He lived until 222 CE,and in addition to founding the sect known as the Bardaisanites, was a scientist, a scholar, an astrologer, a philosopher, a poet, and an expert, of all unlikely things at that epoch, on the religions of India, a land he probably never visited, but learned about from a delegation of Indian holy men, Sramanas, who were passing through en route to Rome.
That it influenced him profoundly is not in doubt; his version of Christianity reads like a synthesis of Gnosticism with Hindu-Buddhism: the denial of physical resurrection on the one hand, a belief that the world came into being by a process of emanation from the supreme god on the other (I have spelled god here with a lower case "g", and this is deliberate). Bardaisan also called his god "the Father of the Living".
Bardaisan was a prolific scribbler (click here for the complete works, and more); in addition to his Gospel, he left behind a set of dialogues against Marcion and Valentinus; another entitled "Against Fate"; a book of Psalms, 150 in number, in perfect imitation of King David; a number of hymns which are likely the hymns in "The Acts of Thomas; the "Hymn on the Soul"; and especially the "Espousals of Wisdom" the only piece that can be attributed to Bardaisan with certainty; it is still used as the consecration prayer at Baptism and at Holy Communion.
After which there are his many astrological and theological treatises, usually both in one, of which St. Ephrem makes special mention of his treatise on light and darkness. Besides these: the surviving fragment of an astronomical work which was preserved by George, the Bishop of the Arab tribes; a "History of Armenia"; an "Account of India"; plus a "Book of the Laws of the Countries", which was probably written by a disciple named Philip rather than Bardaisan himself, though Bardaisan is the main speaker in the dialogue.
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