaulted the Wind and pushed it toward the Fire had as556 This is the same translation that is found in Aphraates, as is rightly remarked by Camplani, “Rivisitando Bardesane,” 360. 557 Cf. Camplani, “Note bardesanitiche,” 28–29.

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saulted it from North-West, it would not have compelled it to descend to the depth, onto the darkness that was placed in the middle, in that it would have compelled the fire to turn southwards, and would have pushed it, and would have had it exit into the empty space.” Independently of the validity of Ephrem’s criticism, it is clear that Ephrem was familiar with an account of Bardaiṣan’s doctrine of creation that substantially corresponds to the one known to Barḥadbshabba. Barh?adbshabba’s description, which parallels the other cosmological accounts I shall take into consideration, also presents some similarities with the Poimandres included in the Corpus Hermeticum, which is strongly imbued with (Middle) Platonism as well. Here, too, a matter in disorder is assaulted by darkness and cries out for help to the supreme deity; the latter sends the Logos to separate the elements and to create this world, together with the Demiurge.558 There are, however, also several differences between the Poimandres narrative and the cosmological traditions concerning Bardaiṣan, first of all the presence of the Demiurge, who is presented as another child of the Nous, together with the Logos. Moreover, here Fate is not said to be submitted to God. Very differently, in Bardaiṣan the agent of the creation and the ordering of this world is Christ-Logos, and Fate is entirely depending on God and is the expression of the divine will and order. Again, Bardaiṣan is a Christian philosopher. Let me now pass to the last paragraph of Barh?adbshabba’s account, the one concerning the negation of human free will. This doctrine is in fact opposite to Bardaiṣan’s argument in the Liber and to his representation of human intellect as sovereign in his valuable and reliable fragment from De India. This arouses the suspicion that this final section does no more rely on a good source. Indeed, in 558 See my Corpus Hermeticum, ed. Nock-Festugière: translation, bibliography, and an updating essay including a translation from the Coptic and a commentary of the new Nag Hammadi Hermetica, Milan 2005, Il Pensiero Occidentale Series. The relationship between Bardaiṣan and Hermeticism has been studied by H. J. W. Drijvers, “Bardaiṣan of Edessa and the Hermetica. The Aramaic Philosopher and the Philosophy of His Time,” in Id., East of Antioch, number XI.

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this section all quotation signs disappear. Moreover, the doctrines and customs mentioned therein are expressly attributed by the author to the Bardaiṣanites, and not to Bardaiṣan himself. In the same way, the denial of the resurrection is ascribed to the Bardaiṣanites. If the reliability of this piece of information in respect to Bardaiṣan is equal to that of the precedent piece of information—Bardaiṣan’s denial of human free will—one can consider the former of very scarce value as well. Even though Bardaiṣan himself, just as Origen, is accused of denying the resurrection of the body in some sources, there is no direct confirmation that he actually did so and this remains uncertain, as I have already argued. On the contrary, there are several clues that suggest that he accepted the resurrection of the body to a pre-fall state, a fine and incorruptible body. The comparison with Origen is instructive: as I have shown, he too was repeatedly accused by his adversaries of denying the resurrection, but such an accusation is completely ungrounded. In the same section, another piece of information appears suspect: that concerning the white robe of the Bardaiṣanites as a sign of their belonging to the Good rather than dark garments, which are explained as evidence of one’s belonging to the evil. First of all it is to be noted that this behavior is again attributed to the followers of Bardaiṣan rather than to Bardaiṣan himself. Moreover, this bit is suspect for its Manichaean flavor, in that it posits Good and Evil on the same plane, as though they were equal and opposite to each other, and as though they were two divinities, each of them with its own followers, all the more so in that the Manichaean elect wore white garments.559 I have already argued that Bardaiṣan was very far from Manichaean dualism and did not regard evil as equal to the Good, but rather considered it as purely negative and passive. Barh?adbshabba’s closing remark concerning the sacred books of the Bardaiṣanites is notable. It seems to be in line with other Other late sources, as I shall show, assimilate Bardaiṣanites and Manichaeans, including some sources that are not embraced in Drijver’s treatment (cf. G. Vajda, “Le témoignage d’al-Maturidi sur la doctrine des Manichéens, des Daysanites et des Marcionites,” Arabica 13 [1966] 1–38, 113–128). 559

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sources from which, as I have pointed out, it emerges that Bardaiṣan, differently from the Marcionites and many Gnostics, considered the whole Scripture, both the Old and the New Testament—at least at the stage in which the Canon formation was found in his day, of course—to be revealed and authoritative, and that, at the same time, he also admitted of other (“apocryphal”) writings, just like his contemporary Clement of Alexandria, for example. I have already underscored this while discussing Epiphanius’ testimony. Here Barh?adbshabba also alludes to revelations that in his time were not included in the Biblical canon.560 I think that what proves that the last section of Barh?adbshabba’s account derives from a different source, much less valuable than his cosmological source, is a text ascribed to Maruta of Maipherkat (a Syriac author who was active around mid fourth century, was also a physician, and had many contacts with the Sassanian empire). This text is found in a heresiological catalogue attributed to Maruta, which is added to a history of the Nicea Council and a collection of its canons that is mostly spurious. Thus, Nau did not accept Maruta’s paternity.561 This issue, however, is irrelevant to the present investigation. It is very probable that this text ultimately derives from the same source as the last section of Barh?adbshabba’s account, in that Special sacred books of the Bardaiṣanites are also mentioned by Ephrem, Theodore Bar Konai, who simply mentiones “revelations,” anNadîm, who speaks of a book on light and darkness, a book on the mobile and the fixed, and a book on the spiritual nature of truth, which would fit very well with the allegorical exegesis of the Bible, and many other books; al-Bîrûnî (Chronologie orientalen Völker, ed. E. Sachau, Leipzig 1878, 23,9–10) states that the Marcionites and the Bardaiṣanites have a different Gospel from the canonical one. Mas‘udi, in Muruğ ad-dahab, ed. C. Barbier de Meynard, Paris 1861–77, VIII, 292–293, mentions that in the time of the caliph al-Mahdi (775–785) “works of Mani, Bardaiṣan, and Marcion” were transated into Arabic from Persian and Palhavi; in the same period, some Arabic authors wrote books in defense of Manicheans, Bardaiṣanites, and Marcionites. It is to be noticed that, once more, Bardaiṣan is assimilated to Marcion and Mani, according to the centuryold heresiological stereoptype. 561 Patrologia Orientatis 13.182 n. 1. 560

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it contains the very same pieces of information, all three of them, in the same identical order, in a heresiological context. This text, too, ascribes these doctrines and customs to the Bardaiṣanites, and makes it clear that at the origin of this information there is simply the intention to assimilate the Bardaiṣanites to the Marcionites and the Manichaeans. The assimilation between Bardaiṣanites and Marcionites is still present in some late authors, among which an Arabic source, Abu ‘Isa al-Warraq, which was not included by Drijvers in his investigation in the testimonia de Bardesane and was studied by Madelung.562 Ephrem too, in the fourth century, reveals the same methodological bias in the assimilation of Bardaiṣan to Marcion and Mani, which is repeated in later heresiological sources. This is the text ascribed to Maruta:563 “Heresy of the Daiṣanites [)Y*NcYdd sYSrh]. These believed in a good and in an evil God / principle [oYdwM )$YBw )B+]. They teach constellations of luck and destinies, like the Manichaeans. They proclaim the Seven [sc. planets] and the Twelve [sc. constellations of the Zodiac]; they deprive the Creator of the power of governing the world, deny the free will that the human being possesses, and eliminate the resurrection of the bodies [)r*GPd )tMYQ], like the Marcionites and the Manichaeans. And they wear white clothes, and wrap up in them, in that they maintain that those who wear white garb belong to the followers of the Good, whereas those who wear black garb belong to those of Evil.” Right from the first sentence it is evident that the intention to assimilate the Bardaiṣanites to the Manichaeans underlies this text. Indeed, the first sentence expounds a dualistic Manichaean doc-

562 W. Madelung, “Abu ‘Isa al-Warraq über die Bardesaniten, Marcioniten und Kantäer,” in Studien zur Geschichte und Kultur des vorderen Oriens. Festschrift B. Spuler, Leiden 1981, 210–224. 563 Ed. I. E. Rahmani, Documenta de antiquis haeresibus, Studia Syriaca IV, in Seminario Scharfensi in Monte Libano 1909, mQ - )Q; on the heresiological catalogue ascribed to Maruta see A. von Harnack, Der KetzerKatalog des Bischofs Maruta von Maipherkat, Leipzig 1899; new edition of Ps. Maruta in A. Vööbus, The Canons Ascribed to Maruta of Maipherqat and Related Sources, Louvain 1982, CSCO Syri 191–192, 24–26 (text) and 21–22 (translation).

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trine which is very far from that of Bardaiṣan, who did not conceive evil as equal to God, but rather assimilated it to nothingness. This whole text has very little value for the reconstruction of Bardaiṣan’s thought, but it is highly interesting for a comparison with the last section of Barh?adbshabba’s account, which, as is clear, is very similar to it, and likewise is unreliable for an investigation into Bardaiṣan’s thought. The accusation of depriving God the Creator of the government of the world is completely ungrounded in respect to Bardaiṣan, who in the Liber has everything depend upon God, including the power of the stars. It is really not an accident that, in reporting this information on the Bardaiṣanites, Barh?adbshabba does no more use the indicators of quotation that are instead frequent in the first section, the cosmological one. As for the negation of human freedom—as I have already observed in commenting on the same statement in Barh?adbshabba—this flatly contradicts the argument in the Liber (and in Eusebius’ excerpts Peri\ Ei(marme/nhj) and the fragment from De India, and contributes to discredit also the rest of the accusations found in this passage of (Ps.) Maruta. Not only is the denial of human free will plainly contradicted by the Liber, but also the negation of the Last Judgment, which in the Liber is repeatedly affirmed. The fact that these two pieces of information offered in Ps. Maruta’s account are ungrounded arouses the legitimate suspicion that the third charge—the negation of the resurrection—may be ungrounded as well. One should suppose either a transformation of Bardaiṣan’s thought on the part of some disciples or a mistake or misunderstanding in (Ps.) Maruta’s and Barh?adbshabba’s source. Likewise, Origen was repeatedly accused of maintaining doctrines that were supported only by much later Origenists. (Ps.) Maruta, indeed, seems to belong to the eighth or ninth century.564 For the usage of white clothes as well, which appears again in an Arabic author who depends on (Ps.) Maruta or on a common source,565 I have already

Cf. Nau, Patrologia Syriaca, 1.2.517. Abu‘l-Barakât, Le Livre de la Lampe des Ténèbres, texte arabe édité et traduit par L. Villecont, Patrologia Orientalis 20, 1929, 690ff. 564 565

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pointed out that this reveals a forced assimilation between the Bardaiṣanites and the Manichaeans. This confirms that Barh?adbshabba’s account must be divided into two (three) parts of very different value and reliability: the initial cosmological account, which is even enriched by a direct quotation from Bardaiṣan (we can count this as the second section), and whose value is very high, and the final section, in which worthless heresiological accounts prevail. Different pieces of information on Bardaiṣan of different value, according to the different degrees of reliability of the sources on which they depend, are offered by Jacob of Edessa (ca. 633– 708). In his Letter 12, which is addressed to a stylite, John, the heresiological cliché is transparent according to which Bardaiṣan passed from orthodoxy to heresy: “Bardaiṣan’s followers [oYLh n cYdrBd] are not a sect that derives from one of his predecessors, but they originate from him, from Bardaiṣan. When he was expelled from the community of the orthodox in Edessa, many followers of his impious doctrines remained with him and gave life to a heresy, a sect constituted exclusively by them and for themselves.” This picture is suspect first of all because it presupposes that in the day of Bardaiṣan there existed in Edessa an official orthodox church from which he was expelled. Moreover, this account does not fit very well with other information that Jacob himself had, and provides elsewhere, on Bardaiṣan, and that reveal an acquaintance with the Liber. Now, this is clear from a very interesting passage of Jacob’s Hexaëmeron. Here Jacob narrates that “an eloquent and learned man of the city of H?arran,” a supporter of astral determinism—precisely the doctrine against which Bardaiṣan argues in the Liber and in Eusebius’ excerpts from his Peri\ Ei(marme/nhj, “treated in depth the doctrine of Fate and the deterministic influence of the seven planets on all the things that exist in this world.” Now, Jacob interestingly says that a follower of Bardaiṣan opposed himself to this man and refuted him by means of the same arguments that Bardaiṣan already used against the Chaldeans. This follower of Bardaiṣan, bearing a Parthian name, was “Vologeses of Edessa, an eloquent

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man belonging to the school of Bardaiṣan; he discussed with him and argued against Fate, and aimed at its elimination on the basis of the phenomena that naturally occur on earth.”566 It is remarkable that a follower of Bardaiṣan is portrayed as a defender of the doctrine of free will against astral determinism, fully consistently with Bardaiṣan’s argument in the Liber and Peri\ Ei(marme/nhj. This further confirms that the hostile information transmitted by Barh?adbshabba and by (Ps.) Maruta, that Bardaiṣan denied human free will, is unfounded.

25 Theodore Bar Konai Another important representative of the cosmological traditions is Theodore Bar Konai (late eighth century – beginning of the ninth). In his Liber Scholiorum567 he offers both a biographical account on Bardaiṣan and a doxography, which also includes important information on his cosmology.568 Theodore’s doxographical information is probably valuable, in that he knows well the texts of heretics who lived in the Syriac area, such as Mani. Indeed, his information on Mani is fundamental for Manichaean studies, and it seems to be grounded in a text of Mani himself: “On the Daiṣanites. Concerning Bardaiṣan, there are some who affirm that his family came from Mabbug (Hierapolis), while others maintain that it originated from Arbela, in Adiabene. And there are others who said that he was the son of pagan priests. When his parents arrived at Urhai (Edessa), he was born near the river called Daiṣan. And once he grew up in Edessa, he was baptized and educated in the sacred books, and was ordained presbyter. From that position, he desired the episcopal seat [)twPQSP)], but he did not attain this. This is why he detached himself from the Church and embraced Valentinus’ herJacob of Edessa, Hexaëmeron, second Memra, ed. I. B. Chabot – A. Vaschalde, Paris 1928, CSCO Syri 56, 61–62. 567 Ed. H. Pognon, Inscriptions Mandaïtes des Coupes de Khouabir, Paris 1898, 123; A. Scher, Liber Scholiorum, Paris 1910–1912, CSCO 65–66: Syri 26, II, 307, ll. 24–26. Drijvers, Bardaisan, 99–103 takes into consideration the Tübingen manuscripts, Ms. Or. Quart. 871 and 1143. 568 A philological analysis is offered by Camplani, “Note bardesanitiche,” 13ff. 566

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esy [wNY+NLwd sYSrhL], and renewed all its abominations. And given that he wanted to become a heresiarch and to give his name to Valentinus’ doctrine, he subtracted from it and added to it some points of little importance. We shall report here some of his blasphemous opinions, in order to demonstrate the blindness of his spirit. He affirms that from eternity five “beings” exist in an essential form [)$MX mL( oM nwN) tY)YtY) )Y*tY)]; these were desert / still and wandering, and at last were set in motion by an accidental event. And the Wind blew vigorously and moved and rubbed and arrived at the being that was close to it. And the fire began to burn in matter,569 and a dark smoke arose, which was not a product of the fire, and the pure air was disturbed. And all the beings mixed with one another, and their internal dominion was struck. And they began to assault one another like ferocious beasts. Their Lord, then, sent the Word of Thought [)rM)M )tY(rtd] and ordered to the Wind to stay quiet and to have its blow return to itself. And the Spirit of Heights blew and with its violence chased confusion into its abysses. The Air cheered up / shone in its color, and there was peace and tranquility,570 and the Lord was praised for his wisdom, and thanks were raised for his grace. And for that mixture of beings that had left he made every creation, of superior and inferior realities, and behold, all the natures and creatures compete to purify themselves and to eliminate

Literally, “forest,” but see infra for the correspondence with the Greek u3lh, also meaning “matter.” In some Latin translations or commentaries, such as that of Macrobius to the Somnium Scipionis, there is the correspondent rendering silva, “forest, wood,” for the Greek term u3lh. See my “Macrobio allegorista neoplatonico e il tardo platonismo latino,” in Macrobio. Commento al Sogno di Scipione, ed. M. Neri, Milan 2007, Il Pensiero Occidentale Series, 5–163. 570 It is remarkable that this very same description at the end of the Liber legum Regionum is applied to the apokatastasis, whereas here—it is not known whether rightly or due to a misunderstanding—it refers to creation. In both cases, this situation of stability and peace is reached only thanks to God’s intervention. 569

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what has mixed to them, coming from the nature of evil [oYKB )$YB]. This is the impious doctrine that Bardaiṣan elaborated.” In the biographical section of this account, the assimilation of Bardaiṣan to Valentinus proposes again Epiphanius’ stereotype which seems to have originated in Rome in the time of Hippolytus (if Hippolytus’ Ardesianes really is our Bardaiṣan), as it is in Rome that Valentinianism was felt at that time as the most serious threat to orthodoxy. On the contrary, I have pointed out that ancient sources such as Africanus, Eusebius, the Vita Abercii, Didymus, Jerome in De viris illustribus, and Moses of Chorene either do not even believe that he had been a heretic at all, or say that he soon detached himself from Valentinianism and passed to orthodoxy and remained inside the Church, moreover as an ordained minister, until his death. The statement of some Greek sources, especially Didymus, that he was an ordained minister—a presbyter, according to Didymus, or a deacon according to others—finds a correspondence in Theodore as well. His source depicted Bardaiṣan as aspiring to the dignity of a bishop, but unsuccessfully. As I shall show, subsequent sources, such as Mas‘udi, maintain that he in fact succeeded in becoming the bishop of Edessa, but these sources do not seem to be very reliable, all the more so in that in Edessa in that time there was not yet a monarchic episcopate.571 The statement that Bardaiṣan “subtracted some elements from Valentinus’ doctrine” echoes Theodoret’s account on Bardaiṣan, which I have already discussed and which in turn seems to be related to a sentence of Eusebius, as I have shown. The doxographical section of Theodore’s account is close, but not identical, to three other cosmological accounts, those of Barh?adbshabba, Moses Bar Kepha, and (Ps.) John of Dara. On the other side, it also displays similarities with Michael the Syrian’s account, which I shall analyze soon. This is why Drijvers grouped the See also I. Ramelli, Il Chronicon di Arbela, critical essay, translation from the Syriac, commentary, and bibliography, Madrid, Universidad Complutense 2003, Anejos de ‘Ilu, Revista de Ciencias de las Religiones, 8; eadem, “Il Chronicon di Arbela: una messa a punto storiografica,” Aevum 80 (2006) 145–164. 571

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accounts of Barh?adbshabba, Moses Bar Kepha, and John of Dara under the label of “first cosmological tradition,”572 even if, as I have mentioned, it was subsequently observed that the relationships between these sources are more complex.573 In Theodore’s account, the preexistence of the beings that were set in motion by an accidental event is in line with the “first cosmological tradition” of Barh?adbshabba, Moses, and John, even though these report that the beings were initially located to the four cardinal points, and not that they were wandering around and were desert. It is probable that these last details, which are related only by Theodoret, are a reminiscence, and at the same time an exegesis, of the beginning of the book of Genesis (Gen 1:2: “the earth was shapeless and desert, darkness covered the abyss, and God’s spirit wandered over the waters”), as was suggested by Kruse.574 Moreover, I suspect that there may be an important reference to Plato’s Timaeus. This hypothesis is corroborated by the role played by this Platonic dialogue in Bardaiṣan’s cosmology, indicated by the fragment from De India preserved by Porphyry, as I have demonstrated in the examination of this fragment. In this light, I think that the preexistent wandering beings, i.e., the material elements, may be related to the material principle of the creation of the world, which Plato in Timaeus 48B describes as planwme/nh ai)ti/a, “wandering cause.” With this, he meant that matter moved without an aim—which can be established only by an intelligence—and in a disordered way, without tending to the Good; therefore, it needed the intervention of an agent to put it into order. In Plato, this is the good God the creator, i.e., the Demiurge; in Bardaiṣan this is Christ, the Logos of God. Indeed, the sum of all the original “beings” is called by Bardaiṣan, in Theodore, “matDrijvers, Bardaiṣan, 113ff. See Camplani, “Note bardesanitiche.” 574 Kruse, “Irrtümer,” 33. See also A. Guillaumont, “Genèse 1,1–2 selon les commentateurs syriaques,” in In Principio: Interprétations des premiers versets de la Genèse, Paris 1973, 115–132; S. Brock, “The Ruah Elōhīm of Gen 1:2 and its Reception History in the Syriac Tradition,” in Lectures et relectures de la Bible. Festschrift P.-M. Bogaert, ed. J.-M. Auwers and A. Wénin, Louvain 1999, 327–349. 572 573

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ter,” just as the material principle is called u3lh (“matter”) in Plato’s Timaeus. And both Bardaiṣan’s and Plato’s matter is “wandering.” This does not mean that I think that Bardaiṣan did not ground his account of the creation of this world in Scripture. I rather think that he read Scripture, and especially the Genesis narrative, in the light of Plato, in particular of his Timaeus. Precisely in the day of Bardaiṣan, this dialogue acquired again a particular importance, especially with Middle Platonism.575 Calcidius, later on, still interpreted it according to Middle-Platonic categories in his commentary,576 but already a few decades after Bardaiṣan’s death a pivotal commentary on it was offered by Porphyry, the same Neoplatonist who has preserved the valuable fragments from Bardaiṣan’s De India, quoted by him literally. It is striking that precisely in one of these fragments, as I have argued, Plato’s Timaeus proves to be a prominent interpretive key of Bardaiṣan’s cosmology. Indeed, the use of “forest” in Theodore’s account appears to be revealing. Theodore is the only one, among the representatives of the so-called cosmological traditions, who speaks of this “forest.” The Syriac here clearly corresponds to the Greek noun u3lh, which means both “forest” and “matter,” and corresponds to the sum of the )Y*tY) or “beings,” which in Bardaiṣan’s cosmology are the elements.577 I think that this is the exact parallel of Plato’s matter as described in his Timaeus; here, matter preexists the creation of this world and is eternal, but at the same time it is subordi575 On the Middle- and Neoplatonic Wirkungsgeschichte of Plato’s Timaeus, in which many elements of Stoicism are also included—just as in Bardaiṣan!—I refer to G. Reydams-Schils, Demiurge and Providence. Stoic and Platonist Readings of Plato’s Timaeus, Turnhout 1999. 576 See my Macrobio allegorista neoplatonico. 577 I agree with Beck (Bardaisan, 293–306) that this matter cannot possibly be identified with darkness-evil, as was hypothesized by some scholars such as H. H. Schaeder, “Bardesanes von Edessa in der Überlieferung der griechischen und der syrischen Kirche,” Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 51 (1952) 21–74 = in Eiusd. Studien zur orientalistischen Religionsgeschichte, Darmstadt 1968, and B. Ehlers Aland, “Bardesanes von Edessa. Ein syrische Gnostiker. Bemerkungen aus Anlaß des Buches von H. J. W. Drijvers, Bardaiṣan of Edessa,” Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 81 (1970) 334–351.

