Firmilian
Encyclopedia
Saint Firmilian Bishop of Caesarea Mazaca from ca. 232, was a disciple of Origen
. He had a contemporary reputation comparable to that of Dionysius of Alexandria
or Cyprian
, bishop of Carthage.
He took an active part in the mid-3rd century controversies over rebaptising heretics and readmitting lapsed Christians after the persecutions of Decius
and was excommunicated by Pope Stephen I
for his position. A single letter of Firmilian to Cyprian survives among Cyprian's correspondence. Jerome
omits Firmilian from De viris illustribus. "To his contemporaries his forty years of influential episcopate, his friendship with Origen and Dionysius, the appeal to him of Cyprian, and his censure of Stephanus might well make him seem the most conspicuous figure of his time" (Wace).
Gregory of Nyssa
tells that Gregory Thaumaturgus
, when still a pagan, having completed his secular studies, "fell in with Firmilian, a Cappadocian of noble family, similar to himself in character and talent, as he showed in his subsequent life when he adorned the Church of Caesarea." The two young men came to Alexandria to study with Origen by whom Gregory, at least, was baptised. Later, when bishop, Eusebius
records (Ecclesiastical History
, VI, xxvi-xxviii), he invited Origen to his own country, at the time (232–35) when the great teacher was staying in Caesarea of Palestine.
In the controversies over rebaptism of lapsed Christians, Firmilian was an opponent of the stringent policy of antipope Novatian (see Novatianism
), for Dionysius
in 252–53 writes that the bishops of Cilicia, Cappadocia, and Palestine had invited him to a synod at Antioch to repudiate Novatianism
(Eusebius, VI, xlvi, 3). Dionysius counts Firmilian as one of "the more eminent bishops" in a letter to Pope Stephen I
(Eusebius, VII, v, 1), where his expression "Firmilian and all Cappadocia" implies that Caesarea was already a metropolitan see. This explains how Firmilian could invite Origen to Cappadocia, "for the benefit of the Churches".
(257–58), Dionysius mentions that in the controversy over rebaptism of the lapsed Pope Stephen had refused communication with Helenus of Tarsus, Firmilian, and all Cilicia and Cappadocia, and the neighbouring lands (Eusebius, VII, v, 3-4), a subject touched on in the sole surviving letter of Firmilian, a response to Cyprian. When the baptismal controversy arose, Cyprian wished to gain support from the Eastern churches against Pope Stephen for his own decision to rebaptize all heretics who returned to the Church. At the end of the summer of 256, he sent the deacon Rogatian to Firmilian with a letter, together with the documents on the subject—letters of the pope, of his own, and of his council at Carthage in the spring, and the treatise De Ecclesia Catholica Unitate. Firmilian's existing reply was received at Carthage about the middle of November. It is a long letter, even more bitter and violent than the letter on this head of Cyprian to Pompeius. It has come down to us in a translation made, no doubt, under Cyprian's direction, and apparently very literal, as it abounds in Greek expressions (Cyprian, Epistle lxxv).
In the letter, Cyprian's arguments against Pope Stephen are reiterated and reinforced. Firmilian says: "We have received your writings as our own, and have committed them to memory by repeated reading" (c. iv). Firmilian's reasoning against the validity of heretical baptism is mainly that of Cyprian, that those who are outside the Church and have not the Holy Spirit cannot admit others to the Church or give what they do not possess: " "Very many of us meeting together in Iconium very carefully examined the matter, and we decided that every baptism was altogether to be rejected which is arranged for without the Church." Firmilian is fond of dilemmas: for instance, either the heretics do not give the Holy Ghost, in which case rebaptism is necessary, or else they do give it, in which case Stephen should not forbid the laying on of hands. Firmilian enables us to gather much of the drift of Stephen's letter to Cyprian. It is "ridiculous" that Stephen demanded nothing but the use of the Trinitarian formula. He had appealed to tradition from St. Peter and St. Paul: this is an insult to the Apostles, cries Firmilian, for they execrated heretics. Besides (this is from Cyprian, Ep. lxxiv, 2), "no one could be so silly as to believe this", for the heretics are all later than the Apostles! And Rome has not preserved the Apostolic traditions unchanged, for it differs from Jerusalem as to the observances at Easter and as to other mysteries. "I am justly indignant with Stephen's obvious and manifest silliness, that he so boasts of his position, and claims that he is the successor of St. Peter on whom were laid the foundations of the Church; yet he brings in many other rocks, and erects new buildings of many Churches when he defends with his authority the baptism conferred by heretics; for those who are baptized are without doubt numbered in the Church, and he who approves their baptism affirms that there is among them a Church of the baptized.… Stephen, who declares that he has the Chair of Peter by succession, is excited by no zeal against heretics" (c. xvii). "You have cut yourself off—do not mistake—since he is the true schismatic who makes himself an apostate from the communion of ecclesiastical unity. For in thinking that all can be excommunicated by you, you have cut off yourself alone from the communion of all" (c. xxiv).
