Maruthas of Martyropolis
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 399–400 and 409–410. 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) 98–103, 76–80; Homilia, ed. m. kmosko in Oriens Christianus 3 (1903) 384–415; Acts of the Martyrs, ed. r. marcus in Harvard Theological Review 25 (1932) 47–71. e. hammerschmidt, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche 2 7:140. g. tisserant, Dictionnaire de théologie catholique 10.1:142–149. j.m. vostÉ, Orientalia Christiana periodica 12 (1946) 201–205. Patrologica syriaca 43, 48–51.
[f. x. murphy]