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nate to God, just as Bardaiṣan’s “beings.” In this connection, it is noteworthy that another Christian Middle-Platonic commentator of Plato’s Timaeus, the above-mentioned Calcidius, renders Plato’s u3lh in this dialogue with silva, which precisely means “forest.” This is the exact parallel of the Syriac rendering of Plato’s u3lh in Bardaiṣan, in the material preserved by Theodore. Not only is Theodore the only cosmological source to include the revealing detail of the “forest,” but he is also the only one who specifies that it was the Wind that began the disorder from which the present world arose. According to Bettiolo,578 the idea that a cause or casualty pushed the Wind / Spirit against the Fire may derive, again, from an exegesis of Gen 1:2, “God’s Spirit wandered over the waters,” in which “wandered” in the Septuagint is translated e)pefe/reto, which may mean both “wandered, moved” and “assaulted, moved against.” I would like to remark that Bardaiṣan, who also knew Greek, certainly could read the Septuagint, the main text for the Old Testament in Origen’s Hexapla. Bardaiṣan also knew the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. This is why he renders “God” in the plural, differently from the singular employed by both the Syriac Peshitta ()hL)) and the Greek Septuagint (Qeo/j). This is clear in Liber Legum Regionum 547 Nau, where Bardaiṣan is arguing that things such as natural elements and stars were made to serve the human being, who was created in the image and likeness of God: “But those things which are destined to service were put in the hands of the human being, because the latter was created in the image of God.” Now, Bardaiṣan is obviously referring to Gen 1:27 and from this text he keeps the plural form of the term ’Elohîm, which is present in the Hebrew Bible here, whereas the Old Testament Peshitta, perhaps of the second century, translates )hL) mLcB, in the singular. Bardaiṣan, like Origen in his Hexapla, goes back to the Hebrew text,579 but at the same time he also knows and uses the Septuagint and its exegeses. This section is Paolo Bettiolo, private suggestion offered to Camplani, “Rivisitando Bardesane,” 557. 579 For the meaning of this great philological enterprise see my Origen and the Stoic Allegorical Tradition: Continuity and Innovation, InvLuc 28 (2006) 195–226. 578

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also part of a crucial argument in the Liber: the fact that the human being was created directly by God and in the image of God explains, according to Bardaiṣan, the outstanding dignity of the human being vis-à-vis the other creatures. But the image of God in the human being, in Bardaiṣan’s view, fundamentally lies in free will, which pertains to the intellect. This, as I have argued, is also expressed by Bardaiṣan in his second De India fragment, where the human intellect is depicted as a sovereign—for the freedom and power of its will—and as a divine image, exactly because what is in the image of God in the human being is the intellect. This crucial doctrine, the so-called “theology of the image,” was very dear to Origen as well and was taken up by an author who was strongly influenced by Origen such as Gregory of Nyssa. All these Christian Platonists identified the image of God in the human being with the rational and intellectual soul, the seat of human free will.580 This confirms the unreliability of those late sources which, as I have showed, ascribe to Bardaiṣan the negation of human free will. Theodore is also the only source to speak of “black smoke” and of the combustion of matter operated by the Fire, thus perhaps revealing an echo of the Stoic doctrine of the preeminence of Fire. In this connection, it is very helpful to draw a comparison between the information that is peculiar to Theodore and two passages of Ephrem’s Prose Refutations that I have already mentioned in my analysis of Ephrem’s testimonies, but that here I shall cite in their completeness. For, Ephrem demonstrates that he knows exactly the same information, when he alludes to these doctrines in order to refute them. This seems to confirm that Theodore is actually reporting Bardaiṣan’s doctrine. Here are Ephrem’s attestations and refutations: “Indeed, Bardaiṣan had already said: ‘there occurred a cause, for an incident [)tL( tw]h wh dK oM )$dGB], and the Wind struck the Fire [tYr+t)w )rwNB )Xwr]’” (Prose Refutations 1.69.40–44). And likewise: 580 See my Gregorio di Nissa: Sull’anima e la resurrezione, introductory essay and second integrative essay; D. Iozzia, Filosofia emendata. Elementi connessi col Neoplatonismo nell'esegesi esamerale di Gregorio di Nissa, Acireale – Roma 2006, with my review in RFN 99,3 (2007) 549–554.

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“For, if the Wind struck the Fire that was beneath it [rYG n) hNM tXtLd )rwNL )Xwr t$QN], and pushed it downwards, toward darkness [)Kw$X twL tXtL h[tNKr)w], the fire could not have reached them, because the big element of Water was found between it and darkness. Therefore, the element that functioned as an extinguisher and that was placed between them would not have allowed this one [sc. Fire], which arouses darkness, to move against them, and their smoke to spread so as to reach the contiguous element” (Prose Refutations 2.225.3ff.). Theodore’s account also attaches a special importance to the intervention of Christ-Logos, the Word of Thought, in the initial accident and in the creation of the world. Here, differently from the three accounts of the so-called first cosmological tradition, Christ-Logos’ action is exercised first of all on the Wind, the first “being” that set itself in motion, so to calm it down. Then, ChristLogos has another Wind blow; this one comes from on high, that is, from God’s place, and it is called )Xwr (wind / spirit), just like the Wind that constitutes one of the preexistent elements or “beings.” But this Wind / Spirit from on high seems to be different from the element; I believe that it is God’s Spirit, which in Gen 1:2 is presented as involved in the creation of this world. And I have already indicated that this Genesis verse very probably underlies Bardaiṣan’s doctrine of creation. Now, this divine Spirit / Wind eliminates confusion and has it fall into the abyss, which is the destiny of darkness / evil in the three accounts of the “first cosmological tradition.” Indeed, confusion can probably be identified with darkness / evil itself, as it is opposed to order and the Good. The peace and quietness that are brought about by the intervention of the Logos, thanks to divine Grace, are analogous to those which will characterize the apokatastasis at the end of the world, again thanks to divine Grace, as is stated in the conclusion of the Liber. The apokatastasis will see the definitive elimination of evil from the whole world, in the end; this described by Theodore, instead, is the first elimination of evil at the beginning of this world, right at its creation, and is the separation of evil—or at least of most of it—from the pure “beings” or elements, which precisely allows for the creation of this world, which would have been impossible in the precedent state of “confusion.” Creation takes place thanks to the combined intervention of both the Logos and the

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Spirit (rūh?ā). This, in itself, bears remarkable similarities with Clement of Alexandria’s conception of creation.581 The presence of both these divine agents of creation, or these two aspects of the Logos, masculine and feminine (rūh?ā is feminine, so that, as is well known, the Holy Spirit is often regarded as a female entity in the Syriac tradition), is probably related with the presentation of the cosmic Christ as both masculine and feminine in the second fragment from Bardaiṣan’s De India, in that it subsumes the whole of humanity in itself and at the same time also the whole cosmos, and the totality of the opposites. This wholeness is already typical of the agent of creation, the Logos and the Spirit. Indeed, the human crucified model presented by Bardaiṣan in the Porphyrian fragment, the cosmic Christ, is described—in line with the Timaeus—as the paradigmatical cause of the creation of the cosmos: “They say it was God who gave this statue to his Child, while the latter was founding the cosmos, that he might have a contemplable model.” Therefore, the cosmic Christ, as the paradigm of the cosmos, has exactly the same function as Plato’s Ideas in his Timaeus. Thus, in Bardaiṣan’s cosmogony, Christ-Logos certainly corresponds to Plato’s Demiurge in his activity of creation / ordering, but at the same time also corresponds to the noetic world itself, and with the seat of the noetic world, that is, of the Ideas, in that it is the Logos. The Middle-Platonic conception underlying this set of notions is clear. Christ-Logos is both the agent of creation and the model of the cosmos, which indeed was created “according to the Mystery of the Cross,” as is attested by Barh?adbshabba and Moses Bar Kepha. Since the Logos is Christ, it is possible to explain both the cross in Bardaiṣan’s representation in De India and the incorruptibility of the statue: for the body of Christ is both the cosmos (Christ as the cosmic Christ, who created and governs the cosmos in the Mystery of the Cross) and the whole of humanity (Christ as the new Adam, subsuming the whole of humanity). See my “Clement’s Notion Of The Logos ‘All Things As One.’ Its Alexandrian Background in Philo and its Developments in Origen and Nyssen,” in Alexandrian Personae: Scholarly Culture and Religious Traditions in Ancient Alexandria (1st ct. BCE–4ct. CE), eds. Z. Plese – R. Hirsch-Luipold, forthcoming in Tübingen. 581

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According to Bardaiṣan in Theodore’s account, the present world is characterized, just as in the three accounts of the first cosmological tradition, by a mixture of the preexisting beings and of darkness / evil. The latter is not characterized as one of the “beings” in Theodore’s account, as in the so-called “third cosmological tradition,” which I shall analyze, in that evil, far from being an entity, is rather assimilated to nothingness. Hence the necessity of purifying themselves from evil for all the creatures of this world. Differently from the three representatives of the “first cosmological tradition” (Barh?adbshabba, Moses, and Ps. John of Dara), Theodore does not report that this purification will be completely realized at the end of this world, with the coming of peace, perhaps because he has already described this situation of peace after narrating how the Logos intervened to separate darkness from the pure beings. Then there was peace and quiet, and praise and thanksgiving to the Lord for his grace and Wisdom manifested through the Logos. It is not to be altogether ruled out that this situation is to be related to the apokatastasis proper, when the Logos’ ordering activity will find its fulfillment and the peace will be perfect, as is described at the end of the Liber: “There will be peace and tranquility, as a grace of the Lord of all natures.” In addition to his valuable cosmological account, Theodore also offers less interesting information on Bardaiṣan, drawing from Epiphanius’ Anacephalaeosis (PG 42.857). Here Theodore presents Bardaiṣan as a Valentinian, according to the usual heresiological stereotype: “On Valentinus. Bardaiṣan was instructed in the doctrine of Valentinus [dYMLtt) hNPLMYL swNY+NLw ocYdrB], for they rejected the resurrection of the bodies [)r*GPd )tMYQ oYd oYLSM], robbed the Law and the Prophets [)Y*BNLw )SwMNL oYML+], availing themselves of words drawn here and there from the sacred books, with which to buttress their discourses, they invented revelations full of different phantasies, and affirmed that there are three hundred aeons, both masculine and feminine, born from the Father of the Universe, and they called them also ‘gods.’ Indeed, they maintained, concerning the body of Christ [)XY$Md )rGP], that it came from heaven [wh )YM$ oM] and that it passed through Mary as though she had been an empty stick [)NwLYSBd kY) mYrMB dB(].” It is evident that the doctrine described here is Gnostic, and that this doctrine is simply attributed to Bardaiṣan as

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well, according to the cliché inaugurated by Hippolytus, whose unreliability I have already demonstrated. Indeed, the chapter itself is devoted to Valentinus. It is interesting, however, to notice that it is acknowledged that Bardaiṣan based his arguments on the sacred Scripture, including the Old Testament, which is a confirmation of his anti-Marcionite position.

26 Theodore Abû Qurra In the same historical period, Theodore Abû Qurra reports a cosmological tradition concerning Bardaiṣan which is close to the socalled first and second cosmological traditions, but which presents some divergences from both of them and should be considered separately. Theodore (ca. 740–820), who came from Edessa, was subsequently bishop of H?arrân and seems to have been the first Christian author who wrote in Arabic.582 In his Tract on the Creator and on True Faith,583 he reports a cosmology that he expressly ascribes, not to the Bardaiṣanites, but to Bardaiṣan himself: five deities exist from eternity, one of which is endowed with reason (‘aqlî), while four are not. These four are: Fire, Air, Water, and Earth. The one endowed with reason submitted the four, and the result was the formation of the present world and its creatures. For, the entity endowed with reason (‘âqil), on the basis of the four beings, formed “the natures of the world” through its wisdom. The “five deities” are clearly God, i.e., the one endowed with reason, plus the four )YtY*) (“beings”) not endowed with reason, which, according to Bardaiṣan, are not at all deities or comparable to God, but which Ephrem considered in this way because of his conviction that the name “being” necessarily indicated God. The names of the four original elements in Theodore’s account are G. Graf, “Die arabischen Schriften des Theodor Abû Qurra Bischofs von H?arrân,” Forschungen zur Christlichen Literatur und Dogmengeschichte 10.3–4, Paderborn 1910, 5–24. 583 Ed. L. Cheickho, “Mîmra von Theodor Abû Qurra, Bischof von Harrân am Ende des 9. und Anfang des 10. Jahrhunderts über die Existenz des Schöpfers und die wahre Religion,” Al-Mašriq 15 (1912) 757–774; idem, “Traité inédit de Théodore Abou Qurra (Abucara) évêque Melchite de Harran sur l’existence de Dieu et la vraie religion,” Beyrouth 1912. 582

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slightly different from that reported by the other cosmological traditions; they correspond more closely to the standard Greek series of the elements. On the other hand, the Air appears among Bardaiṣan’s preexistent beings in Theodore Bar Konai’s account as well, whose “matter” may have a parallel in the “earth” mentioned by Theodore Abû Qurra. The formation of the present world from the preexistent beings is ascribed, here too, to the work of God, by means of the action of the Logos, which here seems to assume the name of Wisdom. Indeed, in the Liber as well, the main agent of creation is precisely divine Wisdom; according to Origen, the two main e)pi/noiai of Christ are precisely Logos and Wisdom (Lo/goj, Sofi/a).584 They are partially interchangeable also for his contemporary Bardaiṣan. It is also notable that Theodore does not mention darkness among the beings, and indeed darkness / evil is not a being, according to Bardaiṣan, but it is close to non-being.

27 Moses Bar Kepha Moses Bar Kepha (813ca–903) is another representative of the socalled first cosmological tradition. He wrote a Church history, many commentaries, and books against heretics, on human free will, on predestination, on the soul, etc. In a text whose first edition was offered by F. Nau in Patrologia Syriaca 1.2.513–514 on the basis of Syr. Ms. Paris 241, fol. 17v,585 Moses expounds Bardaiṣan’s cosmology and then refutes it. In his refutation Moses shows that he did not understand very well Bardaiṣan’s thought, but in his exposition he offers a valuable testimony, which goes back to good sources: “Chapter 14. Against those who maintain that this world was constituted from the mixture of the five elements. Bardaiṣan thought as follows concerning this world, and has told that it came into existence and was constituted on the basis of five beings [)Y*tY) )$MX], that is, Fire, Wind, Water, Light, and darkness. Each of See my “La triade ousia – energeia – dynamis in Gregorio di Nissa: paralleli filosofici e ascendenze origeniane,” in Ousia – dynamis – energheia. La triade ontologica neoplatonica e la sua fortuna, prefaced by G. D’Onofrio, forthcoming in Salerno, Schola Salernitana Series. 585 Critical edition now in Camplani, “Note bardesanitiche,” 18ff. 584

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them was located in its own place: the Light to the East, the Wind to the West, the Fire to the South, and the Water to the North. Their Lord was in the heights and their enemy—that is, darkness— in the abyss. But at a certain moment—I quote—[oM dXB mL )whw oY*NBz], either for chance or for an event [)M$wG oM n) )$dG oM n)w], they crashed into one another / assaulted one another [dXB dX )ddX*B wNX+t)w]. And darkness had the impetus to ascend, in order to mix with those and among those; then, those pure beings began to be disturbed and to flee before darkness. And they sought refuge in the Most High’s mercy, that he might liberate them from the sinister color that had mixed with them, that is, from darkness. Then—I quote—when this tumult resounded, the Word of Thought [htY(rtd )rM)M, sc. the Logos] of the Most High, who is Christ [)XY$M yhwtY)d )YL(d], descended, and separated that darkness from the pure beings, and it [sc. darkness] was expelled and fell into the abyss, which becomes their nature. He gave each being its own region, in order, according to the Mystery of the Cross [)BYLcd )z)rB].586 And from the mixture of these beings and their enemy, darkness, he constituted this world, and established it in the middle, lest another mixture occurred between them and what had already been mixed,587 while it was purified and purged by a unique conception and birth

I render with “mystery” the Syriac )z)r, which, as it results from the Thesaurus Syriacus by R. Payne Smith, or from the Lexicon Syriacum by Brockelmann, means “mystery, secret, mystical meaning, symbol, sign; sacrament.” Camplani, “Note bardesanitiche,” 20 renders “al modo di una croce.” The choice of )z)r, however, which means “mystery / symbol / sacrament” and not “way / manner / modality,” clearly indicates that the reference is to the Cross of Christ (“cross,” with the nota genetivi d, is in the emphatic state, and nothing indicates that it should be translated with an indeterminative article). This mystery is a Christian mystery: the Mystery of the Cross, already hidden in creation itself; for Christ is also the author of this ordinament which is described. 587 Or: “and that which subsists is mixed.” 586

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[)dLYw )N+K dXB lL+cMw )KdtM dK],588 until it will be concluded [mL$d )Md(].”589 The cosmology reported by Moses is directly ascribed to Bardaiṣan and there are also some indicators of quotation (mL). It corresponds rather closely to the first section of Barh?adbshabba’s account, in which I have already underscored the presence of numerous quote indicators as well. While there is no correspondence with Barh?adbshabba’s last section, that from which all quote indicators are absent, Moses Bar Kepha’s account coincides with Barh?adbshabba’s first section and seems to derive from a common source. I do not think that it directly derives from Barh?adbshabba’s piece, because it does not reproduce it entirely, but only in its first part, and because it counts five beings, which Barh?adbshabba does not do. Anyway, the source from which Moses and Barh?adbshabba—in his first section—derive seems to be reliable and of good quality. Moses’ cosmological account, from the initial disposition of the “beings” to the initial incident, perfectly corresponds to that of Barh?adbshabba, apart from two details. The first is that Moses adds an alternative to the “incident” or “chance” mentioned by Barh?adbshabba: that is, that this fact was an event destined to take place. The second different detail is the following: while Barh?adbshabba reports that it was a being (element) that began to move and to approach the next being, Moses affirms that, when the elements confusedly mixed with one another, then darkness, too, arrived from the depths and mixed with them. This is perfectly in line with Bardaiṣan’s thought on darkness-evil as pure negativity and passive: evil has no initiative or activity of its own, but it interThe reading of the manuscript, dXB, “in / with one (and only one),” “in / with a unique,” which some critics have proposed to emend, in fact fits perfectly in the syntax and meaning of the immediate context, and probably refers to a precise birth, that of Jesus Christ. 589 Perhaps also (albeit less probably): “until peace.” The first alternative regards mL$ in mL$d )Md( as a verb, even though the expression is brachilogic and there is no trace of a subject; the second takes mL$ as a noun, even though one better ought to suppose )Md( mL$L (or )ML$L )Md(). 588

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venes only when the beings have begun to arise confusion, destroying the divinely established harmony. The preexistent beings and their disposition are identical to those of Barh?adbshabba’s account, and I shall show them again in parallel cosmological sources: the Light to the East, the Wind to the West, the Fire to the South, the Water to the North; their Lord on high and their enemy, darkness / evil, in the abyss. They can derive from the exegesis of Gen 2–4: “Darkness covered the abyss, and the spirit / wind of God wandered over the waters. God said: ‘Let light be … he separated light from darkness … God said: ‘Let the firmament be!’”590 where “firmament” may well correspond to the fire, as it did in Stoic cosmology. Indeed, the firmament seems to be related to a place of the Bardaiṣanites’ cosmology called “entirely lit up by flames” (Ephrem, Prose Refutations 1.27.32–38). In Moses’ account, just like in that of Barh?adbshabba, the role of Christ-Logos in the creation of the world is conspicuous. It involves the separation of darkness from the pure beings and the ordering of the beings themselves on the basis of the Mystery of the Cross, whose cosmic value is also found in Barh?adbshabba’s parallel and in the second fragment from De India, as I have demonstrated. Moreover, the very expression “Mystery of the Cross” is in agreement with the title Book of Mysteries of an aforementioned lost work of Bardaiṣan, in which symbolism and allegory probably played an important role. Correspondences between Bardaiṣan’s account of creation and Origen are also of the highest interest. Origen, and partially already Justin and Clement, both under the influence of the Johannine Prologue and on that of Middle Platonism and Stoicism, particularly emphasized the characterization of Christ as Logos. In Bardaiṣan’s doctrine of creation, it is precisely Christ-Logos that is involved in creation, and not only in this, but also in the preservation and the purification of this world. It is also interesting that in Bardaiṣan’s account of the creation of this world the negative element of darkness / evil is present since the very beginning and par590 An alternative explanation for the fire is proposed by Camplani, “Rivisitando Bardesane,” 559: the fire could derive from the concepts of pneuma understood in the light of Stoicism, as a fiery gust.

