The Book of the Laws of the Countries
A Syriac dialogue on fate and free will in which Bardaisan of Edessa is the chief speaker, written down by a pupil. It is an early work of Syriac Christian literature and mentions Christians in Edessa, Parthia, Persia and Media.
The dialogue is told in the first person by one of Bardaisan’s circle, whom Bardaisan addresses as Philip. An inquirer named Avida asks why God did not make people unable to sin. Bardaisan answers that human beings are free, and that neither nature nor the stars compel them: peoples living under the same stars keep quite different laws, and people who change their religion change their customs wherever they live. His last examples are the Jews and “the new race of us Christians”, who keep the same way of life in every country.
The work gives the views of Bardaisan’s school in the form his pupils chose to publish. Its passing remark that King Abgar, when he “became a believer”, forbade a pagan rite of self-mutilation at Edessa is a statement, by a Christian writer of the king’s own city, that a king of Edessa adopted Christianity. It does not say which Abgar is meant or what his belief amounted to. Church History knew a dialogue of Bardaisan On Fate in Greek, and says of its author that he never wholly shook off the teaching of Valentinus (4.30).
Cited in
- about AD 201, estimated date