Bar-COCheba (dial. X3213 13, son ofthestar), or Simeon Bar-cochda, a Jewish impostor, who ap- plied to himself the prophecy of Balaam (Num. xxiv, 17), and incited the Jews to revolt against the em- peror Hadrian (A.D. 130). He passed himself oft" for the Messiah, and his pretensions were supported by Akiba (q. v.), the chief of the Sanhedrim. The better to deceive the credulous Jews, according to Jerome, he pretended to vomit flames, by means of a piece of lighted tow which he kept in his mouth. Bar-cocheba profited by the seditious state in which he found the Jews, and took Jerusalem, A.D. 132. He issued coins having on one side his own name, and on the other " Freedom of Jerusalem." In the British Museum is a coin ascribed by some to Simon the Maccabee (q. v.), aftsr some of whose it appears to have been modelled, corresponding to the description given by Tychsen and others of a coin of Bar-cocheba. One side of this coin represents a portion of four columns, in the midst of which is a lyre; a serpentine stroke below is said to represent the brook of Kedron, and a star seems to allude to Numbers xxiv, 17. The other side has a vessel of manna and a leaf. Miinter concluded, from a similar coin, that Bar-cocheba had commenced the rebuilding of the Temple ; but Nicephorus Callist. (//is/. Eccl. iii, c. 21) and Cedrenus (Script. Byz. xii, 2L>) say only that the Jews intended to rebuild the
:.ksl fif Rar-coclii bo. representing tin' porch of the T.niplj an 1 his "star;" on the other side a pot of manna c>r bunch of fruits), with tli- inscription (in old llehj, " Fur the deliv- erance of Jerusalem."
| Temple. All the thieves, murderers, and disorderly characters in the country quickly repaired to his stand- ard, and he was soon strong enough to vanquish, in several engagements, J. Annius Rufus, the Roman commandant in Judaea. On this the emperor Hadrian ordered his most able commander, Julius Severus, to leave his post in Britain and repair to Palestine ; but the time which elapsed during his journey was favor- able to the rebels. After his arrival, Julius Severus prudently avoided battles, but took a number of forti- fied places before he marched against Jerusalem, which he took and destroyed after sustaining great losses. The Jews, after the capture of the city, concentrated their forces in the mountain-fortress of Bethar, in the neighborhood of Jerusalem. While Julius Severus was gradually reconquering the country, Bar-cocheba still played the king in Bethar for three years, and, on the unfounded suspicion of treason, executed the learned Eleazar of Modain, who, having prayed for the welfare of the fortress, was slandered by a Cuthite (that is, a Samaritan), as if he intended to betray Bethar to Ha- drian. According to Talmudical statements, Bethar was taken in 135 by the Romans, on the 9th day of the month of Ab, the anniversary of the burning of the Temple under Titus. It has been stated that on this occasion 580,000 Jews perished, but this must be great- ly exaggerated. Bar-cocheba fell in the combat, and his head was brought into the Roman camp. Akiba (according to most accounts), and many rabbins, who were considered authors of the rebellion, were put to a cruel death. The new city, yElia Capitolina (q. v.), was founded on the site of Jerusalem. — Jost, t:<sch. d. Isr. Volkcs, vol. ii ; Mosheim, Ch. IJist. cent, ii, pt. i, ch. i, § 11 ; Gibbon, Roman Empire, ch. xvi. See Bether.
Bardesanes, a Gnostic heresiarch, scholar, and poet of the second century at Edessa, in Mesopotamia (about A.D. 170). Lucius Verus, it is said, tried to se- duce him from the Christian faith, and at last threat- ened him. He replied "that he feared not death, from which he should not escape, even if he complied with the emperor's desire." According to Epiphanius, he defended the faith against Apollonius, a Stoic, and wrote against Marcion ; but afterward he fell into the errors of the Valentinian Gnostics, though in some points he differed materially from Valentinus. Jerome speaks highly of the style in which his works were written, and Eusebius speaks of his recantation of er- ror before his death. His treatise on Fate will be found translated in Cureton's Spicilegium Syriacum (Lond. 1855). See Eusebius, Prop. Evang. lib. vi, ch. x. Bardesanes left a son called Harmonius, and many other disciples, who added to the errors which he had sown. He maintained that the supreme God. being free from all imperfection, created the world and its inhabitants pure and incorrupt ; that the Prince of Darkness, who is the fountain of all evil and misery, enticed men to sin ; in consequence of which, God per- mitted them to be divested of those ethereal bodies with which he had endued them, and to fall into slug- gish and gross bodies, formed by the evil principle; and that Jesus descended from heaven, clothed with an unreal or aerial body, to recover mankind from that body of corruption which they now carry about them ; and that he will raise the obedient to mansions of fe- licity, clothed witli aerial vehicles, or celestial bodies. The errors of Bardesanes arose chiefly from his at- tempt to explain the origin of evil. Admitting a be- neficent Supreme Being, he could not believe him the source of evil. He sought that source in Satan, whom he described, not as the creature, but the enemy of God, and as endowed witli self-existence (iyio riu' Au'i- [3o\ov avroQvij \oyi%opai, (ccri avroysvvrirov, is the phrase of the Bardesanist in Origen, Dial. cont. Mar- cionitas). Yet he represents God alone as immortal, and therefore probably held Satan to be the production of matter (which he supposed eternal), and that he