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tially explains why this world was created. Likewise, Origen presented the creation of this world—even though certainly drawing on the Biblical vocabulary—as a katabolh/, a “fall, a casting down.” Moreover, as I have mentioned while analyzing Ephrem’s testimonies, Bardaiṣan’s concept of the preexistence of the “beings”—which are, at any rate, creatures of God and depend on God—to the present world and of their initial “accident” that determined the creation of the material world is perfectly parallel to Origen’s notion, with the preexistence of the no/ej or logika/ to the present world, the conception of the no/ej as creatures of God, depending on God and existing in Christ-Logos-Sophia (the seat of the Ideas that are thoughts of God in Middle-Platonism), and their initial accident, which determined the katabolh/ of this world. Indeed, Bardaiṣan’s protology, just as his eschatology characterized by the apokatastasis, shows impressive similarities with those of Origen. The latter was a younger contemporary of Bardaiṣan; he too polemicized against Marcionism and Valentinian Gnosticism, and supported human free will. These affinities between Bardaiṣan and Origen, who may have known each other—perhaps through Julius Africanus, or through Clement who might have had Bardaiṣan as a teacher,591 or through some other channel—have been so far overlooked by scholarship, whereas I think that they are important and are worthy of investigation.592 This would also explain the reason why, among many sources on Bardaiṣan, all those which are philo-Origenian (Africanus, Eusebius, Didymus, the early Jerome, etc.) are also those which are best disposed toward Bardaiṣan. Moses’ account, just as that of Barh?adbshabba, includes the necessity of the purification of this world from the remnants of evil that are left in it. Now, such a purification, in Barh?adbshabba’s version, will be accomplished by Christ himself at the end of time. See my “Origen, Patristic Philosophy, and Christian Platonism: Re-Thinking the Christianization of Hellenism,” Vigiliae Christianae 63 (2009) 217–263. 592 See my “Origen, Bardaiṣan, and the Origin of Universal Salvation,” Harvard Theological Review 102.2 (2009) 135–168. 591

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Likewise, in Moses’ account the world, in which a certain quantity of evil remains, is purified thanks to “a unique conception and birth, till its conclusion (or: till peace).” Also in the light of Barh?adbshabba’s parallel, I think that the conception and birth to which Bardaiṣan refers according to Moses are those of Jesus Christ. The purification is operated essentially by Christ, and will be completed with the apokatastasis, which will coincide with the total eviction of evil, here described as taking place at the end of the world and perhaps as “peace.” This is exactly the way in which the apokatastasis is described at the end of the Liber, where, moreover, it is presented as a gift or grace of God, just as in Moses’ account: “And when that new world is constituted, all evil movements will cease … and there will be safety and peace, as a gift / grace of the Lord of all natures.”593 Theodore Bar Konai’s parallel text also presents peace as the final result of the Logos’ ordering intervention, and reports that for this reason all creatures thanked the Logos: this peace and unanimous thanksgiving after the ordering realized by the Logos at the beginning of this world seem to be an anticipation of those which will take place at the end of this world, in the apokatastasis. Moreover, the Syriac words )N+K (bat?nâ) and )dLY (yaldâ), here used to indicate “conception” and “birth,” exactly correspond to the verbs bet?nat w-îladteh, which are employed to indicate the conception and birth of the “Son of Life” according to the Bardaiṣanites in Ephrem’s Hymn 55.1 Contra Haereses: “And the Mother conceived … and bore it, and was called Son of Life.”594 To the conception and the birth of Christ, called by the Bardaiṣanites Son of Life, Bardaiṣan ascribed the purification of the world. This very fact, moreover, seems to me to contrast the accusation of docetism sometimes leveled against him on the basis of his forced assimilation with the “Gnostics.”

These remarks concerning the parallel with Barh?adbshabba and eschatology strengthen the suggestion by Kruse, “Irrtümer,” 36. 594 This was rightly observed by Camplani, “Rivisitando Bardesane,” 546. 593

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I also report Moses’ objections to Bardaiṣan’s cosmology, which, at least in part, seem to be inspired by Ephrem’s analogous polemic in his Prose Refutations: “We respond to him with many arguments. First: On what do you base your point, to demonstrate that the things are just as you say? On nature or on a book of the Old or the New Testament? Second: Moses, the Prophets, Christ,595 and the Apostles have not spoken in the way you speak, but Christ will come at the end of the world and will renew the creation that was created by God in six days, and will save Adam, who sinned and fell.596 Third: We shall thus say that, either God knew this mixture of the beings with evil—from which all evils come—in advance, or God did not know it in advance. Now, if he did know it in advance,597 why did God not create the world on the basis of pure entities, before evil got mixed to it?598 If God knew in advance that darkness would mix with the pure beings, and yet could not prevent this, then this means that God had a weak substance and is unable to purify the pure beings from darkness, in that God could not prevent at the beginning the union of darkness with these beings. Or else, God did not know this in advance, and therefore he turns out to be insipient and ignorant. Fourth: We shall argue also in reference to these beings. Is it by their own will that they wished to mix with one another, or because they were forced by others to do so? Now, if it was by their own will, why did they seek refuge in the Most High’s mercy, that he could free them from darkness? On the other hand, if it is because they were forced by others, I affirm that the beings are not liable to violence, and if it happened by chance, I assert that they 595 Reading supplied by ms. Mingana syr. 65, which is rightly taken into account by Camplani, “Note Bardesanitiche,” 24. 596 Christ will return at the end of time, but his involvement in creation is declared in the Johannine Prologue, so that Bardaiṣan cannot be accused of unduly involving him in the creation process. 597 This clause is also recovered thanks to ms. Mingana, whereas ms. Parisinus Syr. 241 used in Nau’s edition omits it for an haplography. 598 In fact, Bardaiṣan does answer this question in the first part of the Liber, which Moses does not seem to take into consideration or even to know. Bardaiṣan argues therein that God allowed for evil in order to endow rational creatures with free will.

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are not liable to chance either. And if their Lord was on high, as you have said, it is clear that it was the Lord who mixed those beings, given that they could not have left their own region and places by themselves, as disobedient slaves, against their Lord’s will, and move and crush against one another.599 Fifth: We shall say that Bardaiṣan is a fool to state that God exists and yet mixes with a body.600 Sixth: We shall say, again: Which is the cause by which the beings were moved into mixture? If he answers that they were moved by chance, we shall reply: where the God of the universe is present, chance is annihilated, it no more exists. Seventh: We shall say, again: Which of these beings moved first? If it was the Wind that moved first and crossed the other beings and mixed with them, why did it not move directly against the Light located in the East, but rather in a circular and tortuous way toward the North through the Waters, and toward the Fire to the South, in order to arrive to the Light, in the East? Eighth: we shall say, again: If the beings were disposed below or above according to the thickness of their nature, Light in the heights, darkness in the lower parts, and the other beings over one another between light and darkness, how could the three601 central beings dissolve, so that darkness could ascend and mix with the light, and how could light, which is light by nature,602 descend downward and mix with denser beings? The Creator should then be accused, who did not prevent the pure beings from descending, and darkness from rising up through them. For these acted as a vehicle for the darkness that ascended through light, and, just as dry wood is a vehicle for fire, in the same way those beings were a vehicle for darkness, so that they could move from their position 599 According to what Moses himself has reported in the doxographical section, it would result that it was darkness that wanted to mix up with the “beings,” against the will of the latter. 600 That Bardaiṣan thought that God is mixed with bodies is not attested by any source, not even by Moses’ own doxographical account. 601 “Three” is lacking in cod. Parisinus and is supplied by cod. Mingana. 602 Light is the element, and the second “light” in this sentence means the opposite of heavy. Or else, according to ms. Mingana: “How could light abandon the subtlety of its nature?”

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and their region. — From all these arguments it is thus clear that the universe did not originate, or was constituted, from a mixture of the five elements, as Bardaiṣan foolishly maintained.” In his book on the soul, too, Moses Bar Kepha offers a doxographical account on Bardaiṣan, which, however, is no more grounded in a good source, like his cosmological account, but is characterized by the usual heresiological cliché which assimilates Bardaiṣan to Marcion and Mani. This assimilation is all the more absurd in that Bardaiṣan in fact opposed Marcionism and was very far from Manichaean dualism; moreover, he came before Mani. The doctrine reported by Moses, however, is interesting: “Mani, Bardaiṣan, Marcion, and others along with them maintained that the soul is of the same nature as God, or a fragment of its substance.”603 In the light of Bardaiṣan’s threefold anthropology, we can interpret that for him the divine part in us is the intellect or spirit, that is, the intellectual soul (rather than the soul in general), and certainly not the body. As I have already explained, this is the part that, being endowed with reason and free will, is in the image and likeness of God in us. This conception underlies both the Liber, in which human intellect is said to be “child of freedom” and it is thanks to it if the human being is “in the image of God,” and the second fragment from Bardaiṣan’s De India, in which the divine image on the head of the cosmic and crucified human being represents its sovereign and free intellect. Bardaiṣan, however, is far from drawing a dualism between body and soul as though the first were evil and the second good: it is free will that determines the choices of each human being, either for good or for evil.

28 (Ps.) John of Dara The third representative of the so-called first cosmological tradition, together with Barh?adbshabba and Moses Bar Kepha, dates again from the ninth century: it is John of Dara604 in his Treatise on the Resurrection (which, however, was probably composed by Moses 603

76.

O. Braun, Mozes Bar Kepha und sein Buch von der Seele, Freiburg 1891,

604 Edition by A. Baumstark, “‘Îwannîs von Dàrâ über Bardaiṣàn,” Oriens Christianus 8 (1933), 62–71, in part. 66–71.

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Bar Kepha,605 so that it would probably be better to speak of Ps. John of Dara). Unlike Barh?adbshabba, he too, like Moses bar Kepha, ascribes his cosmological report to Bardaiṣan and not to his followers: “Now, Bardaiṣan maintained that this visible world originated from five beings [oYtY) )$MX oM]: Fire, Wind, Water, Light, and darkness: each of them was located by itself, in its own place: the Fire to the East, the Wind to the West, the Water to the North, and the Light to the South.606 Their Lord was above, on high, and their enemy, darkness, in the depth. And behold—I quote—once [)N*}Bz oM dXB mL )whw], either by chance or by a certain event [)M$wG oM n) )$dG oM n)w], they crashed / rushed against one another, and darkness ascended, and the beings fled from it. And they sought refuge in the Most High, that he might save them from darkness. Then, he sent the Word of Thought, that is, Christ [)XY$M yhwtY)d )tY(rtd )rM)ML]. He separated darkness from the beings, and darkness fell back into the depths to which it belongs by nature. He assigned each one of the beings to its seat, in order.607 And from the mixture that had been created he formed this world. And what was mixed, behold,608 is purified [lL+cM dK )h gzMt)d )M whw], until the world will be concluded [)ML( mL$[d )Md(]. And, since he has affirmed that bodies are constituted by darkness, he teaches that they do not rise, in that they are impure, and it is impossible for them to be led to the heavenly abodes and to live in the resurrection, because the possession of immortality is

605 Cf. L. Schlimme, Das Hexaëmeron-Kommentar des Moses Bar Kepha, Wiesbaden 1977, I, 22. Text and discussion now also in Camplani, “Note bardesanitiche,” 19ff. 606 Camplani, “Note bardesanitiche,” 19–20 emends the text as follows, to render it consistent with the order indicated by Moses Bar Kepha: “ to the East, spirit to the West, and water to the North.” 607 The Syriac term is a transcription of Greek ta/cij. 608 Camplani, “Note bardesanitiche,” 21, postulates a lacuna, not without reason: “And what was mixed, behold is purified until the world will be concluded.”

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not in their nature and they had their origin in evil.609 He was induced to invent and proclaim this because he wanted to keep evil far from God; however, it is from the ancient pagans that he derived this idea.” (Ps.) John of Dara’s exposition seems to be the closest to that of Moses Bar Kepha. (Ps.) John also speaks of five beings, apparently also counting darkness-evil. Then, however, his own exposition clearly indicates that the pure beings are four, to which God and darkness are added, but both of them are different from the beings. God is superior to them, in that God is their Lord, on whom they depend and in whom they seek refuge. Darkness is inferior to them, as it represents mere negativity, evil, and non-being. In John of Dara, too, the same alternative is found between chance and event as is found in Moses Bar Kepha for the explanation of the initial accident, whereas in Barh?adbshabba and in Ephrem, as I have pointed out, there is only the first alternative: a casual accident. This is relevant to the present study, as it is to this accident that the origin of this world goes back according to Bardaiṣan, and the explanation of the presence of evil in this world depends on it. I have also hypothesized that this accident may be reminiscent of the suntuxi/a tij with which Plato explained the souls’ fall. (Ps.) John of Dara’s presentation of Christ-Logos as the agent of creation is identical to that offered by Moses Bar Kepha and very similar to that of Barh?adbshabba’s account. Also, (Ps.) John’s reference to the purification of this world, which will be perfected at the end of the world, likewise corresponds to Barh?adbshabba’s and Moses Bar Kepha’s accounts, and at the same time also to the final section of the Liber. Unlike Moses, and like Barh?adbshabba, he does not specify that this purification takes place thanks to a conception and a birth, which very probably should be identified 609 Syriac )$YB means “evil.” Surely, darkness corresponds to evil, and perhaps this is why Camplani, “Note bardesanitiche,” 21 translates “came to existence from darkness” instead of “from evil.” I shall soon show that this statement of our source misrepresents Bardaiṣan’s thought, according to which bodies do not originate only from evil, but, like the whole of the present world, from a mixture of the beings with particles of darkness-evil.

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with those of Christ, and that are attested by other sources as well, which I shall analyze, such as Michael the Syrian, Barhebraeus, Agapius of Mabbug, and Al-Bîrûnî. From these cosmological traditions and from Ephrem it is therefore clear that Bardaiṣan assigned to Christ-Logos a pivotal role, in the creation, in the economy, and in eschatology. In this light, I think that a passage from Nicephorus Callistus († 1335?) on Bardaiṣan should be valued, instead of being dismissed as a mere rehash of Eusebius’ information. In Historia Ecclesiastica 4.11, Nicephorus, in addition to indeed taking over some information on Bardaiṣan from Eusebius, also states the following, while speaking of Bardaiṣan’s written works: “Among these [sc. works], there is also the one On Fate dedicated to Antoninus, which he wrote with deep commitment, and which describes the characteristics of the Father of the Logos.”610 The reference to the description of the characteristics of the Father of the Logos is not found in Eusebius, and seems to reveal a good knowledge of the contents of the Liber, in which theodicy is a central issue. Indeed, this is clear especially at the beginning of the Liber, from Avida’s first questions and Bardaiṣan’s answers to them, which Nicephorus seems to have read. The problem is to know why God, if he is good and is one, did not create the human being unable to do evil and able to do only what is good, and thus always obey God’s commandment.611 Bardaiṣan soon replies that this would have meant creating the human being without free will.612 610 )En oi{j kai\ o( pro\j )Antwni=non Peri\ Ei(marme/nhj au)tw=| ponhqei\j i(kanw=j to\n Pate/ra tou= Lo/gou xarakthri/zwn. 611 This is Avida’s question at the very beginning of the Liber (some disciples of Bardaiṣan are reporting it to their teacher, who wanted to know what discussion was being carried on by them; see above): “We, therefore, answered: ‘Avida, who is here, was saying to us that, if God is one—as you assert—and created the human beings, and wants you to do what is prescribed to you, why did not he create us humans incapable of sinning, but capable of always doing what is good? For, in this way, God’s will would be fulfilled.” 612 This is his answer: “As for what Avida said, that is, how it is that God did not create us incapable of sinning and of making ourselves guilty, now, if the human being had been created in this way, it would be nothing

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This interpretive key, all focused on theodicy, is evident only in the initial part of the dialogue, which is not reported by Eusebius in his excerpts in Praeparatio Evangelica. It is therefore probable that Nicephorus had access to a complete translation of the dialogue into Greek. Moreover, Nicephorus catches that God is the principal object in the Liber, which again is evident from the beginning of the dialogue. And God is described by Nicephorus as “the Father of the Logos.” This is correct also in Bardaiṣan’s perspective: he called the Son “Logos” indeed, as is attested by both Ephrem and the cosmological traditions. In this case, too, there is no mention of the Logos in Eusebius’ excerpts. Yet, Nicephorus seems to be acquainted with Bardaiṣan’s doctrine of the Logos, which is well attested by other sources. Therefore, he had at his disposal much wider information than that provided by Eusebius on Bardaiṣan. The last section of (Ps.) John of Dara’s account has no longer a correspondent in the two other accounts of the “first cosmological tradition” and does not seem to come from the good cosmological source that lies behind all three of them. It is rather close to Barh?adbshabba’s final information concerning the Bardaiṣanites’ denial of the resurrection and other issues, whose unreliability I have already demonstrated. Moreover, it is incorrect in stating that, according to Bardaiṣan, bodies are made of darkness. For, in Bardaiṣan’s view, particles of darkness are present in the bodies just as in the rest of this world, but bodies are mainly constituted by the “beings” (elements), whereas from (Ps.) John’s words it would seem that per se, but would be the instrument of the one who would move it. Moreover, it is evident that the one who would move it ad libitum, would move it either to good or to evil. And then, in what would the human being be different from a harp, on which another one plays, or from a chariot, which another one drives, and the praise and the blame are of the artist, and the harp does not know what is played upon it, nor does the chariot know whether it is governed and guided well, but they are instruments that are done for the use of the one who possesses the science in himself? But God, in his benevolence, has not wanted to make the human being such, but has exalted it above many creatures thanks to free will, and has rendered it equal to the angels.”

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Bardaiṣan considered bodies to be made exclusively of darkness and evil. John’s source here seems to be influenced by Manichaeism and by the totally unfounded, but by then commonplace, assimilation of Bardaiṣan’s thought to the Manichaean one. Bodies do not possess immortality by nature according to Bardaiṣan, and this is true, but not even souls do in his view. Only the divine part of the human being, the one that is in the image of God, i.e., the intellect or spirit, is immortal, and at the end of the Liber Bardaiṣan clearly states that future life, after the end of this world and the disappearance of evil, will be exclusively a gift or grace of God. He says that the apokatastasis will take place “as a gift (grace) of the Lord of all natures,” an idea that he shares with Origen.613 John’s account, in the last paragraph, seems inaccurate. As I have already observed, the accusation of denying the resurrection was repeatedly leveled against Origen as well, but on no ground. It is not to be excluded that this may be the case with Bardaiṣan as well. This suspicion is further supported by the final remark itself, that Bardaiṣan aimed at keeping God extraneous to evil, and that his doctrine derived from paganism, which seems to reveal a heresiological anti-Manichaean perspective, fully confirmed by the insistence on the idea that bodies “originated from evil.”

