Firmilian
Firmilian (Greek: Φιρμιλιανός, Latin: Firmilianus, died c. 269 AD), Bishop of Caesarea Mazaca from , 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. Later, when bishop of Cæsarea in Cappadocia, according to Eusebius, Firmilian invited Origen to his own country for the benefit of the Churches, around (232-5) when Origen was staying in Cæsarea of Palestine, on account of his bishop's displeasure at his having been ordained priest in that city. Firmilian was an opponent of the stringent policies of antipope Novatian, for Dionysius writes that he had been invited to a synod at Antioch in 252 by the bishops of Cilicia, Cappadocia, and Palestine to repudiate Novatianism. 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". Firmilian's letter to Cyprian A controversy arose as to whether it was necessary or not to re-baptize those Christians who had been initially baptized by heretics. Tertullian held that it was necessary since such a baptism was null. It was the practice in the East to rebaptize those baptized by heretics. 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. In a letter to Pope Sixtus II (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