He is mentioned in the book of Revelation as Antipas, my faithful witness (2, 13), who would be killed among you, where Satan lives, that is. j. in the city of Pergamum. The inhabitants of this city lived in the darkness of idolatry and in extreme impurity; they were slaves of passion, degenerates, violent, bloodthirsty, in other words servants of Satan. And there among them Antipas lived "like light in the midst of darkness, like a rose in the midst of thorns, like gold in the midst of mud." The one who caught and killed a Christian was considered good and righteous. All heathen faith consisted in divination, in the interpretation of dreams, in the service of demons, and in extreme debauchery. The demons, terrified of Antipas as of fire, appeared to the priests in a dream and confessed that they were afraid of Antipas, and that they had to flee from that city because of him. The priests raised a crowd of people against Antipas, and began to extort him and force him to renounce Christ and worship idols. Antipas said to them: "when your so-called gods, the masters of the universe, are afraid of me, a mortal man, and have to flee from this city, don't you know by this that all your faith is a delusion:" And the saint also spoke to them about the faith of Christ, as the only true and saving one. But they became enraged like beasts and dragged the old man Antipas in front of the temple of Artemis, in front of which he stood cast in bronze. They heated the ox with fire, and threw the servant of God inside. St. Antipas, inside the fiery ox, glorified God with thanksgiving, like once Jonah in the whale or the three children in the fiery furnace. And Antipas prayed for his flock and for the whole world until his soul was separated from his decaying body and ascended among the angels to the Kingdom of Christ. He died in agony and was crowned with unfading glory in the 92nd year.
Holy Martyrs Prokes and Martinianus.