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50-646: The origin of Beth Gazo can be traced back to the early centuries of Christianity going as far as Bardaisan (154–222 CE). However, the bulk of the hymns is attributed to Ephrem the Syrian (306 – 373 CE). There are two main traditions in chanting: western based on the School of Mardin and eastern in Tikrit formerly. There is a daily breviary found in the Syriac Orthodox Church called " Shehimo: Book of Common Prayer " where

100-482: A Christian together with his household, probably under Constantius II . A neighbor named Alaphrion was miraculously healed by Saint Hilarion , who cast out a demon from Alaphrion, and, as eyewitnesses to the miracle, his family converted, along with Alaphrion's. The conversion marked a turning-point in the Christianization of southern Palestine, according to his account. The grandfather became within his own circle

150-505: A Valentinian Gnostic out of disappointed ambitions in the Christian church. In particular, he was vigorously combated by St. Ephrem who mentioned him in his hymns: This view has come under criticism as these sources likely quote later Bardaisanites, whereas Eusebius and Porphyry are known to quote directly from authentic fragments of Bardaisan's work. Sozomen specifically reports that Bardaisan taught about palingenesis (παλιγγενεσίας), that

200-655: A gnostic who denied the resurrection of the body and the works of Ephrem the Syriac suggest that he explained the origin of the world by a process of emanation from the supreme God whom he called the Father of the Living. As a result, his teachings would form the basis of the Manichaeism and later of the batini sects of Shia Islam . Bardaisan and his movement were subjected to critical polemics that claimed, probably falsely, that he became

250-467: A highly esteemed interpreter of Scripture and according to Sozomen "much beloved by the Christians of Ascalon, Gaza and of the surrounding country". The descendants of the wealthy Alaphrion founded churches and convents in the district, and were particularly active in promoting monasticism and were also esteemed by Sozomen. Sozomen himself had conversed with one of these, a very old man. He states that he

300-528: A history of the Armenian kings. He died at the age of sixty-eight, either at Ani or at Edessa. According to Michael the Syrian , Bardaisan had besides Harmonius two other sons, called Abgarun and Hasdu. The followers of Bardaisan (the Bardaisanites) continued his teachings in a sect of the 2nd century deemed heretical by later Christians. Bardaisan's son, Harmonius, is considered to have strayed farther from

350-526: A lawyer, perhaps at the court of Theodosius II . While thus engaged he conceived, around the year 443 the project of writing a history of the Church. Sozomen wrote two works on church history, of which only the second one is extant. His first work covered the history of the Church, from the Ascension of Jesus to the defeat of Licinius in 323, in twelve books. His sources for it included Eusebius of Caesarea ,

400-470: A sincere Christian, he was clearly no ascetic, but dressed in finery "with berylls and caftan ", according to Ephrem, one of his critics. Bardaisan is said to have converted prince Abgar IX to Christianity (probably after 202, i.e. after his visit and honourable reception at Rome). Even if he did not, he had an important share in Christianizing the city. Both king and philosopher laboured to create

450-432: Is absolute, and to whom all things are subject. God endowed man with freedom of will to work out his salvation and allowed the world to be a mixture of good and evil, light and darkness. All things, even those we now consider inanimate, have a measure of liberty. In all of them the light has to overcome the darkness. Al-Shahrastani states: "The followers of Daisan believe in two elements, light and darkness. The light causes

500-613: Is found in Sozomen, I.xxii, the similarity of diction showing that the text of Socrates was the source. The extent of this dependence cannot be accurately determined. Sozomen used the work of Socrates as a guide to sources and order. In some matters, such as in regard to the Novatians, Sozomen is entirely dependent on Socrates. But Sozomen did not simply copy Socrates. He went back to the principal sources used by Socrates and other sources, often including more from them than Socrates did. He used

