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BAR-COCHBA

BARDAISAN

cf. Fubricius, Cod. Pseud. V. T. i. 292-308). Thusit is likely that the prophecies referred to in thisarticle belonged to the apocryphal Zoroastrianliterature. [H.]

BAR-OOOHBA (KMW “Q), Simon, thecelebrated leader of the Jewish insurrectionagainst Hadrian in a.d. 132, or, according tosome less trustworthy accounts, 122. His originand early life are quite unknown; but Graetz( Gcsch . der Juden , iv. 159) supposes that hisusual title in Jewish literature, Bar-Coziba13), indicates that he was born in thetown Cozeba or Cezib. The more usual andprobable interpretation, however, is that thename was given to him, “the son of a lie,” as abitter commentary on the false hopes which hehad excited as “the son of the star.” .RabbiAkiba became one of his most enthusiastic sup-porters ; he addressed him as the King Messiah,and applied to him the prophecies in Numbersxxiv. 17 (whence his name Bar-Cochba), andHaggai ii. 6, 7. The Jews, already greatly dis-contented under Hadrian’s rule, flocked from allsides to his standard; and the Christians ofPalestine were severely persecuted for not join-ing the national movement. Ticinius (Tiuius)Rufus, the Tyrannus Rufus of the Talmud, wasat that time the governor of Judaea; but whenhe failed to crush the outbreak, Julius Severuswas summoned from Britain. The chief seat ofthe rebellion was Bethar or Beth Zor (Eusebius,Hist. Eccl. iv. 7, calls it B I66r}pa), to the S. ofCaesarea; but it extended over a great part ofPalestine. The Romans pursued a cautiouspolicy, and gradually hemmed in the insurgents,until at last Bethar was besieged. It was takenand Bar-Cochba slain in A.D. 135, in the fourthyear of the war; according to tradition it fellon the fatal ninth of Ab, on which the templehad been twice destroyed. Hadrian followed uphis victory with ruthless severity towards theconquered Jews. A Roman colony was esta-blished in Jerusalem, and a temple to theCapitoline Jupiter erected on the site of thetemple; and the name of the city was changedto Aelia Capitolina. Some of Bar-Cochba’s coinsare extant; they bear the old Hasmonean type,but are really Roman coins restamped (Graetz,Geschichte der Juden, iv. 157-197 ; Dion Cas-sius, Ixix. 12-14). • [E. B. C.]

BARCOPH. [Barcabbas.]

BARDAISAN ; Bap^advris, also

—5t<r—, also -<riavr}s ; Bardesanes ), a Syrian theo-logian, commonly reckoned among Gnostics. Hewas born at Edessa (Barhebraeus, Chron. Eccl.ed. Abbeloos and Lamy, Louvain, 1872, p. 49;Abulpharag. jun. Hist. l)yn. p. 79; Epiph. i.476 D; Theodoret, ff. F. i. 22), and received hisname Son of Daisan from his mother havingbrought him forth on the bank of the riverDaisan (“ the Leaper,” 'Stcipros of Greek writers),which flows by that capital of Osrhoene or N.W.Mesopotamia (Barheb.; Abulph.; cf. Eph. Syr.ii. 439 p). The date of his birth was July 11,155 (=465 Aer. Edess.; see Clinton, F. If. iii.370, corrected by Scheme's MSS. of Eus. Chron.s. an. Abr. 1706), according to the Chronicie ofEdessa (Assemani, B. 0. i. 389; the same yearis implied by Barhebraeus, l. c.): and we may

safely trsst the local and virtually contemporaryauthority, since Bardaisan as an astrologer wouldassuredly ascertain and record the exact time orhis birth (Hilgenfeld, Bardesanes der letzte Gno -stiker, 1864, p. 112). His parents, Nuhama andNahashiraina by name (Barheb.), were probablyrich and noble, for he was educated with a princewho afterwards became Abgar (Epiph. 477 A).He was famed at the court for his skill inarchery, of which a singular example has beenrecorded by an eye-witness (Julius Africanus*Cest. 29, in Vett. Muthem . Opp. Paris, 1693, p.275f.). It is said that, “leaving the heathendoctrine of a priest of Mabug ” (Hierapolis, thechief seat of the worship of the Syrian goddessTharatha or Atargatis), “ he embraced the faith,and received baptism; yea he taught the doc-trine of the Church at Edessa” (Barheb.); butat what period of his life the chauge took placeis unknown. The scanty records (Dionys. Tel-mar. ap. Assemani, B. 0. i. 423; Chron . Edess.ib. 388 if.) of the Abgars of Edessa do not sufficeto identify with confidence the friend of Bardai-san, or to disclose the facts which lie behind thebald statement of Epiphanius, that after hisdeath Bardaisan “survived till the times of An-toninus Caesar.” But the nearly contemporarychronographer J. Africanus (in Routh, B. S. ii.307 ; cf. Eus. Chron. an. Macrin. 1 = a.d. 216)speaks of an Abgar in the early years of the 3rdcentury as “ a holy man,” while the BardesanistBook of the laws of Countries (Cureton, Spied.Syr. 31 f.) notices the abolition of the Edessenecustom of mutilation in honour of the goddessTharatha by an Abgar on his conversion toChristianity. These three accounts Hilgenfeld(18 f.) has with reasonable probability broughtto converge upon Bar-Manu, said to have beenAbgar from 202 to 217 (cf. Bayer, Hist. Osrh.169-180), whom he accordingly salutes as “thefirst Christian king,” and over whose state hesupposes Bardaisan to have exercised a powerfulinfluence. We have as yet however no certainknowledge even of the number of reigns of Ab-gars about this period, much less of their dates(cf. Scott, On Royal Coins of Mesopotamia, inNumism. Chron. 1856, 21-27 ; Langlois, Numism.d’Armdnie, 48 ff., 70 ff.—authorities kindly sup-plied by Mr. R. S. Poole); and it is quite pos-sible that Bardaisan’s friend, the Christian ruler,should be sought among the last Abgars of the2nd century. The terms indeed in which thedestruction of “ the temple of the church of theChristians ” by a sudden flood of the Daisan in203 is noticed by the public archivists (ap.Chron. Edess. 1. c. p. 391), writing a few (Bayer,171) but evidently only a few years later, arehardly consistent with a complete official adoptionof Christianity, even at their own time. But itis likely enough that Christianity had long foundat the Edessene court the same kind of recogni-tion which was accorded to it at Rome shortlyafterwards by the Orientals Alexander Severusand Philip the Arabian, and that Bardaisanhad a share in raising the new faith to a morecommanding position on the accession of eitherBar-Manu or one of his immediate prede-cessors, and was his trusted counsellor so longas the state lasted. It is probably to his life asa courtier and yet a theologian that Ephraimalludes when he opposes the “ rich robes andberyls,” with which “ the devil adorned Bar-