MARCO, DIACONO, hagiographer. - Ever since Baronius inserted large portions of the Vita of Porfirio, bishop of Gaza, by M., into his Annales Ecclesiastici, this writer—who remained unknown in the East even to a scholar such as Fazio—aroused the greatest interest in the West. Yet doubts concerning the authenticity of the account had already been raised in the 17th century, chiefly by N. de Tillemont.
These reservations regarding the historical character of the Vita have recently led to the discovery that the original work of the deacon M. was reworked by a later author. It was he, for example, who wrote the introduction in imitation of the introduction to Theodoreto’s Historia religiosa; this reworker also sought to suppress the connections between Porfirio and the Origenists, etc. It is not, however, possible to distinguish in the Vita what formed part of M.’s original work from what must be attributed to the reworking. This highly interesting writing, which vividly describes the struggle against paganism in the city of Gaza, deals with a historical person who lived in the time of Eudossia and St. Giovanni Crisostomo. Porfirio, who was present at the Synod of Diospolis (415), died in 420. The destruction of the temple of Marnas, which stands at the centre of the narrative, is a historical fact (v. s. Girolamo, Epist. 107 ad Laetam [CSEL, 4, p. 292]; id., in Isaiam, VII, 17: PL 24, 241 D).