550-452: Is frequently used. Instructive in this respect is a comparison of Sozomen, Socrates, and Rufinus on the childhood of Athanasius. Rufinus is the original; Socrates expressly states that he follows Rufinus, while Sozomen knows Socrates' version, but is not satisfied with it and follows Rufinus more closely. The ecclesiastical records used by Sozomen are principally taken from Sabinus , to whom he continually refers. In this way he uses records of

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600-414: Is the darkness. At one time and by chance, the four pure elements exceeded their boundaries and began to mix. Taking up the opportune chance, darkness also mixed with them. Distressed, the elements appeal to God to separate the darkness from them, but God is only partially successful in this procedure. The Lord uses the mix to create the world, but the remaining darkness in the mix acts as the cause of evil in

650-438: Is the outcome of their nature and is done without their co-operation". He apparently denied the resurrection of the body, although he believed Christ's body was endowed with incorruptibility as with a special gift. Bardaisan postulated that after six thousand years this Earth would have an end, and a world without evil would take its place. Bardaisan also thought the sun, moon and planets were living beings, to whom, under God,

700-534: Is the rebirth of physical bodies, and in his authentic fragments (which includes a treatise on the resurrection) Bardaisan affirms the resurrection of the body but believed it to be a transformation from a corruptible body into an incorruptible body, which is what he meant by "spiritual bodies" elsewhere. While some Bardaisanites after the rise of Manichaeism considered the creation of bodies to be necessarily evil, Bardaisan himself only considered bodies to be sinful if they were mortal and that 'the body of resurrection and

750-672: The Bramins preside over, the Samanaeans the other. The race of the Bramins, however, receive divine wisdom of this kind by succession, in the same manner as the priesthood. But the Samanaeans are elected, and consist of those who wish to possess divine knowledge. And the particulars respecting them are the following, as the Babylonian Bardaisan narrates, who lived in the times of our fathers, and

800-555: The Clementine homilies , Hegesippus , and Sextus Julius Africanus . Sozomen's second work continues approximately where his first work left off. He wrote it in Constantinople, around the years 440 to 443 and dedicated it to Emperor Theodosius II . The work is structured into nine books, roughly arranged along the reigns of Roman Emperors : Book IX is incomplete. In his dedication of the work, he states that he intended cover up to

850-876: The Dayṣān ") was a Syriac author born on 11 July 154 in Edessa , Osroene , which, in those days, was alternately under the influence of both the Roman Empire and the Parthian Empire . To indicate the city of his birth, his parents called him "Son of the Dayṣān", 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 Parthian Armenia , "the Armenian", (by Hippolytus of Rome ), while Ephrem

900-644: The Roman emperor Elagabalus or another Severan emperor , and questioned them as to the nature of Indian religion. The encounter is described in Porphyry De abstin. , iv, 17 and Stobaeus ( Eccles. , iii, 56, 141): For the polity of the Indians being distributed into many parts, there is one tribe among them of men divinely wise, whom the Greeks are accustomed to call Gymnosophists . But of these there are two sects, one of which

950-518: The Vita Martini of Sulpicius Severus , the works of Hilarius, logoi of Eustathius of Antioch , the letter of Cyril of Jerusalem to Constantius concerning the miraculous vision of the cross, and Palladius . He also used oral tradition, adding some of the most distinctive value to his work. The first printed (though untranslated) version of Sozomen, which was based on the Codex Regius of 1444,

1000-490: The 17th consulate of Theodosius II , that is, to 439. The extant history ends about 425. Scholars disagree on why the end is missing. Albert Guldenpenning supposed that Sozomen himself suppressed the end of his work because in it he mentioned the Empress Aelia Eudocia , who later fell into disgrace through her supposed adultery. However, it appears that Nicephorus , Theophanes , and Theodorus Lector actually read