29 Agapius and the So-Called Third Cosmological Tradition The cosmological tradition individuated and called by Drijvers “third cosmological tradition” is represented by Agapius of Mabbug, Michael the Syrian, and Barhebraeus. Agapius lived in the first half of the tenth century, and wrote an Arabic history of the world, the Kitâb al-‘Unwân, which is based on numerous Syriac sources, and also includes a biography and a doxography on Bardaiṣan.614 The doxography is notably ascribed to Bardaiṣan himself, and not to his followers: “He maintains that there are seven elements. Three of them are the main ones, and four are of secondary rank. 613 614

See my “Origen, Bardaiṣan and the Origin.” Patrologia Orientalis, VII, Paris 1911, 519–521, ed. Vasiliev.

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The three main elements are: spirit, force, and thought. The other four are: fire, water, light, and wind. These seven elements join together, and hence originate three hundred and sixty worlds. The human being is also formed by these seven elements. His soul is constituted by the three main and subtle elements. In another work he expounds the theory that the body is constituted by the three inferior elements.” Here the same four beings are mentioned which are also found in the so-called first and second cosmological traditions, but the agent that intervenes in creation is no more ChristLogos, the Word of Thought, but a sort of threefold development of the Logos: Spirit, Force, and Thought. This development seems to be due, not to Bardaiṣan himself, but to his followers, at least according to Agapius’ account. Of course, these may have been conceived by Bardaiṣan as aspects of Christ-Logos, those which Origen called e)pi/noiai of Christ. In Agapius’ account there is no mention of darkness-evil, and rightly so, since, as I have often highlighted, for Bardaiṣan evil is no being.

30 Michael the Syrian’s Cosmological Testimony Michael the Syrian, like Agapius, also offers a composed account concerning Bardaiṣan, both biographical and doxographical, in his Chronicon Ecclesiasticum. I shall return later to the biographical account; as for the cosmology expounded in the doxographical section, it finds a close parallel in Agapius’ account. It seems to derive from a source that is common to Agapius as well, or perhaps from Agapius himself, either directly or indirectly:615 “And he affirms that there are three main natures [)Br*wr )NY*K]—I quote— and four beings [)YtY*)], that is: Spirit, Force, and Thoughtand-Knowledge, and the four powers—I quote—: Fire, Water, Light, and Wind [.)Xwrw )rhwNw )Y*Mw )rwN]. And from these—I quote—the other elements and worlds originated, in number of 360 [)Nr*X) )YtY*) wwh mL oYLh oMw yS$ mL oY*whd )ML(*w].” Quote indicators are here frequent, just like in other cosmological accounts belonging to the so-called first tradition. The three 615

J. B. Chabot, Chronique de Michel le Syrien, I / II, Paris 1900, 110.

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main natures correspond to Agapius’ three main elements, Spirit, Force, and Thought. Knowledge is added, but it forms a couple with Thought. The four beings or powers correspond to the four elements of Agapius, and in the same order: Fire, Water, Light, and Wind.

31 Barhebraeus’ Cosmological Account Barhebraeus’ cosmological testimony on Bardaiṣan is located within a larger biographical and doxographical context which I shall study later on. It represents the third attestation of the socalled third cosmological tradition, and it too seems to depend on a source that is common to Agapius and Michael the Syrian. Barhebraeus’ testimony is included in his work On Heresies:616 “On Bardaiṣan. He maintains that there are three main natures [rM) )Br*wr )NY*K )tLt], Spirit, Force, and Thought [)tY(rtw )LYXw )Nwh], and four beings [)YtY*) )(Br)]: Fire, Water, Light, and Wind [)Y*Mw )rwN )Xwrw )rhwNw]. From these the beings and 366 aeons originated.” The three main natures and the four preexistent beings perfectly correspond to the two other accounts of this cosmological tradition. The only difference is the number of the worlds or aeons, 366 instead of 360. The Syriac word, indeed, can be interpreted both as “worlds” and as “aeons”; Origen postulated a succession of ai)w=nej as well, and Bardaiṣan may have conceived of something similar.617 Their very number suggests the notion of a sort of big year. In another work, The Candler of the Sanctuary,618 Barhebraeus also mentions darkness in addition to the four beings already cited, as though it were a fifth being. He well reflects, again, the hesitation of the cosmological traditions, which I have already highlighted, concerning the status of darkness-evil: for Bardaiṣan, it is 616 Bar Hebraeus, Sur les hérésies, ed. F. Nau, Patrologia Orientalis, XIII, Paris 1919, 255. 617 See my “Ai)wn / ioj and Ai)w/n in Origen and Gregory of Nyssa,” forthcoming in Studia Patristica, with documentation. 618 Bar Hebraeus, Mnarat Qudshê, ed. J. Bakoš, Patrologia Orientalis XXII, Paris 1930, 547.

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no being, but it rather gets closer to non-being: “And Bardaiṣan, like others, establishes five principles, that is, beings [)$MX )YtY*) tYKw) )$Y*r m)S]: Fire, Wind, Water, Light, and darkness.” That Barhebraeus is here using a different source is also betrayed by the reverse order in which the first four beings are presented, vis-à-vis the sequence in which they appear in the other representatives of the “third cosmological tradition.”

32 Mu’taman ad-Dawla Mu’taman ad-Dawla’s Arabic account seems to rely on the “third cosmological tradition.” The author’s complete name is AlMu’taman abû Ish?âq Ibrâhîm ibn al-‘Assal, who in 1240–1260 wrote a Summa Theologica. This is what he writes on Bardaiṣan in Ms. Vat. Ar. 103: “There are three substances: Spirit, Force, and Thought, which are those great and universal, and four that are preexistent and eternal: Fire, Water, Light, and Air.” Since Mu’taman himself cites Barhebraeus among his sources, it is probable that the latter is the source of his cosmological information on Bardaiṣan. The only difference between these two sources lies in the replacement of Wind with Air, which seems more in line with the classical series of the elements. The definition “preexistent and eternal substances” very well describes Bardaiṣan’s )YtY*) or beings, whose eternity and preexistence, however, do not prevent them from being creatures of God, like Origen’s no/ej.

33 From the “Cosmological Traditions” to Other Doxographies and the Biographical Accounts. Mas‘udi’s Biographical Information In his Arabic Kitâb at-tanbîh wa’l-ishrâf Mas‘udi († 956 / 7), who bases himself on Syriac sources, provides a biographical picture on Bardaiṣan, whom he calls Ibn Daiṣan with an etymology and an Arabization of his name, “son of the (river) Daiṣan.” This is his narrative: “The eighteenth emperor was Marcus, called Aurelius Caesar. He reigned for nineteen years. Under his reign Bardaiṣan, bishop of Edessa in Mesopotamia, spread his doctrine and founded the sect of the dualist Bardaiṣanites. That name, of Bardaiṣan, is a Syriac name, which means ‘son of a river.’ Indeed, in that region there is a river called Daiṣan, which flows close to the gate of Edessa called Chaa; from there, it turns toward Harran and runs

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into the river Balik. The river Daiṣan streams only for some months and during the summer it is left dry. A church was built on its bank, near the gate, in honor of Bardaiṣan, where the Christians every year celebrate a feast. They say that he was abandoned as a newborn baby and that he was found near the river, after which he was named.” Mas‘udi describes Bardaiṣan as a bishop of Edessa, who subsequently became a heretic under Marcus Aurelius—here he is named unambiguously, not simply as “Antoninus” or “Antoninus Verus”—according to the heresiological commonplace of Bardaiṣan’s passage from orthodoxy to heresy, which is contradicted by ancient Greek sources, very well informed, such as Eusebius and Didymus. Moreover, Bardaiṣan’s presumed passage from the orthodox Christian church, of which he was even a bishop, to heresy flatly contradicts the chronology of our philosopher, who under Marcus Aurelius was still young and could not already have a past as a bishop. This presumed passage should have occurred in a more mature age. The same contradiction is already found in Epiphanius, as I have demonstrated while examining his testimony. Unlike other sources, which I shall analyze, Mas‘udi does not draw a connection between Bardaiṣan and the river Daiṣan on the basis of Bardaiṣan’s birth on the bank of this river, but—as he indeed reflects a more hostile source—by saying that he was a foundling and was precisely found along that river. This seems to be at odds with Bardaiṣan’s high social status at the Edessan court and his education together with Abgar the Great, unless one imagines that he was found by a noble or a member of the court. That he was a foundling also contradicts other sources who speak of his parents and education. The story that he was found near the river easily reminds one of Moses’ biblical narrative, with his being found by the daughter of Pharaoh. According to Mas‘udi, precisely on the shore of the river Daiṣan, Bardaiṣan subsequently had his church.619 This indication seems to find a correspondence in the already mentioned Chronicon Edessenum, which speaks of a Christian church in Edessa, a part of 619 Ed. M. J. de Goeje, Masûdi: Kitâb a-tanbîh wa’l-ischrâf, VIII, Leiden 1894, 130.

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which was destroyed by a flood around A.D. 200.620 It is improbable that a church was consecrated to Bardaiṣan in Edessa, which could be done only by his closest followers. However, as I have already pointed out on the basis of Rabbula’s biography, the Bardaiṣanites did have a place of meeting in Edessa still at the end of the fifth century. The detail of the annual feast celebrated in honor of Bardaiṣan by his followers in Edessa may be historical. For example, the Manichaeans celebrated a feast in honor of Mani every year. As for his episcopate, I have already mentioned that Theodore Bar Konai speaks of an aspiration of Bardaiṣan to this ecclesiastical rank, but Mas‘udi seems to be the only source to affirm that Bardaiṣan actually became bishop of Edessa. In fact, neither in episcopal lists nor in Edessan chronicles nor in other sources is he ever cited as bishop of Edessa. Masu‘di’s information seems improbable, all the more in that it is very uncertain that in the day of Bardaiṣan a monarchic episcopate already existed in Edessa. This detail, however, could have arisen from the memory of the fact that Bardaiṣan indeed was an ordained member of the Church: ancient and good sources such as Didymus and others describe him as a presbyter (according to Didymus, he remained a presbyter of the catholic Church until his death) or a deacon. Moreover, I have argued that the Vita Abercii, too, seems to imply that Bardaiṣan had some official ministry in the Church. From the doctrinal point of view, if Theodore Bar Konai describes Bardaiṣan as a Valentinian, Mas‘udi declares him to be a dualist, or a founder of a dualistic sect, probably because some Bardaiṣanites subsequently got close to Manichaeism. Indeed, the attribution of dualism to Bardaiṣan derives from his forced assimilation to Manichaeism, typical of several sources, mostly heresiological, beginning from Ephrem. The characterization of the followers of Bardaiṣan as “dualists” is in line with their assimilation to the Manichaeans and other dualistic groups that is operated by Mas‘udi in other passages of his work, such as the following: “We have spoken of the difference 620 A translation and a historical analysis of this episode is found in the final section of my Edessa e i Romani.

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between Mani and the dualists his predecessors, such as Bardaiṣan, Marcion, and others, and of the doctrine that is common to all these authors, that of the two principles, one of which is good, commendable, desirable, and the other evil, to be avoided and feared.” And: “We have also expounded the divergences among the dualists—Manichaeans, Bardaiṣanites, Marcionites, and other philosophers—concerning the first principles.”

34 The Fihrist and Arabic Sources on Bardaiṣan’s AntiDualism The Fihrist, written by an-Nadîm in A.D. 987–988,621 also assimilates the Bardaiṣanites to dualists, but it introduces a further element, which is unattested in previous sources, that is, the division of the Bardaiṣanites into two sects: “Bardaiṣan, the founder of that school, is thus called after a river near whose bank he was born. He came before Mani. Their thoughts are indeed similar to one another and it is possible to find a difference between the two only in the mixture of light and darkness. Indeed, the Bardaiṣanites are divided into two sects precisely for this reason. Some maintain that the Light mixed with darkness by its free choice, in order to subtract it to its precedent condition. But the Light remained imprisoned in darkness, and when it wanted to get rid of it, this proved impossible. According to their other sect, the Light wanted to dispel darkness, when it perceived its hardness and bitter smell, but it remained imprisoned there, ever more deeply, against its will, like when a person wants to quickly get rid of some object provided with piercing stings, but these penetrate his skin and enter ever more profoundly, each time that he endeavors to get rid of them. Bardaiṣan affirmed that Light is of one nature and darkness of another nature. Some Bardaiṣanites have indeed professed that darkness is the root of light; they also affirm that Light is provided with life, and that it moves with intelligence and wisdom, whereas

621 See B. Dodge, The Fihrist of Al-Nadim. A X-Cent. Survey of Muslim Culture, II, New York 1970, RCSS 83.

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darkness is blind, without intelligence or knowledge. Therefore, they [sc. Light and darkness] are opposite to one another. Bardaiṣan’s followers had their seat in the region of Batihat. And formerly they were spread here and there in the Sinese kingdom and in Khorasan, and they had no synagogue or church that was known. In that same area there are also many Manichaeans. Bardaiṣan composed books entitled, On Light and Darkness, The Spiritual Nature of Truth, The Mobile and the Immobile, and many others as well. The most important supporters of that sect, too, wrote on these arguments, but their works have not reached our knowledge. The detail of the absence of synagogues or churches belonging to the Bardaiṣanites would seem to be at odds, not only with Mas‘ûdi’s account concerning the church devoted to Bardaiṣan, which is suspect, as I have said, but apparently also with the information, in Rabbula’s biography, that in Edessa there was a place where the Bardaiṣanites gathered still in the fifth century. In this source, the association of the Bardaiṣanites with the Manichaeans appears again. However, the fact that some Bardaiṣanites went close to Manichaeism does not allow scholars to ascribe to Bardaiṣan Mani’s doctrines—all the more so in that precisely the Fihrist, just like Al-Bîrûnî, attests Mani’s criticisms of Bardaiṣan’s and his followers’ doctrines, especially the charge of not having drawn a strong enough opposition between soul and body. This, of course, is easily explained by the fact that Mani was a dualist, while Bardaiṣan was not. He did not posit two equal and opposite principles like God / Good and evil, in that evil in his view is not at all equal to God and endowed with the same power as God has, but is close to nothing, as it is for Origen. This is why neither Origen nor Bardaiṣan could institute a radical, Manichaean dualism either between God and evil or between body and soul by declaring the body to derive from evil and the soul from God. The Fihrist very interestingly reports the titles of some works of Bardaiṣan, apparently different from those which are transmitted by the Greek sources. These were works of a metaphysical and cosmological nature, although very little can be said about them and about the Fihrist’s reliability, given that they do not seem to have been preserved. Anyway, the title On the Spiritual Nature of Truth seems to confirm that Bardaiṣan probably practiced the allegorical-spiritual interpretation of Scripture, just as Origen did. I have already adduced several reasons that point to this hypothesis.

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But what I deem to be the most important detail that is revealed by the Fihrist account is that Bardaiṣan conceived darknessevil as mere negativity, as something exclusively passive. This is also clear from the cosmological traditions and from the final section of the Liber. This notion closely corresponds to that of Origen, as I have argued, and is very far from Manichaean dualism, in which evil is an active principle equal and opposite to God. This crucial point—Bardaiṣan’s anti-dualism—is well emphasized by two Arabic authors, Ibn H?azm of Cordoba (994–1064), who wrote one of the first works of comparative religion (Book of the Philosophical and Religious Schools) and Maqdîsî (ca. 980). They both observe, in a concise but effective form, that according to Mani darkness is alive, whereas according to Bardaiṣan it is dead.622 Perfectly consistently with this, Ibn H?azm even adds a piece of information that, as I have pointed out, is also found in other sources: that is, that Mani not only drew some inspiration from Bardaiṣan, but he also criticized him. Bardaiṣan’s anti-dualism in his conception of God / Good and evil, i.e., of Light and darkness, is also emphasized by another Arabic author: Muhammad ash-Shahrastânî (1086–1153). He offers a valuable and wide-ranging doxographical discussion of the Bardaiṣanites’ view concerning Light and darkness. Here, the telling notion of Light as alive and darkness as dead, which I have already underlined in Ibn Haz?m, appears again. Indeed, Muhammad ashShahrastânî’s work on religious sects and philosophical schools draws inspiration from Ibn H?azm, and even has the same title as the latter’s work.623 Here is Muhammad’s account, which is really significant: “Bardaiṣanites. These are the followers of Bardaiṣan and postulate two principles: Light and darkness. Light operates the Good by its 622 Ibn H?azm, Al-faṣl fi’l-milal wa’l ahwa’ wa’l-milal, Cairo 1899, I, 35– 36; Le Livre de la création et de l’histoire d’Abou-Zéid Ahmed ben Sahl el-Balkhî, publ. et traduit par C. Huart, Paris 1899, I, 142, 13–17. 623 Muhammad Asch-Schahrastani’s Religions Partheien und Philosophenschulen, üb. von Th. Haarbrücker, Halle 1850–1851, I, 293; Book of Religious and Philosophical Sects by Muhammad al-Sahrastáni, ed. W. Cureton, I, London 1842, 194,3–195,8.

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own intention and deliberate choice; darkness does evil by nature and under coercion. Whatever is good, helpful, outstanding, and beautiful proceeds from Light; whatever is evil, damaging, annoying, and hateful proceeds from darkness. They maintain that the Light is alive, and endowed with knowledge, power, sensitivity, and intelligence. Movement and life proceed from it. Darkness, on the contrary, is dead, without wisdom, weak, immobile, and inanimate, deprived of the ability of doing and choosing. They maintain that evil originates from itself, in a natural and authentic manner. Moreover, they believe that Light is of one nature and darkness of another and that the comprehension of Light is a universal comprehension. Its hearing, its sight, and its other senses are all one and the same thing, so that its hearing is also sight and its sight are its other senses, while the notions “hearing” and “seeing” are predicated of the light only because of the distinction of coexistent aspects, not because they are two actually different things. They also believe that color, taste, smell, and touch are the same thing, and that the same thing is perceived as color, in that darkness is mixed with it in a peculiar way, and as taste when darkness is mixed there in another way; they say the same concerning the color of darkness, its taste, smell, and so on. They believe that the Light is completely white, and darkness completely black, and that the Light always touches darkness with its inferior part, whereas darkness always touches the Light with its superior part. Regarding the mixture [sc. of Light and darkness], and its purification, their opinions are different. Some maintain that the Light entered darkness; the latter, indeed, touched it so harshly and hardly that it was wounded, and endeavored to make it soft and smooth in order to go away, free. Thus, this happened not for a difference of both substances, but, as they saw is constituted by one and the same substance, iron, and has its sides smooth and its teeth sharp, likewise in the Light there is the smooth and in darkness the sharp, and yet they are both of the same substance. The Light, thanks to its gentleness, has so much ductility as to be able to insinuate itself in the fissures of darkness, and this was possible only thanks to the hardness of darkness for the felicity of its existence. This is why only their ductility and sharpness must be remarked (sc. for differentiation). Others deny this, and rather maintain that, when darkness could adhere to the Light in its inferior part, Light attempted to liberate itself and to drive darkness away from itself, but it was

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loaded and heavy, and it remained submerged. As a man who wants to exit a swamp into which he has fallen leans on a foot in order to go out, but gets immersed more and more deeply, in the same way the Light needs a given period of time to free itself and to bring a pure being to its own reign. Still others maintain that the Light went toward darkness by its own will, in order to make it happy and to bring its sound part into its own kingdom. But, once it entered darkness, it remained there stably, for a long time, and committed injustice, under constraint, and perpetrated hateful deeds, but not by choice; but when it will be set free and restored to its world, it will always do only what is good and fine. Thus, there is a difference between acting by constraint and acting by choice.” The most remarkable concepts in this passage are two: 1) the opposition between acting by choice, on the basis of one’s free will, and acting by necessity, under constraint, and 2) the allusion to the eventual apokatastasis, a doctrine which was supported by Bardaiṣan624 and also appears both at the end of the Liber and in the so-called first cosmological tradition. Here in Muhammad’s account the apokatastasis is foreseen in the total liberation of Light and the complete eviction of darkness-evil. The expression “to be restored,” indeed, linguistically corresponds very well to the Greek a)pokaqi/sthmi – a)pokata/stasij. 625 As for the opposition between doing good by choice and doing evil by necessity, I have already hypothesized how, according to Bardaiṣan, the contrast between a free and intelligent action, which is good, and the deed determined by necessity (a)na/gkh) and characterized by disorder, lack of aim, and thus evil, which is a lack of good, is very probably a Platonic heritage. In his Timaeus Plato drew an analogous differentiation between the movement of the Nou=j, which always has an aim and is oriented to the Good, and that of 624 This was first demonstrated by me in “Origen, Bardaiṣan, and the Origin of Universal Salvation,” Harvard Theological Review 102.2 (2009) 135–168. 625 See my “Matt 17:11: ‘Elijah Will Come, and All Beings Will Be Restored.’ Philological, Linguistic, Syntactical and Exegetical Arguments for a New Interpretation,” Maia n.s. 61.1 (2009) 107–126.

