Eusebius, Nestabus, Zeno and Nestor

The Holy Martyrs Eusebius, Nestabus, Zeno and Nestor suffered at Gaza around the year 362, in the reign of the emperor Julian the Apostate. Eusebius, Nestabus and Zeno were brothers. Pagans seized them in the houses where they had hidden and threw them into prison, where they were scourged. Then the crowd, gathered for the shows in the amphitheatre, demanded their punishment and broke open the prison. They dragged the brothers through the streets and struck them with whatever came to hand; their bodies were burned and the bones mixed with those of camels and asses, so that Christians could not tell them apart.

With them a young man, Nestor, was seized, imprisoned and beaten in the same way. Some took pity on him and drew him out of the city, but he died of his wounds three days later in the house of Zeno, a cousin of the three brothers. According to the historian Sozomen, the bones of Nestabus and Eusebius were revealed by a miracle to a devout woman, who gathered and kept them.

The Roman Martyrology commemorates them on 8 September (new style). The account rests on the church historians Sozomen and Theodoret.