Aretas (martyr)

St. Aretas, leader of the Christian community of Najran in the early 6th century, was executed during the persecution of Christians by the Jewish king Dhu Nuwas in 523. [cite book | title = The Saints go marching in : a one volume hagiography of Africans, or descendants of Africans, who have been canonized by the church, including three of the early popes | author = R. Fulton Holtzclaw | year = 1980 | publisher = Keeble Press | location = Shaker Heights, OH | id = OCLC|6081480 | pages = p.120 | quote = Najran, in Yemen, was the scene, in 523, of a massacre of Ethiopians and other Christians by Jews and Arabs. A leader among the victims was the chief of the Bono Horith, St. Aretas (see: Elesbaan). ] [cite book | title = Saints of Africa | author = Vincent J. O'Malley, C.M. | publisher = Our Sunday Visitor Publishing | isbn = 087973373X | year = 2001 ]

The sixteenth-century Cardinal Cesare Baronio added St. Elesbaan to martyrology despite being a Monophysite heretics. [cite book | title = Butler's Lives of the Saints: October | isbn= 0814623867 | year = 1996 | first = Alban |last=Butler | chapter=SS Aretas and the Martyrs of Najran, and St Elsebann (523) | pages = p.169 ]

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