1050-699: The Arabs ; in the tenth by the historian al-Masudi ; and even in the twelfth by al-Shahrastani . Bardaisanism seems to have merged first into Valentinianism and then into common Manichaeism . Various opinions have been formed as to the real doctrine of Bardesanes. As early as Hippolytus (Philosoph., VI, 50) his doctrine was described as a variety of Valentinianism , the most popular form of Gnosticism . Adolf Hilgenfeld in 1864 defended this view, based mainly on extracts from St. Ephrem , who devoted his life to combating Bardaisanism in Edessa. However, it has been argued that

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1100-512: The Syrian calls him "philosopher of the Arameans " ( Syriac : ܦܝܠܘܣܘܦܐ ܕܐܖ̈ܡܝܐ , romanized :  Filosofā d-Arāmāyē ). 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 the Parthian nobility. His parents, Nuhama and Nah 'siram, must have been people of rank, for their son

1150-555: The Trinity. Bardaisan's cosmology and commentary on it only survives in much later sources, but can be outlined as follows. The world began with the four pure and uncreated elements of light, wind, fire, water, respectively located in East, West, South, North (and are each able to move throughout their own, individual regions). Above the plane on which these four pure elements rest is the Lord, and below

1200-702: The West Syriac style of chants and melodies from Beth Gazo are followed. The abridged version of Beth Gazo contain the following hymns: This article about a music publication is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article about a book related to Christianity is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Bardaisan Bardaisan (11 July 154 – 222 AD; Syriac : ܒܪ ܕܝܨܢ , Bar Dayṣān ; also Bardaiṣan ), known in Arabic as ibn Dayṣān ( Arabic : ابن ديصان ) and in Latin as Bardesanes ,

1250-567: The anti-Christian faction in Edessa, the Romans captured Abgar IX and sent him in chains to Rome. Though he was urged by a friend of Caracalla to apostatize, Bardaisan stood firm, saying that he feared not death, as he would in any event have to undergo it, even though he should now submit to the emperor. At the age of sixty-three he was forced to take refuge in the fortress of Ani in Armenia and tried to preach there, but with little success. He also composed

1300-429: The body humans had prior to the fall is a body created from pure matter without any mixture with darkness'. Bardaisan himself was not dualistic but monistic, in that he considered God to exist and evil not to, 'and those who are in evil are in weakness and not in force'. Nevertheless, criticism about Bardaisan's belief in seven ουσιαι or ' itye (substances) that pre-existed Creation, from which God fashioned everything,

1350-469: The college of presbyters, because Bardaisen remained in the world and had a son called Harmonius, who according to Sozomen 's Ecclesiastical History , was "deeply versed in Grecian erudition, and was the first to subdue his native tongue to meters and musical laws; these verses he delivered to the choirs". When Abgar IX, the friend of his youth, ascended the throne (179), Bardaisan took his place at court. While

1400-504: The end of Sozomen's work, according to their own histories later. Therefore, most scholars believe that the work actually came down to that year and that consequently it has reached us only in a damaged condition. According to historian and scholar of Islam Michael Cook , Sozomen wrote that a group of " Saracens " (Arabs) in Palestine had adopted Jewish laws and customs after coming into contact with Jews and may have been (according to Cook)

1450-478: The first Christian state. He showed great literary activity against Valentinus (of whom Eusebius of Caesarea says Bardaisan was once a follower) and Marcion . Alternatively, Epiphanius of Salamis and Bar Hebraeus assert that he was first an orthodox Christian and only afterwards became an adept of Valentinus, even creating his own heterodox Christian dogma (Bardaisanism) by mixing its doctrines with Babylonian astrology. Bardaisan has often been described as

1500-512: The following passage in Bardaisan's Book of the Laws of Countries as evidence for his belief in this doctrine: There will come a time when even this capacity for harm that remains in [mankind] will be brought to an end by the instruction that will obtain in a different arrangement of things. And, once that new world will be constituted, all evil movements will cease, all rebellions will come to an end, and

1550-430: The fools will be persuaded, and the lacks will be filled, and there will be safety and peace, as a gift of the Lord of all natures. Bardaisan apparently was a voluminous author. Though nearly all his works have perished, references to the following survive: Sozomen Salamanes Hermias Sozomenos ( Ancient Greek : Σαλαμάνης Ἑρμείας Σωζομενός ; Latin : Sozomenus ; c. 400 – c. 450 AD), also known as Sozomen ,

