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The body was created by rulers (1)

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Topics (move over topic to see place in topic list)

01 Religious and ideological doctrines and imagery




02 Religious and ideological symbols and iconographic motifs



04 Religious and philosophical literature and poetry



05 Scientific knowledge and scholarly lore




01 Religious and ideological doctrines and imagery



Keywords
Audians
Bardesanes
melothesia
Period
9th century CE
10th century CE
12th century CE
Channel
Aramaic culture
Christian-Syriac philosophers and scholars


Text
Michael the Syrian, Chronicle 1.110:
(According to Bardesanes) he who spoke with Moses and the prophets was an archangel and not God himself. Our Lord was clothed with the body of an angel, and Mary clothed a soul from the world of light, who enveloped himself in the shape of a body. The rulers (shaped) the man: the superior gave him his soul and the inferior his limbs.

Agapius of Mabbug, Kitab al-Unwan, in Patrologia Orientalis 7.520:
He (= Bardesanes) maintains that the brains of man com from the Sun, his bones from Saturn, his veins from Mercury, his blood from Mars, his flesh from Jupiter, his hair from Venus and his skin from the Moon.

Theodore bar Konai, Liber Scholiorum 319-320:
Let us record (here) a small sample of the wickedness of ‘Audi. Writing in an apocalypse which bears the name of Abraham, one of the creators speaks thus: “The world and the created order were made by Darkness and six other powers.” It says, moreover: “They beheld by how many divinities the soul is purified, and by how many divinities the body was formed.” It says further: “They asked, ‘Who compelled the angels and powers to form the body?’” And in an apocalypse attributed to John, it says: “(As for) those rulers that I saw, my body was created by them”, and lists the names of the holy creators, when it says, “my wisdom created flesh, understanding created skin, Elohim created bones, my kingdom created blood, Adonai created nerves, anger created hair, and thought created the brains.” This (material) was taken from Chaldean doctrines.


Sources (list of abbreviations)
Agapius of Mabbug, Kitab al-Unwan, in Patrologia Orientalis 7.520
Michael the Syrian, Chronicle 1.110
Theodore bar Konai, Liber Scholiorum 319-320

Bibliography

Drijvers 1966, 189Drijvers, Han J. W. Bardaisan of Edessa. Studia Semitica Neerlandica 6. Assen: Van Gorcum 1966.
Reeves 1996, 116Reeves, John C. Heralds of That Good Realm. Syro-Mesopotamian Gnosis and Jewish Traditions. Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 41. Leiden: E.

Amar Annus


URL for this entry: http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu/database/gen_html/a0001494.php


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