CAESAREA OF PHILIPPI. – A city at the southern foot of Mount Hermon, where in the time of Joshua stood Bs'al Gādh. Anciently the city and the region were called Paneas (a name surviving in the modern Banyās), in honor of the god Pan to whom was dedicated the grotto from which sprang the eastern source of the Jordan. In honor of Augustus, Herod the Great built there a temple, and his son Herod Philip, tetrarch of Iturea and Trachonitis, enlarged and embellished the city, calling it C. To distinguish it from the homonymous maritime city of Palestine, it was called C. Paneas, or C. of P.: by this name it is remembered in the Gospels. Herod Agrippa II gave it the name of Neronias, which was soon forgotten.
Near this city Peter made his profession of faith, rewarded by the promise of primacy: “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church.”
1347 CAESAREA OF PHILIPPI – CAESAREAN SECTION 1348
(Mt 16:13–20). It does not seem that Jesus entered this pagan city. An ancient Christian legend reported by Eusebius (Historia eccl., VII, 18) places near C. the healing of the hemorrhaging woman (Mt 9:20 and parallels), to whom, later, the name Veronica was attributed.
Remains survive of ancient Paneas and of the temple built by Herod. In the grotto there are inscriptions and votive niches. From the 4th century it was the seat of a diocese suffragan to Tyre, renewed for a brief time with the Latin rite during the Crusades. It was definitively reconquered by Nūr al-Dīn in 1165. At present it is a titular Latin diocese. In 1886 there was a Melkite rectorship with 30 churches and parishes, 2,710 Catholics out of 50,000 inhabitants.