A follower or adherent of Bardesanism, the dualistic Christian philosophy developed by the Syrian theologian Bardaisan in the 2nd century CE.
From Bardesanism plus the suffix -ist, meaning one who practices or believes in a particular system. Traces back to Bardaisan (Bar Daisan), the original theologian from Edessa in Syria.
Bardesanists were early Christianity's rebels—in an era when church fathers were writing dogmatic creeds, they insisted on a sophisticated theology about human free will and cosmic struggle that wouldn't be fully appreciated until modern philosophy!
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