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matter, which is disordered and characterized by necessity (a)na/gkh). Plato’s basic idea, that the Good is chosen freely and consciously, on the basis of knowledge and intelligence, while evil is done under some constriction, and implies an obnubilation of the intellect and a lack of knowledge, was indeed taken up by several Christian authors. Bardaiṣan was one; Gregory of Nyssa was another, and he was deeply influenced by Origen, with whom Bardaiṣan has so much in common. In fact, the assimilation of Bardaiṣan’s thought to Mani’s as dualist and as supporting a divine principle of evil as equal and opposed to another divine principle of good, as is done by some late Arabic authors such as Severus of Ashmunain626 or Ibn Kabar,627 implies a total falsification of Bardaiṣan’s perspective. He was so far from regarding evil as equal to God as to consider it to be not even a “being,” and to conceive it in terms if non-being and mere negativity, weakness, and passivity. This is why, for example, at the end of the Liber he states that those who stay in evil and oppose God are not found in force, but in evil and error, which is weakness, and this cannot perdure forever, but only until the apokatastasis, when evil will eventually vanish. Evil has no intrinsic power or being, but is negativity, lack of Good and lack of power. The continuation of Shahrastânî’s account also is of the highest interest, even though it properly refers only to the Bardaiṣanites 626 Severus Ibn al-Muqaffa‘, bishop of Ashmunain in the X century, in his History of Councils records: “Mani, too, the cursed, and Bardaiṣan claim that there are two deities, one of Light and one of Darkness, one good and one evil” (ed. L. Leroy, Patrologia Orientalis, VI, 1911, 524). Soon after one finds the assimilation, ungrounded but stereotypical in the SyroArabic heresiological tradition, of Bardaiṣan not only to Mani, but also to Marcion, whom Bardaiṣan vehemently refuted: “Concerning Mani, that cursed man, Bardaiṣan, Marcion, and their followers, they affirm that the God of darkness created a part of the creation and the god of Light another part” (ibid. 527). 627 Ibn Kabar († 1325), in his Book of the Illumination of Darkness writes, in reference, however, to the Bardaiṣanites rather than to Bardaiṣan himself: “they believe in two deities, one good and one evil” (Le Livre de la Lampe des Ténèbres, texte arabe édité et traduit par L. Villecont, Patrologia Orientalis XX, 1929, 690–691).

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and not to Bardaiṣan himself: “Concerning the Bardaiṣanites, Muh?ammad ibn Shubaib refers that they deem the human being to be a mediator, in that it is endowed both with organs of senseperception and of intelligence, and because it is neither pure Light nor pure darkness.” This notion is particularly important and in my view may easily go back to Bardaiṣan himself. Indeed, it is also present in Philo, in Origen—who knew Philo’s work very well—and in Gregory of Nyssa, who depended on Origen for many aspects of his thought. It is the notion of the a1nqrwpoj as meqo/rioj and mesi/thj, i.e. as mediator between the sense-perceptible and the intelligible world, and between the animal and the divine sphere. Gregory of Nyssa, who was very well acquainted with both Philo and Origen, took up a Philonic formula that was well known to Origen as well, in De hominis opificio 135. Here he declares the human being qnhth\ kai\ a)qana/tou fu/sewj meqo/rion, “mediator between the mortal and the immortal nature.”628 He comments that the human being renders the invisible world present in the visible one,629 and has the sense-perceptible world participate in the intelligible one.630 The human soul is intermediate between the material and the intelligible world,631 between spirit and passions,632 between Good and evil.633 Already according to Philo, who was well known not only to Origen and Gregory, but perhaps even to Bardaiṣan himself, the a1nqrwpoj is related to the Logos by means of its soul and to the sense-perceptible world by means of its body.634 This double condition is repeatedly underscored by Philo in his De opificio mundi. Gregory, in turn, was influenced by Origen in this notion as well.

628 See J. Daniélou, L’être et le temps chez Grégoire de Nysse, Leiden 1970; A. M. Mazzanti, L’Uomo nella cultura religiosa del tardo-antico tra etica e ontologia, Bologna 1990. 629 De Infantibus praemature abreptis, GNO III / 2.77–79. 630 Oratio Catechetica Magna, GNO III / 4.22; De oratione Dominica, GNO VII / 2.48–49. 631 Homiliae in Canticum, GNO VI.333–334. 632 De anima et resurrectione, PG 46.57C. 633 De beatitudinibus, GNO VII / 2.164. 634 Deterior pot. insid. 82–86.

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All three of them, Philo, Origen, and Gregory, shared a twofold conception of reality, sense-perceptible and intelligible, and posited the human being as intermediary between these levels. Origen also uses the terms meqo/rioj and mete/xw 635 and he inspired Gregory in observing that human beings participate in the senseperceptible and the intellectual world, in Good and evil,636 that is, in spiritual life and death (Comm. in Io. 2.6.53), and even in divine life, a notion that is well attested for Bardaiṣan by Muhammad ashShahrastânî, as I have showed, and is taken over by Gregory of Nyssa in his doctrine of qe/wsij, which in turn depends on Christ’s Incarnation.637 It was already assumed by Origen, with an idea that was soon developed by his great admirer Athanasius, that God necessarily had to become a human being, for humanity to participate in God’s Spirit, in the Godhead itself,638 and in God’s divinity.639 He offers the following alternatives: human beings can participate in the Good, that is, God, and thereby can truly exist, or can participate in sin and evil, and thus not exist.640 They can participate in light or in darkness,641 in holiness and the knowledge of truth or in their opposite.642 Philo’s idea of the participation of the human beings in the Logos becomes, in Origen, the notion of their participation in Christ, in all of Christ’s epinoiai: Logos, sofi/a, 635 Origen presents more than a hundred occurrences of mete/xw in his preserved Greek works. 636 De Principiis 4.3.1; Philocalia 1.17. 637 See e.g. N. Russell, The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition, Oxford 2004; M. J. Christensen and J. A. Wittung, Partakers of the Divine Nature. The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Tradition, Grand Rapids 2008; synthesis in my “Deification (Theosis)” in EBR: Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception, IV, Berlin 2010. 638 Contra Celsum 4.5; 6.64 and 70; 7.65; Fragmenta in Ieremiam 28.13; Philocalia 13.4; Epistula ad Gregorium 4; Fragmenta in Ephesios 8; Selecta in Psalmos, PG 12.1164.44; 1236.18. 639 Selecta in Psalmos PG 12.1165.50. 640 Commentarium in Ioannem 2.13.98; Oratio 22.3; 27.8; Fragmenta in Ephesios 2; Commentarium in Epistulam ad Romanos Cat. 25; Commentarium in Epistulam ad Romanos 3–5 p. 210.7–8. 641 Commentarium in Ioannem 2.23.153; Fragmenta in Lucam 121e.3; Scholia in Lucam 17.336.26. 642 Fragmenta in Ioannem, 10, 32; Selecta in Psalmos, PG 12.1552.12.

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du/namij, a)na/stasij, zwh/, au)tozwh/, dikaiosu/nh, and the like.643

This participation will be full only in the perfection of the end, the telos. In Bardaiṣan, in Origen, and in Gregory of Nyssa the glorious telos, which coincides with the apokatastasis, is based on Christ and on the fact that Christ assumed the whole of humanity.644 Muhammad’s information seems indeed to rely on good sources, and provides interesting details and helpful clarifications of his doctrine.

35 Michael the Syrian’s Biographical Account Michael the Syrian (1126 / 27–1199)645 was a patriarch of Antioch and offers both a detailed biography and a doxography concerning Bardaiṣan. I have already presented his short cosmological section in a comparative analysis with Agapius. Let me now analyze his full account, which includes both original elements and points in common with some other sources which I have already examined:646 “In the year 477 [= A.D. 166] the eleventh Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius,647 ascended the throne, with his sons Antoninus Verus and Lucius,648 and reigned for nineteen years and one month… 643 Commentarium in Ioannem, 1.33.242; 34.246; 37.268–269 and 273; 2.3.22–30; 7.57; 8.60; 11.80; 16.114; 37.227; 13.10.60; 20.28.245–246; Homiliae in Ieremiam 14.10; Commentarium in Matthaeum 12.9; 14.6; Fragmenta in Ephesios 15; Selecta in Psalmos PG 12.1136.46; 1473.12; 1481.8; 1564.36; Explanatio in Proverbios 17.196. On the notion of participation in Origen and its Platonic roots cf. D. L. Balás, The Idea of Participation in the Structure of Origen’s Thought, in Origeniana, ed. H. Crouzel, Bari 1975, 257–275. 644 Demonstration of this in Ramelli, Gregorio di Nissa Sull’Anima e la Resurrezione, first Integrative Essay; eadem, “In Illud: Tunc et Ipse Filius…: Gregory of Nyssa’s Exegesis.” 645 See W. Hage, “Michael der Syrer,” in Theologische Realenzyklopädie 22 (1992) 710–712. 646 Ms. London, British Museum [British Library], Oriental Manuscript n° 4402, fol. 71. Ed. J. B. Chabot, Chronique de Michel le Syrien, patriarche d’Antioche (1166–1199), I.2, Paris 1900, 183–184; IV, Brussels 1963, 109–111. 647 In fact, Marcus Aurelius ascended the throne in A.D. 161. 648 In fact it was Marcus Aurelius’ adopted brother, Lucius Verus. Marcus’ son, who was also emperor, was Commodus.

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In the year 455 [= A.D. 144], that is, in the fifteenth year of Sahrug, son of Narses, the king of Persia, Nuh?ama fled with his wife, Nah?širam. And they reached Orhai,649 and, after they crossed the river that is found near the city, Nah?širam bore a child, and they called it Bardaiṣan, after the name of the river: Bar (“son”) – Daiṣan (the river’s name). And from there they went to Hierapolis, or Mabbug, and they dwelled in the house of the priest Anuduzbar. And this priest took Bardaiṣan with himself, educated him, and taught him the pagans’ hymns. And when Bardaiṣan was twenty-five, that priest sent him to Edessa, to purchase furniture. And while he was passing along the church that Addai had built,650 he heard the voice of Hystaspes, who expounded the sacred Scriptures. That Hystaspes was bishop of Edessa after Iasnes. And since Bardaiṣan liked his words, he fervently desired to adhere to the Christians’ mysteries. And when the bishop learnt this, he instructed him, baptized him, and ordained him deacon. And [sc. Bardaiṣan] wrote treatises against heresies [mSw sYSr) LBQwL )rM)M], but he finally inclined to the doctrine of Valentinus. He maintained—I quote—that there exist three main natures and four beings [)Brwr )NY*K mL )tLt )Y*tY) dw tY)], that is: reason, power, and mind-intellect [z(dMw )tY(rtw )LwYXw )Nwh], and the four powers—I quote—[)YX mL zOBr)w ]: Fire, Water, Light, and Wind [)Xwrw )rhwNw )YMw )rwN]. And from these—I quote—other beings and aeons were constituted [oMw )NrX) )Y*tY) wwh mL oYLh], amounting to 360. He also said that the one who had spoken with Moses and the prophets was an archangel and not God; that our Lord assumed an angelic body and Mary had a luminous soul which assumed a corporeal form. And it was the governors who created the human being. The most powerful endowed it with a soul and the less powerful with a body. The Sun provided it with nerves, Jupiter with That is, Edessa. According to the Doctrina Addai, Addai, soon after the Ascension of Jesus, converted Abgar the Black to Christianity, the nobles, and the whole people, and had a church built in Edessa. 649 650

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bones, Mercury with marrow, Mars with blood, Venus with flesh, the Moon …651 Saturn with hair. And as the Moon takes off her light every month and enters the Sun’s (chamber), in the same way the Mother of Life takes off her garments and enters the Father of Life’s (chamber) every month, couples with him and generates seven children, which are eighty-four every year. These are Bardaiṣan’s deities. He also said that Christ, the Son of God [)hL)d )rB )XY$M], was born in (the hour of) Jupiter (Bel) [dLYt) lYBB], was crucified in the hour of Mars [sYr)d )t$B bL+c)], was buried in the hour of Mercury [)t($B rBwt) sYMr)d], and rose again from his tomb under the planet Jupiter [)rBQ oM mQ lYB bKwKd )Nd(Bw]. He maintained that the dead do not rise [oYMYQ )L )tY*M], and that dreams are truthful, and called the intercourse with a woman ‘good purification.’ If any of his disciples had intercourse with a woman, he said: ‘You have canceled her opprobrium.’652 Bardaiṣan had the following children: Abgarun, Hasadu, and Harmonius [sYNwMrhw wdSXw nwrGB)], who stuck to his doctrine. Aqi, the bishop who succeeded Hystaspes, reproached him, and, since he refused to submit, excommunicated him. Bardaiṣan died in the year 533 [= A.D. 222] at the age of sixtyeight. May his memory be cursed.”653 Michael is one of the few sources to report the date of Bardaiṣan’s death, too. He indicates the year 533 of the Greeks, which corresponds to A.D. 222. He also adds that he died at sixtyeight, which allows the researcher to date his birth to A.D. 154, the same date as indicated by the Chronicon Edessenum. This date correIn the manuscript there is a lacuna of one line. See Agapius’ account (above), according to which Bardaiṣan maintained that “the brain of the human being comes from the Sun, the bones from Saturn, the veins from Mercury, the blood from Mars, the flesh from Jupiter, the hair from Venus, and the skin from the Moon” (Patrologia Orientalis VII 518–521). 652 This seems to be a reminiscence of Isa 4:1. 653 Chronique de Michel le Syrien, ed. J.-B. Chabot, I, Paris 1900, 109– 111. 651

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sponds to that given by Barhebraeus for Bardaiṣan’s death: the year 533 of the Greeks, that is, A.D. 222.654 Michael’s biography of Bardaiṣan is almost identical to that offered by Agapius of Mabbug, and some parts of it are also present in Barhebraeus. It is striking that in Michael’s account there is no trace of Gnosticism for Bardaiṣan; he is rather deemed suspect for his interest in astronomy and astrology. The presence of the monarchic episcopate in Edessa in Bardaiṣan’s day, which is reflected in Michael’s biography, probably does not correspond to the historical truth. Also, regarding Bardaiṣan’s social status, a contemporary of Bardaiṣan like Julius Africanus is much more reliable; as I have shown, he is an eyewitness to Bardaiṣan’s official role and high rank at Abgar the Great’s court. Michael the Syrian’s account also seems to be the only source to provide the names of the three children of Bardaiṣan: Harmonius, who is also cited by earlier sources which identify him as Bardaiṣan’s “son,” of whom Ephrem too speaks, but without naming him; Abgarun, which seems a name inspired by Abgar the Great, at whose court in Edessa Bardaiṣan lived, and by all the Abgarid dynasty; and Hasadu. There is unfortunately no way, it would seem, to verify this information. What it is possible to remark is that these are all Semitic names, just like those of Bardaiṣan’s parents and that of Bardaiṣan himself. The only exception is probably Harmonius’ name, which may derive from a(rmoni/a, all the more so in that this son of Bardaiṣan is unanimously presented by the tradition as an author of hymns. Yet, his name may derive as well from a Semitic name meaning “palace.” This meaning would also suit the son of an important courtier. Michael too attests that Bardaiṣan was an ordained minister of the Church. His information that he was a deacon is confirmed by a series of testimonies in the Greek tradition which I have already commented on, and the most important of which seems to be that of Didymus the Blind, according to whom Bardaiṣan was even a presbyter. 654 Bar Hebraeus, Chronicon Ecclesiasticum, ed. J.-B. Abbeloos – T. Lamy, I, Louvain 1872, 47.

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On the other hand, pretending that Bardaiṣan abandoned orthodoxy and adhered to Valentinianism contradicts the information of Eusebius, Didymus, and the early Jerome, according to whom he remained in the ‘orthodox’ church until his death. I have already demonstrated how this inversion generated a totally inconsistent account in Epiphanius. Thus, Michael, in accord with many Greek sources, mentions Bardaiṣan’s commitment in refuting and defeating heresies, just like Origen, especially Marcionism and Gnosticism. Paradoxically enough, they both were accused of heresy in turn by later sources. Michael’s account is also notable in that it reveals Bardaiṣan’s interest in Biblical exegesis. His interpretation that it was an archangel who spoke with Moses and the prophets seems to me to reveal Bardaiṣan’s intention to maintain God’s absolute transcendence, which would be compromised by any visible manifestation. This exigency was already very well felt by Philo, and in the time of Bardaiṣan was shared, once again, by Origen.655 It will be subsequently taken up by Gregory of Nyssa.656 Michael’s account also refers to an angelic body assumed by Christ, although it is not at all clear whether it was assumed at the moment of incarnation or at that of resurrection. Only in the first case could this be a sign of a docetic tendency. But this reference also could confirm what I have already observed beforehand, that is, that Bardaiṣan probably postulated several degrees of corporeality, from the heaviest to the subtlest. Angelic bodies obviously pertain to the latter kind. Indeed, I have argued that Bardaiṣan too, like Origen, may have considered all creatures to be equipped with a body, more or less subtle, and only God as incorporeal, in that only God is uncreated. Again, in Michael the Syrian’s account, the reference to the Sun and the Moon assimilated to the Father and Mother of Life, is parallel to the testimony of Ephrem, who even accused Bardaiṣan of polytheism because of their astrological denomination “deities,” See my “Philosophical Allegoresis of Scripture.” See my “Apofatismo cristiano e relativismo pagano: un confronto tra filosofi platonici,” in Verità e mistero fra tradizione greco romana e multiculturalismo tardo antico, ed. A. M. Mazzanti, Bologna: ESD, 2009. 655 656

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“gods,” which, as I have suggested, might even betray an influence of Plato’s Timaeus. Michael’s reference is also perfectly parallel to other sources that I shall analyze, and to Agapius’ information in his Kitâb al-‘Unwân,657 according to which, in Bardaiṣan’s view, every month the Mother of Life takes off her clothes, that is, her light, enters the Father of Life’s (chamber), and generates seven children. In this text, the identification of the Mother and Father of Life with the Moon and the Sun respectively is direct and full, whereas in Michael’s account it seems rather to be an assimilation. The notion that, according to Bardaiṣan, marital intercourse is a form of purification may simply be a misunderstanding—perhaps due to some Gnostic doctrines—of Bardaiṣan’s notion, attested by Moses Bar Kepha and already analyzed by me, that the purification of the world takes place thanks to the conception and birth of Jesus Christ. In Michael’s account, moreover, the seven planets are related both to the parts of the human body and to the phases of Jesus Christ’s earthly life. This parallel per se is telling and strongly suggests that what Jesus Christ assumed in his earthly life was precisely a human body and not anything different, like an appearance etc. An interesting detail that emerges from this very section of Michael’s account is that Bardaiṣan admitted that Christ died, was buried, and then rose again from the tomb, which of course is perfectly ‘orthodox’ Christian doctrine. Now, this is very important, in that it gives the lie both to the charge of docetism repeatedly leveled against him—mostly in sources that tend to assimilate his thought to Valentinianism—and to the accusation of denying the resurrection. If he admitted that Jesus Christ rose from his tomb, where he had been buried after dying on the cross, it is very probable that he in fact also admitted that the resurrection of the human beings will indeed take place. In the cosmological section of Michael’s account some points seem to refer to the Bardaiṣanites more than to Bardaiṣan himself. Here, indeed, along with the “beings” we find, not God’s Logos or Wisdom, but the three main natures or spiritual powers of Spirit, Force, and Thought, which, as Ephrem informs, were a develop657

Ed. A. Vasiliev, Patrologia Orientalis VII, Paris 1911, 520–521.

