Firmilian

Saint Firmilian (died c. 269), 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).

Life

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. Firmilian was more probably brought up as a Christian.

Firmilian (Roman governor)

Firmilian was the Roman governor of the Iudaea Province, during the third Late Roman Period of the Roman rule over the region. He was the third of a succession of governors (Flavian, Urban, and Firmilian) who enforced the Diocletian Persecution at Caesarea, the province's capital, which lasted for twelve years. He is commonly referred as cruel and sadistic for torturing and killing many Christians and being heartless even to his close allies. He was beheaded for his crimes, by the emperor Maximinus’s order, as his predecessor Urban had been two years before.

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