Bardaisan

Bardaisan (Syriac: ܒܪ ܕܝܨܢ‎, Bardaiṣān), also known in Arabic as ابن ديصان (Ibn Daisan), also Latinized as Bardesanes, was a Syriac or Parthiangnostic and founder of the Bardaisanites. A scientist, scholar, astrologer, philosopher and poet, Bardaisan was also renowned for his knowledge of India, on which he wrote a book, now lost.

Biography

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