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ment of Bardaiṣan’s Logos in its function of creator-orderer, and this development was operated by some followers of Bardaiṣan. This seems to render somewhat more suspect also other doxographical pieces of information reported by Michael the Syrian, especially when these—like the negation of the resurrection and docetism—find no parallel in Bardaiṣan’s authentic fragments, first of all those from his De India, or in the Liber, or in the first cosmological traditions. As Drijvers noted,658 these points appear to be rather close to the positions of the Audians, a late group of Gnostic Bardaiṣanites who were thus named after their founder Aud or Audius, a deacon who was active in Edessa at the beginning of the fourth century,659 therefore one century after the death of Bardaiṣan himself. Moreover, since these Audians spoke of the Father and Mother of Life and of their offspring, amidst which were the seven archons or governors of the planets, I wonder whether the relevant doctrines refuted by Ephrem in the fourth century were in fact Audian rather than doctrines of Bardaiṣan proper, all the more so in that Ephrem repeatedly refers to a “son” of Bardaiṣan, whose name he does not mention; according to the Semitic linguistic usage, this may have been a disciple of his as well. Indeed, it is to the later Bardaiṣanites, rather than to Bardaiṣan himself—who in the Liber refutes astrological fatalism and in his fragment from De India represents the intellect as sovereign, in full harmony with his argument in the Liber—that the astrological interests often mentioned by the sources should probably be referred. Among these sources there is also a passage from the same Syriac manuscript (London, British Library, Add. 14658) in which the Liber Legum Regionum is preserved. Here, even the names of the Zodiacal signs—the same Syriac names that were used by the Mandaeans as well—are ascribed to the disciples of Bardaiṣan: “Names of the Zodiacal signs as those of the school of Bardaiṣan

Drijvers, Bardaiṣan, 191–192. Both Michael the Syrian (Chronicon 1.277–278) and Barhebraeus (Chronicon Ecclesiasticum 1.102.16–18), indeed attest that Aud was a Bardaiṣanite. 658 659

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say: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces.”660 It is true that astronomy and astrology are not always easy to separate, especially in the ancient world; however, astrological determinism is not necessarily implied by interest in astronomy. In the Liber, astrological determinism is openly refuted by the character of Bardaiṣan. And Severus Sebokt († 666 / 7) attests that Bardaiṣan maintained a purely astronomical interest, which does not involve astrological necessitarianism, but of course hostile sources may easily have inferred differently. Sebokt, indeed, has transmitted a passage of Bardaiṣan on the conjunction of the planets from which Bardaiṣan deducted that the world will endure for six thousand years. Severus’ information was taken over by George, bishop of the Arabs († 724), who, in a letter to the presbyter Joshua concerning Aphraat, reports that Bardaiṣan calculated this number of years through the time that each planet takes to complete its orbit. Clearly, there is no trace of astrological determinism in all this, which is pure astronomy. Moreover, Severus Sebokt further attests Bardaiṣan’s geographical and astronomical interests. While explaining that longitude must be measured from the Blessed Islands—located in the Ocean, to the far West—onward, he adds the following remark: “Bardaiṣan the Syrian and his followers [hL dYLhw )YYrwS n cYdrB] call them—I quote— ‘Dwelling place of their Beatitudes’ [tYBd mL )tr*zG nwhYBw+].”661 On the other hand, the above-mentioned George, bishop of the Arabs, writing to the stylite John, mentions another astronomical calculation, this not of Bardaiṣan himself, but of the Bardaiṣanites, and this involved astrology in that it was based on the Zodiacal constellations. Indeed, the Bardaiṣanites calculated the

.)N+rS )M*Lc oYr*t )rwt oSX .)BrQ( )ML$NQ )tLB$ )Yr) .)Nw*N )Lwd )Br )MLc 661 Ed. F. Nau, “Notes d’astronomie syrienne,” JA 16 (1910) 209– 228, in part. 215. 660

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duration of the days on the grounds of the a)naforai/ of the Zodiacal constellations.662

36 Barhebraeus In Michael the Syrian’s account, which I have already analyzed, the doxographical section seems to depend on a source that is also common to the Mnarat Qûdshe by Gregory Abu‘l Farag, called Barhebraeus.663 Here is the latter’s account, in cod. Paris. 210, fol. 176:664 “The thirteenth heresy is that of Bardaiṣan. He maintained that the main natures are three [)Brwr )NYK )tLt]: Mind, Power, and Intelligence [)tYOrtw )YXw )Nwh], and that the beings are four, and the aeons 360 [)Y*tY) )(Br) wS$ )ML(w]. And the one who spoke with Moses and the prophets is an archangel, not God. And (he said that) Mary did not generate a mortal body, but a luminous soul, which seemed to assume the aspect of flesh. And he also said that the angels 665 and the heavenly bodies the limbs. And he said that, just as the Moon takes off her garments each month and enters the Sun’s (chamber), likewise also the Mother of Life takes off her garments and enters the Father of Life’s (chamber), and has intercourse with him and gives birth seven times. And he said that Christ was born in the hour of Bel, and was crucified in the hour of Mars, and rose again in the hour of Bel. He also denied the resurrection and called marriage a ‘purification.’” I have already provided a commentary for this information; here I just remark that this source attests again that Bardaiṣan admitted of Jesus Christ’s birth, death, and resurrection, which does not fit very well in the heresiological picture of his alleged docetism. The editions of the two texts are respectively to be found in V. Ryssel, Georgs des Araberbischofs Gedichte und Briefe, Leipzig 1891, 48–49, and Nau, Patrologia Syriaca, 1.2.513. 663 Cf. W. Hage, “Bar Hebraeus,” in Theologische Realenzyklopädie 14 (1985) 158–164. 664 See Bar Hebraeus, Sur les hérésies, ed. F. Nau, Patrologia Orientalis, XIII, Paris 1919, 255–256. 665 Even if in the manuscript there is no lacuna, one lacuna must be conjectured here for the meaning. 662

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As for the reference to the Father and Mother of Life, it is again Barhebraeus who offers further elucidations in his Church Chronicle.666 Here, he does not draw a comparison between them and the Sun and Moon, but an identification, so that he reduces this doctrine to a purely astronomical doctrine. We have already encountered it in Ephrem, Agapius, and Michael the Syrian. In this Chronicle, indeed, Barhebraeus offers a concise account concerning Bardaiṣan and states that the Mother and Father of Life must be interpreted, respectively, as the moon and the sun, and this is an astronomical theory: “And in that time Bardaiṣan was illustrious. After abandoning the pagan doctrine of a priest of Mabbug, he believed [oMYh]667 and received the baptism, and he taught the doctrine of the Church in Edessa [)td(d )NPLwY yhrw)B],668 and composed treatises against heresies [mS sYSr*h lBQwL )r*M)M]. And yet he inclined to Marcion’s and Valentinus’ doctrines [nwYQrMd )NPLwY twL swNY+NLwdw], and denied the resurrection [)tMYQ rPK], and called marriage purification and purity, and maintained that the moon, the Mother of Life, every month takes off her light and enters the place of the Sun, the Father of Life, in order to receive from him the spirit of preservation that she then transmits to this world. Bardaiṣan lived for sixty-eight years and died in 533. Daiṣan is the name of the river of Edessa, on whose coast his mother Nah?širam gave birth to him. His father was Nuh?ama.” J. B. Abbeloos – Th. Lamy, Gregorii Bar Hebraei Chronicon Ecclesiasticum, Louvain 1872, I, coll. 45–46. Cf. L. I. Conrad, “On the Arabic Chronicle of Bar Hebraeus,” Parole de l’Orient 19 (1994) 319–378. 667 In Christian Syriac authors, ‘to believe’ means to convert to Christianity: I have already indicated this à propos Bardaiṣan’s sentence in the Liber Legum Regionum concerning Abgar the Great: “When King Abgar believed,” or “became a believer,” cannot mean anything else but “when King Abgar converted to Christianity,” or “became a Christian.” 668 The same, as I have remarked, was done by Origen, as is emphasized by Eusebius and by Pamphilus, who called him magister ecclesiae for this reason and attests that he continued to exercise this function for many years (per tot annos), until his death: he grew old inside the orthodox church (in ecclesia catholica senuit). 666

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It is to be noticed that in this source there is even a double conversion of Bardaiṣan: not only from Valentinianism to orthodoxy, as in Eusebius and Didymus, or from orthodoxy to Valentinianism, as in other hostile sources, or from Christianity to paganism, as in Ephrem’s hyperbolical assertion, but from paganism to Christianity and from Christianity to heresy. Barhebraeus, however, still knew from his sources that Bardaiṣan in fact defended orthodoxy in treatises against heresies, and thus he offers both these blatantly inconsistent pieces of information: Bardaiṣan actively refuted the heresies of his day, which were essentially Gnosticism and Marcionism, and yet at the same time he was a heretic himself, and exactly a Marcionite and a Gnostic! The only way to attribute to this contradiction a shade of consistency was to invent his defection to Valentinianism. The assimilation of Bardaiṣan to Marcionism, as I have already pointed out, is a completely unfounded doctrine, and it is probably influenced by the tendency, inaugurated by Ephrem, to relate Bardaiṣan to Marcion and other heretics such as Valentinus and Mani. That Bardaiṣan’s Mother and Father of Life are to be identified, and not simply compared, with the moon and the sun is also attested by the Arabic History of Dynasties, 125 and 79 Pococke: “There was also a man, called ‘Son of the Daiṣan,’ because he was born near the river Daiṣan close to the city of Roham.669 He called the sun ‘Father of Life’ and the moon ‘Mother of Life,’ and said that at the beginning of each month the Mother of Life takes off her light, that is, her clothes, enters the place of the Father of Life and has intercourse with him, and they have many children, who, with their increment, perpetuate the inferior world.” But what most of all confirms that the identification—rather than the mere comparison—of the sun and moon with the Father and Mother of Life is correct is a much more ancient attestation: that of Ephrem. Indeed, while analyzing his testimonies on Bardaiṣan, I have already pointed out that he reports that Bardaiṣan considered the moon to be mother and the sun to be father, which of course is perfectly in line with the identification of the moon with the Mother of Life and of the sun with the Father of Life. 669

Transcription of Orhai, Edessa.

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Moreover, in Prose Refutations 1.27.32–38 Ephrem also confirms that another detail of the story of the Mother and Father of Life is to be taken in an astronomical sense: that is, the detail of the “spirit of preservation,” which he says was bestowed by the sun upon the moon and by the latter upon the sublunar world: Bardaiṣan “says concerning the moon that it is an earth and a womb full of a sublime and lofty fluid. And she has it descend upon inferior realities, located under her.” This further confirms that the whole discourse on the Father and Mother of Life should be taken in an astronomical sense, as a metaphorical description of the sun and the moon and their influence on this world in terms of time measuring and benign effects. All the more so in that Bardaiṣan, as I have pointed out, probably liked to employ metaphors and allegories, and the poetical context of this discourse on the Father and Mother of Life facilitated this. Barhebraeus’ information, even though it comes from a late author, is confirmed by Ephrem, who lived much earlier. This renders another piece of information provided by Barhebraeus still more interesting. I mean his statement, which I have already discussed, that Moses of Chorene drew his material on Abgar Ukkama and Addai from Bardaiṣan’s History of Armenia. This strongly suggests that Bardaiṣan was the first to write down, in his historical work, the nucleus of this legend, which was then taken up by Eusebius and subsequently, with additions, became the Doctrina Addai. He very probably did so in order to celebrate both his friend and king Abgar the Great and the early spread of Christianity in Osrhoene.

3 CONCLUSIONS AND CONTRIBUTION TO RESEARCH Several sources on Bardaiṣan have already been studied, sometimes in depth, especially Ephrem, the cosmological traditions, and the heresiological and biographical sources, even though not always their implications and consequences have been fully drawn. I have endeavored to contribute something in this direction. But what has been so far surprisingly overlooked is Porphyry’s quotation of the two fragments from Bardaiṣan’s De India. Of course, these fragments were already known and were also translated and analyzed in a fairly recent and careful study by Winter.1 Scholars, however, have neglected to properly analyze this source and to relate it to Bardaiṣan’s cosmology and anthropology, as well as to systematically employ it in a methodical comparison with all other available testimonies and fragments. Indeed, the fragments preserved by Porphyry are of the highest importance, as I have extensively argued. He quoted them only a few decades after Bardaiṣan’s death and has thus transmitted a long and highly valuable direct double quotation from Bardaiṣan’s De India, a work of his maturity, written shortly before his death. These are two among the very few fragments from Bardaiṣan himself, and not from his school, and among the extremely few that are certain. Porphyry explicitly declares that he is directly quoting from Bardaiṣan himself, not from his followers, and not in a paraphrase or reworking. I have also argued that there are good internal rea-

1 F. Winter, Bardesanes von Edessa über Indien: Ein früher syrischer Theologe schreibt über ein fremdes Land, Thaur 1999.

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sons to assume that he did not actually alter Bardaiṣan’s words or thought. I have demonstrated that the fragments from De India provide valuable information on Bardaiṣan’s cosmogony and cosmology, on the cosmic Christ and Bardaiṣan’s conception of Christ-Logos, on Bardaiṣan’s anthropology and ethics, and on his preference for persuasion and teaching over violence and constriction, a characteristic that emerges again in his eschatology, all focused on the apokatastasis. I have also argued that the Porphyrian fragments offer an extremely helpful key for the interpretation both of these fragments themselves and of other doctrines of Bardaiṣan as well: that is to say, the inspiration from Plato’s Timaeus. This interpretive key has allowed me to understand many cosmological details that otherwise would have been very difficult or impossible to explain. From all this a substantial advancement in research—I hope—has come, as well as from other deductions derived from the analysis of these and other sources, including Didymus’ testimony, largely overlooked as well, and the remarkable and numerous parallels with Origen’s thought, which I have pointed out one by one, and the possible contacts with him and his school and tradition. A close and constant comparison with the thought of Origen (and Clement of Alexandria), which I have endeavored to carry out, is illuminating and allows for a reassessment of Bardaiṣan’s thought, in many fields: creation, Christology, anthropology, resurrection, apokatastasis, exegesis, influence from Middle Platonism, in addition to Stoicism, and much else. I greatly hope that the present contribution to scholarship will prove helpful and will enhance further research.

ESSENTIAL BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES ON BARDAIṢAN* * These References, in chronological order, do not include all the works cited in the course of the present monograph, which would have made my bibliography extremely lengthy, but only the most important studies on Bardaiṣan, and especially the most relevant to the present investigation. R. D. W. Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, London 1855, 41–59 of the pages with Syriac numbering. R. Duval, Histoire politique, religieuse et littéraire d’Édesse, Paris 1892, 116. Bardesanes, Liber Legum Regionum, cuius textum Syriacum vocalium signis instruxit, Latine vertit F. Nau, adnotationibus locupletavit Th. Nöldeke, Patrologia Syriaca 1.2, 1907. E. Buonaiuti, “Bardesane l’Astrologo,” Rivista Storico-critica delle Scienze Teologiche e Religiose 5 (1909) 695–704. F. Haase, Zur Bardesanischen Gnosis, Leipzig 1910, Texte und Untersuchungen 34.4. G. Furlani, “Contributions to the History of the Greek Philosophy in the Orient, Syriac Texts, IV,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 35 (1915) 297–317. G. Levi della Vida, “Bardesane e il dialogo delle leggi dei paesi,” Rivista trimestrale di Studi Filosofici e Religiosi 1 (1920) 399–430. G. Levi della Vida, “Appunti bardesanici. 2. Fonti arabe sul Bardesanismo,” Rivista di Studi Orientali 8 (1920), installment 4. G. Levi della Vida, translator, Il dialogo delle leggi dei paesi, Rome 1921, Scrittori cristiani antichi 3. F. Haase, “Neue Bardesanesstudien,” Oriens Christianus 22–24 (1922–24) 129–40. H. H. Schaeder, “Bardesanes von Edessa in der Überlieferung der griechischen un der syrischen Kirche,” Zeitschrift für 365

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Kirchengeschichte 51 (1932) 21–74 = Studien zur orientalischen Religionsgeschichte, Darmstadt 1968. L. Tondelli, Mani, rapporti con Bardesane, Milan 1932. W. Bauer, Rechtgläubigkeit und Ketzerei im ältesten Christentum, Tübingen 1934. B. Rehm, “Bardesanes in den Ps.-Clementinen,” Philologus 93 (1938) 218–247. D. Amand, Fatalisme et liberté dans l’antiquité grecque. Recherches sur la survivance de l’argumentation morale antifataliste de Carnéade chez les philosophes grecs et les théologiens chrétiens des quatre premiers siècles, Louvain 1945. R. Cerfaux, “Bardesanes,” in Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum, I, Stuttgart 1950, cols. 1180–88. A. Rücker, “Die Literatur des Altsyrischen Christentum,” in Handbuch der Orientalistik, 3.1.2, Leiden-Köln 1953, 171–172. E. Kirsten, “Edessa,” Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum, IV, Stuttgart 1959, cols. 552–597. The Book of the Laws of Countries. Dialogue on Fate of Bardaiṣan of Edessa, by H. J. W Drijvers, Assen 1965. H. J. W. Drijvers, Bardaiṣan of Edessa, Assen 1966, Studia Semitica Neerlandica 6. S. Mazzarino, “La democratizzazione della cultura nel Basso Impero,” in Congrès International de Sciences Historiques, XI, Stockholm août 1960, éd. J. N. Bakhuizen van den Brink, Louvain 1961, 35–55. H. J. W. Drijvers, Bardaiṣan of Edessa, Assen 1966. T. Jansma, La notice de Barh?adbešhabba ‘Arbaïa sur l’hérésie des Daisanites, in Mémorial Mgr. Gabriel Khoury-Sarkis, Louvain 1969, 91–106. T. Jansma, Natuur, lot en vrijheid. Bardesanes, de filosof der Arameër en zijn images, Wageningen 1969. A. J. M. Davids, “Zur Kosmogonie Bardaisans. Textkritische Bemerkungen,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 120 (1970) 32–42. H. J. W. Drijvers, “Edessa und das jüdische Christentum,” VigChr 24 (1970) 4–33. B. Ehlers Aland, “Bardesanes von Edessa. Ein syrischer Gnostiker. Bemerkungen aus Anlaß des Buches von H. J. W. Drijvers, “Bardaisan of Edessa,” Zeischrift für Kirchengeschichte 81 (1970) 334–351.

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J. B. Segal, Edessa The Blessed City, Oxford 1970; reprint Piscataway NJ 2001. T. Jansma, “Ephraems Beschreibung des ersten Tages der Schöpfung. Bemerkungen über den Charakter seines Kommentars zur Genesis,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 37 (1971) 295–316. U. Bianchi, “Bardesanes gnosticus. Le fonti del dualismo di Bardesane,” in Umanità e storia. Scritti in onore di Adelchi Attisani, II, Naples 1971, 627–641 = Eiusd. Selected Essays on Gnosticism, Dualism and Mysteriosophy, Leiden 1978, 336–350. M. Mazza, Lotte sociali e restaurazione autoritaria nel III secolo d.C., Bari 1973, 496–499. B. Ehlers Aland, “Mani und Bardesanes. Zur Entstehung des manichäischen Systems,” in Synkretismus im syrisch-persischen Kulturgebiet, Göttingen 1975, 123–143. R. Degen, “A Note on the Law of Hatra,” AION 37 (1977) 486– 490. E. Beck, “Bardaisan und seine Schule bei Ephräm,” Le Muséon 91 (1978) 271–333. E. Beck, Ephräms Polemik gegen Mani und die Manichäer im Rahmen der zeitgenössischen griechischen Polemik und der des Augustinus, Louvain 1978, CSCO Subsidia 55. R. Guenther, “Bardesanes und die griechische Philosophie,” AAH 25 (1978) 15–20. A. Dihle, “Zur Schicksalslehre des Bardesanes,” in Kerygma und Logos. Festschrift für Carl Andresen, Göttingen 1979, 123–135. H. J. W. Drijvers, “Bardesanes,” in Theologische Realenzyklopädie, V, Berlin-New York 1979, cols. 206–212. F. Rundgren, “Stoica Semitica,” in Studien zur Geschichte und Kultur des vorderen Orients. Festschrift für B. Spulen, Leiden 1981, pp. 355–361. A. Dihle, The Theory of Will in Classical Antiquity, Berkeley 1982. H. J. W. Drijvers, “Edessa,” Theologische Realenzyklopädie, IX, BerlinNew York 1982, cols. 277–288. H. J. W. Drijvers, “A Tomb for the Life of a King. A Recently Discovered Edessene Mosaic with a Portrait of King Abgar the Great,” Muséon 95 (1982) 167–189. R. Murray, The Characteristics of Earliest Syriac Christianity, in N. Garsoïan - T. F. Mathews - R. W. Thomson (edd.), East of Byzantium; Syria and Armenia in the Formative Period, Washington D.C. 1982, 3–16.

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J. Wagner, “Provincia Osrhoenae. New Archaeological Finds Illustrating the Military Organization Under the Severan Dynasty,” in Armies and Frontiers in Roman and Byzantine Anatolia, ed. S. Mitchell, Oxford 1983, 103–129. T. Bou Mansour, “La défense éphrémienne de la liberté contre les doctrines marcionite, bardesanite et manichéenne,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 50 (1984) 331–346. H. J. W. Drijvers, “Bardaiṣan of Edessa and the Hermetica. The Aramaic Philosopher and the Philosophy of His Time,” in Id., East of Antioch, London 1984, n. 11. H. J. W. Drijvers, “Bardaiṣan von Edessa als Repräsentant des syrischen Synkretismus im 2. Jahrhundert n. Chr.,” ibidem n. 12. H. J. W. Drijvers, “Mani und Bardaisan. Beitrag zur Vorgeschichte des Manichäismus,” ibidem n. 13. L. Thomas, “Problème de rapports entre le monde indo-européen et le monde chinois soulevé par une famille de trois textes (grec, latin, syriaque [Bardaisan]) des II et III siècles,” in Études européennes 13 (1985) 19–32. G. Widengren, “Bardesanes von Edessa und der syrischmesopotamische Gnostizismus. Ein Beitrag zur Vorgeschichte des Manichäismus,” in The Many and the One. Essays on Religion in the Graeco-Roman World presented to Herman Ludin Jansen on his 80th Birthday, Trondheim 1985, 153–181. G. Widengren, “Aramaica et Syriaca II. Textes concernant Bardésane d’Édesse,” Orientalia Suecana 33–35 (1984–86) 479– 486. A. Dihle, “Philosophische Lehren von Schicksal und Freiheit,” Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum 30 (1987) 14–28. H. Kruse, “Die ‘Mythologischen Irrtümer’ Bar-Daisans,” Oriens Christianus 71 (1987) 24–52. G. Levi della Vida, Pitagora, Bardesane e altri studi siriaci, ed. R. Contini, Roma 1989, Studi Orientali 8. A. Dihle, “Astrology in the doctrine of Bardesanes,” in Studia Patristica 20 (1989) 160–168. A. Dihle, “Liberté et destin dans l’antiquité tardive,” Revue de Théologie et de Philosophie 121 (1989) 129–147. U. Neymeyr, Die Christlichen Lehrer im zweiten Jahrhundert, Leiden 1989, Vigiliae Christianae Suppl. 4, 158–168.