We thus learn the claims of Stephen to impose on the whole Church by his authority as successor of Peter, a custom the Roman Church claims to derive from Apostolic tradition. Firmilian reassures Cyprian's church at Carthage that with them the custom of rebaptizing may be new, but in Cappadocia it has been the custom from the very beginning (c. xix), and he can answer Stephen by opposing tradition to tradition, and that some time since, he had joined in a council at Iconium with the bishops of Galatia
and Cilicia
and other provinces, and had decided to rebaptize the Montanists
(c. vii and xix); for these acts Stephen excommunicated the Eastern churches. Dionysius, in a letter to the Roman priest Philemon , also mentions the Council of Iconium. It was presumably held in the last years of Alexander Severus
, ca 231–35.
, in 266 (Wace). He may even have presided. The letter of the third council says he was too easily persuaded that Paul of Samosata
would amend; hence the necessity of another council (Eusebius, VII, iii-v). He was on his way to this assembly when death overtook him, at Tarsus
, in 268 (Adolf Harnack) or 269.
Though Firmilian was excommunicated by Stephen, it is certain that the following popes did not adhere to this severe policy. Firmilian is commemorated in the Greek martyrology (October 28) but is not venerated in the West. His great successor in Cappadocia, St Basil of Caesarea
, mentions his view on heretical baptism without accepting it (Epistle clxxxviii), and says, when speaking of the expression "with the Holy Ghost" in the Doxology: "That our own Firmilian held this faith is testified by the lógoi which he has left" (De Spiritu Sancto, xxix, 74). There is no other mention of such writings, which were probably letters.
Origen
Origen , or Origen Adamantius, 184/5–253/4, was an early Christian Alexandrian scholar and theologian, and one of the most distinguished writers of the early Church. As early as the fourth century, his orthodoxy was suspect, in part because he believed in the pre-existence of souls...
. He had a contemporary reputation comparable to that of Dionysius of Alexandria
Dionysius of Alexandria
Pope Dionysius of Alexandria, named "the Great," was the Pope of Alexandria from 248 until his death on November 17, 265 after seventeen years as a bishop. He was the first Pope to hold the title "the Great" . We have information on Dionysius because during his lifetime, Dionysius wrote many...
or Cyprian
Cyprian
Cyprian was bishop of Carthage and an important Early Christian writer, many of whose Latin works are extant. He was born around the beginning of the 3rd century in North Africa, perhaps at Carthage, where he received a classical education...
, bishop of Carthage.
He took an active part in the mid-3rd century controversies over rebaptising heretics and readmitting lapsed Christians after the persecutions of Decius
Decius
Trajan Decius , was Roman Emperor from 249 to 251. In the last year of his reign, he co-ruled with his son Herennius Etruscus until they were both killed in the Battle of Abrittus.-Early life and rise to power:...
and was excommunicated by Pope Stephen I
Pope Stephen I
Pope Saint Stephen I served as Bishop of Rome from 12 May 254 to 2 August 257.Of Roman birth but of Greek ancestry, he became bishop of Rome in 254, having served as archdeacon of Pope Lucius I, who appointed Stephen his successor....
for his position. A single letter of Firmilian to Cyprian survives among Cyprian's correspondence. Jerome
Jerome
Saint Jerome was a Roman Christian priest, confessor, theologian and historian, and who became a Doctor of the Church. He was the son of Eusebius, of the city of Stridon, which was on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia...
omits Firmilian from De viris illustribus. "To his contemporaries his forty years of influential episcopate, his friendship with Origen and Dionysius, the appeal to him of Cyprian, and his censure of Stephanus might well make him seem the most conspicuous figure of his time" (Wace).
Gregory of Nyssa
Gregory of Nyssa
St. Gregory of Nyssa was a Christian bishop and saint. He was a younger brother of Basil the Great and a good friend of Gregory of Nazianzus. His significance has long been recognized in the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Catholic and Roman Catholic branches of Christianity...
tells that Gregory Thaumaturgus
Gregory Thaumaturgus
Gregory Thaumaturgus, also known as Gregory of Neocaesarea or Gregory the Wonderworker, was a Christian bishop of the 3rd century.-Biography:Gregory was born at Neo-Caesarea around 213 A.D...
