Bardaisan is forced at the age of sixty-three to take refuge in the fortress of Ani in Armenia, where he tries to spread the Gospel, but with little success.
He will die five years later, either at Ani or at Edessa.
Bardaisan apparently was a voluminous author, and though nearly all his works have perished, we find notices of the following:
• Dialogues against Marcion and Valentinus.
• Dialogue "Against Fate" addressed to an Antoninus.
Whether this Antoninus is merely a friend of Bardaisan or a Roman emperor and, in the latter case, which of the Antonini is meant, is matter of controversy.
It is also uncertain whether this dialogue is identical with "The Book of the Laws of the Countries".
• A "Book of Psalms", one hundred and fifty in number, in imitation of David's Psalter.
These psalms will become famous in the history of Edessa, their words and melodies living for generations on the lips of the people.
Only when St. Ephrem composes hymns in the same pentasyllabic meter and has them sung to the same tunes as the psalms of Bardaisan, will the latter gradually lose favor.
• Astrologico-theological treatises, in which his peculiar tenets were expounded.
• A "History of Armenia", a history of the Armenian kings.
• "An Account of India".
Bardaisan obtained his information from the Indian Sramana (wandering monks) ambassadors to the Roman Emperor Heliogabalus.
A few extracts are preserved by Porphyry and Stobaeus.
• "Book of the Laws of the Countries".
Against a questioning disciple called Abida, Bardaisan seeks to show that man's actions are not entirely necessitated by Fate, as the outcome of stellar combinations.
From the fact that the same laws, customs and manners often prevail among all persons living in a certain district, or though locally scattered living under the same traditions, Bardaisan endeavors to show that the position of the stars at the birth of individuals can have but little to do with their subsequent conduct, hence the title "Book of the Laws of the Countries."
