Procopius, Alphaeus and Zacchaeus

The first of the martyrs of Palestine was Procopius. Before he had even been put to the test of imprisonment, at his very first appearance at the governor’s tribunal, he was ordered to sacrifice to the so-called gods. He answered that he knew only one to whom it was right to sacrifice, in the way that he himself wills. When he was then ordered to pour libations to the four emperors, he quoted a line that displeased them, and he was at once beheaded. The line was from the poet: “The rule of many is not good; let there be one ruler, one king.” [a] It was the seventh day of the month Desius, June 7 by the Roman reckoning, and the fourth day of the week, when this first example was given at Caesarea in Palestine. [c]

After this, in the same city, many leaders of the country churches readily endured terrible sufferings and gave those who watched an example of noble contests. Others, numbed in spirit by terror, gave way easily at the first attack. Each of the rest endured different kinds of torture: countless scourgings, the rack, the tearing of their sides, and unbearable fetters, by which some had their hands put out of joint. Yet they bore what came upon them as part of the hidden purposes of God. One man had his hands seized and was led to the altar; they thrust the unclean and abominable offering into his right hand, and then he was let go as if he had sacrificed. Another had not even touched it, yet when others said that he had sacrificed, he went away in silence. Another was picked up half dead and thrown aside as if already dead, freed from his chains, and counted among those who had sacrificed. When another shouted and declared that he would not obey, he was struck on the mouth and silenced by a large band drawn up for this purpose, and driven away by force, though he had not sacrificed. So much did they care to seem, by any means at all, to have achieved their purpose.

So of all this number the only ones honored with the crown of the holy martyrs were Alphaeus and Zacchaeus. They endured scourgings and scrapings, harsh chains and further tortures, and many other trials, and had their feet stretched apart over four holes of the stocks for a night and a day. Then, on the seventeenth day of the month Dius, November 17 by the Roman reckoning, having confessed only one God, and Christ Jesus as king, as though they had uttered some blasphemy, they were beheaded like the first martyr. [d]