, when still a pagan, having completed his secular studies, "fell in with Firmilian, a Cappadocian of noble family, similar to himself in character and talent, as he showed in his subsequent life when he adorned the Church of Caesarea." The two young men came to Alexandria to study with Origen by whom Gregory, at least, was baptised. Later, when bishop, Eusebius
Eusebius of Caesarea
Eusebius of Caesarea also called Eusebius Pamphili, was a Roman historian, exegete and Christian polemicist. He became the Bishop of Caesarea in Palestine about the year 314. Together with Pamphilus, he was a scholar of the Biblical canon...
records (Ecclesiastical History
Church History (Eusebius)
The Church History of Eusebius, the bishop of Caesarea was a 4th-century pioneer work giving a chronological account of the development of Early Christianity from the 1st century to the 4th century. It was written in Koine Greek, and survives also in Latin, Syriac and Armenian manuscripts...
, VI, xxvi-xxviii), he invited Origen to his own country, at the time (232–35) when the great teacher was staying in Caesarea of Palestine.
In the controversies over rebaptism of lapsed Christians, Firmilian was an opponent of the stringent policy of antipope Novatian (see Novatianism
Novatianism
The Novatianists were early Christians following Antipope Novatian, held a strict view that refused readmission to communion of Lapsi, those baptized Christians who had denied their faith or performed the formalities of a ritual sacrifice to the pagan gods, under the pressures of the persecution...
), for Dionysius
Dionysius of Alexandria
Pope Dionysius of Alexandria, named "the Great," was the Pope of Alexandria from 248 until his death on November 17, 265 after seventeen years as a bishop. He was the first Pope to hold the title "the Great" . We have information on Dionysius because during his lifetime, Dionysius wrote many...
in 252–53 writes that the bishops of Cilicia, Cappadocia, and Palestine had invited him to a synod at Antioch to repudiate Novatianism
Novatianism
The Novatianists were early Christians following Antipope Novatian, held a strict view that refused readmission to communion of Lapsi, those baptized Christians who had denied their faith or performed the formalities of a ritual sacrifice to the pagan gods, under the pressures of the persecution...
(Eusebius, VI, xlvi, 3). Dionysius counts Firmilian as one of "the more eminent bishops" in a letter to Pope Stephen I
Pope Stephen I
Pope Saint Stephen I served as Bishop of Rome from 12 May 254 to 2 August 257.Of Roman birth but of Greek ancestry, he became bishop of Rome in 254, having served as archdeacon of Pope Lucius I, who appointed Stephen his successor....
(Eusebius, VII, v, 1), where his expression "Firmilian and all Cappadocia" implies that Caesarea was already a metropolitan see. This explains how Firmilian could invite Origen to Cappadocia, "for the benefit of the Churches".
Firmilian's letter to Cyprian
In a letter to Pope Sixtus IIPope Sixtus II
Pope Sixtus II or Pope Saint Sixtus II was Pope from August 30, 257 to August 6, 258. He died as a martyr during the persecution by Emperor Valerian....
(257–58), Dionysius mentions that in the controversy over rebaptism of the lapsed Pope Stephen had refused communication with Helenus of Tarsus, Firmilian, and all Cilicia and Cappadocia, and the neighbouring lands (Eusebius, VII, v, 3-4), a subject touched on in the sole surviving letter of Firmilian, a response to Cyprian. When the baptismal controversy arose, Cyprian wished to gain support from the Eastern churches against Pope Stephen for his own decision to rebaptize all heretics who returned to the Church. At the end of the summer of 256, he sent the deacon Rogatian to Firmilian with a letter, together with the documents on the subject—letters of the pope, of his own, and of his council at Carthage in the spring, and the treatise De Ecclesia Catholica Unitate. Firmilian's existing reply was received at Carthage about the middle of November. It is a long letter, even more bitter and violent than the letter on this head of Cyprian to Pompeius. It has come down to us in a translation made, no doubt, under Cyprian's direction, and apparently very literal, as it abounds in Greek expressions (Cyprian, Epistle lxxv).
In the letter, Cyprian's arguments against Pope Stephen are reiterated and reinforced. Firmilian says: "We have received your writings as our own, and have committed them to memory by repeated reading" (c. iv). Firmilian's reasoning against the validity of heretical baptism is mainly that of Cyprian, that those who are outside the Church and have not the Holy Spirit cannot admit others to the Church or give what they do not possess: " "Very many of us meeting together in Iconium very carefully examined the matter, and we decided that every baptism was altogether to be rejected which is arranged for without the Church." Firmilian is fond of dilemmas: for instance, either the heretics do not give the Holy Ghost, in which case rebaptism is necessary, or else they do give it, in which case Stephen should not forbid the laying on of hands. Firmilian enables us to gather much of the drift of Stephen's letter to Cyprian. It is "ridiculous" that Stephen demanded nothing but the use of the Trinitarian formula. He had appealed to tradition from St. Peter and St. Paul: this is an insult to the Apostles, cries Firmilian, for they execrated heretics. Besides (this is from Cyprian, Ep. lxxiv, 2), "no one could be so silly as to believe this", for the heretics are all later than the Apostles! And Rome has not preserved the Apostolic traditions unchanged, for it differs from Jerusalem as to the observances at Easter and as to other mysteries. "I am justly indignant with Stephen's obvious and manifest silliness, that he so boasts of his position, and claims that he is the successor of St. Peter on whom were laid the foundations of the Church; yet he brings in many other rocks, and erects new buildings of many Churches when he defends with his authority the baptism conferred by heretics; for those who are baptized are without doubt numbered in the Church, and he who approves their baptism affirms that there is among them a Church of the baptized.… Stephen, who declares that he has the Chair of Peter by succession, is excited by no zeal against heretics" (c. xvii). "You have cut yourself off—do not mistake—since he is the true schismatic who makes himself an apostate from the communion of ecclesiastical unity. For in thinking that all can be excommunicated by you, you have cut off yourself alone from the communion of all" (c. xxiv).