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INDEX * Bardaiṣan is omitted as an entry because it occurs on almost every page of the book. Agapius, xii, 163, 164, 214, 299, 334, 336, 337, 338, 350, 352, 353, 355, 359 air, wind, gust, 131, 174, 176, 181, 182, 202, 203, 206, 290, 302, 313, 319, 326, 337 Albinus, 17, 18 Al-Bîrûnî, 53, 171, 334, 343 Alcinoous, 18, 21 Alexandria, x, 11, 13, 16, 29, 30, 33, 34, 40, 65, 78, 79, 90, 92, 99, 102, 110, 115, 122, 123, 145, 183, 187, 190, 245, 262, 268, 308, 320, 364, 372 allegorical, allegory, 13, 18, 24, 31, 71, 87, 90, 126, 201, 202, 207, 208, 210, 211, 224, 236, 237, 238, 308, 326, 343 Ammonius Saccas, 33, 92 Ananias, 271, 272 an-Nadîm, 53, 174, 308, 342 Antoninus, 6, 41, 57, 58, 59, 93, 118, 119, 120, 149, 241, 243, 254, 334, 340, 350 Apocalypse of Peter, 115, 245 apocalypticism, 13, 24, 90 apocryphal, 3, 30, 91, 114, 244, 245, 263, 269, 273, 286, 308 Apocryphon of John, 172 apokatastasis, ix, x, xii, 9, 13, 21, 23, 24, 40, 41, 42, 71, 76, 80,

Abel, 228 Abercius, 6, 8, 146, 147, 148, 187, 227, 281 Abgar, x, xii, 5, 6, 14, 17, 24, 34, 35, 36, 38, 71, 111, 120, 139, 241, 257, 258, 259, 260, 263, 264, 265, 266, 267, 268, 269, 270, 271, 272, 273, 276, 277, 278, 279, 280, 281, 282, 283, 284, 286, 287, 296, 340, 351, 353, 359, 361, 367, 370 Abgarun, 352, 353 accident, 5, 62, 64, 96, 121, 130, 180, 181, 182, 217, 220, 262, 300, 303, 304, 305, 310, 319, 327, 333 Achilles Tatius, 110 Acts of Thomas, xii, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 200, 285, 286 Adam, 75, 96, 194, 195, 203, 204, 207, 208, 210, 211, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 235, 290, 320, 329 Addai, ix, x, 4, 34, 37, 60, 70, 71, 72, 119, 137, 263, 264, 265, 267, 268, 269, 270, 271, 273, 274, 276, 277, 278, 279, 280, 282, 283, 284, 286, 351, 361 aeons, 7, 191, 206, 293, 302, 321, 338, 351, 358

373

374

Bardaiṣan of Edessa

81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 88, 91, 94, 98, 108, 115, 116, 126, 131, 140, 144, 147, 150, 154, 177, 181, 191, 194, 195, 196, 209, 232, 234, 235, 236, 249, 268, 288, 305, 313, 319, 321, 327, 328, 336, 346,
347, 350, 364, 371 Apollinaris, 60 apology, xii, 4, 5, 60, 72, 119 apostles, 30, 34, 135, 148, 179, 263, 273, 274, 275, 276 Aramaic, 4, 5, 12, 14, 201, 267, 297, 306, 368 Ardesianes, 47, 48, 49, 51, 52, 67, 121, 239, 255, 314 Aristotle, 18, 20, 219 Armenia, xii, 46, 77, 254, 256, 257, 261, 262, 264, 283, 367 astrology, 25, 47, 92, 161, 162, 214, 353, 357 astronomy, 3, 72, 92, 161, 353, 357 Athenagoras, 13, 58, 60 atomism, atomistic, 21, 176 Augustine, xii, 111, 245 Avida, 36, 59, 61, 62, 64, 112, 117, 146, 166, 242, 334 Axionicus, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51 Bar Yamma, 64, 117, 153, 155 Bardaiṣanites, 20, 28, 53, 65, 66, 152, 153, 158, 159, 162, 163, 165, 174, 190, 199, 200, 202, 204, 205, 206, 211, 218, 219, 238, 245, 252, 282, 291, 292, 300, 301, 302, 303, 307, 308, 309, 310, 311, 322, 326, 328, 335, 339, 341, 342, 343, 344, 347, 355, 356, 357 Barḥadbshabba, 304, 305

Barhebraeus, xii, 164, 263, 265, 283, 284, 299, 302, 334, 336, 338, 339, 353, 356, 358, 359, 360, 361 Being, 166, 170, 175, 179, 200, 234, 290, 303 beings, 19, 20, 22, 25, 43, 50, 62, 64, 75, 80, 83, 84, 99, 103, 106, 107, 112, 113, 129, 130, 133, 153, 161, 162, 163, 166, 167, 169, 170, 173, 174, 176, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 185, 186, 189, 191, 192, 193, 196, 201, 204, 210, 212, 213, 217, 226, 228, 231, 232, 233, 234, 251, 300, 301, 302, 303, 304, 305, 313, 315, 316, 319, 321, 322, 323, 324, 325, 326, 327, 329, 330, 332, 333, 334, 335, 337, 338, 339, 349, 351, 355, 358 Bible, x, 7, 10, 12, 32, 75, 83, 168, 184, 188, 195, 206, 210, 211, 213, 218, 237, 245, 275, 282, 291, 300, 308, 315, 317, 349, 369 birth, 23, 43, 48, 56, 113, 124, 128, 142, 144, 147, 204, 235, 247, 249, 251, 285, 287, 289, 296, 297, 299, 324, 325, 328, 333, 340, 352, 355, 358, 359 bishop, 11, 16, 33, 41, 72, 128, 146, 148, 239, 246, 261, 281, 282, 291, 292, 314, 322, 339, 340, 341, 347, 351, 352 body, 7, 17, 19, 24, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 53, 56, 79, 80, 96, 99, 104, 106, 107, 112, 123, 124, 127, 131, 132, 142, 143, 147, 153, 162, 163, 164, 168, 169,

Index 170, 171, 180, 184, 185, 194, 195, 203, 204, 209, 218, 219, 220, 221, 222, 224, 225, 226, 227, 230, 231, 234, 236, 245, 246, 247, 249, 266, 284, 288, 289, 290, 307, 320, 321, 330, 331, 337, 343, 348, 351, 354, 355, 358 Book of Mysteries, 53, 224, 238, 289, 326 Brahmans, 93, 94, 103, 107, 108, 109, 149, 285 Caesarea, 13, 14, 16, 32, 33, 71, 92, 115, 270 Calcidius, 123, 179, 184, 316, 317 Caracalla, 16, 57, 59, 78, 120, 257, 259, 261 Carmina Nisibena, 158, 224 Carneades, 22, 56 celestial bodies, heavenly bodies, 20, 23, 24, 25, 26, 35, 43, 45, 71, 72, 79, 87, 124, 132, 145, 162, 212, 213, 220, 358 Christ, xi, xii, 8, 9, 13, 24, 28, 34, 35, 47, 48, 49, 63, 85, 86, 88, 89, 91, 96, 97, 99, 100, 101, 102, 104, 105, 106, 129, 130, 134, 142, 144, 147, 154, 160, 164, 169, 174, 175, 178, 180, 183, 185, 186, 188, 189, 191, 194, 195, 196, 200, 201, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 217, 225, 226, 227, 228, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 245, 251, 267, 273, 276, 278, 279, 280, 283, 287, 288, 289, 290, 292, 296, 304, 305, 306, 315, 319, 320,

375 321, 323, 324, 325, 326, 327, 328, 329, 332, 333, 334, 337, 349, 352, 354, 355, 358, 364 Christians, 2, 12, 24, 34, 35, 36, 56, 57, 59, 61, 64, 78, 106, 119, 120, 134, 135, 139, 146, 147, 241, 276, 280, 340, 351 Christ-Logos, xi, xii, 49, 63, 85, 86, 89, 96, 97, 101, 102, 104, 105, 106, 129, 130, 178, 180, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 189, 191, 196, 205, 207, 208, 217, 232, 235, 288, 290, 304, 305, 306, 319, 320, 326, 327, 333, 334, 337, 364 Chronicon ad A.D. 846 pertinens, 297 Chronicon Edessenum, xii, 11, 198, 296, 297, 340, 352 Chronicon miscellaneum ad annum Domini 724 pertinens, 298 Chronicon of Zuqnîn, 258 Clement, 10, 11, 13, 21, 23, 29, 30, 34, 40, 49, 65, 78, 79, 80, 81, 88, 99, 102, 104, 106, 138, 145, 183, 187, 189, 190, 193, 195, 221, 245, 268, 308, 320, 326, 327, 364, 372 climatic, climatic zones, kli/mata, 24, 35, 45, 56, 79, 124, 125, 131, 132, 134, 135, 161, 162 conception, xi, 9, 19, 21, 22, 24, 25, 49, 51, 78, 79, 92, 96, 104, 105, 108, 161, 163, 167, 168, 170, 171, 175, 178, 182, 184, 186, 189, 190, 194, 196, 197, 202, 204, 209, 210, 213, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 224, 225, 227, 232, 234, 235, 236,

376

Bardaiṣan of Edessa

238, 267, 279, 289, 290, 302, 305, 320, 324, 327, 328, 331, 333, 344, 349, 355, 364 Constantine, 11, 16, 36, 88, 139, 148, 262, 264, 284 Contra Fatum, xii, 23, 122 cosmological accounts, cosmological traditions, xii, 21, 22, 28, 49, 53, 68, 82, 96, 97, 102, 108, 130, 155, 162, 163, 174, 177, 178, 179, 181, 182, 185, 196, 206, 210, 212, 217, 226, 227, 232, 288, 298, 299, 303, 304, 306, 312, 314, 316, 322, 323, 334, 335, 337, 338, 344, 356, 363 cosmology, cosmological, xii, 14, 21, 22, 28, 48, 49, 53, 68, 82, 91, 92, 95, 96, 97, 100, 102, 104, 106, 108, 130, 155, 162, 163, 164, 174, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 185, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 195, 196, 206, 210, 212, 213, 217, 226, 227, 232, 233, 235, 249, 288, 290, 298, 299, 300, 302, 303, 304, 305, 306, 308, 310, 311, 312, 314, 315, 316, 317, 319, 321, 322, 323, 325, 326, 329, 331, 334, 335, 336, 337, 338, 339, 343, 344, 346, 350, 355, 356, 363, 364 cosmos, 42, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 104, 105, 106, 107, 184, 185, 191, 192, 194, 204, 220, 234, 320 creatio ex nihilo, 129, 179, 184 creation, xi, xii, 22, 39, 49, 75, 83, 85, 86, 96, 97, 102, 105, 106, 130, 131, 155, 168, 172,

175, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 193, 206, 217, 221, 227, 232, 235, 236, 245, 290, 293, 300, 301, 304, 305, 306, 313, 315, 316, 319, 320,
323, 324, 326, 327, 329, 333, 334, 337, 347, 364 Cross, xii, 86, 96, 97, 99, 101, 104, 105, 130, 183, 187, 195, 207, 224, 229, 232, 233, 234, 235, 238, 301, 304, 305, 320, 324, 326 Daiṣan, 1, 312, 339, 340, 351, 359, 360 Dandamis, 109 darkness, 37, 50, 130, 163, 164, 165, 167, 169, 174, 176, 182, 191, 196, 206, 209, 220, 226, 227, 232, 290, 300, 301, 302, 305, 306, 308, 315, 316, 319, 321, 323, 324, 325, 326, 329, 330, 332, 333, 335, 337, 338, 342, 344, 345, 346, 347, 348, 349 De Abstinentia, 108 De India, xii, 21, 22, 28, 56, 67, 85, 91, 93, 96, 97, 99, 101, 108, 110, 164, 168, 169, 184, 185, 194, 196, 197, 204, 209, 212, 213, 216, 220, 221, 226, 232, 233, 234, 254, 285, 288, 290, 299, 306, 310, 315, 316, 318, 320, 326, 331, 356, 363, 364 De Styge, 58, 91, 92, 93, 109 deacon, xii, 51, 148, 212, 314, 341, 351, 353, 356

Index deities, 72, 106, 168, 172, 173, 174, 180, 210, 212, 213, 291, 322, 347, 352, 354 Demiurge, 101, 102, 105, 106, 147, 168, 185, 213, 245, 306, 315, 316, 320 deterministic, determinism, 35, 40, 42, 45, 55, 59, 71, 73, 79, 80, 81, 82, 116, 117, 119, 121, 123, 124, 125, 126, 138, 161, 162, 173, 197, 311, 357 Dialogue of Adamantius, xii, 117, 152, 153, 154, 155 Diatessaron, 75, 275, 276, 282, 291, 293, 294 Didymus, xii, 13, 22, 24, 30, 40, 41, 42, 45, 46, 51, 53, 56, 110, 121, 124, 148, 149, 198, 210, 212, 216, 240, 243, 255, 274, 286, 289, 314, 327, 340, 341, 353, 354, 360, 364 Diodore of Tarsus, xii, 23, 24, 56, 122, 126, 128, 140, 170 disciples, 4, 30, 36, 57, 61, 62, 64, 65, 70, 72, 75, 92, 93, 110, 114, 117, 118, 152, 157, 160, 161, 174, 199, 200, 214, 268, 273, 274, 275, 276, 280, 281, 287, 310, 334, 352, 356 Domnus, 16, 17, 19, 201 Eden, 209, 211 Edessa, ix, x, xii, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 20, 27, 34, 37, 38, 46, 52, 54, 56, 58, 59, 61, 66, 68, 69, 71, 72, 73, 76, 78, 90, 109, 111, 114, 116, 120, 137, 139, 156, 168, 177, 210, 217, 236, 240, 241, 253, 254, 255, 257, 258, 259, 260, 261, 262, 263, 264, 265,

377 266, 267, 268, 269, 270, 271, 272, 275, 276, 277, 278, 279, 280, 281, 282, 283, 284, 285, 286, 287, 291, 294, 296, 306, 311, 312, 314, 316, 322, 339, 340, 341, 343, 351, 353, 356, 359, 360, 363, 365, 366, 367, 368, 369, 370, 371 Elagabalus, 57, 59, 78, 93, 109, 110, 120, 242, 254, 285, 294 elements, 10, 15, 31, 40, 70, 76, 84, 96, 101, 129, 130, 131, 141, 162, 163, 164, 167, 169, 170, 173, 174, 178, 179, 181, 182, 189, 191, 194, 196, 211, 227, 238, 243, 278, 279, 295, 300, 301, 303, 304, 305, 306, 314, 315, 316, 317, 319, 322, 323, 325, 331, 335, 336, 337, 338, 339, 350 Elias of Nisibis, 258, 260, 297 Ephrem, xii, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 25, 28, 30, 47, 48, 53, 54, 67, 68, 70, 85, 93, 96, 104, 108, 114, 116, 129, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 167, 168, 169, 171, 172, 173, 174, 176, 178, 179, 181, 182, 186, 187, 188, 190, 191, 192, 193,
195, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 211, 212, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 235, 236, 237, 238, 239, 243, 244, 246, 248, 249, 256, 263, 265, 268, 276, 286, 288, 289, 291, 294, 297, 299, 302, 303, 304, 305, 308, 309, 318,

378

Bardaiṣan of Edessa

322, 326, 327, 328, 329, 333, 334, 335, 341, 353, 354, 355, 356, 359, 360, 361, 363, 369 epinoiai, 13, 186, 349 Epiphanius, xii, 30, 32, 55, 57, 59, 74, 93, 110, 111, 119, 120, 126, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 250, 254, 255, 286, 297, 308, 314, 321, 340, 354 ethical intellectualism, 24, 88, 112, 123, 177 Eusebius, xii, 4, 6, 13, 16, 23, 26, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36, 38, 41, 42, 45, 48, 51, 52, 53, 55, 56, 57, 59, 66, 69, 70, 71, 72, 74, 79, 86, 90, 93, 97, 110, 111, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 125, 128, 134, 137, 138, 145, 149, 151, 154, 155, 159, 161, 163, 164, 178, 193, 195, 197, 198, 212, 216, 240, 242, 243, 248, 249, 250, 254, 255, 261, 263, 265, 266, 267, 268, 269, 270, 271, 272, 273, 275, 276, 277, 278, 279, 280, 282, 283, 284, 286, 287, 289, 296, 297, 298, 310, 311, 314, 327, 334, 335, 340, 354, 359, 360, 361, 369 Eve, 75, 207, 210, 231, 290 evil, 21, 24, 52, 74, 75, 76, 83, 84, 85, 89, 90, 94, 112, 114, 124, 130, 140, 144, 147, 154, 155, 160, 162, 163, 164, 166, 167, 168, 174, 176, 182, 184, 185, 191, 193, 198, 206, 215, 217, 218, 220, 223, 226, 227, 231, 232, 245, 246, 291, 293, 303, 305, 307, 309, 310, 314,

316, 319, 321, 323, 325, 326, 327, 328, 329, 331, 333, 334, 335, 336, 337, 338, 342, 343, 344, 345, 346, 347, 348, 349 exile, 46, 257, 260, 261, 263 faith, xiii, 15, 28, 36, 62, 63, 106, 117, 135, 149, 151, 191, 198, 242, 243, 252, 268, 279, 281, 284 Fate, 6, 23, 24, 25, 26, 42, 43, 45, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 66, 68, 73, 79, 80, 116, 118, 119, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 138, 140, 141, 143, 145, 153, 161, 163, 173, 197, 213, 220, 242, 250, 255, 265, 283, 295, 301,
306, 311, 334, 366, 371 Father of Life, 200, 201, 210, 215, 352, 355, 358, 359, 360 Fihrist, xii, 53, 342, 343, 344 fire, 131, 174, 176, 181, 182, 218, 223, 290, 302, 306, 313, 319, 326, 330, 332, 337 forest, 313, 316, 317 free will, xii, 5, 12, 13, 22, 26, 42, 53, 55, 59, 64, 71, 73, 75, 78, 79, 80, 82, 83, 84, 85, 88, 111, 112, 113, 119, 123, 126, 127, 131, 132, 136, 140, 141, 142, 143, 153, 154, 155, 164, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 172, 177, 196, 197, 213, 219, 220, 227, 236, 295, 301, 306, 309, 310, 312, 318, 323, 327, 329, 331, 334, 335, 346 Gannath Bussamê, 291 Genesis, 39, 42, 75, 81, 124, 172, 186, 189, 192, 203, 210,

Index 224, 290, 305, 315, 316, 319, 367 George, bishop of the Arabs, 357 Gnostic, Gnosticism, xii, 13, 19, 24, 40, 41, 42, 47, 49, 51, 55, 59, 62, 66, 67, 71, 74, 75, 77, 80, 81, 83, 90, 99, 116, 117, 122, 128, 151, 159, 164, 172, 177, 180, 193, 198, 199, 210, 215, 216, 218, 221, 241, 243, 244, 255, 256, 263, 281, 286, 295, 321, 327, 353, 354, 355, 356, 360, 367 God, 5, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 28, 34, 42, 43, 44, 45, 50, 59, 61, 62, 63, 64, 68, 72, 74, 75, 76, 79, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 88, 89, 98, 99, 101, 102, 104, 105, 106, 112, 113, 125, 126, 127, 129, 130, 131, 133, 140, 141, 143, 144, 147, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 160, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 177, 179, 180, 181, 182, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 192, 193, 195, 196, 197, 201, 203, 204, 206, 210, 213, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 222, 226, 228, 232, 233, 234, 240, 245, 246, 251, 274, 289, 290, 291, 298, 302, 303, 304, 305, 306, 309, 310, 313, 315, 317, 319, 320, 322, 323, 326, 327, 328, 329, 330, 331, 333, 334, 335, 336, 339, 343, 344, 347, 349, 351, 352, 354, 355, 358 goodness, 26, 74, 81, 82, 113, 147, 167, 180, 185

