Bar Daisan (154-222), also latinized as Bardesanes, was a Syrian gnostic and an outstanding scientist, scholar, and poet. He was also renowned for his knowledge of India, on which he wrote a book, now lost. He was born in Edessa, and died in Ani. Gnosticism is a blanket term for various religions and sects most prominent in the first few centuries A.D. General characteristics The word gnosticism comes from the Greek word for knowledge, gnosis (γνῶσις), referring to the idea that there is special, hidden mysticism (esoteric knowledge) that only a few possess. ... Edessa is the historical name of a town in northern Mesopotamia. ... Ani, Church of Saint Gregory and Citadel Ani (anc. ...

According to tradition, during his youth he shared the education of a royal prince who afterwards became king of Edessa, perhaps Abgar bar Manu, who reigned 202-217. He is said to have converted the prince to Christianity, and may have had an important share in christianizing the city.

Epiphanius and Barhebraeus assert that he was first an orthodox Christian and afterwards an adherent of Valentinus. Categories: Religious biography stubs ... Bar-Hebraeus or Abulfaragus, (1226 - 1286) was a maphrian or catholicos of the Jacobite (Monophysite) Church in the 13th century, and (in Dr. W. Wrights words) one of the most learned and versatile men that Syria ever produced. ... Valentinus can refer to: Pope Valentinus Saint Valentine Basil Valentinus, a 15th century monk from Erfurt who may have described Bismuth Valentinius, a Gnostic also known as Valentinus Roman emperors - Valentinian I (364 - 375) and Valentinian II (371 - 392) This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other...

Perhaps owing to the persecutions under Caracalla, Bar Daisan for a time retreated into Armenia, and is said to have there preached Christianity with indifferent success, and also to have composed a history of the Armenian kings. Caracalla Caracalla (April 4, 186–April 8, 217) was emperor of the Roman Empire from AD 211–217. ...

Bar Daisan, in a way similar to Origen, tried to create a synthesis of Christian and occult beliefs. As a gnostic, he certainly denied the resurrection of the body; and so far as we can judge by the obscure quotations from his hymns furnished by St Ephraim he explained the origin of the world by a process of emanation from the supreme God whom he called the Father of the living. He and his Bardesene movement were considered heretic by the Christians, and he was subjected to critical hymn, particularly by Saint Ephraim: Origen was a Christian scholar and theologian and one of the most distinguished of the Fathers of the early Christian Church. ... A Christian is a follower and believer in Jesus of Nazareth and the religion of Christianity. ... Ephrem the Syrian was a prolific Syriac language hymn writer and theologian of the 4th century. ...

"...

And if he thinks he has said the last thing

He has reached heathenism,

O Bar-Daisan,

Son of the River Daisan,

Whose mind is liquid like his name!"

(St. Ephraim of Syria, Translated by A. S. Duncan Jones, 1904)

Porphyry states that on one occasion at Edessa Bar Daisan interviewed an Indian deputation who had been sent to the Roman emperor, and questioned them as to the nature of Indian religion. (For other meanings of Porphyr, see Porphyry) Porphyry (c. ...

External link

• An hymn against Bar Daisan
• The Book of the Laws of Diverse Countries, by a disciple of Bar Daisan

This article incorporates text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, which is in the public domain. The Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1911) in many ways represents the sum of knowledge at the beginning of the 20th century. ... The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ...