This comprehensive study offers a critical, comparative analysis of the sources available on Bardaisan and a reinterpretation of his thought. The study highlights the profound points of contact between Bardaisan, Origen, and their schools; the role of Plato's Timaeus and Middle Platonism in Bardaisan's thought, and Stoicism. Bardaisan's thought emerges as a deeply Christian one, depending on the exegesis of Scripture read in the light of Greek philosophy. Positive ancient sources present him as a deacon or even a presbyter, as an author of refutations of Marcionism and Gnosticism, and as a confessor of the faith during persecution.

Roman Edessa offers a comprehensive and erudite analysis of the ancient city of Edessa (modern day Urfa, Turkey), which constituted a remarkable amalgam of the East and the West. Among the areas explored are: * the cultural life and antecedents of Edessa * Edessene religion * the extent of the Hellenization at Edessa before the advent of Christianity * the myth of an exchange of letters between a King Abgar and Jesus.