Primary source · Syriac

The Book of the Laws of Countries

The school of Bardaisan (set down by his pupil Philip) · c. AD 196–222

What this text is

The oldest surviving original Syriac prose work: a dialogue on fate, free will, and the customs of the nations, ending with the famous survey of 'the new race of us Christians' keeping one law in every land. Eusebius knew it in Greek as On Fate.

Profile of Bardaisan of Edessa →

Public-domain translations

Cureton translation (Spicilegium Syriacum, 1855, public domain)

What then shall we say concerning the new race of ourselves who are Christians, whom in every country and in every region the Messiah established at His coming; for, lo! wherever we be, all of us are called by the one name of the Messiah — Christians.

Manuscript witnesses

London, British Library Add. 14658

6th–7th c.

The one Syriac manuscript of the complete dialogue, from the Nitrian collection acquired in 1843.

EARLIEST WITNESS

Greek excerpts in Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica VI.10

c. 313 (text); medieval copies

Eusebius's long Greek quotation — older as a text than the surviving Syriac book.

ANCIENT EXCERPT

Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum

1855

Editio princeps with the English used here.

PRINTED PROXY

Provenance

The court of Edessa; the dialogue form preserves Bardaisan as chief speaker

Editions & scholarship

Critical editions and standard translations behind the text above.

Figures named in this text (2)