Bar Dysan

(sire. Son of the river Dayshan "), Bar-Dayshan, Vardesan, Latinized Bardesanes
. (Bardesanes; 11.07.154, Edessa, now Urfa, Turkey - 222, ibid) --
. Syrian missionary, philosopher, Gnostic, a leading representative of the Syrian (dualist) school of Gnosticism and the immediate predecessor of Manichaeism, a pioneer of Christianity in Syria
. Explored and promoted astrology. Through passing through Edessa, the Indian embassy to the Emperor Geliogabalu, in 218 g.
B.D. acquainted with the beliefs and teachings of India. According to Porphyry, B.D. "maintained contact with the Indians, who were sent under the command of Damarisa to the Roman emperor" ( "De Abst.", IV, 17) and their knowledge received from the Indian Gymnosophists. Numerous works B.D. - Religious-philosophical, historical and poetic - were very common, but in the original form is preserved only the "Book of Laws", published in 1855, Mr.. London. It is the oldest known original compositions in the Syrian literature is an exposition of the theory (in t.ch. astrological) BD, recorded by his pupil Philipp.
B.D. created a kind of cosmological theory, based on Christian Gnosticism and other sources. Originality of his dualistic psychology. Every person he recognized two souls - the highest, pneumatic, and the lower, material. But the latter is an absolute necessity is subject to fate, acting through astral start in seven heavenly bodies, representing in our lower world seven heavenly aeons. Pneumatic same soul, as a direct product of Hakmut (Sophia, the feminine correlate of Christ), does not depend on the fate and the stars, it is free of good and evil. In B.D views. traced the doctrine of reincarnation and the idea of the existence of karmic cause and effect.
E. Blavatsky believed B.D. great astrologer, a follower of the occult system of eastern. She pointed out that most scientists BD, however much they may have changed his numerous Gnostic followers, can be traced to Indian philosophy, and even further - to the occult teachings of the Secret System. B.D. linked the soul with the Seven Stars, setting its origin from higher beings, and therefore "recognize the spiritual resurrection but denied the resurrection of the body", as the charge of the Fathers of the Church. It is important to note that B.D. was opposed to the philosophy of fatalism, and thought it wrong that understanding of astrology, which claims that the arrangement of stars completely determines human destiny.
B.D. famous as a poet, he invented the first verse for the Syrian language, and composed on the model of the Psalter 150 hymns, which were used even during church services until they were replaced by the Orthodox hymns of St.. Ephraim the Syrian.