Bardaisan and His Disciples

Originally delivered as one of the St. Margaret’s Lectures for 1904, the contents of this booklet are focused on aspects of the Syriac-speaking Church. Extracted from Burkitt’s book Early Eastern Christianity, the fifth lecture focuses on Bardaisan, one of the original thinkers formed, in part, by the Syriac Church. Burkitt begins by reciting the various sources available to study the concepts of Bardaisan, whose writings are largely non-extant. Bardaisan’s surviving work on fate, known by the title The Book of the Laws of Countries is explored as an exemplar of this original thinker’s ideas. A large excerpt of this book is presented with commentary by Burkitt, focusing primarily on the questions of free-will and fate. Burkitt considers the contributions of Bardaisan to Syriac literature to have been of the highest importance.

Francis Crawford Burkitt (1864-1935) began his academic career as a student of mathematics. While at Cambridge University he moved to Divinity, becoming the Norrisian Professor. His interest in the text of the New Testament led him to study Syriac manuscripts and to publish widely in the field. He was a fellow of the British Academy.