Bar Konai appears to have lived during the reign of
Timothy I (780–823),
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 (900–5), 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 (
Kṯāḇā d-ʾeskoliyon), a set of scholia on both the Old and New Testaments (edited between 1908 and 1912 by the celebrated scholar
Addai Scher), 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 (
Abitur) and
Ptahil (
Ptaḥil) (cf.
Right Ginza 15.13; 18), Hamgai and Hamgagai (cf.
Right Ginza 15.5), as well as
Dinanukht ("Dinanus" or
Dynnws) and Diṣā (cf.
Right Ginza 6). 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 (
Štʾyl).
Other works Theodore was also the author of an ecclesiastical history, a treatise against
Monophysitism, a treatise against the
Arianism, a colloquy between a pagan and a Christian, and a treatise on heresies. His
Church History contains some interesting details of the lives of the Patriarchs of the Church of the East. He lists him twice in somewhat garbled forms, as tenth and twelfth in a list of twelve kings who reigned between
Peleg and
Abraham. ==Notes==