Theodore bar Konai
Theodore Bar Konai was a distinguished Syriac exegete and apologist of the Church of the East who seems to have flourished at the end of the eighth century. His most famous work was a book of scholia on the Old and New Testaments.
Life and works
Bar Konai appears to have lived during the reign of Timothy I, List of Patriarchs of [the Church of the East|Patriarch of the Church of the East], though some scholars have placed him a century later. Assemani identified him with a bishop named Theodore, the nephew of the patriarch Yohannan IV, who was appointed to the diocese of Lashom in Beth Garmaï in 893, and his dating was followed by Wright. Chabot and Baum and Winkler, however, both place him at the end of the eighth century.''Book of the Scholion''
Theodore was the author of the Scholion, a set of scholia on both the Old and New Testaments, believed to have been written circa 792. The Scholia offer an apologetic presentation in nine chapters, similar to a catechism, of East Syrian Christianity, and contain a valuable overview, in a tenth and eleventh chapter, of heretical doctrines and non-Christian religions such as Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Mandaeism, and Islam, with which Theodore sharply disagreed.Theodore, in the Book of the Scholion, mentions the Mandaean uthras Abatur and Ptahil , Hamgai and Hamgagai, as well as Dinanukht and Diṣā. He considers the founder of Mandaeism to be a man called Ado from Adiabene. Ado's brothers are named as Šilmai, Nidbai, Bar-Ḥayye, Abi-zkā, Kušṭai, and Sethel. Theodore writes that the followers of Ado's religion are known as Mandaeans or Mašknaeans in Meshan, and as Nāṣrāye, Adonaeans, and Dostaeans in Bet Arāmāye.