379 Greek, xii, 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14, 17, 26, 28, 30, 31, 32, 36, 41, 45, 46, 47, 48, 52, 55, 57, 59, 60, 64, 65, 69, 70, 71, 72, 76, 79, 80, 84, 86, 87, 91, 93, 95, 106, 110, 111, 116, 118, 119, 121, 134, 137, 146, 149, 154, 156, 162, 164, 173, 179, 185, 186, 188, 189, 200, 202, 217, 219, 230, 236, 240, 241, 242, 246, 248, 249, 250, 254, 255, 257, 260, 262, 264, 265, 267, 269, 270, 271, 272, 273, 275, 276, 285, 289, 290, 295, 304, 313, 314, 316, 317, 323, 332, 335, 340, 343, 346, 349, 353, 354, 365, 369 Gregory of Nyssa, x, xii, 10, 22, 26, 41, 56, 84, 85, 86, 88, 91, 97, 116, 122, 144, 168, 177, 183, 184, 190, 193, 195, 203, 220, 221, 229, 232, 233, 235, 288, 290, 318, 338, 347, 348, 349, 350, 354, 371 Harmonius, 198, 246, 248, 249, 250, 251, 293, 294, 352, 353 Hasadu, 352, 353 Hebrew, 32, 175, 201, 297, 317 henotheism, 62 Heraclas, 33 heretic, xii, 13, 39, 47, 74, 111, 117, 150, 157, 160, 198, 238, 240, 243, 282, 283, 286, 287, 290, 297, 314, 340, 360 Hippolytus, xii, 41, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 53, 54, 67, 74, 77, 117, 121, 128, 145, 151, 177, 178, 201, 212, 239, 240, 244, 250, 251, 253, 255, 289, 314, 322

380

Bardaiṣan of Edessa

Historia Ecclesiastica, 6, 57, 59, 71, 72, 74, 115, 149, 242, 246, 248, 249, 265, 277, 278, 297, 334 History of Armenia, 46, 253, 361 horoscope, 23, 35, 43, 45, 56, 124, 125, 127, 134, 136, 138, 142, 161 humanity, 100, 104, 107, 172, 194, 195, 223, 227, 234, 274, 320, 349 Hymni contra Haereses, 66, 67, 158, 200, 202, 203, 206, 209, 211, 212, 215, 216, 218, 237, 238 Ibn Kabar, 347 Ideas, 21, 28, 102, 104, 105, 106, 176, 183, 184, 320, 327 In illud Tunc et ipse Filius, 195 incorporeal, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 191, 354 intellect, 75, 80, 89, 101, 106, 112, 133, 141, 142, 143, 163, 168, 169, 170, 171, 174, 177, 184, 185, 204, 219, 220, 236, 306, 318, 331, 336, 347, 351, 356 interpolation, 35, 48, 74, 76 Isho‘dad of Merw, xii, 289 Jacob of Edessa, xii, 73, 260, 292, 298, 311, 312, 370 Jerome, xii, 13, 32, 53, 57, 59, 74, 77, 121, 128, 148, 149, 150, 151, 154, 159, 198, 212, 216, 250, 254, 255, 261, 286, 289, 314, 327, 354 Jesus, 31, 32, 47, 49, 62, 75, 85, 97, 98, 142, 144, 160, 200,

202, 207, 209, 217, 231, 232, 233, 234, 245, 266, 267, 269, 270, 271, 272, 274, 276, 277, 279, 280, 288, 289, 294, 325, 328, 351, 355, 358 Jews, 12, 24, 35, 36, 43, 45, 56, 125, 134, 156, 212, 276 Julia Mamaea, 38, 78 Julius Africanus, xii, 6, 13, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, 39, 117, 198, 241, 254, 281, 286, 327, 353 justice, 26, 75, 81, 82, 124, 147, 194, 230 Justin, 9, 13, 49, 80, 97, 187, 189, 234, 268, 293, 326 Kata Heimarmenēs, Kata\ Ei(marme/nhj, ix, xii, 6, 22, 37, 45, 48, 55, 56, 57, 73, 94, 122, 124, 126, 128, 133, 138, 242, 250, 256 Kestoi, 6, 31, 37, 38 Kitâb al-‘Unwân, 336, 355 knowledge, xi, 25, 28, 30, 34, 41, 49, 62, 68, 89, 106, 116, 118, 146, 153, 161, 170, 171, 191, 219, 220, 245, 268, 302, 334, 343, 345, 347, 349 Lazians, 134, 137 left wing, 65 Liber Legum Regionum, ix, xii, 1, 25, 35, 48, 49, 54, 55, 56, 61, 72, 79, 80, 94, 96, 99, 111, 112, 114, 116, 117, 120, 122, 124, 126, 130, 131, 132, 137, 138, 146, 153, 155, 169, 170, 179, 189, 199, 209, 212, 216, 221, 235, 237, 242, 249, 283, 285, 299, 317, 356, 359, 365, 370

Index Liber Scholiorum, 312 light, xii, 10, 12, 22, 30, 39, 47, 50, 63, 73, 75, 96, 99, 101, 102, 105, 110, 115, 116, 129, 144, 148, 149, 152, 156, 160, 165, 168, 170, 171, 174, 176, 181, 184, 189, 190, 196, 200, 201, 203, 206, 208, 223, 224, 225, 226, 235, 250, 264, 265, 276, 288, 290, 300, 302, 304, 305, 308, 315, 316, 326, 328, 330, 331, 332, 334, 337, 342, 345, 349, 352, 355, 359, 360 Logos, 21, 28, 86, 96, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 130, 155, 165, 168, 171, 174, 178, 182, 183, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 196, 204, 206, 208, 222, 233, 235, 251, 278, 288, 300, 304, 305, 306, 315, 319, 320, 321, 323, 324, 326, 328, 334, 335, 337, 348, 349, 355, 367, 372 Ma‘nu, 34, 38, 259, 260, 281 macrocosm, macrocosmos, 97, 100, 169 Mani, 12, 14, 53, 54, 74, 158, 159, 160, 161, 163, 165, 167, 177, 178, 191, 198, 216, 238, 251, 252, 287, 289, 291, 308, 309, 312, 331, 341, 342, 343, 344, 347, 360, 366, 367, 368 Manichaeans, Manichaeism, 19, 53, 54, 65, 66, 67, 74, 77, 84, 152, 154, 157, 159, 165, 200, 216, 218, 227, 228, 243, 252, 281, 291, 299, 307, 309, 311, 336, 341, 343 Maqdîsî, 344 Mara Bar Serapion, 4, 5

381 Marcion, 14, 40, 52, 118, 146, 151, 154, 158, 159, 160, 161, 176, 178, 179, 193, 198, 250, 251, 252, 255, 291, 293, 295, 296, 308, 309, 331, 342, 347, 359, 360 Marcionite, Marcionism, xiii, 12, 13, 24, 40, 51, 59, 62, 71, 74, 75, 77, 80, 81, 90, 116, 117, 122, 128, 145, 146, 147, 148, 151, 154, 157, 159, 161, 178, 180, 187, 193, 198, 215, 216, 217, 227, 245, 250, 252, 255, 256, 263, 281, 286, 295, 322, 327, 331, 354, 360, 369 Marcus Aurelius, 2, 57, 58, 59, 60, 118, 119, 120, 123, 241, 262, 294, 297, 340, 350 Marinus, 153, 154, 155 Maruta of Maipherkat, 308 Mas‘udi, xii, 53, 308, 314, 339, 340, 341 matter, 20, 50, 103, 104, 105, 141, 144, 150, 155, 164, 176, 178, 179, 183, 185, 193, 197, 203, 204, 208, 209, 306, 313, 315, 316, 318, 323, 347 Melito, xii, 4, 5, 60, 72, 119 Mesopotamia, x, 46, 92, 93, 118, 150, 156, 172, 259, 261, 274, 283, 339, 371 Methodius, 90, 153, 154, 155, 222 Michael the Syrian, xii, 164, 214, 248, 299, 314, 334, 336, 337, 338, 350, 353, 354, 356, 358, 359 microcosm, microcosmos, 100, 104, 169, 185, 192, 193, 196, 209

382

Bardaiṣan of Edessa

Middle Platonism, 10, 12, 18, 21, 22, 27, 39, 57, 80, 104, 105, 106, 123, 151, 168, 171, 184, 193, 202, 213, 316, 326, 364 Miltiades, 60 mixture, 50, 86, 99, 101, 130, 163, 164, 167, 181, 185, 196, 203, 226, 301, 304, 313, 321, 323, 324, 329, 330, 331, 332, 333, 342, 345 monotheism, 173, 176, 179 moon, 42, 99, 166, 172, 173, 201, 210, 212, 214, 359, 360 Moses, xii, 24, 34, 42, 46, 58, 59, 74, 75, 77, 85, 121, 125, 179, 181, 182, 209, 211, 253, 254, 255, 256, 257, 262, 263, 264, 270, 283, 285, 286, 287, 289, 299, 304, 314, 315, 320, 321, 323, 325, 326, 327, 328, 329, 330, 331, 332, 333, 340, 351, 354, 355, 358,
361 Moses Bar Kepha, xii, 85, 181, 183, 289, 299, 304, 314, 320, 323, 325, 331, 332, 333, 355 Mother of Life, 200, 201, 205, 210, 214, 352, 354, 356, 358, 359, 360 movements, 25, 72, 83, 85, 131, 162, 165, 178, 328 Movses Xorenac‘i (Moses of Chorene), xii, 46, 58, 74, 77, 121, 253, 270, 283, 286, 287, 314, 361 Mu’taman, xii mystery, 95, 99, 101, 130, 140, 221, 232, 233, 234, 251, 324 Nature, 70, 79, 343, 349 Nicephorus, xii, 249, 334, 335

ordeal, 93, 95, 107, 110 Origen, x, xi, xii, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 45, 46, 49, 50, 51, 53, 56, 62, 64, 71, 73, 74, 75, 78, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 88, 90, 92, 94, 97, 98, 99, 102, 104, 105, 106, 108, 110, 111, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 121, 122, 124, 125, 126, 131, 138, 140, 141, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 152, 154, 155, 164, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 173, 174, 176, 177, 178, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 186, 189, 190, 191, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 199, 201, 202, 204, 207, 208, 210, 211, 215, 216, 217, 218, 220, 221, 222, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 238, 239, 241, 246, 249, 254, 255, 256, 261, 262, 267, 268, 270, 286, 288, 290, 303, 305, 307, 310, 317, 320, 323, 326, 327, 336, 337, 338, 339, 343, 344, 346, 347, 348, 349, 350, 354, 359, 364, 371, 372 Origenian, x, xiii, 35, 39, 40, 42, 73, 87, 90, 111, 115, 117, 122, 151, 154, 181, 190, 193, 224, 236, 256, 327 orthodox, orthodoxy, 10, 13, 15, 41, 42, 54, 65, 66, 68, 74, 89, 118, 121, 147, 148, 149, 151, 153, 159, 165, 197, 212, 230, 240, 243, 261, 281, 282, 288,

Index 292, 296, 311, 314, 340, 354, 355, 359, 360 Osrhoene, 1, 4, 6, 14, 37, 38, 46, 120, 139, 257, 264, 268, 278, 281, 283, 361, 370 palingenesis, 247, 249 Pamphilus, 41, 115, 121, 359 Pantaenus, 29, 78, 268 paradigm, model, 26, 86, 101, 102, 105, 320 Paradise, 209, 211 Passio Thomae, 111, 284 Patmut‘iwn Hayoc‘, 58, 74, 253, 254 persecution, xiii, 2, 57, 59, 118, 119, 120, 149, 262 persuasion, 63, 64, 84, 94, 108, 191, 292, 364, 370 Peshitta, 188, 245, 282, 291, 293, 317 Phaedo, 26 Philip, 57, 64, 65, 78, 117, 153, 167, 196, 204, 207, 215, 260, 261 Philo, xii, 10, 22, 23, 42, 56, 102, 104, 122, 123, 124, 168, 171, 184, 186, 193, 203, 204, 217, 220, 229, 290, 303, 320, 348, 349, 354, 372 philosophy, xii, 1, 3, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18, 26, 28, 30, 47, 64, 65, 79, 80, 121, 156, 180, 186, 189, 202, 219, 249, 268 Philoxenus of Mabbug, xii, 85, 287, 288, 289 Photius, xii, 32, 126, 127, 128, 131, 133, 140, 142 planets, 82, 114, 134, 161, 162, 163, 164, 170, 173, 218, 301, 309, 311, 355, 356, 357

383 Plato, xii, 14, 18, 21, 22, 26, 39, 61, 64, 68, 75, 80, 86, 88, 92, 93, 94, 100, 101, 102, 104, 105, 106, 117, 123, 168, 169, 171, 176, 177, 180, 184, 185, 191, 200, 213, 219, 221, 300, 315, 316, 320, 333, 346, 355, 364 Platonists, Platonism, xii, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 22, 26, 33, 39, 56, 64, 84, 88, 91, 92, 97, 102, 105, 106, 163, 167, 171, 177, 180, 183, 184, 186, 187, 193, 234, 306, 318, 327, 371 Poimandres, 163, 306 polytheism, paganism, 25, 42, 62, 72, 173, 212, 213, 214, 228, 256, 263, 291, 336, 354, 360 Porphyry, xii, 10, 27, 48, 58, 59, 67, 68, 77, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 97, 99, 101, 105, 106, 108, 109, 110, 111, 117, 150, 151, 164, 254, 315, 316, 363 power of the primordial Logos, 186, 187, 188, 304 Praedestinatus, xii, 245 Praeparatio Evangelica, 13, 23, 36, 42, 55, 69, 71, 116, 122, 138, 154, 242, 255, 265, 335 predestination, predestinationism, 13, 53, 55, 65, 75, 80, 116, 117, 119, 124, 295, 323 Prepon, 51, 77, 117, 178, 255 presbyter, xiii, 13, 33, 41, 52, 212, 312, 314, 341, 353, 357 Procopius of Gaza, 23, 221 Prose Refutations, 14, 17, 19, 67, 157, 158, 159, 164, 165, 170,

384

Bardaiṣan of Edessa

171, 175, 176, 181, 182, 188, 190, 191, 192, 208, 214, 215, 219, 220, 226, 227, 228, 231, 233, 238, 268, 305, 318, 326, 329, 361 Providence, 13, 24, 25, 26, 44, 45, 83, 84, 98, 125, 126, 129, 131, 141, 145, 233, 316 Ps. Clementines, 138 (Ps.) John of Dara, 321, 332 Ps. Maruta, xii, 164, 309, 310 Psalms, 41, 179, 198 purification, xii, 8, 54, 108, 182, 191, 196, 223, 232, 235, 289, 305, 321, 326, 327, 328, 333, 345, 352, 355, 358, 359 Qune, 11, 281 Quq, 53, 159 Rabbula, xii, 11, 282, 291, 293, 341, 343 recapitulation, a)nakefalai/wsij, 98, 232 Recognitiones, 69, 70, 137, 138 Republic, 26, 80 resurrection, 7, 19, 27, 50, 54, 104, 105, 153, 158, 162, 164, 195, 217, 218, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226, 228, 229, 230, 231, 236, 244, 245, 249, 267, 277, 287, 301, 307, 309, 310, 321, 331, 332, 335, 336, 354, 355, 356, 358, 359, 364, 371 right wing, 65 Rome, ix, 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 11, 13, 29, 31, 37, 41, 46, 47, 50, 65, 77, 78, 80, 81, 109, 118, 120, 122, 126, 128, 138, 146, 155, 199, 222, 259, 261, 262, 266, 272, 291, 314, 365, 369

salvation, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 140, 144, 172, 192, 195, 208, 225, 228, 229, 230, 232, 233, 235, 236, 266, 267, 268, 277, 279, 283 Scripture, xii, 10, 13, 22, 23, 30, 32, 34, 39, 47, 64, 71, 81, 140, 184, 186, 193, 207, 212, 220, 224, 229, 236, 237, 238, 244, 290, 308, 316, 322, 343, 354 Septimius Severus, 16, 34, 37, 38, 155 ṣerto, 137, 297 Severan, 1, 2, 58, 71, 78, 79, 119, 120, 264, 368 Severus Alexander, 38, 57, 58, 284, 294 Severus of Ashmunain, 347 Severus Sebokt, 357 Shahrastani, xii Shamashgram, 61 Simon Gobar, 222 skin tunics, 221, 223 smoke, 182, 313, 318, 319 Socrates, 16, 26, 61, 72, 88, 117, 123, 300 soul, 7, 53, 74, 79, 80, 85, 101, 104, 112, 127, 142, 143, 150, 162, 163, 165, 168, 169, 170, 171, 184, 185, 201, 203, 204, 205, 208, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 224, 226, 227, 228, 229, 231, 236, 246, 247, 249, 318, 323, 331, 337, 343, 348, 351, 358 Sozomen, xii, 157, 246, 247, 248, 249 spirit, 90, 101, 132, 142, 170, 171, 203, 204, 205, 207, 208,

Index 220, 237, 287, 302, 313, 315, 319, 326, 331, 332, 336, 337, 348, 359, 361 spiritual, 7, 24, 31, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 144, 170, 187, 190, 191, 194, 195, 197, 207, 208, 221, 224, 225, 226, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 236, 266, 267, 277, 280, 283, 308, 343, 349, 355 Śramanas, 149 stars, 23, 24, 26, 42, 43, 87, 94, 124, 133, 134, 141, 142, 144, 145, 164, 166, 172, 189, 213, 310, 317 statue, 85, 95, 96, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 204, 220, 320 Stoics, Stoicism, xii, 10, 12, 14, 17, 18, 19, 22, 57, 80, 88, 92, 104, 107, 123, 171, 183, 202, 219, 305, 316, 326, 364 sun, 20, 25, 42, 61, 99, 166, 172, 173, 202, 210, 212, 214, 359, 360 Syriac, x, xi, xii, 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 27, 30, 35, 36, 40, 52, 54, 55, 57, 59, 60, 61, 64, 67, 69, 70, 72, 73, 75, 77, 79, 82, 86, 87, 88, 93, 95, 102, 110, 111, 114, 116, 117, 118, 119, 121, 137, 146, 149, 156, 157, 161, 162, 164, 168, 173, 174, 175,
179, 185, 188, 189, 190, 201, 202, 206, 209, 217, 229, 238, 240, 242, 245, 246, 248, 249, 250, 254, 255, 256, 257, 258, 260, 262, 263, 264, 265, 267, 270, 271, 272, 274, 275, 282, 283, 285, 289,

385 291, 294, 295, 297, 301, 304, 308, 312, 314, 315, 316, 317, 320, 324, 328, 332, 333, 336, 338, 339, 356, 359, 365, 367, 369, 370, 371 Tatian, 9, 29, 40, 75, 275, 276, 282, 291, 293, 294, 297 Thaddaeus, 267, 268, 273, 274, 276, 278, 279, 280, 284 theodicy, 62, 64, 76, 78, 117, 126, 334, 335 Theodore Abu Qurra, xii Theodore Bar Konai, xii, 179, 181, 182, 183, 299, 308, 312, 323, 328, 341 Theodoret, xii, 35, 55, 91, 126, 157, 243, 248, 249, 250, 251, 252, 255, 291, 293, 294, 297, 300, 314, 315 theology, 3, 12, 13, 15, 28, 167, 231, 318 theology of the image, 13, 167, 318 Thomas, 78, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 267, 268, 273, 274, 275, 277, 284, 285, 286, 368 threefold, 236, 331, 337 Timaeus, xii, 22, 28, 39, 68, 75, 86, 91, 92, 93, 100, 101, 102, 104, 105, 106, 108, 168, 169, 171, 176, 177, 179, 184, 185, 213, 214, 300, 315, 316, 320, 346, 355, 364 trichotomy, 170 tripartite, 219 Urhai, 312 Valentinian, Valentinianism, 40, 41, 42, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 54, 65, 75, 77, 99, 118, 121, 149, 154, 204, 207, 212, 216, 239,

386

Bardaiṣan of Edessa

240, 244, 246, 255, 289, 294, 298, 314, 321, 327, 341, 354, 355, 360 Valentinus, 40, 47, 48, 49, 50, 118, 151, 159, 161, 244, 251, 252, 287, 288, 289, 293, 295, 298, 312, 314, 321, 351, 359, 360 Vetus Syra, 75, 188, 245, 275, 291 violence, 64, 84, 94, 107, 108, 184, 185, 292, 313, 329, 364 virgin, 8, 203 Vita Abercii, xii, 74, 128, 146, 148, 149, 151, 154, 159, 178, 198, 216, 250, 286, 314, 341

water, 93, 95, 131, 174, 176, 181, 203, 290, 302, 332, 337 Word of Thought, 189, 290, 300, 304, 305, 313, 319, 324, 332, 337 Zodiac, 161, 309 Du/namij, 187, 189 Sofi/a, 48, 187, 189, 323 h(gemoniko/n, 106 no/ej, logikoi/ 22, 81, 173, 180, 189, 196, 217, 327, 339 lo/goj e)ndia/qetoj, 21, 305 u3lh, 103, 104, 155, 176, 179, 313, 316