Intellectual Constructions of Free Will: Bardaisan Versus Astrological Determinism, Novelties, Parallels, and Aftermath

Philosophical and religious voices in the imperial period and Late Antiquity emphasized individual responsibility and free will, including, from the early Christian side, anti-“Gnostic” (and later anti-Manichean) defenses of free will against determinism. This essay concentrates on the rather neglected author Bardaisan, who rejected the deterministic astrological arguments maintained by Stoics, “Gnostics,” and “Chaldeans,” and, like Origen, argued that human free will, as a gift of God, is not influenced by stars and zodiacal configurations at one’s birth but depends on one’s intellect (“ethical intellectualism”). New convergences between their ideas are pointed out, as well as Bardaisan’s novel argument against “climatic” astrological determinism and its influence on later Christian authors. The essay investigates the impact that Bardaisan’s antideterministic ideas exerted—sometimes without being recognized—in Late Antiquity and the ways in which his novel argument against climatic astrological determinism was received and reused. A network of reception that is ultimately closely linked to Bardaisan thus emerges.