Zoe of Attalia

Holy Martyr Zoe of Attalia was a Christian slave woman of Pamphylia who, together with her husband Hesperus and their sons Cyriacus and Theodulus, died in a furnace in the second century, in the time of the Emperor Hadrian (117-138). They are commemorated together on 2 May, by the calendar of the Church of Greece.

The family were slaves in the house of the Roman Catullus and his wife Petradia, who forbade them to pray and praise God and sometimes gave them orders contrary to the Gospel. The synaxarion relates that Saint Zoe went in the evening to the guard watching the palace and sent him to sleep, being tired, and took his place. At the palace gates there were dogs that tore apart the poor who came to ask for help; Zoe took the bread given to her for the family's daily needs, threw a little to the dogs to quiet them, and shared the rest with the poor, telling them: "Become Christians, servants of Christ, for He alone is the Saviour of the world."

In the year 125, when Catullus had a son, he wanted all his slaves to celebrate and ordered that at a common table all should eat abundantly of meat offered to idols and drink wine. Hesperus and his family limited themselves to dry food. The master noticed and ordered that they be forced to eat, but all refused and said they regretted that this time they would not obey their master. Enraged, Catullus ordered a great furnace to be lit and threw the four martyrs into it. In the morning, when the furnace was opened, all four were found dead, but their bodies had not been burned. The Emperor Justinian (527-565) honoured Saint Zoe with a church near the church of Saint Anna in the Deuteron quarter of Constantinople; Basil I (867-886) rebuilt it from the foundations because it had fallen.