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1600-515: The forerunners of Islam and Muslims. Sozomen borrowed heavily from other sources for his work. The source for about three fourths of his material was the writings of Socrates Scholasticus . The literary relationship of those writers appears everywhere. Valesius asserted that Sozomen read Socrates, and Robert Hussey and Guldenpenning have proved this. For example, Socrates, in I.x, relates an anecdote which he had heard, and says that neither Eusebius nor any other author reports it, yet this anecdote

1650-403: The good, deliberately and with free will; the darkness causes the evil, but by force of nature and necessity. They believe that light is a living thing, possessing knowledge, might, perception and understanding; and from it movement and life take their source; but that darkness is dead, ignorant, feeble, rigid and soulless, without activity and discrimination; and they hold that the evil within them

1700-498: The government of this world was largely entrusted; and though man was free, he was strongly influenced for good or for evil by the constellations. According to St. Ephrem, Sun and Moon were considered male and female principles, and the ideas of heaven amongst the Bardaisanites were not without an admixture of sensuality (or "obscenities"). Led by the fact that "spirit" is feminine in Syriac, Bardaisan might have held unorthodox views on

1750-491: The house of a priest Anuduzbar. In this school he learnt all the intricacies of Babylonian astrology , a training that permanently influenced his mind and proved the bane of his later life. At the age of twenty-five he happened to hear the homilies of Hystaspes, the Bishop of Edessa , received instruction, was baptized, and even admitted to the diaconate or the priesthood. "Priesthood", however, may merely imply that he ranked as one of

1800-516: The path of orthodoxy. Educated at Athens, he added to the Babylonian astrology of his father Greek ideas concerning the soul, the birth and destruction of bodies and a sort of metempsychosis . A certain Marinus, a follower of Bardaisan and a dualist , who is addressed in the "Dialogue of Adamantius", held the doctrine of a twofold primeval being; for the devil, according to him is not created by God. He

1850-556: The press by John Barrow, who wrote the preface) is important, since in it the archetype of the Codex Regius , the Codex Baroccianus 142, is collated for the first time. But this manuscript was written by various hands and at various times and therefore is not equally authoritative in all its parts. There is an excellent English translation published in 1846 (London, Samuel Bagster and sons), translator unnamed, later reprinted and credited to Chester David Hartranft (1839-1914), with

1900-596: The strong and fervent expressions of St. Ephrem against the Bardaisanites of his day are not a fair criterion of the doctrine of their master. The extraordinary veneration of his own countrymen, the very reserved and half-respectful allusion to him in the early Fathers, and above all the "Book of the Laws of the Countries" suggest a milder view of Bardaisan's aberrations. Like the Early Christians , Bardaisan believed in an Almighty God, Creator of heaven and earth, whose will

1950-622: The synods from that of Tyre (335) to that of Antioch in Caria (367). For the period from Theodosius I, Sozomen stopped following the work of Socrates and followed Olympiodorus of Thebes , who was probably Sozomen's only secular source. A comparison with Zosimus , who also made use of Olympiodorus, seems to show that the whole ninth book of Sozomen, is mostly an abridged extract from Olympiodorus. Sozomen used many other authorities. These include sources relating to Christianity in Persia, monkish histories,

2000-515: The world since then and until today. The world is allotted a period of 6,000 years to exist. Purifications through conception and birth take place, but at the end of the allotted period for the Earth, a definitive purification will take place that will expunge darkness from the world. Patristics scholar Ilaria Ramelli has argued that Bardaisan may have been one of the first Christian supporters of apokatastasis (universal restoration), citing especially

