Theodore Bar Konai
Encyclopedia
Theodore Bar Konai was a distinguished exegete and apologist of the Church of the East
Church of the East
The Church of the East tāʾ d-Maḏnḥāʾ), also known as the Nestorian Church, is a Christian church, part of the Syriac tradition of Eastern Christianity. Originally the church of the Persian Sassanid Empire, it quickly spread widely through Asia...

, 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

Theodore Bar Konai appears to have lived during the reign of the East Syrian patriarch Timothy I
Mar Timothee I
Timothy I, patriarch of the Church of the East from 780 to 823, is widely considered to be one of the most impressive patriarchs in the long history of the Nestorian church. Respected both as an author, a church leader and a diplomat, Timothy was also an excellent administrator...

 (780–823), though some scholars have placed him a century later. Assemani identified him with a bishop named Theodore, the nephew of the patriarch Yohannan IV
Yohannan IV
Yohannan IV was Patriarch of the Church of the East from 900 to 905.- Sources :Accounts of Yohannan's patriarchate are given in the Ecclesiastical Chronicle of the Jacobite writer Bar Hebraeus and in the ecclesiastical histories of the Nestorian writers Mari , Amr and Sliba - Yohannan's...

 (900–5), who was appointed to the diocese of Lashom in Beth Garmaï
Beth Garmaï (East Syrian Ecclesiastical Province)
The region of Beth Garmai in southern Iraq, bounded by the Little Zab and Diyala Rivers and centered on the town of Karka d'Beth Slokh , was a metropolitan province of the Church of the East between the fifth and fourteenth centuries...

 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.

Theodore was the author of a book of Scholia on both the Old and New Testaments (edited between 1908 and 1912 by the celebrated Chaldean scholar Addai Scher
Addai Scher
Addai Scher Also written Addai Sher, Addaï Scher and Addai Sheir , was the Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Siirt. He was killed by the Ottomans during the Assyrian Genocide.-Early life:...

), believed to have been written c.792. The Scholia offer an apologetic presentation, similar to a catechism, of East Syrian Christianity, and contain a valuable overview of heretical doctrines and non-Christian religions such as Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism
Manichaeism
Manichaeism in Modern Persian Āyin e Māni; ) was one of the major Iranian Gnostic religions, originating in Sassanid Persia.Although most of the original writings of the founding prophet Mani have been lost, numerous translations and fragmentary texts have survived...

and Islam, with which Theodore sharply disagreed.

Theodore was also the author of an ecclesiastical history, a treatise against the Monophysites, a treatise against the Arians, 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 Nestorian patriarchs.
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