Bardesanes the Syrian

In the same reign, as heresies were multiplying in Mesopotamia, the land between the rivers, a certain Bardesanes, a most able man and a most skillful debater in the Syriac language, composed dialogues against the followers of Marcion and against certain others who championed various opinions. He handed them down in his own language and script, together with a great many other writings of his. His disciples, of whom he had very many, for he stood up powerfully for the word, translated them from Syriac into Greek. [a] Among them is his very able dialogue On Fate, addressed to Antoninus, and whatever other works they say he wrote on the occasion of the persecution of that time. [b] He had belonged at first to the school of Valentinus. But he condemned it and refuted most of its myth-making, and he seemed to himself somehow to have changed over to the more correct opinion. Even so, he did not entirely wash off the filth of the old heresy. [c]

At this time Soter, bishop of the church of Rome, came to the end of his life.