The Kentaeans were a Gnostic religious group of Mesopotamia from around the 5th century AD. They are often thought of as a Gnostic sect that is closely related to but distinct from the Mandaeans.[1]
The Kentaeans are mentioned near the end of Book 3 and at the beginning of Book 9.1 in the Right Ginza,[2] as well as in Qolasta Prayer 357.[3]: 251 The Ginza Rabba identifies the Kentaeans with Kiwan (Saturn) and criticizes them for their fasting.[2] They are also mentioned by Arab historians such as Ibn al-Malāḥimī as the Kintānīya, while aš-Šahrastānī refers to them as the Kintawīya.[1]: 41 Al-Masʿūdī briefly mentions them as the Kinṯāwīyūn.[1]: 42
References to both the Kentaeans and Mandaeans can be found in three 6th-century Syriac Christian texts, namely the Cyrus of Edessa's Explanation for the Fasts, the Acts of Symeon bar Ṣabbāʿe, and the title of a lost work by Nathaniel of Šahrazur.[1]: 26–34 Van Bladel (2017) argues that both the Mandaeans and Kentaeans likely originated during the mid or late 5th century in the Sasanian Empire.[1]: 34–36
Theodore bar Konai (c. 792 in the Book of the Scholion) considers the Mandaeans, whom he refers to as the Dostaeans, to be an offshoot of the Kentaeans.[1]: 19 Van Bladel (2017) argues that the Kentaeans (Classical Syriac: ܟܢܬܝܐ, romanized: kntyʾ), who derived their teachings from Abel, and Mandaeans are closely related to each other, and that they had become distinct from each other due to a historical schism.[1][4][5]