We thus learn the claims of Stephen to impose on the whole Church by his authority as successor of Peter, a custom the Roman Church claims to derive from Apostolic tradition. Firmilian reassures Cyprian's church at Carthage that with them the custom of rebaptizing may be new, but in Cappadocia it has been the custom from the very beginning (c. xix), and he can answer Stephen by opposing tradition to tradition, and that some time since, he had joined in a council at Iconium with the bishops of Galatia
Galatia
Ancient Galatia was an area in the highlands of central Anatolia in modern Turkey. Galatia was named for the immigrant Gauls from Thrace , who settled here and became its ruling caste in the 3rd century BC, following the Gallic invasion of the Balkans in 279 BC. It has been called the "Gallia" of...
and Cilicia
Cilicia
In antiquity, Cilicia was the south coastal region of Asia Minor, south of the central Anatolian plateau. It existed as a political entity from Hittite times into the Byzantine empire...
and other provinces, and had decided to rebaptize the Montanists
Montanism
Montanism was an early Christian movement of the late 2nd century, later referred to by the name of its founder, Montanus, but originally known by its adherents as the New Prophecy...
(c. vii and xix); for these acts Stephen excommunicated the Eastern churches. Dionysius, in a letter to the Roman priest Philemon , also mentions the Council of Iconium. It was presumably held in the last years of Alexander Severus
Alexander Severus
Severus Alexander was Roman Emperor from 222 to 235. Alexander was the last emperor of the Severan dynasty. He succeeded his cousin Elagabalus upon the latter's assassination in 222, and was ultimately assassinated himself, marking the epoch event for the Crisis of the Third Century — nearly fifty...
, ca 231–35.
Proceedings against Paul of Samosata
Firmilian also took part in the first of two councils at Antioch which discussed deposing Paul of SamosataPaul of Samosata
Paul of Samosata was Bishop of Antioch from 260 to 268. He was a believer in monarchianism, and his teachings anticipate adoptionism.-Life:...
, in 266 (Wace). He may even have presided. The letter of the third council says he was too easily persuaded that Paul of Samosata
Paul of Samosata
Paul of Samosata was Bishop of Antioch from 260 to 268. He was a believer in monarchianism, and his teachings anticipate adoptionism.-Life:...
would amend; hence the necessity of another council (Eusebius, VII, iii-v). He was on his way to this assembly when death overtook him, at Tarsus
Tarsus (city)
Tarsus is a historic city in south-central Turkey, 20 km inland from the Mediterranean Sea. It is part of the Adana-Mersin Metropolitan Area, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in Turkey with a population of 2.75 million...
, in 268 (Adolf Harnack) or 269.
Though Firmilian was excommunicated by Stephen, it is certain that the following popes did not adhere to this severe policy. Firmilian is commemorated in the Greek martyrology (October 28) but is not venerated in the West. His great successor in Cappadocia, St Basil of Caesarea
Basil of Caesarea
Basil of Caesarea, also called Saint Basil the Great, was the bishop of Caesarea Mazaca in Cappadocia, Asia Minor . He was an influential 4th century Christian theologian...
, mentions his view on heretical baptism without accepting it (Epistle clxxxviii), and says, when speaking of the expression "with the Holy Ghost" in the Doxology: "That our own Firmilian held this faith is testified by the lógoi which he has left" (De Spiritu Sancto, xxix, 74). There is no other mention of such writings, which were probably letters.
External links
- Catholic Encyclopedia: Firmilian
- Letter of Firmilian of Caesarea to Cyprian, bishop of Carthage: concerning baptisms from a woman MontanistMontanismMontanism was an early Christian movement of the late 2nd century, later referred to by the name of its founder, Montanus, but originally known by its adherents as the New Prophecy...
- Henry Wace, Dictionary of Christian Biography Firmilianus