2050-615: The writings of Eusebius, the first major Church historian. The Vita Constantini of Eusebius is expressly cited in the description of the vision of Constantine. Sozomen appears also to have consulted the Historia Athanasii and also the works of Athanasius including the Vita Antonii . He completes the statements of Socrates from the Apologia contra Arianos , lix, sqq., and copies Athanasius' Adv. episcopos AEgypti , xviii-xix. Rufinus

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2100-572: Was a Roman lawyer and historian of the Christian Church . He was born around 400 in Bethelia , a small town near Gaza , into a wealthy Christian family of Palestine . He told the history of Southern Palestine derived from oral tradition . He appeared to be familiar with the region around Gaza, and mentioned having seen Bishop Zeno of Majuma , at the seaport of Gaza. Sozomen wrote that his grandfather lived at Bethelia , near Gaza, and became

2150-606: Was a Syriac-speaking Assyrian Christian writer and teacher with a gnostic background, and founder of the Bardaisanites . A scientist, scholar, astrologer, philosopher, hymnwriter , and poet, Bardaisan was also renowned for his knowledge of India, on which he wrote a book, now lost. According to the early Christian historian Eusebius , Bardaisan was at one time a follower of the gnostic Valentinus , but later opposed Valentinian gnosticism and also wrote against Marcionism . Bardaisan ( Syriac : ܒܪ ܕܝܨܢ bar Daiṣān "son of

2200-403: Was also a Docetist , as he denied Christ's birth of a woman. Bardaisan's form of gnosticism influenced Manichaeism . Ephrem the Syrian 's zealous efforts to suppress this powerful heresy were not entirely successful. Rabbula, Bishop of Edessa in 431–432, found it flourishing everywhere. Its existence in the seventh century is attested by Jacob of Edessa ; in the eighth by George, Bishop of

2250-421: Was brought up under monastic influences and his story bears this out. Sozomen seems to have been brought up in the circle of Alaphrion and acknowledges a debt of gratitude to the monastic order. His early education was directed by the monks in his native place. It is impossible to ascertain what curriculum he followed in these monastic schools, but his writings give clear evidence of the thoroughness with which he

2300-400: Was educated with the crown-prince of Osroene at the court of Abgar VIII . 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. Owing to political disturbances in Edessa, Bardaisan and his parents moved for a while to Hierapolis (now Manbij ), a strong centre of Babylonianism. Here, the boy was brought up in

2350-489: Was familiar with those Indians who, together with Damadamis, were sent to Caesar. All the Bramins originate from one stock; for all of them are derived from one father and one mother. But the Samanaeans are not the offspring of one family, being, as we have said, collected from every nation of Indians. Eventually, after 353 years of existence, the Osrhoenic kingdom came to an end by the Romans under Caracalla . Taking advantage of

2400-574: Was grounded in Greek studies. As a man he retained the impressions of his youth, and his great work later was to be also a monument of his reverence for the monks in general and for the disciples of Hilarion in particular. Sozomen studied at the Law school of Berytus between 400-402. As an adult he acquired training as a lawyer . He studied law in Beirut . He then went to Constantinople to start his career as

2450-497: Was more accurate and may have put Bardaisan beyond the bounds of mainstream orthodoxy. "Bardaisan refers only to the elements as 'itye, not to plants or animals", though he also uses the term to refer to the seven planets. Even so, Bardaisan clearly described these celestial beings as created beings subordinate to God. Porphyry states that on one occasion at Edessa, Bardaisan interviewed an Indian deputation of holy men ( Ancient Greek : Σαρμαναίοι " śramaṇas ") who had been sent to

2500-578: Was that of Robert Estienne at Paris in 1544. The first translated edition to be published was that of Christophorson, which appeared in Latin in Geneva in 1612. A noteworthy edition was done by Valesius (Cambridge, 1720), who used, besides the text of Stephens, a Codex Fucetianus (now at Paris, 1445), "Readings" of Savilius, and the indirect traditions of Theodorus Lector and of Cassiodorus - Epiphanius . Hussey 's posthumous edition (largely prepared for

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