Maruthas of Martyropolis

views updated

MARUTHAS OF MARTYROPOLIS

Fifth-century Persian bishop of Martyropolis (modern Maipherqat); d. before 420. Maruthas took part in the Synods of Constantinople (381) and Side (382), and the Synod of the Oak in 403; he served as imperial ambassador to the Persian court in 399400 and 409410. During the latter sojourn he helped reorganize the Church in Persia at the Synod of Seleucia-Ctesiphon and collected the Acts of the Persian martyrs put to death by King Shapur II (d. 379). His Tractatus de haeresibus and Homilia in Dominicam novam have been preserved; but there is question as to whether Maruthas was actually the author of the Hypomnemata of Oriental Martyrs.

Bibliography: Tractatus de haeresibus, ed. i. rahmani, (Studia Syriaca 4; 1909) 98103, 7680; Homilia, ed. m. kmosko in Oriens Christianus 3 (1903) 384415; Acts of the Martyrs, ed. r. marcus in Harvard Theological Review 25 (1932) 4771. e. hammerschmidt, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche 2 7:140. g. tisserant, Dictionnaire de théologie catholique 10.1:142149. j.m. vostÉ, Orientalia Christiana periodica 12 (1946) 201205. Patrologica syriaca 43, 4851.

[f. x. murphy]