Theodosios (d. 896) [Syr. Orth.]

Patr. (887-896), author, and physician.

Patr. (887–96), author, and physician. A monk from the Monastery of Mor Gabriel , Romanos was elected in 887, after a vacancy of four years, following the death of Patr. Ignatius I (883). As patr. he took the name Theodosios. No details of his tenure are known, except that a few canons attributed to him are known in the later tradition. In his primary field of expertise, Bar ʿEbroyo mentions ‘a wonderful medical compendium’ (kunošo tmiho b-osyuto), which after the author’s election as patr. circulated as ‘the compendium of Patr. Theodosios’ (*Ecclesiastical History , ed. Abbeloos and Lamy, vol. 1, 389–92); this is, however, not preserved. In another work Bar ʿEbroyo reports that Romanos was from Tagrit (see Marsh, 176 and 186).

Theodosios’s preserved works include: 1. an explanation of 112 ‘symbolic sayings of wise men’ (melle remzonoyoto d-ḥakime), many of which are of Pythagorean origin, as the author himself points out (ed. and FT by Zotenberg; see also Marsh, 145, n. 2); 2. a commentary on the Book of the Holy Hierotheos (extracts in Marsh and Pinggéra); 3. (in Arabic) a synodical letter to the Coptic Patr. Michael III; 4. (also in Arabic) a homily for Lent.

Theodosios’s lengthy commentary on the Book of the Holy Hierotheos consists of five books. It is preceded by a letter to Eliʿozor (also called Loʿozar), bp. of Cyrrhus, who had requested the commentary, as well as by a general introduction, while each book has a separate introduction as well. Theodosios seems to accept Hierotheos’s authorship and, as far as can be judged from the published extracts, does not mention the name of Stephen bar Ṣudayli . Bar ʿEbroyo, who also wrote a commentary on the same book, knew Theodosios’s commentary and used it in his work.