AI[S.][=A]N, an early teacher of Christianity in Mesopotamia, the
writer of numerous Syriac works which have entirely perished[1] (with one
possible exception, the _Hymn of the Soul_ in the _Acts of Thomas_), and
the founder of a school which was soon branded as heretical. According to
the trustworthy _Chronicle of Edessa_, he was born in that city on the 11th
Tammuz (July), A.D. 154. [v.03 p.0396] His parents were of rank and
probably pagan; according to Barhebraeus, he was in youth a priest in a
heathen temple at Mabb[=o]g. Another probable tradition asserts that he
shared the education of a royal prince who afterwards became king of
Edessa--perhaps Abgar bar Manu, who reigned 202-217. He is said to have
converted the prince to Christianity, and may have had an important share
in christianizing the city. Epiphanius and Barhebraeus assert that he was
first an orthodox Christian and afterwards an adherent of Valentinus; but
Eusebius and the Armenian Moses of Chorene reverse the order, stating that
in his later days he largely, but not completely, purged himself of his
earlier errors. The earliest works attributed to him (by Eusebius and
others) are polemical dialogues against Marcionism and other heresies;
these were afterwards translated into Greek. He also wrote, probably under
Caracalla, an apology for the Christian religion in a time of persecution.
But his greatest title to fame was furnished by his hymns, which, according
to St Ephrem, numbered 150 and were composed in imitation of the Davidic
psalter. He thus became the father of Syriac hymnology, and from the favour
enjoyed by his poems during the century and a half that intervened between
him and St Ephrem we may conclude that he possessed original poetic genius.
This would be clearly proved if (as is not unlikely) the beautiful _Hymn of
the Soul_ incorporated in the apocryphal _Acts of Thomas_ could be regarded
as proceeding from his pen; it is practically the only piece of real poetry
in Syriac that has come down to us. Perhaps owing to the persecution under
Caracalla mentioned above, Bardai[s.][=a]n for a time retreated into
Armenia, and is said to have there preached Christianity with indifferent
success, and also to have composed a history of the Armenian kings.
Porphyry states that on one occasion at Edessa he interviewed an Indian
deputation who had been sent to the Roman emperor, and questioned them as
to the nature of Indian religion. He was undoubtedly a