The Company of Martyrs
The commemoration gathers a single band of confessors: the brothers Alphaeus, Philadelphus, and Cyprian, their baptizer Onesimus, the martyr Erasmus, and fourteen further Christians who are remembered together with them. The synaxarion records that they came from Italy and lived in the third century.
The three brothers are named as sons of a governor in Italy named Vitalius. Having received baptism from Saint Onesimus, they bound their lives to his and to the larger company of Christians who would accompany them to Rome and into martyrdom.
Martyrdom
The company traveled to Rome, where the first deaths occurred. The pagans crushed the chest of Saint Onesimus with a heavy stone, which killed him, while Erasmus and the fourteen martyrs were beheaded.
The three brothers Alphaeus, Philadelphus, and Cyprian were sent on from Rome and suffered in the city of Mesopolis Leontini in Sicily. The synaxarion specifies that Saint Philadelphus was burned over an iron lattice, dating the martyrdom to the year 251 in the reign of the emperor Decius. In the Western tradition the brothers' deaths are further distinguished — Alphaeus by having his tongue torn out and Cyprian (Cyrinus) by being boiled in oil — though the Eastern synaxarion details only the burning of Philadelphus.
Relics & Shrines
In the year 1517 the incorrupt relics of the martyrs were discovered at Leontini (Lentini) in Sicily, the place of the brothers' martyrdom. The feast is kept on May 10; in Sicily it is observed with particular solemnity, notably at Trecastagni.
Traditional Accounts
By tradition the three brothers Alphaeus, Philadelphus, and Cyprian later appeared to the mother of Saint Euthalia, the Virgin Martyr of Sicily, in a dream, telling her that she would be healed only if she believed in Christ and was baptized.
Western and Eastern accounts of the family differ in detail: the Western tradition names the brothers' mother as Benedicta and places their origin at Vaste in the diocese of Otranto in southern Italy, where the Eastern synaxarion speaks instead of their father, the governor Vitalius, and of an origin in Italy.
