Pamphilus of Caesarea

The holy hieromartyr Pamphilus of Caesarea was a priest at Caesarea of Palestine and chief among the scholars of Scripture of his time, teacher and friend of Eusebius of Caesarea, receiving the crown of martyrdom in 309. He is commemorated on 16 February.

Youth and learning

Pamphilus was born at Beirut, in Phoenicia, in a rich and honourable family. He received a fine education, attended the law school of the city and held civil offices. Eusebius says that he sold all his property, gave it to the poor and began a life “prophetic and pleasing to God”. He went to Alexandria, where he learned from Pierius, head of the famous catechetical school, called “the new Origen”; in the school Origen’s theological heritage was still alive, and Pamphilus became an admirer of his. Towards the end of the third century he settled at Caesarea of Palestine, where he was ordained priest.

The library and the school

At Caesarea, Pamphilus took over and enlarged the library left by Origen, which came to some thirty thousand volumes and was an important center for the preservation and spread of Christian literature and biblical studies. He was for the Christian world what the Museion of Alexandria was for the pagan. He set up also a school of theology beside his church and drew into the work on Scripture Eusebius, who copied and examined manuscripts of the Bible with him. Together they prepared a new edition of the Septuagint translation, after the Hexapla of Origen. Pamphilus himself copied by hand many of Origen’s works and gathered writings of other Christian authors, and Eusebius called himself all his life “of Pamphilus”, out of respect for his teacher. Blessed Jerome later made use of his work for the Latin translation of Scripture.

Martyrdom

The persecution of Diocletian began in earnest in 303. In 306 a young man, Apphianus, a disciple of Pamphilus, interrupted the governor as he offered sacrifice and paid with his life. His brother, Aedesius, also a disciple of Pamphilus, was killed about the same time, at Alexandria. Pamphilus’ turn came in November 307. He was brought before Urbanus, the governor of Palestine, and because he refused to sacrifice, he was cruelly tortured and imprisoned. In prison he went on copying and correcting manuscripts; in one of them, the text of the book of Esther, he left a note in his own hand. There too he wrote, with Eusebius, imprisoned as well, the Apology for Origen, in five books, to which Eusebius added a sixth. In February 309 Pamphilus and others of his household, with Valens, deacon of Jerusalem, and Paul of Jamnia, men in the strength of mind and body, were condemned to be beheaded, without further torture. While the sentence was being read, a youth, Porphyrius, “the slave of Pamphilus” and his beloved disciple, who had learned letters, asked for the bodies of the confessors to bury them. He was cruelly tortured and killed, and the news of his martyrdom reached Pamphilus before his own death. The bodies of the twelve martyrs lay four days unburied, with neither beasts nor birds touching them, and the pagans, troubled, allowed the Christians to bury them. His Life, written by Eusebius in three books, is lost.