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.
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".
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 neighbouring lands (Eusebius, VII, v, 3–4), a subject touched on in the sole surviving letter of Firmilian, a response to Cyprian.
On baptism
Firmilian's reply was received at Carthage about the middle of November. It is a long letter, even more bitter and violent than the letter 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.
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 enables us to gather much of the drift of Stephen's letter to Cyprian. The threat of excommunication only served to incense Firmilian who considered it "ridiculous" that Stephen demanded nothing but the use of the Trinitarian formula. He viewed Stephen's perceived leniency towards heretics as an insult to the Apostles.
Moreover, he disagreed that Rome preserved the Apostolic traditions unchanged, for it differed from Jerusalem as to the observances at Easter and he disputed Stephen's authority to excommunicate them. "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... 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."
Dionysius, in a letter to the Roman priest Philemon <!--Philemon the actor? -->, also mentions the Council of Iconium. It was presumably held in the last years of Alexander Severus, ca 231–35.
Proceedings against Paul of Samosata
Firmilian presided at a council at Antioch which discussed deposing Paul of Samosata, in 266. He was persuaded that Paul would amend, however another council was necessary. He was on his way to this assembly when death overtook him, at Tarsus, in c. 269.